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Review: Burning Monkey Solitaire 3Reviewed By: Ruth Ann Hiner Review Computer: 500MHz G3 iMac, 256MB RAM, ATI Rage 128, Mac OS X v10.2.6 Review Date: August 22, 2003
Hello everyone. This is Kirk's mother again. It's been a while since I last wrote a review at Applelinks, but that's because Kirk has yet to pay me for the last one. Coincidentally, my last review was also for a solitaire game, Solitaire Antics Deluxe. That was all the way back in 1999, before Kirk was married and before I had my own computer. Kirk now has a wife, and I have a blue iMac. Oh, sorry. Kirk will make me say indigo iMac, not blue. For the record, he's always been that strange. Our family no longer gets invited to holiday parties because everyone's tired of Kirk correcting them on their usage of the word "comprise." Anywho, since Kirk hasn't installed my printer and scanner yet, I've just been playing Burning Monkey Solitaire 3 from the nice people over at Freeverse Software. At least Kirk tells me they're nice. I've never actually met any of them, but I have played spades and euchre against their puppets, and their puppets seem like good people. The first thing about Burning Monkey Solitaire 3 (Kirk says I can start calling it BMS3 now and you'll know what I mean) is that it's OS X compatible. This means I'm now working in OS X, since only solitaire was holding me back. What I like about OS X is that I had to take fewer notes when Kirk was telling me how to use it, but we won't worry about that right now.
The graphics in BMS3 are very fun and colorful. You have your choice of backgrounds (most of which are quite nice) and decks, and you can have the game cycle through them randomly when you start up. Some of the decks, I should warn you, are very hard to read, though. The monkeys themselves also look very good. Although their animations are somewhat simple, it only adds to the charm. You can click on the monkeys to have them do and say different things, and they quite often turn around to tell you jokes. You have to read the jokes quickly, though, because they sometimes go away very quickly. If you'd rather just play cards than hear monkey humor, you can turn down monkey activity in the preferences. Also, if you're connected to the internet, you can download new jokes. Being on the internet also allows you post your scores online to see how you rank with other BMS3 players, although I'm not sure why this important.
There are many ways you can control the game, no matter which one you're playing. You can have it automatically lay down playable cards or play your opening moves, you can turn on casino scoring if you're addicted to gambling, and you can even choose if you want your cards to be tidy or messy. Speaking of tidy, there are now game play buttons placed at the top of the screen so you don't have to bother with the menus. What I wish it had was a message that told you when there are no more cards to play. I can never tell when my game is done unless I've won, and I'll spend a lot of time searching for another play when there are no more plays to make.
I like Burning Monkey Solitaire 3. It doesn't have all the games I would want, but it's fun to play with and the graphics and that one Barry Manilow song are very good. Your enjoyment of this game comes down to what kind of solitaire player you are, I think. If you're just looking for a way to kill some time at work or before going to bed...or while your husband is watching the Browns or that stripper show on HBO, Burning Monkey Solitaire 3 is a very fun diversion. If you're more serious about solitaire, however, then you might want to try a product that has fewer monkeys and comprises more games. There, Kirk, I used "comprises" correctly. Now will you install my printer and scanner for me?  [an error occurred while processing this directive]
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BMS3 sure does have a lot of monkeys. They make sure you know that right away. The introduction screen is full of them, the load screen is full of them, and the game screen is full of them. I think they have more monkeys than they have cards. This may not be healthy, but it is kind of fun, I suppose. What I really like, however, is the first song that plays when you start. It reminds a lot of 
Now, as for the solitaire itself, you get over twenty different games to play. My old solitaire game, however, had many, many more than this, and some of my favorites aren't here. I guess that's the price you have to pay for all of these monkeys. It does have Klondike, of course, and that's the game most people think of when they think of solitaire, so most people will be covered. My other solitaire game, however, didn't have 52 Card Pickup (when you place a card in the deck, you get to read a pickup line) or 52 Card Putdown (when you remove a card from the deck, you read an insult). I always told my children that if you don't have something nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all, but I guess no one has ever given that advice to a monkey.
I'm not sure how I feel about the cheating options. It wasn't right to cheat when I was young, but Kirk tells me that cheating is very popular in the world of computer games. I don't know why everyone's so afraid of losing. I suppose next Kirk will tell me that computer games don't wear clean underwear in case they're ever in an accident. But, at least here, the monkeys will make fun of you when you cheat so you know you've done wrong. Also, if you do post your scores on the internet, the statistics will indicate how often you cheated, baring your shame for everyone to see.