Covert Action is a game almost as old as I am, and it has aged very well. Players begin play as special agent Max Remington of the CIA and their goal is to stop nefarious terrorist plots from happening. To do this the game offers a few clues and the tools to find out more about the plot currently in motion. These tools come in the form of four minigames. A combat/stealth hybrid, a driving game, a cipher, and an electronics game. If you find yourself incapable of figuring out the plot one way, you can go through things with an other minigame. This coupled with plentiful options for clues such as local informants means that you will never truly be stuck. But with time of the essence, you will need to decide on how to spend your time, as with every move you make time progresses and the plot continues. That said, all plots are doable in about an hour each if you don't purposefully delay them. A big part of the game is figuring out this plot, and finding a way to get into it and disrupt it. You may not always know the hideout of your enemy, you may not always have the evidence to arrest someone who you know is involved. And there are red herrings out there. You need to think things through before acting, figure out where you want to go and when or you will just plain not be able to stop the plot. It's a bit of thought to figure these things out, but it is very satisfying when you get it right. Good design ages well, and it shows. All these minigames work together to make for a great game, four minigames with a single overarching almost puzzle-like game that lets you work your brain to figure things out. Then feel great about yourself for stopping a plot and arresting everyone involved, getting a trip to the casino and having a well deserved vacation. Or you know, you could bumble around for a while and then your failure sends the country spiralling into chaos.
Children of the Nile is the more modern version of the old citybuilders like Pharaoh And Zeus, allowing you to build a city in ancient Egypt. Some of the more modern things are, aside from the obvious graphics being different, that you no longer need to worry about intersections sending your supply and maintenance people entirely the wrong direction. You can now actually focus on building a city, rather than having to puzzle out the most efficient way to place buildings without them collapsing, catching fire, and starving because the food vendor doesn't show up there The game starts slow every map, as you have 10 bricks(Enough for one baker, brickmakers huts don't need bricks), and only one educated person in your city at the start. So you will want to build a school and several brickmakers more to ensure you can keep growing. Before you know it, you've spend several hours building. There is no immigration either, from what I can find. You start the map with 200-300 citizens living in huts, scavenging off the land. After that, children will be your main population growth. This becomes an issue when you want a big military, as military men don't get married - They live in their barracks-tent with two other men Some things that are bad, there are a lot of shrines out there that will take a bit to figure out which goes where and which are popular - If you even have room for them. Sometimes your citizens or a merchant may get stuck on a corner, and sometimes you may find your labourers can't figure out which limestone block they want to pull In the end, it's still a pretty and somewhat relaxing game where you can spend hours getting your city just right, and then decide to change it up again because you have a new idea. Cosmetic things like gardens, plazas and trees are free to place too, so you can make it look good without having to worry about your good looks making your city slow to a crawl Worth grabbing if you like citybuilding - it's good at what it does
