A good simulation of garbage

Game : Garbage Truck Simulator
Platform : PC
Reviewer : Strawbz

Ever wondered what happens to all that garbage you put out on the pavement every week? With the new Garbage Truck Simulator from Astragon and Excalibur Publishing you can now turn all those bags and bins into cold, hard cash as you carefully build up your own Garbage Truck Empire.

Start your business by buying a shiny new garbage truck with either a manual or automatic transmission in the colour of your choice. To make things easier you only have one depot to report to at first and your initial routes are short, with only a few pick ups. However, be sure to check your job instructions carefully before you set off so you don’t end up driving round and round the city looking for your bins.

There is no in-game tutorial to help ease you into this game, but there is a detailed manual available on the disc that you can print out for easy reference. Waiting for this game to start up is a true exercise in patience, there is plenty of time to go make a cup of coffee - and maybe even a three-course meal.

The driving simulation is pretty spot on, however beware the maniac drivers on the road who are forever driving into your truck every time you turn a corner, forcing you to constantly pay for repairs. Also, keep a sharp eye on traffic signs and rules of the road as fines can quickly eat into your profit margins.

In one job I had to drive my truck out to a not-so-nearby dumpsite, halfway there I found myself looking for a non-existing fast forward button. Some of the routes are long and repetitive with multiple pauses as the game loads the next area of the map.

There are plenty of games that don’t sound very exciting and then turn out to be surprisingly addictive and fun; unfortunately this is not one of those games. Somehow trying to play a very realistic game where your main aim is to pick up and deliver garbage all day gets repetitive and mind-numbingly boring very quickly.

When you are tired of the garbage pick ups you can drive your truck around the city on your own time in free-play mode but with the amount of stop signs and traffic lights you end up spending more time standing still than actually driving.

The only redeeming feature of this game is the business side of managing a fleet of trucks and balancing the work load - but even that is too little too late to save this game.

I would not spend my own money to buy this game but since it’s now part of my collection I might dust it off and give it another go, one day, when I’m really, really bored.

Medieval Madness

Game : The Sims Medieval
Platform : PC
Reviewer : Strawbz


The eagerly anticipated Sims Medieval is a brand new base game from EA Games the makers of the highly successful Sims franchise.

When I started up the new Sims Medieval game for the first time, I was excited and captivated by what promised to be a new adventure filled with battles, beasts and heroes.

I soon felt all fingers and thumbs, as there is quite a difference in the game-play between The Sims 3 and Medieval. The first character I created was a queen to rule over my new world. I was happy to be back in the familiar CAS (Create-a-Sim) application and pleasantly surprised to see how much the facial features have improved since Sims 3, however I was a bit disappointed at the very limited amount of outfits available to dress my new royal lady.

The game is quest based and with each quest you complete you get quest points, you can then use these point to buy new buildings for your kingdom, which will also allow you to create new potential hero characters and unlock new quests.

With the help of the short tutorial I soon found my way around the new controls and started out on the first quest. The story lines are fun and easy to follow while the views of the kingdom are spectacular with lots of places to discover and characters to meet.

Each new character you make will have two Traits, like Dedicate, Jokester, Earthy, Chivalrous or Friendly and one Fatal Flaw which could be Drunkard, Coward, Cruel, Insecure or Cursed, to name but a few. These Traits and Flaws add an extra dimension of fun to the quests and there is always the possibility that if your Sims completes his or her quest on a high enough level they could get the chance to swap their Fatal Flaw for a new Hero Trait.

Although there is no build mode and you only get a limited ‘doll house’ view inside the existing building you can still decorate the available rooms with some fun medieval content to personalise your kingdom. The old stone buildings, traditional cooking methods and fun new interactions, like the sword fighting and market stalls, all help to draw the player back to the medieval times of chivalry and magic. You can accompany your Knight, Sorcerer, King, Merchant, Priest, Blacksmith or other Hero on an adventure that could change their destinies.

I was very surprised though when my monarch set off on her first big bear hunt, I followed her to the edge of the wood but then had to wait around while she disappeared from view to go hunting and all I got was a little pop up message explaining her success. The same thing happened when my queen sailed off to explore a new country, I could follow her to the docks where she boarded the magnificent ship but then got left behind as she sailed off on a new adventure without me. This so called ‘rabbit hole’ effect where the characters perform tasks unseen, happens in a few locations in the game and as one of my long time Sims friends pointed out; “most of the exciting stuff supposedly happening to our characters we never get to see”.

I think as a long time Sims player I had different expectations of the new Medieval and took it for granted that we would still have the same amount of freedom when it came to controlling our characters day to day lives.

If you are new to The Sims and enjoy outcome-based games then you should love the new Sims Medieval, whether you are visiting the market stalls or fighting off the pit monster the characters are fun and the quests should keep you busy for quite some time.

Hardcore Sims addicts however might get frustrated with the lack of free play and open-ended gaming that we have come to love from the original Sims series. But don’t give up on Medieval to quickly, if you approach it as a completely new game and not another chapter in the Sims evolution it can offer you hours of entertainment and adventure and who knows maybe EA will bring out an expansion to give us more freedom in the future.



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