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Hotel Giant

Score: 85%
ESRB: N/A
Publisher: JoWooD Productions
Developer: Enlight Software
Media: CD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Simulation

Graphics & Sound:

A quick look at Hotel Giant may lead some to believe that it is just another installment of The Sims. Indeed, the graphics, along with the interface layout, are almost identical. If it wasn't for the look of cheap motel rooms and mini bars scattered everywhere, this game could have easily been branded a doppelganger. Hotel Giant's graphics are almost on par with those of its distant cousin, but there are differences that distinctly separate the two. Here, you can freely rotate the camera from either an isometric or top down view, and zoom in to your heart's content. A first person view is also available, letting you experience your hotels on the same level as the guests.

Unfortunately for the sound, it seemed to be forgotten in the pursuit of total immersion. While there is ambient music, and it's not all that bad, there are hardly any sound effects to accompany it. Little verbal interaction can be heard between guests, and busy places like restaurants and bars are as quiet as a vacant room.


Gameplay:

Hotel Giant is a strait-forward hotel simulator. Your domain of operations is limited to the inside of a pre-constructed hotel, which can be as small as a quaint European cottage, or as big as to compete with skyscrapers.

The game has only two modes, Tutorial and Campaign. The Tutorial takes you through a handful of hotels, requiring the completion of certain goals that will not only let you advance to the next hotel, but will also strengthen your skills as a hotel manager. The Campaign mode is a more ambitious version of the Tutorial missions, where you have to complete many more goals in larger hotels that are harder than what you've seen before.

As you begin each mission, your goals are clearly laid out in front of you. Usually they comprise of attaining a certain amount of customers and money each month in an allotted amount of time, but there is a good amount of variety that only reveals itself as you get deeper into the game.

Though the shell of each hotel is pre-made, the insides are usually barren. Fertile grounds reside inside those doors and past the doorman, and it is your job to cultivate the right environments that will draw in the big bucks. Herein lie the meat and potatoes of the game. Creating the layouts for the rooms, bars, restaurants, and other areas of leisure, will be the most important and involving part of the action.

There is only one foolproof way to attract customers, and that is to make them happy. Whether it is through cheap rooms or a bar on every floor, making the lodgers happy is goal number one. Without them, there is no money, and without money, no hotel. Hotel Giant has an easy way to determine what is wrong and what is right about your hotel. You can look at customers individually, and see a list of their complaints and comments, allowing you to address the situation on a more personal level. This also makes for good variety between each mission, even if you go back to ones you've played before.


Difficulty:

You don't have to have prior experience in the hotel business to play this game. Nor will playing through this game prepare you for running a real life hotel. Hotel Giant allows you to create a hotel the way you would want to, and is tailored to be accessible to every type of gamer. An easily navigated interface along with a good Tutorial is more than adequate to prepare you for what lies ahead in the Campaign.

Game Mechanics:

Creating the insides of your hotels is almost like working on a CAD system. There is a grid on the floor, and you click and drag the outline of each area, creating walls. Once the shell of the area is complete, you can decorate and supply the insides with an assortment of items. Beds, TV's, phones, dressers, almost anything you have seen inside a hotel is here for you to give to your customers.

Once you have completed a specific room, you can place any number of the same rooms throughout the hotel in a copy and paste fashion, and editing one of them will amend the rest instantly, making it easy to attend to design flaws after the rooms have been completed.

Though limited to only its Campaign missions, Hotel Giant is a fun little game, and a nice job from a small developer. If you don't feel like living a double life on The Sims, or you just feel like being an omnipotent voyeur of a chain of hotels, check this game out.


-Snow Chainz, GameVortex Communications
AKA Andrew Horwitz

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP; Pentium II 350 MHz or higher; 128 MB RAM; 700 MB free hard disc space; CD-ROM drive 4x speed; 16MB 3D video card; Win-compatible sound card; DirectX 8.0a
 

Test System:



Windows 98, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, GeForce 2 mx 32MB video card, 40 gig hard drive, 56x CD-ROM, 256MB DDR Ram, Sound Blaster Live! sound card, T1 Internet connection

Windows Hooters Road Trip Windows Hunting Unlimited

 
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