If you’re reading this at your PC, click START, open your program menu and have a poke around in the Games folder. In there you will find Minesweeper. If you can’t get enough of Minesweeper on your PC then why not spend 400MS points and download Minesweeper Flags on your 360?
I can think of one or two reasons… The main one, I would have to say, is that the press release for this game recomended it as a good way to spend Valentines Day. Nothing says I love you more than a romantic meal, a snuggle on the couch and a serious session of Minesweeper – blowing each other up in the crazy multiplayer mode where you have find the mines rather than avoid them. Honestly.
Minesweeper is a handy distraction if you’re on your PC. It’s something to do for a few minutes when you’re a little bit bored. The Xbox Live Arcade isn’t like that, it’s bigger and clunkier and it suffers for not being mouse controlled.
Consider the humble mouse cursor, as you wave your mouse around the cursor zips freely across the screen. When you’re controlling the cursor in Minesweeper Flags, using the left stick, it just feels wrong. And ridiculously slow. There’s an achievement in the game for completing a classic, easy game within 15 seconds. I found that I was lucky if I’d moved my cursor from side to side and top to bottom in that time. It really feels that slow.
What will strike you about Minesweeper Flags is that there is a “Campaign” mode. Oh yes, folks, Minesweeper now comes with a reason to play (of sorts). Basically you have to clear mines across the seven continents – something that Princess Di would be very proud of. What this means is that there are something like 140 levels of various odd-shaped minefields to clear. It’s still the same game, whichever way you slice it, it’s just been presented in a new, different, way – possibly to appeal to all those behind the war on terror, or possibly to justify the massive number of levels.
The levels themselves are, as you may expect, very samey. What you will notice, though, is that as you traverse the continents these levels change to reflect where you are. There’s snow in Antarctica, and grass in North America. In case, at any point, you’re unsure of where you are currently sweeping for mines, each level seems to be adorned with a stereotypical animal or other cultural reference. I was pleasantly amused to see a rather badly-realised bear and a startled looking deer as I played through North America. A small part of me did want to release these animals into the minefield as that would have been a quicker and more effective method of finding the mines than my slow cursor movements.
I don’t understand the logic behind this game. The idea of Minesweeper is that it’s a random scattering of mines and you have to find them. To craft a campaign mode with increasing more difficult levels just seems a step in the wrong direction. The way we’re presented with new shaped fields because square is just so, well, square is annoying as well. It doesn’t do anything to liven it up, or add a new layer of excitement it justs makes you wonder why you’ve paid 400 points for something you could play a lot better, and with more enjoyment on your own PC.
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