Tombstone 1882

aka: Tombstone: Avventure nel West
Moby ID: 13745

Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 10% (based on 1 ratings)

Player Reviews

Average score: 0.6 out of 5 (based on 5 ratings with 1 reviews)

The All-Time Turkey of All-Time Turkeys

The Good
I found Tombstone 1882 on a trestle table covered in games with a sign: "Buy 1, get one free".

From the blurb on the back label I figured that Tombstone was yet another rip-off of WarCraft to add to my collection. But if it was only half as inventive as "Wild, Wild West" (the movie) I could look forward to a cross of WarCraft and Arcanum set in Arizona or thereabouts, replete with retro-sci-fi technology. And at the asking price... wouldn't you have done the same as I did?

I am glad to report that I am now the proud owner of the absolute worst turkey of a game ever to hit gamers since... since... the Precambrian. Yes, the Precambrian, when our ancestors played "Match the DNA in the Primeval Soup".

And the good does not stop there. This game is a pirate's dream: no CD checks, no copy protection.

The Bad
You wouldn't want to pirate it. No, not with CDs costing around 25 cents apiece. Not even, pretty soon now, when they will come down to five cents.

During installation it tells you that it works best with ActiveX9 and do you want to install ActiveX9? Wow! It needs ActiveX9! Hot tamale! Let's look forward to stunning graphics...

Install... rip into it... ah? beg pardon, what is this? Look, the words fail me, just look at the screen shots provided by ClydeFrog.

No, no, no, no. Please, please, do click on a thumbnail, for instance, this one.

No, ClydeFrog did not stuff up. It really is as hideous and fuzzy as that.

Now, do please take a look at all of ClydeFrog's screen shots, and pay attention to his captions. There you are: a complete strategy guide! And it works, too (I tested it). My hat off to you, ClydeFrog, stupid me played this wretch of a game like you would play WarCraft or any of its clones. Nope. Build a bank if you don't already have one. Then build workers and send them mining silver in the mine just next door (you don't have to look for it, it's there, in the same place every game). Hire a "Hired Gun" as soon as you have $200 in the bank, send him south (if you're playing the Goodies, north I suppose if you're playing the Baddies), have him destroy all the buildings--easy: a house takes about four shots, which is half a second if you click that right mouse button fast enough.

As ClydeFrog writes, two minutes is about all you need to win a game with flying colours. And most of the two minutes are spent on waiting for the bank to be built and the silver to be mined, the hired gun to be hired, and to walk to the enemy town. Because, of course, no, there is no way of speeding up the game, as in WarCraft or any of its clones.

As an added bonus (snicker) each new game takes about 40 seconds to load. Forty seconds to load, two minutes to play... Wow!

I won't tell you more about the interface and the gameplay, beyond that they match the graphics. 'Nuff said, eh?

The Bottom Line
This game is a must-have. Pity that, at the price I paid (zilch) it is not worth having. Now... if it came on a re-writable CD...

Windows · by Jacques Guy (52) · 2005

Contributors to this Entry

Critic reviews added by Scaryfun.