Ten Nights of Killing and Mayhem at F.J.B. II

The Good
Fun concept, versatile characters, varied storyline

The Bad
Sound was a bit choppy in places, lack of multiplayer support

The Bottom Line
Similar to "Arena" in the online genre, but with modern fantasy elements.

The Good
Being personally involved with this game will naturally bias my views (not to mention put my integrity at question), but I think the game is a hell of a good one. It flows extremely well for a turn-based game. To me, the creativity behind each one of the teacher's powers/abilities is a big plus and the interludes between each night are very fun. Skill and strategy play a big part in the game and getting to the tenth night can be a very challenging adventure.

P.S. This game was written well before the Columbine incident and does not seek to make light of any real-life tragedy.

The Bad
Obviously the technology of the game is a little old. The graphics somewhat crude. The controls a little clunky until you get used to them. Who knows maybe someone will one day someone will give it a face lift...

Warning: Without a good knowledge of the school layout, finding teachers can be tedious. Some web sites have a digitized map available for download.

Warning 2: No rule book or help screen. The game becomes much more playable with a knowledge of all the hotkeys (most of which are intuitive), but a description of each would have been nice.

The Bottom Line
Assemble your team of Elitist Students for the wildest ten nights of their lives. Your school is possessed by bizarre and twisted demonic creatures and it is up to you to rid the planet of their presence. And if you can tally up a little cash from their bounty rewards, all the more power to you!

The Good
I am EXTREMELY biased with regards to this game, since I was involved in 95% of its development. (And yet I still only gave it an overall rating of 2.8 out of 5... hmm... go figure...)

The thing I love most about this game is that it is so unique. I know of no other game that has a plot even remotely similar.

Although the artificial intelligence is fairly simple, the enemies do seem to pop out and surround characters at the most inconvenient of times. Simple A.I., but effective A.I.

The teachers are so varied in their abilities that games never play the same twice.

The mechanics work smoothly, and the game is no pushover. It can be beaten, but only by someone who's willing to think.

The game itself, the premise, the documentation, the online docs - everything is wrapped in a lot of humour. What other game actually features "Bull Shit" as a Character statistic? And yet it still has a touch of horror to keep it serious.

The Bad
The game is based around a progression of 10 nights (hence the title). The early nights, unless you are extremely stupid or impatient, present no real threat to the player, but take the longest to play (because the characters are so poorly armed). The real fun of it kicks in, for me, around the 3rd or 4th night. But from that point on, I think the game really grooves.

Until a player becomes familiar with the layout of the school, he'll have to spend a lot of time referencing the maps that come with the game. That can slow things down.

Because there is no way to track a teacher that you've lost a line of sight to, sometimes it can be a painful process tracking down the single teacher left alive at the end of a night.

The Bottom Line
A funny, unique, challenging strategy game.