Minesweeper for PCE CD

Image: MobyGames

Minesweeper

Roguelike bomb finding

Genre: puzzle - overhead

Publisher: Pack-In-Video

Year: 1992

System: PCE CD

Gameplay Score: 2

Gameplay Notes:

Players of a certain age know Minesweeper well. This classic Windows game needs no introduction or explanation, but it boils down to two actions - flagging a block, and clearing a block. As you'd expect, this works perfectly well with a two-button controller. And unlike that old analog mouse you used on Windows 5.1, it's impossible to accidentally hit the wrong square with this cursor. So I guess that's an improvement. Still, while the game plays exactly as you'd hope, it's still a hollow experience without much innovation in its gameplay. That is, until you play Cook's Quest which adds a roguelike element. In this mode the goal isn't to clear the screen but instead it is to clear enough to allow you to enter a door which leads to the next room. I didn't play long enough to determine this, but I imagine that the maps are procedurally generated, making this a roguelike. One misstep and it's game over. This added wrinkle gives some spice to an otherwise played out game. My main complaint is that the tiles are so tiny. this is a consequence of the poor resolution but the game can't overcome this issue. Picross games have the same problem but it's compounded here because it constrains how large a puzzle can get and still fit on a single screen. The other complaint - and this is for any version of Minesweeper - is that it's ultimately a game of luck. Many puzzles cannot be solved through reason alone. There can be multiple times per puzzle when you simply have to roll the dices and pick between tiles. For this reason I've always considered Minesweeper to be a bad puzzle game. Good time waster, but not a puzzler.

Level Design Score: 3

Level Design Notes:

Three modes - Play, The Voyage, and Cook's Quest. Cook's Quest is a fun inclusion while the other two are standard fare.

Theme Score: 3

Theme Notes:

They could've packaged the MS-DOS game as is but chose to add a silly trease hunt motif for Cook's Quest and a Caribbean pirate theme for The Voyage. Doesn't exactly elevate this to a must-see experience, but these are fun inclusions.

Art Style Score: 2

Art Style Notes:

The lack of pixels make it hard to play larger boards.

Audio Score: 3

Audio Notes:

Some decent plays. It's a little too upbeat for a puzzle game, but I'm not complaining.

Overall Score: 48

Review ID: 11070