Str: Power Mad [by Cancerian New Media]

Game Review: Power Mad
Release: April 2003
Genre: Strategy
Developer: Cancerian New Media
Publisher:  Game Thoughts
System Requirements: 300 MHz Intel processor, Win 98/2000/ME/XP, 12 MB Hard Drive space, A video card with alpha blend support. 8 MB of video RAM recommended, DirectX 7.0
Price: US $19.95

Many years ago I remember well spending available weekends hanging out at the city mall.  Just for a little background, the mall was a 30 minute drive on the freeway from my house, and the only one located within 2 hours of where I lived.  We went there to hang out because in Georgia you cannot spend time outside during the day in the summertime, and the mall had plenty of cool things to do.  One of our favorites was hanging out at the Software ETC. and playing the Amiga they always had set-up with a game to play.  One of those games was Nuclear War.  A whimsical game where you controlled a caricatured world leader as you attempted to dominate the world.

Picking up some of the comical quirkiness of that game is Power Mad.  In Power Mad there are 10 characters that you choose 4 enemies from.  Most of the names are quickly decipherable as to the "real" identity of the character.    Your options include:  Saddam Insane, Jean Cretin, Ping Pong-II, G. Dubya, Osama Bin Lama, Vlad the Poutine, Saeed Alzheimer, Slick Willie, Horny Kissinger, and Phony Blair.  The fun begins with the names but doesn't stop there.  Each of the characters has a series of sayings that they say as they take their turns throughout the game.  Most are fairly hilarious, my favorite being Saeed Alzheimer's quotes, who says things that were quoted directly from the Iraqi Information Administrator.

Game play proceeds with each player having one turn each round.  At the end of each round, the number of military units in each city increases by the amount you set it to increase by in the options panel.  Each city has citizens, nuclear and peace units in addition to the military units.  In the basic game no one starts with nuclear or peace units in the city.  To get them, you must trade in military units.  For example, after you have 5 military units you can trade them in for 1 nuclear unit.  You could also, if you had 23 military units, trade in 15 of the units for 3 nuclear units and still maintain 8 military units in the city.  Though you can trade in military units for either peace units or nuclear units, you can only trade them for one type of unit on any one turn.

Each player in the game has a map with 4 cities on it.  When your turn begins you can choose to do any of 5 options.  You can mobilize your troops and choose an enemy leader to attack, you can trade military units for nuclear units, you can trade military units for peace units, you can launch a propaganda attack towards the city of your choice, or you can launch a nuclear attack on the city of your choice.  The effectiveness of each of the attacks can be modified in the options window before a game begins.  The intent of the game is to destroy all the citizens of all enemy cities while not allowing your citizens to be destroyed.  Citizens in foreign cities can be destroyed in small numbers by your troop attacks, or in larger numbers by nuclear attacks.  Propaganda attacks that are successful cause citizens to leave the target city and return to the attacking city, bolstering the the number of citizens in the attacking city.  The peace units cancel out the effectiveness of a nuclear attack.

As is the case with all games I review, I sat down and played Power Mad on multiple occasions over a 2 week period.  Doing this helps to get a better overall perspective on games.  In the case of Power Mad, playing on multiple occasions was a wonderful idea, for if I had not, I'm quite sure I would have missed out on how much fun the game can be.  In the first 10 games I played I was the first person dead on all but one game.  The one game I wasn't the first person killed I was the 2 person dead.  So I continued on a different day and had somewhat similar results though I only played a few games.  On the third time I sat down to play I started understanding some of the strategy behind the game.  For whatever reason, I'd assumed that propaganda would always be effective at a specific percentage.  However that is not the case.  A city with more people in it than the city it is spreading propaganda too will likely succeed.  If you do it the other way around you will usually fail.  So even if you have an invincible set of troops in a city, if you took some civilian casualties early on, everyone can just wipe you out with propaganda, even if all your opponents combined do not have as many troops as you have in your least militarized city. 

After I realized that I had to have more people in my city that launched propaganda attacks I made it one of my main forms of attack.  This made a huge difference in the game and after 17 straight losses I won 2 out of 3.  The game I think would be nearly impossible to win without using all of the different attack methods, and even though the on screen help is perhaps the best I've yet seen in terms of simplicity to use, the lack of game play tips was frustrating.

Overall Power Mad turned out to be a game I enjoyed after having cursed at it more than a few times in the early going.  I'm sure Nuclear War fans will enjoy the somewhat reminiscent feel of the game, and most everyone will get a few laughs out of playing.

Graphics: 7
While certainly nothing that will make your head spin, the graphics on Power Mad are well put together.  The main focus of the game centers around the different characters from around the world, and the best graphics are also centered on caricatures of those people.  You will have no trouble picking out each of the world leaders upon sight.  The rest of the graphics are fine for getting the point across of what you are using and when.  Again, nothing that is knock out, but everything is very clean and well-presented on the screen.  The layout is balanced and easy to use.

Sound: 6
There is no background music in the game.  That is perhaps a detriment, though I prefer nothing to listening to the same sound track over and over again.  Each of the sound effects for the various actions in the game, such as launching a nuke, or getting a piece unit works well to help represent the action that is going on at that time.

Game Play: 8
As mentioned before, game play was the item I found most suspect at first, but have come to appreciate.  The game was definitely not one I could pick up and do well with from the beginning.  The interface is very easy to learn, which is a big plus.  However, learning how to win the game was a trial an error process, that certainly would have been helped along by a tutorial...or even more simply a list of playing tips.

Options: 9
After you get the play down, the options become the real joy to the game.  You can customize the game to change the numbers that are applied in all stages of the game.  A large portion of the fun involved in the game, after you have become acquainted with how to win, is changing different aspects to see if you can still win.  Each of the numbers you modify has a large impact on the strategy needed to win the game.  After winning consistently with one set of variables, you can modify the variables and find that you need to develop and entire new strategy in order to be able to compete.  I found this much more enjoyable than having the typical "levels" of difficulty.  The ability to set the difficulty level to your own liking and challenge is a big part of the genius of the game as it adds tremendously to the replay value of the game and will keep you playing as you attempt to overcome every possible combination of variables.

Concept: 10
There has been some comparison of this game to Nuclear War, and it is at best only partially merited. That classic on the Amiga also had some silliness in it, and it also had "world leaders" and nuclear weapons.  However, the game play is very different than Power Mad, so much so that I believe Power Mad should get the 10 for being an original concept.

Fun: 8
When I first started playing I wasn't really having any fun at all.  In fact I kept statistics on my own of everything happening on the board that showed exactly what I was perceiving...I was not succeeding in any of my attacks or propaganda the way all the computer players were.  Once I realized better how to play the game, I stopped keeping the statistics, and really started to have a good time.  There has been some talk of taking the game online, which would be a great thing in my estimation if there were enough willing players.  Computer players can never replace humans.  Most of the fun in the game comes from the comical nature of the game.  From the characters funny names to the silly things they say, if you take your time and read everything, including the bios of each of the characters, you'll be rolling more than a few times. 

Overall: 7
Power Mad is a fun game that left me borderline 7/8.  For anyone who enjoys strategy games, this game can be quite a good play once you get things figured out.  Even for those who don't enjoy strategy games, you'll find that the simplicity of the game and its comical nature will make it fun to pick up and play a few times.  However, I feel that without a tutorial or game play tips, many causal strategy fans will soon get frustrated with their seeming inability to win and move on to something else (though there are online strategy tips on the game developer's website, the game installation doesn't have a link to it, instead linking only to the game publisher's website, making me believe the much needed strategy tips will be largely unused).  Die-hard strategy fans should enjoy the game for a long period of time, especially after they find the wonderful set of customizable options that make the game a challenging treat to play again and again. Added: August 16th 2003
Reviewer: The Mole
Score:
Related Link: Power Mad Website
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Language: english