Mind Games
               Shanghai Dynasty - Activision

If you like Mah Jongg in any of its forms, you'll love Shanghai
Dynasty. It's one of the most comprehensive versions that I've
seen.

The basic idea behind Shanghai is that you have to remove tiles in
matching pairs from the screen. Some tiles cannot be removed
immediately because they are blocked by other ones. As far as I
can tell, all the layouts can be solved which is a nice feeling
because you always feel you have a chance.

Versions are provided for adults - the classic version - and an
easier one for kids, plus Dynasty, Pandemonium and true Mah Jongg.
In Dynasty, up to four players (human and computer controlled)
compete to remove tiles against the clock on identical layouts. In
Pandemonium up to five human and computer controlled opponents
remove tiles from the same board.

True Mah Jongg is played in a completely different way, more like
a hand of cards where you collect tiles to make sets. I've always
wanted to play proper Mah Jongg but you need opponents - not
always easy to find - and it's also vital to know if you're
playing it correctly. This game takes all the pain and guesswork
out of it. It makes it clear which discarded tiles you can take
and when, and does all the scoring, listing how the points have
been awarded so that, eventually, you understand how it all works.
If anything it's maybe a bit TOO helpful. But the game is very
well designed and the AI is excellent.

Dynasty is great fun as you try to clear your layout quicker than
your opponent. There is an option to include power tiles which
look like jokers. When you match two, you have a random good or
bad effect. For instance, you can turn over your opponent's tiles
for a number of seconds, or shuffle them.

The kids version is very colourful. In all the games, there are
specific animations when you match two tiles and in the kids
version these are a great reward for the youngsters. But I also
really enjoyed the ones for the science fiction tile set which
were quite spectacular with black holes, whirling galaxies and
robots.  Then, of course, there's the classic layout and style of
traditional Shanghai. But with so many other styles to play, I
doubt anyone will spend much time on such a relatively basic tile
design.

I started with the demo from a cover disk.  As you'd expect, it
was a cut down version of the whole package. Certain features were
grayed out; for instance not all the tile sets and animations are
available. And the demo didn't shuffle the tiles at the end of a
game so you could only effectively have one game with each layout.
But it was enough to get a feel for the game. As a result, I was
so impressed with the demo that I went out and bought the full
package. The extras make it well worth the money. There is an
excellent selection of layouts, great tile sets with entertaining
animations, plus good end of game animations when you solve a
puzzle. I still haven't found any that I couldn't solve, though
sometimes I needed several goes. The only thing I would have liked
was for each layout to be numbered so that I could choose to play
a particular one, or play them in order. If that option's there, I
haven't found it.

Brilliant. Buy it, you won't be disappointed.
                                                  Sue














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