Facebook Games Roundup

The Crazies Tower Defense

The clue is in the title. This top-down strategy effort is based on recently released zombie movie The Crazies. You must stop waves of undead enemies getting from one side of the screen to the other and infiltrating your base.

This involves purchasing soldiers with cash you've earned for defeating zombies. To begin with you can only select troops armed with pistols and shotguns, but as you level up you unlock soldiers with sniper rifles, grenade launchers, flame-throwers and so on. You can also buy upgrades, ammo and environmental objects, such as sandbags and razor wire.

As with so many Facebook games, you can invite people from your Friends list to play and get bonuses by sending each other gifts. And as with so many Facebook games, you can level up faster by purchasing virtual cash with real-world money, or being rewarded for taking up advertising offers - such as buying something from HMV or Pizza Hut. These elements don't enhance the gameplay much and can be easily ignored.

So putting the social networking and economic aspects to one side, The Crazies is a solid but unspectacular tower defence game. The presentation isn't brilliant - maps are grey, sprites are teeny-tiny and the sound effects are lame. There is nothing in the way of gameplay innovation here, no humour and no real horror. Compared to recent tower defence games like Plants Vs. Zombies, it all looks a bit dated and scruffy.

Unlike better-looking, more original games, however, it is free. And it is enjoyable, being based around an excellent gameplay concept and featuring a reward system which is finely tuned enough to keep you playing. It's surprising how quickly the minutes tick by as you click quietly away, taking down wave after wave of zombies without really thinking about it. As Facebook games go, this may not be the prettiest, but it's a pretty decent time-waster.

Worth it?

Sure - just don't expect the same level of polish and innovation you'd want from a paid-for tower defence game.

Sorority Life

In the winter of 2008, I wrote about being struck by the similarity of the emotions described in Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea and those engendered by playing Hasbro Family Game Night. Since then I have noticed no parallels between great works of existentialist literature and contemporary videogames, despite being forced to review Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust and Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad.

Until now. For Sorority Life, the Facebook game based around the American college campus experience, proves once and for all one of Sartre's most famous suppositions: "Hell is other people."

It all begins innocently enough. You create your character, choosing from a limited range of poorly drawn hairstyles, clothes and accessories. Your Confidence, Energy and Stamina meters are full. You can refill them and earn extra cash, Brownie Points and Influence by Doing Events. These include things like holding a costume party, and playing a point-and-click mini-game to find various props for it.

You can shop for extra items of clothing, and new ones are unlocked as you level up. You win Achievements for things like "owning 25 accessories, each with a Charm or Popularity rating of at least 4". Your News Feed becomes peppered with cheerful snippets of information such as "Jessie needs a Mochaccino" and "James received a free pair of Sapphire Ankle Strap Heels".

Best of all, you can buy men. They have names like "Fletcher the Frat Boy", and once you've purchased one you can go on dates. "To keep him, pamper him everyday to convince him to ignore your friends' attempts to steal him," the game tells you, like a kindly great aunt who's not keen on all them bra burners and that Geremy Greer. The News Feed starts to feature updates such as "Ellie locked up her man for the day" and "Tom got a Serge the Foreign Exchange Student".

Naturally, you are at this point convinced that Sorority Life is the best game ever made. Then you click on the "FIGHT" button.

This aspect of the game allows you to launch unwarranted attacks on other Sorority Life players. The more Sisters you have in your House, the more powerful your assaults will be. You can choose to "Slap" people or put them on your "Burn List", which means they are "publicly listed for attack".

Winning fights reduces your opponent's Stamina and Confidence, earns you money and gets you additional bonuses. You might be invited to "Celebrate your sweet victory with a house party!", for example. You can view your fight stats and those for other players, some of which are truly terrifying. Take these for 'Chinki Forester', a Level 195 Pre-Med Major: "Fights won - 277,357. Fights lost - 4245. Depressions - 105. Girls Destroyed - 135,918."

In short, Sorority Life encourages online bullying and rewards you for launching virtual physical attacks on other players. Mind you, so does every game with a Deathmatch mode ever made. At least this one lets you try on different shoes.

Worth it?

Sorority Life is a deeply unpleasant, sinister and sexist game. So yes definitely. Much better than some boring old French play.