Giveaway of the Day - Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days

Installation:

The download is quite large for an arcade game at just over 51Mb (though it’s miniscule compared to many DVD based games that are available now), a large proportion of the download is made up of the screensaver that is included with the game. In fact there are several screensavers that are unlocked as you travel around the world, each screensaer depicting a scene from that particular area of the world. The first two screensavers are London then Paris and then in no particular order Egypt, India, China, Japan and finally the USA. I’ve posted screen captures of the London and USA screensavers below. The zipped file unpacks to the usual read me that contains the terms and conditions and a dual activation and setup module. Once installedthe games folder and contents are just over 72Mb in size. The default installation path is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Playrix Entertainment\Around the World in 80 Days (Win 7 & Vista)

C:\Program Files\Playrix Entertainment\Around the World in 80 Days (XP)

A shortcut for the game an uninstaller and to the Playrix web site are installed to the Start Menu/Programs folder together with a game shortcut and website shortcut to the desktop The installed game is 72.1Mb in size.

The game works on Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit and XP Pro 32 bit.

In Game Screen Captures

Introduction:

This was originally given away on the 7th September 2008 where it received a 81% positive vote out of exactly 1000 votes with 167 comments; and then again April 25th 2009 when it received a 70% positive vote out of 981 votes with 87 comments. You can read all the previous comments from both posts, most of which were positive by clicking on the dates above.

You only have 80 days to circumnavigate the globe. Think that sounds easy? Travel back in time to the late 19th century and get ready for spectacular adventures on land, sea and air together with the English daredevil Phileas Fogg and his loyal French servant Passepourtout. Use the unique chance to visit four continents and complete the inconceivable journey to win the fantastic 20,000 pounds wager with this outstanding puzzler inspired by the classic adventure novel of the same name written by Jules Verne.

Reference accessed HERE on the 20th Nov 2010

The Game:

Most community members will be fully aware of what’s involved and how to play a match three or more game, so I’m not going to go into great detail about the mechanics of this game. (some will say hooray here There is an in game help link in the main menu that tells you the basics of the game pictorially.You basically travel to several locations around the world collecting objects and a stamp from each place you visit. There’s a lot of dialogue at the beginning of the game that continues in a slightly attenuated state throughout the game. All dialogue can be skipped if you wish, though personally I like the story line. There’s also an abridged version of Jules Vernes ‘Around the world in 80 Days’ that you can read as you progress through the game. Specific parts of the book become available to read when you reach that part of the world you are visiting.

Apparently (I’ve read somewhere) this is another upgrade of The Rise of Atlantis, from the developer Playrix which is another game that we have been given previously via the giveaway project. After playing several levels, I do agree that the game is very similar, and that it does have some improvements over its predecessor; though you’ll need to play both to be able to see the differences (apart from the obvious graphical differences). You can get both games (Around the world in 80 Days and The Rise of Atlantis) for free 24/7 from Gametop and MyPlayCity. The difference with today’s game is that you won’t get the annoying browser opening at the end of the game, nor will you be plagued with pop ups (mainly Gametop) or toolbar installations and home page changes. There is now another sequel to the The Rise of Atlantis franchise called Call of Atlantis; which is again very similar, but with some improvements.

I much prefer the way this games storyline unfolds, to the Atlantis games. It sticks to the original story by Jules Verne apart from the American leg of the journey which isn’t true to the original story. The graphics are gorgeous and the music okay. It’s classical in nature and works well with the overall feel of the game. I think the majority are going to be pleased with this game despite it being a match three. (check out the list of free match three games at the end of the review)

You can access the options menu as well as the help menu and high scores from the games main menu. The options menu enables you to adjust the music as well as toggle between full screen and windowed mode. There’s also a toggle to switch between your default mouse pointer and a custom pointer and another to turn on or off the in game tips.

The game is , with only the keyboard required to input your profile name.

The game play follows closely that ofThe Rise of Atlantis, including having to move broken artefacts to the bottom of the playing field (for most of the game, in the end levels you have to get them to move sideways), which then go to make an artefact, in the case of Around the world in 80 Days to complete the level; though the storyline (as is obvious from the title of the game) is based around Jules Verne’s story as opposed to Atlantis.

You earn power ups by creating matches of four or more. You can see what power ups are available from the help menu, and include (amongst others) bombs, extra lives, extra time and bonus points. Some of the power ups are upgradeable as well. The first one to become available when you’ve created enough matches of four or more is the hammer which you can use to knock out either one tile, unlock a lock or unfreeze a tile. As you create more matches this is upgraded to a super hammer which destroys all tiles of the same color; further upgrades include a bomb and a super bomb. This ability to upgrade power ups reminds me of Treasures of Montezuma and Sky Bubbles Deluxe, both of which are excellent Match three games in their own right, and more recently a game called Alchemist’s Apprentice, which I’m playing at the moment (and incidentally am really enjoying. There are also bonus levels at the end of each country, where you have to uncover a stamp by clearing away the Golden tiles (which is supposed to be proof that Fogg has visited that particular country). The golden tiles are removed by creating a match 3 or more over the gold tiles. An additional bonus with this game is the free screensaver, which is the very same screensaver that was given away back in June 08 called Around the World: London. There are another six to unlock, which if you’re into screen savers and match three games makes this a very worthwhile purchase ( that is, if you had to purchase it. Thankfully even if you miss today’s game giveaway, there’s no need to be upset because you can get the game free 24/7 from Gametop or MyPlayCity, or, if you don’t want to download the game you can play it for free online HERE or HERE

London Screensaver – Daytime

London Screensaver – Raining

USA Screensaver – Evening

I like the Around the World screensavers that Astro Gemini sell for around $20 each, so this game is a real bargain to those who love screensavers because technically you’d be paying over $100 just for the screensavers if you were to purchase them seperately plus the cost of the game. Though in reality, you can actually purchase Astro Gemini’s whole stock of screensavers for the price of five or six screensavers, and get the game for free from the gamehouses mentioned above.

Features:

• Adventure game with outstanding storyline, beautiful animation and challenging puzzles

• Extremely addictive gameplay with 81+ levels

• High-quality colourful graphics and soundtrack

• Bonus animated screensaver

• Marvellous adaptation of the Jules Verne Victorian travelogue

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Videos & Images:

The first link covers the introductory story and the initial dialogue between Phileas Fogg and his valet Passepourtout as well as the first level of the game, though because I had problems capturing any video using the commercial version, I used the online version which does have a couple of slight differences to the menu buttons compared to the downloadable version. You can even get this game for Nintendos DS. The second link takes you to Big Fish Games (BFG). Both these video’s are worth watching. You’ll need to click on the video button once you’ve been taken to BFG’s web pages. The third video, posted on You Tube is very poor quality, but still conveys a reasonable impression of the game. There’s also 2 slideshows, the first showing 50 screen captures of the early stages of the dialogue and log book, as well as the initial stages of the game and a secnd slideshow showing random images of the game and screensavers.

Watch a video of ‘Around the World in 80 Day’s’ HERE

Watch Big Fish Games video of ‘Around the World in 80 Day’s HERE

Watch more video of ‘Around the World in 80 Day’s’ HERE

Images:

You can see a slide show of screencaptures of Around the world in 80 Days HERE and HERE

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Other reviews worth reading:

Full review of ‘Around the World in 80 Day’s’ from Gamezebo

Full review of ‘Around the World in 80 Day’s’ from Gamemile

Community reviews from Gamezebo

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Minimum System Specifications:

• O.S. – Win 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
• Cpu – 500MHz
• RAM – 128MB
• Video RAM – 32Mb
• Graphics – DirectX 8 or higher

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Conclusion:

Despite a plethora of match three puzzles that abound these days, this is definitely one of the better ones (IMO). It’s got all the ingredients to make it a pleasure to play, including the storyline, which doesn’t interfere with game play because you can easily click on a button to pass it by quickly. I’m not really a big fan of match three puzzles, (apart from Treasures of Montezuma, Four Elements, The Rise of Atlantis Sky Bubbles Deluxe and more recently Alchemist’s Apprentice), plus a few others, but I do think Around the world in 80 Days, is one of those you’ll find hard to put down once you’ve started to play, plus it’s a great all-round family arcade game. So I think it’s worth a good 8 out of 10 despite it not being an original idea. The latter levels are very hard, especially the last ones where you have to move objects sideways rather than downwards. I would have preferred the power ups to be cumulative from level to level, but instead, you have to recharge them each time you start a new level.

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Resources and other stuff:

Free ‘commercial quality’ Games:

Also if you like this genre there’s two or three games similar to Around the world in 80 Days plus a growing number (nearly 50) of other match three types available for free from MyPlayCity, Gametop and FreeGamePick sites.

As always I should remind you that games from these sites do open up your browser when you close the game down, though it isn’t redirected. You just have to click on the x to close it down. I’ve checked all the games these sites at various times originally with with F-Secure and PCGuard back in 2008 and more recently Kaspersky Internet Security and have found no viri or malware attached to any of the files I’ve linked to.

Gametop have recently introduced more advertising which kicks in whenever you click on a game (while on the website); though you can bypass the advert. It just means a few more mouse clicks and an extra 10 or so seconds wasted before you can download your totally free commercially available game. Also it is advisable to watch the installation process carefully and ensure you un-tick any check boxes that ask if tool bars can be installed or home pages be changed. Gametop has recently been introducing this with some of the newer games, but not all. Thankfully un-checking the boxes prevent these happening. FreeGamePick has become very aggressive of late and some games can no longer be played unless to allow toolbars and/or your home page to be changed; also Gametop always seems to throw up a emicons pop up despite pop up blockers. .

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Changing in-game music:

All the music is in the ogg format, so you will need to convert any music you wish to use into that format before exchanging the files found in the following folder. You can download a free audio converter from the freeware section of the giveaway project HERE. There are several in the audio converters section. You must rename any track you change to the one you’re exchanging. I’d keep a back up of the ones you are removing just in case there are any problems.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Playrix Entertainment\Around the World in 80 Days\Base\Sound\Music
(Win 7 & Vista)

C:\Program Files\Playrix Entertainment\Around the World in 80 Days\Base\Sound\Music
(XP)

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Issues & Fixes:

Fixes:

Previously some community members couldn’t get this game to work. The following ‘fixes‘ or ‘suggestions’ may help to resolve the issue.

• There are animations included that may require newer graphics drivers so I would suggest you update these and also your DX version. If you’re not sure how to do this please post your query in the forums and I will answer it ASAP.

• Try defragmenting your drive (especially if you’ve never done it before (or rarely), because a badly defragmented drive can cause programs to crash.

• Set your screen resolution to a lower value.

• Try turning off unnecessary background programs.

• Download a fresh copy from the mirror link

• Uninstall the game then download a fresh copy from the mirror link then Reinstall

• Uncheck the box that automatically starts the game when you close the installation wizard and start the game once it’s activated by the games shortcut.

• When I was reviewing the game, whenever I started up my video capture suite, the game would freeze about the 20% load mark. I’m wondering whether it crashes when certain programs are running? If you get this problem (some community members did mention a freeze at about 20% loading last time this game was given away), try exiting some of your background programs. Go to the bottom right tool bar (next to the clock) and right click on the icons situated there. Most are usually not necessary so you can exit them. Also try going into your task manager and stopping some of the non essential services. Generally leave any system process running. I’d shut one down at a time and see if it’s that that’s causing the problem. Make a note of what you shut down so that if your system freezes you’ll know not to shut it down when you try again. Unfortunately if your system does freeze, you’ll have to restart your computer.

• If you get an access violation error it’s related to the above issue. Try turning off various programs to see if it fixes the problem. Access Violation problems are generally a result of improper memory usage by the computer through different computer applications. This can actually be compared to the locking of a gate. Files become inaccessible and can not be opened without the fixing up of the access violation error. Access Violation Error is essentially very common with software malfunction which again usually happens due to poorly written software. It can also be a result of damaged registry. Using a decent registry cleaner may fix the problem.

• Caulbox posted the following fix the last time this was given away and may just solve any problems that some community members may get:

Quote:

for those who are encountering problems with game crashes or freezes during loading:

Although the game runs without problems on my system, if I look at the “log.htm” file, which gets generated afresh in the games “Base” directory every time the game is started (that’s a directory called “Base” not the root)….I do notice that there’s always an error reported when I run the game. The error report reads, “ERROR : Can’t load KeyMap.xml!”. Not surprising really, cos there is no file of that name included with the game installation.

However, there is a file (again in the “Base” directory) which is called “KeysMapping.xml”. If I rename (a copy of) that file so that it’s called “KeyMap.xml” the error reporting disappears from subsequent log files.

Although this isn’t really necessary for me, as the game is running fine as it is…I wonder if the reported error behaviour, might in any way be connected with the freezes that others are encountering during loading of the game? As I say, just a wild stab in the dark…but, if all else is failing, it might be worth renaming ‘KeysMapping.xml’ to ‘KeyMap.xml’ and see if it cures the crashes. (I’d advise renaming a copy of the file, keeping the original safely intact and in place).

Comment #77 by Caulbox

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Issues:

One issue that some may not like with the screensavers that comes packaged with this game…… When it asks if you want to activate your screensaver it will automatically change your present screensaver to the Around the World set. If you choose not to activate them the screensaver is set to None for some reason even though you may have previously had a different screensaver selected.

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While searching for a You Tube video of the game (so as to save me some time preparing one myself I came across an interesting Google Earth video called Around the World in 8 minutes (though it’s actually 8 minutes 58 sec). It’s nothing to do with the game, but as it’s sort of very loosely related, I thought I’d post it with the review

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