Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero

In Brief

Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero is a Time Management game. After playing it for about an hour I found it uninspiring and scored it a 5 out of 10 for game play and that was generous. :)

To get a feel for today's game before you download it, please check out the following game play videos of Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. You can also other videos and walkthroughs in the ‘Other Reviews and Videos’ section below.

Introduction:

Travel back in time to an age of not only chivalry and heroes, but also deceit and no-good, dirty backstabbers in this deliriously fun time management romp! Capturing a traitor, restoring a kingdom and falling in love might sound like a tall order, but it's all in a day's work in the Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero!

• 45 levels
• Three settings
• 36 achievements to earn

Reference accessed HERE 1st September 2018

The Game:

The level-based time management game comes in many shapes and sizes, but one constant seems to remain true amongst them all: you’ll complete levels of increasing difficulty while manipulating resources to finish tasks. In Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero, that too is your overall goal, but the gameplay is so downright frustrating and simply not fun that there’s no reason anyone should try this one out.

From the amateurish graphics of the game’s initial cut scene to the unforgiving time limits on each time management stage, Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero starts poorly and does nothing to redeem itself. You’re an actor from Chicago that’s been mistakenly transported back in time to kill the ruler of the local Kingdom. Your transportation has consumed the crystals used to power the time machine, so upon learning that you can’t return to your own time, you’re expected to simply start repairing bridges, building homes and dealing with local townsfolk as though this is a completely normal situation.

Why isn’t my character panicking about being abruptly ripped from his home and transported back in time? Why do the citizens from the past not question this stranger from the future, who holds a movie prop gun as though it means something? Why am I told to disregard basically everything I’ve been told in the game’s intro and to simply start building homes and collecting money? The answers to all of these questions are up for debate, but the answers really don’t matter, as the game simply isn’t fun enough to encourage you to care.

Each level is timed, and while you can continue to play a level without worrying about the time limit until you’ve eventually completed all of your assigned tasks, the Gold and Silver trophies for each stage can only be earned by completing a stage within a matter of around 3 minutes (or less in some cases), which is far easier said than done.

As with most time management / strategy games, your time in Age of Adventure is spent balancing the use and collection of various resources, like energy orbs, coins and wood. Building additional houses on a stage gives you additional workers to complete tasks, but the speed of your workers’ progress is agonizingly slow. You’re heavily encouraged to speed up their actions by clicking on items as quickly as you can to help the progress bars fill faster, but this is a downright horrible demand. It’s not fun to click on the left mouse button as fast as you can in any gameplay situation, and that’s one of Age of Adventure‘s major focuses!

While you’re killing your fingers trying to speed up your workers, it’s all too easy to accidentally reassign a worker to a finished project because you were clicking so fast, and there’s no way to cancel an action to free up that worker. You’re then left to either rapidly click on the action again (collecting rent, chopping down trees, harvesting energy orbs, etc.) or simply accept the fact that you’ve lost access to that worker until he eventually finishes the task on his own.

That being said, the tasks you’re forced to complete aren’t that difficult, as you may need to collect a certain amount of coins or lumber to build new structures or repair broken ones, but the time limits put unnecessary strain on players. Above all else though, the requirement of rapidly clicking the mouse, as though this is some sort of enjoyable twist on the genre, is simply unforgivable.

Reference accessed HERE original review by Brandy Shaul on Oct 1, 2012; Edited and reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 1st Sept 2018.

For a more positive review of the game, check out Biogamergirl’s review; (link in the Other Reviews and Videos section below).

Other Reviews and Videos of Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero:

You can see community reviews of Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero HERE,and if you want to see a more positive review of the game than the one I reposted above you’ll find one HERE, written by Biogamergirl. You can also see more game play videos of Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Conclusion:

After playing Age of Adventure: Playing the Hero for an hour I couldn’t say it had any positive qualities that make it stand out from its many competitors. In fact, everything that makes the game unique also makes it suffer. The graphics are bland, the characters are lifeless, and the level time limits are very unforgiving. I had a sore hand from having to click far too frequently. Too be frankly honest I find it difficult, nay impossible to find any redeeming qualities within the game at all. Thankfully we are getting this free today. Diehard TM fanatics will find this awful, however, if you don’t play TM games often, maybe you should try it and see what you think. Personally, I’m not a fan of TM game; in fact of all the genres of games I know of, TM games come in at the bottom of the pile together with Anime picture book games. I play games for enjoyment, not to be stressed out by time limits and repetitive tasks.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE; or If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it directly from Big Fish Games HERE

Useful links to other free games. :) :) :)

The latest game from Epic, called 'The Fall' is an acclaimed award winning game with engaging puzzles and tense action. You can find it HERE. You are ARID, the AI onboard a mark-7 combat suit. The human pilot encased within the suit is unconscious. You must find a way to follow protocol and save his life. Won 2014 Game of the Year for best story. Next Thursday 25th March we will be getting Creature in the Well a top-down (isometric), pinball-inspired, hack-and-slash dungeon crawler.

Please see Delenn's threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. It’s worth adding these to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep.