User Reviews (1 - 7 of 7)

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Terrible Terrible Terrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: June 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is horrible. I saw it at Best Buy for $9.99 so I grabbed it thinking it would have depth like most of the Tycoon series. I was sadly mistaken.

It has 1 dimension of things you can do and that is about it.

Don't waste your money.

Complete rubbish

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game was overly simplistic with the effect that I was bored out of my wits within an hour of game play. The graphics are poor and the game lacks any intuition whatsoever. Very repetitve and boring.

a waste of money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

i bought this game thinking it would be similar to the rollercoster tycoon/ sim games. and it was, only harder to use and the graphics were something one would expect 10 years ago. it was very difficult to zoom in and out, make money, do anything!! and there wasn't much point in trying because it didn't do anything. grr!!

Lacking Substance (And Programming)

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: October 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

National Lampoon is the type of game that after 20 minutes or so makes you think, "I want my money back". Alas, since I had read up on some previews before purchase I was disappointed to see it suffered from false advertising. Gamespot, for example showed preview pictures of students seen in a sim like manner and summarized it:" Create your own campus environment, complete with wild parties, beautiful girls, and plenty of alcohol." Well sure you can zoom in close and see that, but what is the point? This is not a "The Sims" type game; you do not control the characters what so ever. They do not have personalities and interact with you. Like Theme Park World or Zoo Tycoon, they are simply consumers with certain demands.

There are 5 types of students and 4 sub types that are similar but prefer something a touch more or less. Jocks, preppies, nerds, hotties, and outsiders. Building different sorority/fraternity houses allows them access to your campus. Each of the types has something that is very wanted, some of which overlap with other types. For example, Jocks want to eat a lot and nerds love pizza. So the pizza restaurant takes care of both these needs. They all kind of act the same, walk the same, talk the same but maybe this one drinks 1/8 less than this one. Gets pretty repetitive and boring and I found myself wishing I could "get rid of some of them". Here the game takes a genius turn, saving it from being a complete atrocity: You can build a clock tower and shoot the students. Pretty messed up when you think about it, but I guess they must've realized what annoying little creatures they had created and how angry consumers would need some way to vent their emotions.

The buildings are colourful enough, and some are locked (i.e. you have to place a jock frat house to get the mega jock frat house), but the system is pretty basic. Building placement is difficult sometimes as there is a predetermined layout of four square path sections in every mission. Plus, with most buildings, you can't really see where the entrance to the building is since they are highlighted almost white when you are going to place them. There isn't a whole lot of variety, with only three categories (student housing, campus/town buildings, and stuff/party buildings) and no decorative objects of any kind. You can't get a peek inside the buildings to see what's going on unless their open, and then the graphics are pretty straightforward. Watch in amazement as the character chugs a bottle of alcohol, repeating the same movement for 2-3 minutes.

Which brings us to the speed of the game. Every tycoon game needs to be able to allow the user some control over time. Not this one. Which can be quite irritating when you find yourself sitting for 20 minutes so you can earn enough money to pass a mission.

Navigation is basic, and it's pretty easy to move around, just using your right mouse to alter the angle and scrolling to the to edge to move. With my mouse I used the mouse wheel to zoom in and out, but this was kind of messed up and led to some weird crashes. Be prepared for a buggy game.

One of the problems is the variance of difficulty between missions. Even missions one level apart are plagued by this. You sweep from a mission suited for a 5 year old (we give you 1000 dollars. Build 2 buildings for 1000 dollars. Done) to one where you must find that one exact strategy to win. I.e. you have to put this building down, then this one, and finally that and this is the only way the mission objectives can be achieved. Game plays so boxed in sometimes I felt claustrophobic. The campaign only lasted me a day and a half. Replay value? Next to nil.

I also thought it a bit strange the only females in the game were hotties (and one outsider). A female nerd, jock, or preppie would have been neat to see.

Like the National Lampoon movies expect it to be very very politically incorrect and lacking substance. It does have its small moments of humour though.

Under cooked tycoon game - save your money

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Unfortunately this game was not done cooking before it was shipped. Although it is barely playable they obviously had a lot more work to go. It is quite annoying when game companies give up on a title half way through and sell it anyway rather than give the programmers a few more months to finish the game. It seems to happen a lot with "Value" titles and in particular tycoon games which don't have the biggest audience to begin with. Save your money, Spring Break or Roller Coaster Tycoon (1 or 2, not 3).

s-kewl's back in session!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 15
Date: November 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Excellent! By far the absolute BEST tycoon game I have ever played! In short, the game is quite simply a masterpiece of fun! Looks great - sounds great - the gameplay is fanstastic, and it's stuffed full of what almost every other game in this genre is sorely missing - FUN! It's witty, it's charming, and has great style.

The campus of "Fallback University" (FU for short) was "erected" in 1969 for young losers, degenerates, and super hot (but dumb) chicks! There's 5 main frat houses, which serve as home to a cast of about 20-something colorful characters, each with their own personality traits (Preppies mostly want food / beer, Geeks and Nerds want to get to class, hot chicks want to dance / party). Likewise, there's a ton of buildings you can make which provide funny things you can sell to the students (like 40 oz. beers, cheat sheets, erotic massages, rave tickets, etc.)

The genious of the gameplay is the care and detail they game-makers went into to give each character a real personality. Example - Jocks bring in money via sports teams, but are also exceptionally dumb. While they bring up the school's party rating, they send the education rating down the toilet. Keeping those dumb, lovable idiots happy is key. In fact, you have to keep all the students happy or they'll drop out, and you'll lose the effects they are having on the school. Why would you want a bunch of dumb jock's on campus if they bring down the education rating? Cause they're all on scholarship and have a ton of money to spend... And also - since this is a National Lampoon game, the objective of a mission can be to ruin the school's reputation!

So they game has an easy to use but very deep system of balanced gameplay where each character is good for this, but bad for that. You're in control of who enrolls in your campus, so you have to be very clever how you balance the student body. Regardless of polar opposites like Jocks and Nerds, the one thing they can all agree on is alcohol and hot chicks! There's over 20 different missions and each has its own little plot twist, so you'll need to be creative in how you mix and match different types of characters to win!

You can sell beer and other goodies to your students to get them rip-roaring drunk (and it's hilarious seeing them gradually getting more and more drunk as they stumble around). That lowers their inhibitions so they pay more for stuff you sell than they would if they were sober. Don't get them too drunk, though, or they'll pass out (and each student has a different tolerance to alcohol!)

On top of the masterfully executed gameplay, National Lampoon's script and all the funny student comments soak the experience in gut splitting humor! It's witty, fun, and undeniably the best time you'll have with a tycoon or sim!

If you like parties, beer and hot chicks BUY THIS GAME!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game rocks! There's so many funny things you can do...throw parties and see cute chicks dancing with Jocks, Nerds, Preppies. Build a beer garden and watch the students drink...you can even get them drunk and see them stumble around and even pass out! There's also plenty of humorous content you'd expect from National Lampoon. Get this game now!

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