Got the Games Magazine Interactive games collection from my brother. I'm a big fan of Games magazine (and a charter subscriber, my grandma bought my a subscription for my birthday in 1977), so I was eager to see what they had done. Unfortunately, I am disappointed so far. Seeing that NT wasn't mentioned on the system requirements, I decided to try to install it anyway. After installing without a hitch, the program completely took down my machine --to the Blue Screen Of Death! Frankly, I was rather impressed, as you've really gotta honk things up on an NT machine to bring up the BSOD.
Anyway, it also ran on the Mac (it appears to have been written using Macromedia Director), so I installed it on the iMac. After an opening video that appeared to be running in 16 colors, I was treated to a small fixed window in the middle of the screen with a crossword puzzle partially showing. The physical screen was certainly big enough to show the entire puzzle, but the programmers apparently decided that it would be easier to fix the window size to the smallest possible screen and let the user scroll the puzzle around. Ugh.
Trivia: Expert was pondering a deal with Games a buncha years ago. Despite me raising my hand and shouting "ME ME ME" to their musing as to what developer could write the software to put Games' paper-n-pencil games on the screen, it never went anywhere. Rather sad to see 20 years of a well-done magazine content culminate in such a mediocre computer translation.
I do have a recommendation, though. During the year, I buy games that seem interesting, and I often don't get a chance to play 'em all. I dragged a few not-yet-played games up to the parents' place last week, and we found a winner. It's called Give Me The Brain by cheapass games. The concept and card-verbage is funny, and the game itself is a lot of fun. There's not a lot of strategy to it (as with any game that has a "swap your hand with the another player" card), so I probably would recommend it more for informal play than a cutthroat challenge match. The price is also quite good.
While I had a few other games to play, we ended up playing this one over and over. Of course, how can you dislike a game in which you shout "Look, a monkey!" while stealing your opponent's brain? :)
To echo Geoff's sentiment, I also hate to fly. My main problem is that I'm a rather tall (six foot seven), and I can't fly for more than an hour or so without developing a mighty backache from my knees being wedged against the tray-table, which I can never open. Ugh.
