A short while ago I was browsing the coming releases at GameSpot to see what’s coming down the line. The answer: not much at all. It’s a sad bunch of games. Somewhere down that line I came across “Snow”. The coming releases page at GameSpot lists a game’s title, the release data, a small box shot (if available) and a quick blurb. It read:
Snow
Release Date: May 1, 2006Snow is an empire building game that lets you work your way up from a pot smuggler to drug kingpin by managing smuggling operations between Mexico and South America, and the United States.
The drugs and crime-ring element is cliched in the current gaming world, but it could be an interesting title. An empire building game where you create a crime syndicate from the bottom up. A sort of Cocaine Tycoon, if you will. A Tropico for cartels. I follow through to the game’s page.
The first thing that is noticeable is By: 2K Games
. How very unsurprising. Then I notice the screenshots and I laugh. Then I laugh some more.
The second one is particularly great because they couldn’t even get the type to fit within the button, which is a big-time sloppy no-no. The game has done nothing to convince me that it isn’t just an expanded version of DopeWars with a coating of (lousy) design on top. In which case, I think I’d rather just play DopeWars [Sourceforge].
This looks like something that would be on Live Arcade, not a boxed release. It sounds pretty pointless at this stage in the XBox’s life.
Beermat Software’s version of DopeWars kept me occupied during late night stays in Waterloo’s computer labs when I should have been working. It’s nice to see there’s a completely open and free version out there.