Product Requirements:
Device:
Palm OS 3.0 or later PDAs
101K .PRC

Big Money isn't a revolutionary game. It's very similar to a slew of other Palm games on the market, several from Astraware itself. If you're out there looking for something new and exciting that's going to bowl you over and make your eyes glaze over from shock the first time you play it, don't look here. But if you want a nice solid tile matching game, a game with excellent replay value, a game that looks slick, a game with a nice interface, a game that's just plain fun, Big Money fits the bill.

The game, based on the PopCap game of the same name, is quite simple to play. Coins of different denominations populate a 13x15 grid. Each level starts with a number of randomly filled rows. You remove sets of touching matching coins by tapping on any one of the coins. Additional coins line the bottom of the board and bubble up to the bottom row, pushing the board contents up one row. Your goal is to remove coins fast enough that you never have any coins push up over the top of the board. If any coins spill over the top, the game ends. As coins are removed, the coins above them fall downward, changing the patterns you can next remove.

A meter on the left of the board tracks your removal rate. The faster you remove coins, the higher it goes. When the meter reaches the top, a money bag drops onto the board, landing on top of a column of coins. You must collect these money bags by removing the coins directly underneath them. Just above the meter is a safe for your collected money bags. You complete levels by filling the safe with the requisite number of money bags. As you progress through a game more and more money bags are needed to move to the next level.

In addition to money bags, every once in a while a coin zapper falls onto a column of coins. When you remove the coin directly under the zapper, all coins of that denomination disappear from the board. Don't expect to get coin zappers often; I've played entire games of multiple levels without seeing one.

There are three difficulty levels: easy, normal, and hard. They differ by the number of denominations in play and the speed new coins push up into play, with the easy level having the slowest rate. The easy level supports three types of coins, the normal and hard levels support four. The scoring rate for clearing coins is also significantly different in the three levels, but that doesn't really affect gameplay.

In all honesty, I find the easy level to be the hardest of the three levels to play. Because the ultimate goal is to clear money bags from the game board and the money bags only appear when you sustain a fast rate of coin removal, the slow level puts you at a disadvantage. It's difficult to clear coins quickly when they aren't appearing on the board very quickly. This can lead to some long frustrating games.

Astraware always makes visually appealing games filled with bright colors (on color devices). Big Money is no different. However, unlike most other Astraware games, I actually prefer playing in grayscale rather than in color. In the color version the coins are merely color-coded circles. In the monochrome version they have actual currency symbols - cent, dollar, pound, and yen symbols grace the pieces. I really like this extra added touch.

The game is also quite playable on a HandEra 330, although it's a little sluggish unless you play in center or upper left mode. Interestingly, center and upper left mode are the same - both actually are in the upper left 160x160 of the device.

Big Money keeps track of several types of statistics within each game, displayed on a nice splash screen between each level. You can see how long you've been playing the game, the largest number of coins cleared at one time, the largest bonus you scored, and the total number of coins cleared in the game. You can also see your current score and the rank that grants you. Rank is a fun little addition to the game that has little real meaning but is cute. Ranks related to financial and business status. For instance, the first level, corresponding to 0-1000 points, is Pauper. Later in the game you can be an employee, a manager, or even a millionaire.

High scores are maintained per difficulty level and can be submitted to a global high score board on the Astraware website. I always like to get a sense of how I stack up to the best player of a specific game, so global high score tables are a favorite feature of mine. Astraware is usually pretty good about supplying them.

I mentioned at the top that Big Money is hardly a unique game. In fact, it's quite similar to another Astraware title Collapse and to games like HMaki, Bubblet, and several other Palm tile removal games. I dislike the way many developers release another version of a game that already has ten versions available rather than creating new games that don't already exist. Astraware at least twists this games a little, adding an interesting variation to the basic game. This is my favorite variant, supplanting Collapse. However, I do think that the two games are very similar and asking folks who have already shelled out $15 for Collapse to pay that fee again for a similar game isn't entirely reasonable, although the game is worth buying. As future variants of the game come out (assuming more are planned), this becomes more and more of an issue. I think a discount for Collapse owners makes sense and would go a long way toward removing any possible hard feelings felt by those who already paid for a very similar game but might prefer Big Money to Collapse.

Big Money offers many hours of fun in a nice visually appealing package. I recommend it to anyone who likes tile removal games like HMaki or Bubblet or falling tile games like Tetris.

Price: $14.95

Pros:
Excellent replay value
Interesting variation on a familiar game
Global high score table

Cons:
A little too similar to other games on the market