Act: Birdwatch [by Green Forest Studio]

As we all do, I tend to download games that appear to have good graphics, a good website, and or an interesting concept.  Birdwatch is a game that plays off of a concept that in many people's mind originated with Pokemon Snap!  That concept probably will hit its height when Wild Earth is released next year, but for right now you might want to give Birdwatch a try.

This game pits you with a camera.  Your goal is to take pictures of birds as they fly across the screen.  The game itself isn't too difficult.  Each of the birds moves at a different speed.  With your camera viewfinder, which actually is a really well done graphic, you try to center the birds and click the mouse button, taking their picture.  You are awarded points based on how well centered the bird is in the picture. 

Since different birds move at different speeds, the points you awarded also differs for each bird.  There is also a bonus that you can achieve by photographing the bonus bird shown at the bottom of the screen.  The only thing to keep you from scoring a million points is that you have a limited number of photos.  If you  happen to photograph the Zeppelin, you will get all of your photos back so you can continue.  There is also a time limitation, but it can be replenished like the photo limitation in the full version.

The graphics in this game are well-done.  I was surprised how much better the game looked than the screenshots made it look.  The multiple parallax scrolling backgrounds are nice to look at and give a great deal of depth to the game.  The sound is alright at best, annoying at worst.  The game itself is pretty easy to play once you realize you can take as many pictures of each bird as you want.  The only problem I had was the difficulty in getting my pictures restored.  You've got to get a perfect shot of the Zeppelin, or everything goes down the drain. 

Overall this is a perfect game for little ones.  The game concept game from a 7 year old, so you may play the demo and think "that is it?" For adults, I think you'll be looking for something more.  However, if you have someone in your family who is 10 or younger, this is a perfect game for them to play.  It is totally devoid of violence, presents fun and interesting graphics, and takes a good bit of skill to master.

Added: December 20th 2003
Reviewer: Russell Carroll
Score:
Hits: 2082
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