Hermes Rescue Mission is another resource management game that has surfaced this month, and you know I couldn't help but hit the download button to see if this new game was going to quench my thirst for exciting gameplay and complex strategy.
The game is your classic dive into Greek mythology, which seems a bit overplayed in my opinion. How many games can we possibly have that's going to bum stories off of the Greek tales? Don't get me wrong, I love mythology, but it's already a saturated market, so if you're going to do it, you need to come up with a unique angle to pull it off.
Hermes Rescue Mission focuses on the fleet of foot messenger of Zeus, who is tasked with restoring man's faith in the gods of Olympus before they lose their powers and succumb to Hades' rule. Meh... not really doing it for me, but I'll keep going and give it the benefit of the doubt.
The story is laid out in a colorful clip of characters bantering back and forth, and here's where it starts to unravel for me. The story has been obviously translated... and not very well. It was hard to stumble through the sentences. Sure, you could get the gist of what was going on, but you were forced to reread sentences and put together broken pieces of thoughts and awkward phrasing, and that already takes you out of the game. It's seems like such a simple thing to do... hire a good translator and then hire an editor/proofreader to make sure that translation has no errors and makes sense. With the small amount of copy in the game, I know it would be a fairly cheap endeavor.
Graphics and Artwork
The artwork of the game is bright and cartoony with a bit of a comic book style. It's littered with splashes of primary colors a child would love, but it was just a bit too juvenile for me. Everything was very detailed though, right down to the cobblestone streets and individual leaves of the olive trees.
I have to say, at times, the bright colors and the sheer amount of items on the screen made finding things extremely difficult. The levels had items crammed into every crevice of the board, and sometimes those things were resources and sometimes they were just for decoration and because everything was so bright and colorful, it made it almost impossible to figure out what I could click on and what I couldn't. This made for a lot of random clicking without much thought addressed to it. I would simply progress down the road and click on anything that looked like it might possibly be something my workers could collect.
And that leads me to another odd choice in terms of resource placement... some of the items weren't on the road. They were placed in the grass on the side... which isn't normally how these games operate, so it really threw me when I realized I was actually supposed to pick up those bunches of grapes in the grass... but the actual grape vines down the road were just there for decoration. That really frustrated me because I hate just clicking on stuff for no reason. It seems to defeat the point of the strategy game.
Sound and Music
The sounds of the game ranged from birds chirping and screeching to wolves howling to random blips and chings, all which seemed to have no purpose other than to annoy the crap out of me. Sounds in a game should serve a purpose... whether it's to set the mood or to notify you that something is happening and needs your attention. Normally, in these types of games, I appreciate when a sound alerts me that a resource is ready to be collected and this just wasn't happening. I couldn't tell if there were just no sounds associated with this or if the other random noises were just drowning out the important sounds so that I couldn't make them out.
The music for Hermes Rescue Mission, on the other hand was bright, cheery, and energetic - everything I could want for a time management game. The sounds of flutes and harps even drove home that old world Greek feel to it, so I really appreciated it as it kept the energy from waning during gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay was pretty standard for a resource management game. You could choose between hard, casual, and relax. Unfortunately, there was no explanation or description of the difficulty levels so I'm guessing that relax has no time limits, casual is normal time limits, and hard has harder time limits. I could go on a long and tiring rant about people expecting you to just guess these things, but I'll spare you from my wrath and just say... don't make me guess. Tell me what each one means so I can make the right choice.
I chose to play casual and for the most part, I did okay with the time limits. I was focused on learning how to play for the most part, so I would earn 2 stars out of 3 more often than not.
I've covered some of the more annoying aspects of gameplay in prior sections above, but they are worth reiterating... the resources that could be collected that weren't on the road really annoyed me. Mostly because it was hard to tell the difference between decorative grapes and grapes that could be collected. There was also so much crap on the screen, I was just clicking away without any thought or strategy on how I was going to tackle the level, so I'm essentially just playing a clicking game of whack a mole.
Do I Want to Keep Playing?
I think you know what I'm going to say here, but I'll do it anyhow... this is a definitely not. I couldn't even make it through the trial period before I was ready to call it quits. It did nothing to capture my attention and if anything it annoyed me to no end. Maybe it's just me but Hermes Rescue Mission had too many essential flaws to make it worth playing. If you want to give it a try and prove me wrong, you can always click on the install button and play Hermes Rescue Mission for free for up to 60 minutes.