Anawiki Blog

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I was asked to review Gammon Empire. They state that they offer the internet most exciting backgammon game on the internet. To be honest with you – I have never played backgammon before – so I was excited to try this one.

If you’ve never played back gammon before you should checkout article section at Gammon Empire. They cover the basics of gammon pretty well.

You can play backgammon for real money and for fun with thousands of players from all around the world. Gammon Empire was launched on Dec 2004 and so far has more than 1.7M sign ups. Gammon Empire allows you to play backgammon on the internet with players of all skills and improve your backgammon skills. They offer monthly tournaments with up to $100,000 in prizes, as well as hourly and daily backgammon tournament for money.

You can play backgammon in two ways – by downloading standalone application (available for PC, Mac and Linux) and in the browser. To play it in the browser you need Java Virtual Machine installed. Because I dislike installing any software on my PC I decided to play it in the browser.

While I don’t like to play for real money I was very glad to see that you can play just for fun. Playing for fun is most probably your best choice until you become expert in backgammon.

Before you start playing you need to create an account. Gammon Empire cares about your security and does not allow you to choose too simple password or login. It can be irritating if all you want is just a quick play, but when it comes to money it’s definitely a plus for them.

My first approach to creating an account was a failure. I was not able to create an account due system maintenance. While players from US probably wouldn’t notice it, European players most probably would (night maintenance is common in most countries but time zones make it hard in global world).

Second approach (next day) wasn’t successful either. I entered login and password and clicked sign-up and waited for 2 minutes without a sign from the site that there is something going on.

That’s it folks. I had just 48h to write this review so I could not test it comprehensively. Due to issues with creating account I was not able to play, so I can’t say how well the site is doing at this. As soon as I’ll be able to create one I’ll update my review.

Recently we received two similar games (gameplay): Luxor 2 and Atlantis Sky Patrol (pc download). Both hitted top10 charts on many sites. Both are great games. Luxor has better roots, you can say it’s a classic game. Sequel is very?polished, has great art, but… somehow it’s not as fun as Atlantis is to me (of course ASP is very polished too). It’s hard to define, but Atlantis seems to be more consistent in presented theme. I am really irritated by the bug that pushes balls in Luxor. It doesn’t suit that game.

Power-ups are so hard to catch in Luxor (and are hardly visible). It often irritates me when I get them (and miss another time). That doesn’t happen in Atlantis – all power-ups are well designed and visible. And their not that hard to catch. This is very important – you want to blast that balls, not to be irritated by missed bonuses.

Luxor 2 has a nice feature, very unique in casual games, resolution selection/ You can choose resolution you want to play with, so you’re not forced to play in 800×600 mode. That’s very important for all LCD monitor users. Still, some graphics are strechted, but game overall looks much better.

To sum it up: try both games, their great, but my vote goes to Atlantis.

Please read Atlantis Sky Patrol review here.

Atlantis Sky Patrol: PC Download
Luxor 2: download not available yet
Luxor: PC Download
Luxor – Amun Rising: PC Download