Producer: Sterling Software
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Brian James

This is a charming strategy game for two players which brings a whiff of the countryside to your screen. The object is to buy country cottages on a bank overdraft and make money from them by renting them out to a stream of oddball characters.

Each player starts off with an overdraft facility of £100,000, and each player takes it in turn, with a turn representing a month. The screen display shows your bank balance, value of assets, increase in assets (as land prices rise) and interest owed to the bank. It also shows what properties (if any) the players own, what tennants are in and what they are paying in rent.

With each turn a player may opt to have a look at offered properties, advertise for a tennant, raise the rent or sell an empty property. Opting to look at something, the screen cuts to a rapidly drawn graphic of the cottage in question. There are several types in a wide price range. If the player can afford it, it goes to auction and there is a scramble between the players to secure it, with the steps going up in £200 between bids. Once a cottage is owned, it may be advertised, with the rent wanted being input. If the asking price is not too steep a tennant may arrive, usually with some other impedmenta like monkeys or cats. During a turn the rent may be raised or lowered, although putting it up too often or too much may well result in the tennant pushing off in disgust.

If a property is sold, the player receives its original asking price plus the appreciation factor per month of ownership.

After a year's play, if a year's bank balance is satisfactory, the bank manager may increase the overdraft facility to £200, 000 and so on. The winner is the first player whose total assets first reach the pre-set target figure for a short or long game.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 8 keys for input with one for each player at auction time
Joystick: N/A
Keyboard play: input routine uses ENTER or Y and is very fast
Use of colour: very good on the cottages, sensible on the balance sheets
Graphics: excellent, and drawn very quickly
Sound: used usefully
Skill levels: 9, increasing hazards to property
Lives: N/A
Screens: random landscape creation
Special features:

It seems quite a while since we have had one of these property buying/selling strategy games into review. Instructions seemed to make the game quite complex, and involving to play, something which I like. Initially the game was playable, and choosing beautiful cottages seemed to be quite a task within a £100,000 budget, given by my kind bank manager (mean, isn't he)? With my £100,000 I was able to buy two country cottages in reasonable condition. My next task was to find tennants to occupy them - couldn't be easier, put an advert up in the local paper and suddenly two tennants came forward. What do I do now? Well, nothing really, just slowly increase the rent, and wait - yawn, boring. Ah! My kind manager has now given me £200,000! Instantly I sprang back to life from the darkest depths of sleep and bought two more cottages, found tennants, sat and waited. Is life really so easy and uncomplicated in the buying, renting and selling market as this game portrays? I've heard about making games uncomplicated and easy to play, but Sterling Software have seemingly gone over the top and totally spoiled the playability of this one. I don't realty think there's enough to keep anybody interested for any amount of time, and besides, being a two player game is already a major drawback. Lack of achievement and encouragement really does stop me from telling people to go out and buy this game.

The nicest thing about Country Cottages is the graphics of the stately residences themselves. From mean, broken down hovels to four window lakeside bungalows, they are all neatly and colourfully drawn. The random elements which make up the names and characters of the tennants who come to view them are also at work on the cottages, because although the price always matches the condition and appearance, the fine print often gives rise to mild hysteria and the feeling that an accomplished estate agent wrote it. Who, after all, would put burglar proof locks on a cottage so run down the burglar could climb through the holes in the walls!? in fact the humour and the graphics are about it, because otherwise Country Cottages is rather limited in content and action, even with two players. I get the feeling that there's a much better game to come from Sterling along these lines and using (rare in such games) these lovely graphics.

STICK TRICKS

MAKER: Sterling
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £5.95

One for budding rural Rachmans - two players buy and rent cottages, racing towards a preset total assets figure, the size of which is used to determine the length of the game.

There are nine rater unnecessarily difficulty levels which increase the hazards; fires, ghosts, moonlighters, damage, burglaries and all the things that make being a landlord so interesting.

You start with nothing but a 12% interest bank loan facility and a clever, if rather irrelevant, landscaping system throws up a seemingly endless variety of available properties with price, condition and comments. In theory you can own up to four, but your bank manager limits your spending power. Once you have a cottage, you advertise for tenants - but set the rent too high and you get no response.

Similarly you can raise rents, but you risk losing the tenants. Mostly single-key operated, the game runs very smoothly and the bookkeeping is very slick. But my word, what a fly-by-night lot the tenants are! It's not all gravy, this landlording lark. A bit limited in that you have very few, and often no, options, but fun and original.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys
FROM: Sterling Software, £5.95

Ever fancied yourself as a grasping landlord? Well Country Cottages is just the program for giving vent to your venal impulses. You will need a partner and at least half an hour to play this game.

You and your opponent start off without hard cash - just a loan from a friendly bank manager. The first thing to do is to choose the length of the game which is done by entering a target amount of money; the first one to reach it wins.

Next the two players take it in turns to buy, sell and rent out cottages. A property is described and shown in hi-res graphics on the screen, and the players bid against each other until the price goes too high for one of them. Supposedly the program holds thousands of different cottages, but in fact they are all variations of the same cottage and background.

After purchasing a cottage you can rent it out by advertising the cottage and y our chosen monthly rental. Humourously named people then come to rent the cottages. Other game options include selling cottages, adjusting rent and viewing the state of your bank balances. Hazards include cottages being burgled or catching fire - they may even suffer damage from thunderstorms.

When a player reaches the target figure which was set at the start of the game, he/she has won. The instructions say that the winner will be, 'justly rewarded for their victory'. What you get is a corny message in red lettering.

Counuy Cottages is a fairly standard property management game. It is simple to play and neatly presented, although not the most sophisticated game of its kind. If you are looking for a fun game to play with family, this will keep you occupied for a while.

I have to admit to a sneaking enjoyment of strategy games. The trouble is that bad strategy games are easy to program and good ones are hard to find. Country Cottages isn't exactly at the top of the league, but it's very nicely presented and I found playing it quite a laugh.

I have serious doubts about its long term interest, but I suppose it's the sort of game you can always bring out when you've got friends round who haven't seen it before. After all, it's pretty simple stuff and doesn't need a degree in joystick control to play.

STEVE COOKE

I'm not sure who's likely to buy this particular game. The only strategy type game that has sold really well is Football Manager from Addictive Games.

Country Cottages may have graphics (quite good ones at that) but the options are extremely limited and I can't see many people playing for a long time.

ROB PATRICK

Strategy games need a certain degree of complexity to hold one's attention, and Country Cottages is really a bit too simplistic.

PETER WALKER

DES RES

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £5.95
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: Sterling Software, PO Box 839, 66-68 Edgware Ropad, London W2 2YW

If you have an ambition to be a rich property owner, Country Cottages could suit you. It's the ideal way of making (or losing) a fortune on property, without actually spending a penny. Vicarious living at its boldest!

The basic idea is that you are an investor who wants to buy country cottages. To buy your cottages you have to negotiate a loan from your friendly bank manager at a high fixed rate of interest. (Your bank manager won't be so friendly if you lose his money!)

Once you're solvent and the interest is ticking up, you visit the estate agent, who takes you to view the properties available. The agent's prospectus includes good and bad points of the properties for sale. For instance, your cottage might have no roof, but terrific burglar alarms.

Graphically, what should be a pretty cottage looks more like a shed in a barren field. Still, once you've spent your money and if expenses and repairs haven't made you bankrupt, you can then advertise your delightful cottages in superb rural settings and, hopefully, find some sucker who will buy or rent them. Then with your new found wealth you can buy more sheds... sorry - cottages.

You can buy up to four properties, though you can choose your level of hazard and start with only two (a sensible move in these depressed times).

The game needs at least two players, and I would recommend it more for classroom use than for home use. Properly handled in a classroom setting it could prove interesting and informative, giving a reasonable idea of the costs and problems involved in buying property. But certainly it would need adult help and supervision for children to get the best out of this one.

PRICE: £5.95
GAME TYPE: Simulation

Toy money is easily spent, and easily lost. Few games have the success of Monopoly in persuading each player to cling desperately to every fake pound. Country Cottages fails completely. The money you use in it, apart from being intangible and unreal, is also supposed to come from a bank loan. None of these points gives any incentive to spend the money sensibly, or to worry if it is all lost.

Starting with a bank loan, your aim is to buy, rent and sell cottages in order to make a certain amount of money before your opponent does so. Cottages are portrayed so that you can choose whether or not to buy them , potential tenants - almost all of whom seem to be young and to have had children exceptionally quickly - are described for you to accept or decline.

The risks of the game are not particularly great. Tenants may run off unexpectedly, leaving the house in a mess but, on the whole, they are content to remain in your cottages, suffering the odd minor burglary and paying exorbitantly high rents until you have made as much money as you wish. Houses burning down may be a risk, but it is not a great one.

A stolid and uninteresting game , Country Cottages is produced by Sterling Software, PO Box 839, 86-88 Edgware Road, London W2.