Sunday 1 November 2015

Empire TV Tycoon (Steam) - Review

Empire TV Tycoon is available now on Steam and is priced at £9.99 (though it is on sale for £7.49 at the minute).

I love tycoon style games. Tycoons and simulators are pretty much my most played games on a PC. I've bought Theme Hospital about 7 different times in my life because I love that game so much. Tycoon games are great for a lazy Sunday morning in bed, until you've realised you've spent the entire day on it. Empire TV Tycoon had big holes to fill.

So in Empire TV Tycoon you run a TV channel where you compete with two other TV channels that run from the same building as you. You are not building this studio from the ground up like you'd expect from a simulator game and are instead taking control of one that already has a building, a small amount of viewers and some films to show. You have to increase on everything basically - more viewers, get more films in your library etc. etc.

Now what it does, it does pretty well and I've whiled away a fair few hours on it now trying to get my station to the top. I haven't managed it yet as I have gone too far into the red after a week or so because I kept trying to make full feature films. Yes you can also employ a script writer and make films in house, but this can be an incredibly costly way to increase your film library. I didn't learn, even after the first three attempts and kept trying to make all of the David Attenborough documentaries and feature length Star Wars films. Wow my bank balance went really red.

But Empire TV Tycoon is let down by its simplicity and I don't mean how easy it is to complete, seeing as I haven't yet. But I'd have really loved to have had to start from the ground up; try and broker deals with advertisement agencies, be able to run billboard campaigns for upcoming shows weeks in advance and be able to see a more in-depth analysis of just who was watching at certain times. You can see a general description of who was watching at certain times - smh as elders or kids - but oddly there are no children's shows that you can show, you just have to pick something that doesn't sound too bad and hope for the best. I also found that the children category were watching TV waaayyyy too late into the night, in my opinion you should be able to program a children's hour or some such and then go onto all the more gory stuff without the fear of a rogue child popping up in the audience.

I can't say I've not had fun with Empire TV Tycoon though, because I really have. I just wish there was more to it. But for a tenner or less this is well worth a punt if you're anything like me and love a good tycoon game. Try it out guys.

7/10 TRY IT!
A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

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