The PlayStation Network’s Minis store is something of an unsung hero on the console. Not many give it much attention, but some of the games on the service are genuinely compelling, and for bite-sized prices, you often can’t go wrong. With that in mind we will list in the coming days 10 Minis games that you might not have heard of, but probably should download.
History: Egypt Engineering an Empire comes to us from Slitherine, the guys who published most of those other History Channel games, and typical of those games, it’s a bare bones copy of an existing, popular game, given a historical context.
With Egypt Engineering, that context is the trials and tribulations of the ancient Egyptian empire, and the game it apes is Heroes of Might and Magic.
And as is typical of the History Channel games, Egypt Engineering isn’t as good as the original, but it is nevertheless a quality portable simulation, there’s a wide range of buildings, upgrades and military units, there’s a huge number of levels and the game can be tactically challenging.
It’s the kind of game you’ll be playing into the wee hours if he morning. Typically you’ll start out outgunned, and it’ll take quite a time to build up the forces and cities needed to dominate the maps. Because the game flows at a brisk pace, however, so you won’t really notice the time fly by.
Where it suffers is in presentation, with very poor quality looped music and horrible graphics. If you can handle that, however, you’re in for an entertaining empire sim that, rare for a Mini, works equally well on the PSP and PS3.
Score: 3/5
