Create and customize a wildlife reserve. Manage various park minutiae. Upgrade facilities and inhabitants in order to bring in the big bucks. It sounds fairly typical of a good number of freemium park sims, but Fantasy Safari twists it up a bit. By adding fantasy creatures, naturally.

Dragons, frozen wolves, phoenixes and more. It’s a bit of a departure from the usual fare, to say the least. Now, thanks to EA Mobile, we can all try our hand at running our own zoo full of non-existent animals. 40 different non-existent animals, at that. 40 non-existent animals that can learn new abilities (i.e. fire breathing) as savvy players futz with their enclosures.

Anyone looking to try their hand at managing a theme park/zoo with a bit more… “flavor” can do so right now. Fantasy Safari is already on the App Store and, like most (read: all) free-to-play titles it doesn’t require any money to get started.

FREE!

Fantasy Safari

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-11-02 :: Category: Games

It’s human nature to look back at the past and remember it more fondly than the present. Rose tinted glasses ensure that everything just seems that bit better back in the day. Soccer is no different. Having been a child of the 1980s and regularly reminded by my father how the sport was so much better when players weren’t paid millions upon millions and in the days when England were half decent at the game, I wish I’d been around more for the decade. Championship Manager 1980s Legends enables me to relive those halcyon days though and it makes for a pretty sound management title too.

Upon starting a new game, you get the choice of three periods during the 1980s – 1980, 1983 and 1986. In each case, historical events affect what happens. 1980 for example was the year in which Nottingham Forest were Kings of Europe but there was also the rise of hooliganism. By 1986 all English teams were banned from Europe due to the Heysel Stadium disaster. Each of these factors affect how the game plays out. It also means a plethora of soon to be greats. Load up 1980 and you get a very young Gary Lineker, available to buy at the tender age of 19.

The historical element is fantastic, especially being able to effectively change the history books, but it’s fortunate that this is backed up by an enjoyable football sim too. It’s perhaps not as detailed as Football Manager Handheld 2011 but then again the focus is on history and nostalgia rather than anything else.

Typical features such as creating your own tactics and playing styles, adjusting training schedules and set piece takers are all there. There’s also the media negotiations – charming journalists at press conferences, that adds an appropriate extra twist to things. Previous bugs that Championship Manager 2011 suffered from have clearly been ironed out as nothing peculiar occured results wise.

The in-game engine is a little poor to look at and bizarrely there’s no sound whatsoever in the game, but excluding these presentational elements, Championship Manager 1980s Legends provides a pretty sound game of football management. If you’re a child of the 80s like myself, you’ll love the nostalgia infused experience. It makes for a great change of pace and you can’t help but wonder why no one thought of it before.

Download Championship Manager 1980s Legends now, currently only available in the UK.