Beauty Factory

We've Had Some stinking Tycoon games. Tabloid Tycoon was a wretched specimen, but it beat Holiday World Tycoon, which suffered from a severe diagonal offset that made pointing and clicking impossible. Beauty Factory has the distinction of being competently programmed and presented, yet is worse than either of those games.

The press release claims it's fun for girls, because you're making eye shadow. But that's like saying a French abattoir is fun for girls, because there are ponies inside. I've played through this game three times, and I don't remember having fun. Perhaps it was hidden in the tedium.

The game has four screens. The office, which is useless. The production line, in which you change a number to choose how much lippy you make. Hold onto your furry boots though, because in marketing you change two numbers to set your marketing budget and product price. Don't get excited - the second time I played I didn't use advertising and couldn't tell the difference.

The last room is R&D. Prepare for your socks to be blasted into orbit: this room has got three numbers! Altering a cosmetic's three ingredients changes its overall score - over 80, and you've got a good bit of lip gloss. See how those three numbers collapsed into one? That's lush.

Let's face it: this is a Tycoon game where you control three numbers. It is, in short, a turd of a game.