Gold Of The Americas

Do you have enough salt-water in your veins for a daring voyage to the edge of the known world — a dangerous journey in search of gold and new territory for king and country in a ship little larger than a dinghy?

As Portugal and Spain begin celebrating the 500th anniversaries of their explorations of the New World, we can pay tribute to those brave explorers by re-creating their exploits in SSG's new Gold of the Americas.

Columbus "discovered" the New World when he arrived at San Salvador in 1492, and Portugal's Pedro Alvares Cabral reached Brazil in 1500. What began in the 15th century as a tentative trickle of exploration soon mushroomed throughout the 16th century into a free-for-all of conquest. England, France, Portugal, and Spain sought to find, exploit, and finally colonize all of the rich lands they continued to stumble upon. Gold of the Americas offers armchair seafarers the chance to carve their own initials into the New World, leading expeditions for any of those four nations. It's an excellent introduction for new strategy gamers who want a nonthreatening taste of adventure without being overwhelmed by masses of details, a complex player interface, or a glacial pace.

Gold of the Americas lets you control the entire game by using an easy-to-master menu system. One to four players can cycle from move to move quite easily. The game offers multiple levels of difficulty (novice, normal, and expert); historical and random scenarios; a 30-move playing limit; and a map of the New World that's reminiscent of the board game Risk.

The emphasis is on colonizing rather than exploration. Players must juggle their treasuries and secret funds in order to afford armies, colonists, warships, merchant vessels, and privateers.

Experienced strategy game players may find the options somewhat limited. On the other hand, Gold of the Americas is one of the easier historical strategy games to get started with, and it should provide a lot of fun for beginning and intermediate gamers.