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Comment on Hotel Giant 2 by Koala1356

Koala1356 — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:42:27 +0000

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Challenging Budget Tycoon Fun!, August 21, 2010

Koala1356 (FL, USA) -

= Fun:

This review is from: Hotel Giant 2 (DVD-ROM)

I love tycoon games with lots of micro-management. I dislike so-called tycoon games that have pre-built buildings that you simply place on a vacant lot and watch peeps come and go. Hotel Giant 2, I was pleased to discover, is the former, allowing for full design and building of your dream hotel. This is one of the better budget tycoon games out there. However, being a budget title, it is not without flaws, a few of them quite baffling.

In a title that is so micro-manageable down to allowing you to adjust the cuisine style and individual items on your restaurant's menu, it simply boggles the mind that your hotel lacks one very prominent and important staff member: the maid. Hotel Giant 2 has no maids! When your bathrooms, for example, start garnering customer complaints because they are 'dirty,' bewilderingly your only option is to replace the offending items with newly purchased ones. Staff members are automatically hired when you place/build the item they attend; for example, if you place a 'front desk' in your lobby, a staff member appears behind it waiting to be of service. You can hire a few additional staff members, such as eatery servers and captains, but you can't hire maids (or security). You can also change staff uniform styles and colors, increase/decrease salary, fire an individual, and invest in staff training (presumably for better service).

From the Main Menu, Hotel Giant 2 offers three modes of play; Campaign, Random, and Sandbox. Be aware that Sandbox in HG2 means pre-existing hotels where all you can do is watch. You cannot alter or build anything. The mode you want to choose for this feature is Random. Random allows you to set your location, type of hotel, starting money etc etc, and built to your heart's content, although you do have a time limit. The Campaign screen has three additional options; Learning, Hotel Giant (the actual Campaign), and Random (unlike the Main Menu Random, here you only select the difficulty).

There are some really nice gameplay features included with Hotel Giant 2. One is Layout Stamps. When you build a room, whether that be a guest room or a restaurant or a business center etc etc, you can give the layout a name (this is also good for when you advertise; you can advertise your restaurant, for example, by name rather than by the default "Restaurant 1." Much classier!). Then, if you want to build the same room again, you just pick the Stamp and one-click build an exact copy. This saves heaps of time, especially when to comes to building guest rooms, where you want to place maybe 10 rooms per floor. You only have to spend time designing it one time. This is also a real safety net for if you accidentally delete your room. If you've saved the layout, you can just use the Stamp to put it back! There is also the ability to tweak and save your default wall and floor textures by room, so that they will always appear when you build that room.

There are a ton of items included (some 1400) to build to your heart's content. Many items are customizable for additional services; example with the lobby front desk, clicking the desk gives your four options--Information, Concierge, Cashier, and Reception; or you can decided whether your TV shows cable, satellite, moves etc; or if a bathroom is stocked with quality soap, toothpaste, shampoo etc. There are even more items that you can unlock; perks for having a customer 100% satisfied.

Customer satisfaction, filling up your vacant rooms, and managing where your money is coming in and going out, is the key to succeeding in Hotel Giant 2. This is a lot easier said than done! HG2 is challenging, maddening, fun, time consuming, and very addictive! Learning to balance everything takes time and patience. I purchased the Download version because I wanted to start playing right away, although this does have one disadvantage over the Boxed version (I assume) because there is no manual included. Best tip I have for you if you buy the Download version is to hunt down the manual online and print it out. This will save you from future frustration!

In conclusion, if you like micro-management tycoon games, can look past a few short-comings of a budget title, and can stand the frustration of failure (I have been playing for several days and I have yet to beat the first chapter of the Campaign!), then you will probably enjoy Hotel Giant 2 as much as I am!

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Comment on Hotel Giant 2 by Mike "Movie Buff"

Mike "Movie Buff" — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:12:57 +0000

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

Great Graphics, Can be Repetitive, and DRM (Tages), January 29, 2010

Mike "Movie Buff" (Long Island, NY) -

= Fun:

This review is from: Hotel Giant 2 (DVD-ROM)

I've had this game for a while. Southpeak is the North American distributor for Hotel Giant 2 as Nobilis was the European distributor. You can download the game off of Nobilis' website however, you will find it difficult to email them as they rarely respond to you. The online checkout company, responds all the time. I even emailed Southpeak and they were quick to respond also. They were nice enough to send me the update/patch link for HG2 as on Nobilis' website, it had that darned .rar extension on its patch.

Hotel Giant 2 is the sequel to the not bad but buggy (and sloppy interface) Hotel Giant. To North and South Americans, it was called Maximum Capacity which was distributed by joWood (don't get me started with jowood). There are several modes: Campaign, Learning, and Sandbox. The Learning mode is more like a tutorial that teaches you the concepts and basic runaround of the game. As you reach the goals, you can move on to a more challenging goal(s). For instance, in the first few Learning modes, you are shown how to access the information windows, and how to lay down furniture. You are then asked to set up a business center and/or a Spa. Some goals might ask you to create a hotel with a certain amount of business guests, a business center with a certain amount of visitors, and/or a certain satisfaction level for the types of rooms required. The Campaign mode allows you to pick a hotel and complete a set of goals within a amount of time. In Sandbox mode, you can see a hotel that is fully furnished. I guess it's nice to see what a fully furnished hotel looks like but when you think of Sandbox mode, it would mean no limits to money, and you have complete freedom.

You can't manipulate anything outside of your hotel, you can only work on the inside. There is a lot of furniture and other objects to place in your hotel. Each type of room (business center, lobby, guest room, jewelry store, bakery, bar, coffee shop, pool) has it's own set. First you must create your room and it would be nice if you can create corners instead of the standard 4 square box. The main problem that I have and it's frustrating is when you create a room and "paint yourself in a corner" after you filled the entire floor up. If there is a wall in the way, you cannot change that section of the room to make it fit. It also would be great if we can build our own hotel. All of them come pre-made, you just have to furnish it. it would of been nice to see more objects for the lobby. The front desk/concierge are not very animated as well. It would of also nice to see the bellhops take the luggage. After you've played this a good amount of time, you will begin to get bored from all the repetitive action. After a few hours playing it, my hands were hurting from all the point and clicking. Creating rooms needs more flexibility.

The graphics are of great quality. For a budget title ($19.99) the graphics are eye-catching. There is some issues with path-finding. One of my guests spent at least 20 minutes trying to get out of the changing room in the pool. The guest had enough room to maneuver and unlike Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, you couldn't pick him/her up and "show them the way."

All in all, Hotel Giant 2 is much better than its predecessor. The graphics are eye-catching, and the gameplay is very nice. The only problem is that it can get repetitive. At first you will love it but later on, you will get bored. Putting it away for a little while, will make you come back to it. Some added content would be nice. This is the era of the expansion packs lol.

In the direct download version, Tages DRM was included. You get a serial number. Not much was told about Tages when I bought the game as I found out when I was going through the files to initially download it. I had to download 5 files and the installer. One of the files had Tages in it. I also got an email from the company I bought the online version from, "congratulations, you have been granted more installs," because I lost the initial serial number when I switched computers from my Core2Duo (Conroe) to i7 920 Monster Machine. Yes, to some this would infuriate, but for me, I've never had any problems with Tages. The minor inconvenience is asking for my serial number. But then again, if I bought the box ( I had an option to buy the boxed version), I would of had it. Starforce DRM only gave me problems and I do not buy anything with Starforce in it.

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Comment on Hotel Giant 2 by Koala1356

Koala1356 — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:11:46 +0000

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

Challenging Budget Tycoon Fun!, August 20, 2010

Koala1356 (FL, USA) -

= Fun:

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Hotel Giant 2 [Download] (Software Download)

I love tycoon games with lots of micro-management. I dislike so-called tycoon games that have pre-built buildings that you simply place on a vacant lot and watch peeps come and go. Hotel Giant 2, I was pleased to discover, is the former, allowing for full design and building of your dream hotel. This is one of the better budget tycoon games out there. However, being a budget title, it is not without flaws, a few of them quite baffling.

In a title that is so micro-manageable down to allowing you to adjust the cuisine style and individual items on your restaurant's menu, it simply boggles the mind that your hotel lacks one very prominent and important staff member: the maid. Hotel Giant 2 has no maids! When your bathrooms, for example, start garnering customer complaints because they are 'dirty,' bewilderingly your only option is to replace the offending items with newly purchased ones. Staff members are automatically hired when you place/build the item they attend; for example, if you place a 'front desk' in your lobby, a staff member appears behind it waiting to be of service. You can hire a few additional staff members, such as eatery servers and captains, but you can't hire maids (or security). You can also change staff uniform styles and colors, increase/decrease salary, fire an individual, and invest in staff training (presumably for better service).

From the Main Menu, Hotel Giant 2 offers three modes of play; Campaign, Random, and Sandbox. Be aware that Sandbox in HG2 means pre-existing hotels where all you can do is watch. You cannot alter or build anything. The mode you want to choose for this feature is Random. Random allows you to set your location, type of hotel, starting money etc etc, and built to your heart's content (interior and your exterior grounds), although you do have a time limit. The Campaign screen has three additional options; Learning, Hotel Giant (the actual Campaign), and Random (unlike the Main Menu Random, here you only select the difficulty).

There are some really nice gameplay features included with Hotel Giant 2. One is Layout Stamps. When you build a room, whether that be a guest room or a restaurant or a business center etc etc, you can give the layout a name (this is also good for when you advertise; you can advertise your restaurant, for example, by name rather than by the default "Restaurant 1." Much classier!). Then, if you want to build the same room again, you just pick the Stamp and one-click build an exact copy. This saves heaps of time, especially when to comes to building guest rooms, where you want to place maybe 10 rooms per floor. You only have to spend time designing it one time. This is also a real safety net for if you accidentally delete your room. If you've saved the layout, you can just use the Stamp to put it back! There is also the ability to tweak and save your default wall and floor textures by room, so that they will always appear when you build that room.

There are a ton of items included (some 1400) to build to your heart's content. Many items are customizable for additional services; example with the lobby front desk, clicking the desk gives your four options--Information, Concierge, Cashier, and Reception; or you can decided whether your TV shows cable, satellite, moves etc; or if a bathroom is stocked with quality soap, toothpaste, shampoo etc. There are even more items that you can unlock; perks for having a customer 100% satisfied.

Customer satisfaction, filling up your vacant rooms, and managing where your money is coming in and going out, is the key to succeeding in Hotel Giant 2. This is a lot easier said than done! HG2 is challenging, maddening, fun, time consuming, and very addictive! Learning to balance everything takes time and patience. I purchased the Download version because I wanted to start playing right away, although this does have one disadvantage over the Boxed version (I assume) because there is no manual included. Best tip I have for you if you buy the Download version is to hunt down the manual online and print it out. This will save you from future frustration!

In conclusion, if you like micro-management tycoon games, can look past a few short-comings of a budget title, and can stand the frustration of failure (I have been playing for several days and I have yet to beat the first chapter of the Campaign!), then you will probably enjoy Hotel Giant 2 as much as I am!

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Comment on AT&T 984 Small Business System Speakerphone with Digital Answering System and Caller ID/Call Waiting by J. Hamilton "Technologist"

J. Hamilton "Technologist" — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:21:56 +0000

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

AT&T 984 - Good phone, bad answering device, September 6, 2005

J. Hamilton "Technologist" (NE Penna.) -

This review is from: AT&T 984 Small Business System Speakerphone with Digital Answering System and Caller ID/Call Waiting (Office Product)

Answering devices ansewers all lines. No selection. It's either on all lines of off all lines. I only want it to answer line 1 but even with the ringers off on the other lines it still answers them. Recorded sound quality is also noticably "watery" sounding, not very clear. My Panasonic KX-TG5100 is much clearer.

I bought this for my home office and would sure not buy this model again. Phone is fine, good feel, menus a bit cumbersome.

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Comment on AT&T 984 Small Business System Speakerphone with Digital Answering System and Caller ID/Call Waiting by D. Parikh "Dave_P"

D. Parikh "Dave_P" — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:02:27 +0000

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

Problems, October 29, 2005

D. Parikh "Dave_P" (Huntington Beach, CA) -

This review is from: AT&T 984 Small Business System Speakerphone with Digital Answering System and Caller ID/Call Waiting (Office Product)

The phone answering system has problems hanging up. So when people do not leave a message, you get a lot of messages from the phone company stating that "please hang up and try to call again" followed by a fast busy signal. This takes a couple of minutes. It's not possible to receive incoming calls to the answering machine or call out from another phone on the same line while this is going on.

I tried to resolve this problem with "customer service" but I gave up after a while. I just don't have time to be on hold all day.

Now the volume on the speaker phone goes to mute at random times. It's very annoying. I have had this phone for less than a year. I made the mistake of buying ATT because I thought it was a good brand.

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Comment on AT&T 984 Small Business System Speakerphone with Digital Answering System and Caller ID/Call Waiting by George L. Helmholz

George L. Helmholz — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:44:19 +0000

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

Not for two line home office, February 13, 2005

George L. Helmholz -

This review is from: AT&T 984 Small Business System Speakerphone with Digital Answering System and Caller ID/Call Waiting (Office Product)

There must be thousands of home businesses that need a two line corded phone with an answering machine, but this is not that phone and I haven't found any other either. I suggest reading the reviews of AT&T 964 all of which apply in my experience. The answering machine will only allow one outgoing announcement for all four lines. In other words, a call coming in on any of the four lines will get the same message when it reaches the answering machine. Worse if one is using one line, the answering machine will not pick up a call coming in on another line. This wouldn't be so bad except when one is using one line the ring on the other lines is so muted that it is easy to miss the ring. As others have noted sound quality can be either good or poor for unknown reasons. I gave the phone two stars because the phone has a nice feel and look and the ring tones are pleasant as are the pre-recorded messages and such. The dialing out tones are aversive and automatic dialing is really slow.

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Comment on FreeTalk Conference HD Camera for Panasonic TVs (7181) by Ell lie

Ell lie — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:14:25 +0000

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Not good, August 3, 2011

Ell lie -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: FreeTalk Conference HD Camera for Panasonic TVs (7181) (Personal Computers)

I bought the free talk camera and mike for skyping from my living room. The mike forces me to sit no more than 4 ft away. Otherwise the sound keeps dropping out frustrating the person on the other end. Poor product. Cannot recommend.

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Comment on FreeTalk Conference HD Camera for Panasonic TVs (7181) by Maine Coast Reader

Maine Coast Reader — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:14:10 +0000

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

A low quality camera that looks nice., July 1, 2011

Maine Coast Reader -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: FreeTalk Conference HD Camera for Panasonic TVs (7181) (Personal Computers)

After a month of use this is now collecting dust. The designers made this camera sleek and attractive. However, it does not hold a candle to other, lower cost cameras. Viewers regularly commented on the low quality picture they were receiving. I switched to using a Logitech Quickcam Orbital webcam. The Logitech camera quality is excellent.

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Comment on AT&T CL82409 DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone, Black/Silver, 4 Handsets by N. Agarwalla

N. Agarwalla — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:04:39 +0000

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

A great featured DECT phone, October 16, 2009

N. Agarwalla (Waltham, MA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: AT&T CL82409 DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone, Black/Silver, 4 Handsets (Office Product)

I bought this after a disappointing trial of a similar Panasonic system. I am much happier with this cordless phone than any others that I've had over the past 7 years which includes Motorola, VTech, and Panasonic.

Pros:
- Great sound quality. No static during phone calls.
- Great range
- Easy to dial when holding in one hand with thumb
- Handset specific ringer/volume control
- Display on phone is informative. It includes:
- caller name
- caller phone number
- battery level
- time
- date
- Dedicated display icons for:
- microphone mute
- ringer off
- new voice mail message
- answering machine on
- new answering machine message
- dedicated buttons for:
- speaker phone
- mute
- redial
- intercom
- call history
- directory

Cons:
- no headset jack
- somewhat difficult to manually add numbers into directory
- no dedicated voice mail access button
- no way to globally "ignore" a phone call on all handsets using a single handset (e.g. hitting end when someone is calling only mutes the current handset)
- no global ringer volume control

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Comment on AT&T CL82409 DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone, Black/Silver, 4 Handsets by C. Ward "book worm"

C. Ward "book worm" — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:42:15 +0000

72 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

A Phone for Everyone, October 22, 2009

C. Ward "book worm" (Greensboro, NC) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: AT&T CL82409 DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone, Black/Silver, 4 Handsets (Office Product)

I am hearing impaired and could never find a phone that I could hear clearly on. I've used volume controls, speakers but nothing had the clarity to discern what someone was saying. The answering machines were the same way. It was as if I was listening to an order from a fast food vendor - who knew what was being said?

This AT&T fits my needs perfectly! I can understand messages; I can understand what the caller is saying; and my computer does not enterfere. And the price was excellenet!

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