Tail of the Sun

"Ancient legends make for great games!"

Contents

Introduction
-Gameplay
--Story
---Graphics/Sound
----Play Time/Replayability
-----Final Recommendation

Introduction
In the olden days(the VERY olden days), There was nothing. Then, there was man. More and more man were being created, and some turned tales into stories, stories into legends, and legends into myths. One legend was that of the Tail of the Sun, and that you could reach it by creating a huge tower made of mammal tusks from a mammoth. So, wanting to make that myth come true, you, the lone caveman, are to create a society, a culture, and then you can begin creating things to kill mammoths with. Which, of course, will give you mammoth tusk.

Gameplay - 6/10
At first, the game seems like a meaningless old simulation, but its really all about strategy. If you are a strategy fan, You might find the game enjoyable, but for the most of us, it's fun to fool around with for an hour or two, making fun of a few glitches, but after a while you might get bored. The control is pretty easy to follow, all you need to know is how to hurt things, how to walk around, and know when your caveman is about to fall asleep. Being a strategy, it is of course a bit hard.

Story - 2/10
Story-wise, the game is a failure. The only real plot is that you're the early evolution of man, and you're collecting incredibly hard to get tusks from a very powerful animal in order to build a tower to get to the tail of the sun. Why you would want to reach the tail of the sun is trivial in my case, but, the game is a very old game. Most aren't all that detailed in plots.

Graphics/Sound - 7/10
Tail of the Sun was made quite a long time ago. And back then, most video games had few amounts of graphic detail, the same with sounds. The thing that really gave this a 7, though, was the various faces your caveman could get. The more cavemen you had, the more faces they had to have, thus, variety enters. Faces could go from very plain to very insane, and that is what caught my eye. When you enter different areas of the game(from the tundra to the plains to the mountains), weather can change and sounds will change as well. If it rains, it sounds like rain. If your caveman is asleep, it sounds like snoring. If everything is plain, background music occurs. The background music plays in loops, and there isn't much music to begin with. Each animal has a sound, though, so things even out.

Play Time/Replayability - 3/10
As said before, strategy games take time. So, naturally, Tail of the Sun takes a while to complete. Especially if you're working on a tower built of tusk. Once completed, you'll probably thank yourself for having so much patience, and be entered in a book of world records. As for replayability, I'd say that as soon as you finish the game, you'd rather not go over it again. Hey, it's fun while it lasts.

Final Recommendation
You can barely find this game anymore, seeing as its so old. But, if you ever do find it, I personally think it's work trying it out. If you don't like it, you can always sell it to a pawn shop or on eBay. Who knows, maybe you'll get a few laughs out of it, too.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/04