Next to first-person shooters and real-time strategy, the tycoon genre is probably the most overcrowded around. To make matters worse, developers don't seem to be attempting to innovate or even evolve the genre past what's been done over and over again for years on end, leaving store shelves lined with a smorgasbord of tycoon games that appear unique at first glance yet play exactly the same as the rest. Many of these games are still decent enough to be enjoyable, but the lack of innovation is rapidly starting to wear thin with each passing year. Attempting to breathe at least a little fresh air into the genre, Tri Synergy and Beat Games have released Game Tycoon, a cleverly conceptualized tycoon game that simulates the ins and outs of building a videogame development studio and making it successful in the demanding gaming industry. Unfortunately, while Game Tycoon's concept is intriguing and entertaining in doses, the game as a whole just doesn't have the depth or longevity to make it a real winner.

Game Tycoon kicks off its timeline back in 1982 and takes you through a campaign of ten missions spanning two decades of industry advancement (or a mode of endless play if you just want to jump right in without any specific goals to strive for). To begin your fantastical rise in the gaming industry as the head of a top development studio, you must first choose your character, name your company and choose a logo. The game offers three different characters to pick between, and based upon the in-depth bios in the PDF manual, each of these budding game developers has a backstory and unique talents. Sadly, what you read in the manual is the only story you get, as the campaign is a straightforward string of missions and nothing else. As far as logos go, there are seven default choices that are stylized after actual game development studios in real life, and in a cool touch is that you can create and upload your own company logo following the simple process outlined in the manual.

With the basics all set up, it's time to get down and dirty creating games that will hopefully take your company straight to the top. Unlike many tycoon titles, Game Tycoon forgoes the process of actually allowing you to construct your own company building, instead providing you with a default game world separated into four different areas: the Office, Media Park, University and Home. Most of your time will be spent in the office area, where you can visit the bank to take out loans and manage your finances, stop by your studio offices to monitor company info, create game engines and assign hired staff to projects you have in development. When a project is ready to begin production, you can head to the University and browse the bulletin boards in search of talented programmers, artists and composers to work on your games. There's also a newsstand offering magazines with reviews of the games that you and competing developers have released, and market research on what types of games are currently popular. After you and your chosen staff produce a finished game, it becomes time to head to the Media Park to seek out a publishing label, print copies of the game, ship the game into stores, formulate a promotional campaign and visit the local game shop to check out the top ten best-selling games currently on the market. Finally, after a long development cycle, you can drop by the Home area where you can use the riches you've hopefully acquired to buy furnishings to decorate your pad with - but it's all just for looks.

Moving between these areas is quick, easy and visually appealing, with a side-scrolling, point-and-click third-person viewpoint when walking between buildings and a static first-person view of interactive objects and characters when indoors, all coated with a charming cel-shaded art style that presents a bright and colorful world you'll be happy to dive into. The interface is simple and intuitive throughout, consisting of a menu bar along the bottom of the screen containing your money count, gameplay speed adjustment, time and date, inventory grid and a PDA that pops up with various updates and random announcements.

Game Tycoon, although a very accessible budget title, is quite a challenging game, and I like that. Three levels of difficulty are provided, but even on Easy this game is no pushover. For the casual gamer, though, the poorly designed tutorial mission, hampered by some poor text translation and an annoying audio bug that has ambient sound effects drowning out the advisor's instructions at times, doesn't help matters along, making for a brief yet frustrating acclamation process. The basics are extremely easy to pick up just by playing and learning, however there are certain aspects that you'll be clueless about until you've either read the manual from front to back or played long enough to figure everything out on your own.

By far the best part of Game Tycoon is its gameplay concept. The process of creating an engine and then developing a game is handled well, during which you will go through the process of selecting basic engine components, such as multiplayer features, control types and graphical technology, before moving on to solidify the game itself by naming it, choosing one of over ten popular videogame genre types, deciding what platform(s) to put release the game on (PC, console and/or arcade), which languages the game will be released in, setting the QA testing period, and so on. Marketing the game after it has been published is also interesting; at the advertising agency in the Media Park you can go all-out in promoting both your games and company, by purchasing print, web and TV ad campaigns and hosting LAN-parties, giveaways and exhibitions. What's also great is how the options evolve over the course of the campaign; as the years progress, newer game development technologies become available to utilize in order to keep up with the times, and the same goes for advanced advertising possibilities.

Where Game Tycoon falters is in its lack of depth and variety. Although the concept and myriad of options I described in the paragraph above are intriguing, there isn't a whole lot to it beyond clicking check boxes on the screen and managing company economics. Even though the progressive nature of the campaign introduces newer options along the way, and the ten missions task you with a different goal, after two or three missions you'll realize that you are simply repeating the same process again and again, which will turn off all but the hardcore tycoon game fan.

Despite an innovative idea and some thoughtful implementation, Game Tycoon boils down to an average tycoon/simulation game that will only appeal to diehard fans of the genre, or someone who is just picking up a game of this type for the very first time. Beat Games, however, has come up with an outstanding concept and created a promising foundation for what could be a great new tycoon franchise; the execution of the concept just needs to be fleshed out more, in order for any sequel to reach the full potential that this admirable first effort holds within.

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).