Review: Bridge Construction Kit
As you may have expected, this game is all about constructing bridges. But is it any good? I will try to help you to form an opinion about it with this review.
Written by Philipp Höhn
Bridge Construction Set is a successor of the successful freeware game “Bridge Builder” and was released in 2002. In 2003 Bridge Construction Set , or “Pontifex 2” as it is also called, was awarded the Independent Games Festival Audience Award (www.igf.com). Not being released as freeware Bridge Construction Set is available as a demo with full versions for Linux, Windows and Mac. Currently the full version is available for $19.95 http://www.garagegames.com
When launching the game you are presented an ordinary menu. You can either start a new game and begin constructing easy bridges and play yourself through the five levels of difficulty, each representing between six and ten maps. That is what would usually be called a campaign. If you do not want to start with the so called easy maps but go right ahead and prove to yourself you are the king of bridge constructing, you can just load every map or already existing bridge from the menu. In case you are new to bridge construction, there is a tutorial which particularly explains how to play the game. A quite important function is the ability of using different profiles. This way you can build several bridges on the same map by just starting over and over again. Of course, this function can also be used for multiple players not wanting to interfere with each other's bridges.
Gameplay
The game itself could be described as easy to learn but hard to master. It is not difficult to build the bridge, but it can be very hard to construct a bridge being adequate to the map. There are at least three hitches which make me say: the difficulty of this game should not be underestimated. Being given a scenario you only have a certain amount of money to construct the bridge. Depending on the map you are playing there are several materials to be used. At some levels you are supposed to build the bridge with iron only. At other levels you can use different qualities of steel to strengthen certain parts of your bridge. The specialities of Bridge Construction Set, compared to its predecessors “Bridge Builder” and “Pontifex”, are for sure the use of cables and hydraulics.
Besides the money and the different materials there is at least one more hitch: the bridge's length. Depending on the map there is a different amount of so called anchor points. These are the places where you can start or finish your bridge. Depending on the amount of anchor points you have to chose what kind of bridge you are going to construct and build. You could say, the more anchor points, the more stability. Consequently it is a huge difficulty to have only one or two anchor points at each side of the bridge but none at the middle. This way you do not only have to build your bridge more stable but you also need to take care of the sections' weights. To plan your bridge you can rotate around it, zoom in and out and choose between different grid systems. When testing the bridge you are given a very useful tool. The so called “stress” function shows you exactly where the bridge's parts are under high stress and are close to break.
Graphics
This game's graphics can, of course, not be compared to an up to date ego shooter but they are still far away from bad. By enabling shadows, lightning, reflection and high graphical details you get full featured graphics. Thanks to the enable/disable fullscreen mode function, you can run Bridge Construction Set in a window and enjoy building your bridges while controlling your media player or chatting with Gaim/Pidgin or XChat. This is possible because of another good feature: when out of focus, the game freezes and stops frequenting your CPU.
System Requirements
- Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, Linux or OSX 10.1
- AMD, Intel or G3 500+ Mhz processor
- Nvidia TNT2 or Voodoo3 class of graphics card
- 64 MB of memory
- Mouse and Keyboard
- 100 MB free hard drive space
Long Time Fun
An advantage of this game is definitely the big community. There are hundreds of custom made maps available in the internet. Some of them aim to be hard to succeed while others imitate original buildings. With the integrated map editor everyone can recreate, or should I say reconstruct, his area's most famous bridge. Because of the difficulty and the nearly infinite ability to be extended, this game might be enjoyed for a long time.
Conclusions and Rating
Bridge Construction Set can be fun if you are willing to invest some time and do not hesitate to learn new stuff by trial and error. It is certainly not a game to just master. But if you do enjoy the challenge, it is truly fun to spend your time constructing more or less successful bridges. A funny little gimmick are the different vehicles passing the bridges. There are cars, trains and even a ship. This helps the game stay fun.
Depending on your knowledge about physics you might even enjoy the physical background. But even if you do not know much about physics, like me, you can still use logical thinking to succeed. A big plus are the low system requirements which allow the use of this game even on old computers.
