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Not what I expected, but still good!
This game wasn't quite what I was expecting, but now that I have figured it out I am really enjoying it!
The basic idea of the game is centered around horse racing. You have three options: You can be a stable manager, a jockey, or a better. If you choose stable manager, you actually can do all three!
I've found the jockey option to be quite maddening. It drove me absolutely crazy. I rode horses in about a hundred races and finished dead last, or second to last every single time. I tried every strategy I could come up with and could not even ONCE win a race with any horse I tried. And that was on easy level! I think this portion of the game needs serious work - it's way too difficult.
The betting portion is just "ok." You can bet on horses when you're playing the stable manager version as well, so I don't see the fun in playing where you JUST bet. Especially since sometimes it seems completely random which horse wins a race (maybe like real life .. heh!).
The stable manager version is where it gets fun. While it has some serious downfalls, now that I've figured it out I've been having a fantastic time. When you're a stable manager you get to hire staff, build up your stable (buy and improve your buildings), buy and train horses, board other people's horses for cash. You can also go to auctions and buy horses as well as breed and race your own horses.
I'll talk about the cons first.
STAFF: Basically you have no control over your staff. You can hire them, give them raises, and that's about it. You also can choose which Lad works with which horse. I was hoping for more control over staff, and for the staff you have to make a bigger difference.
INCOME: At the start of the game, it is VERY difficult to balance your income and expenditures. I "lost" the game at least 3 times because I ran out of money. The only ways to make money are 1) race 2) sell a horse and 3) boarding. Once you get in to the game and get some international level horses, racing brings in a LOT of cash. In the beginning though, you only will get $2000-$10000 per race if you WIN (which is hard) and you have to subtract from that the fee to enter the race and the jockey fee. Selling a horse is an option, but in the beginning you may have one or two horses... so selling isn't really an option. The last way to get income is boarding, which hardly covers your expenses. For the first hour I played I basically just clicked "next week" dozens of times trying to make enough money from my boarders to afford a new horse (since I had sold mine to pay off my negative bank balance and have an extra stall to board). I think that there are some serious issues with money making in the beginning, and once you get nice horses it becomes too easy to make money.
NO TUTORIAL: This game isn't easy to figure out. The manual is horrible, there is no tutorial and when you hover over a button, there is no indication of what it does. I had to learn by trial and error.
PRACTICALLY NO GRAPHICS: The only time there are any graphics is during a horse race. Even then, it's kind of boring. Every horse looks exactly the same (different colors, same exact body/movement).
HORSES DIE YOUNG: My horses tend to die at age 14-15. In real life, it's normal for horses to live well past 20! I currently own a horse that is 23 and still going strong!
Ok, so those are all the bad things. There are plenty of good things too - else I wouldn't have given this game four stars!
Once you get lucky enough to have an upper level (national/international) race horse, money comes easily and you can afford to buy more horses and rely less on boarding for income. An average purse in an international race is $500,000-$1,000,000!
I've been having a LOT of fun breeding my horses, training and racing them. It's become quite addicting! The training part of the game is fun. You get to pick which activity you want your horse to do each week, and you have to pick well to optimize your horse so that he is in top form and healthy for the race, yet still has the speed and stamina to do well.
People who like games that are heavy in graphics will probably not enjoy this game. This game is mostly text! I occasionally watch my horses race, but normally I skip the race and go right to the results. For those who enjoy text games, and also those who enjoy horse racing and strategy games, this game is a lot of fun! You just have to get past the awkward trial and error learning stage and then the game becomes addicting and incredibly fun!
Better than the others but still missing something
This game allows you to manage a stable, jockey the horses and bet or do any one of these things. Even on the easiest level, it is very difficult to make money at the beginning, though it becomes very easy once you have some good horses. There is sort of a critical mass situation, which is a problem in many other "economic" games (you have to have money to make money but then it becomes almost too easy). I have to admit to having to resort to some "creative" reloads after certain races or if the horse suddenly becomes ill right before the race you have been training so long for (which they often do, despite all your health management).
It's nice to be able to control the breeding and training and management of the horses as that seems to get left out of most horse racing sims. You can actually see your horses improving as a result of your training priorities. This is much more intricate than other games of its type, but there are still some limitations.
1. The jockey program is very hard to figure out, even on "easy" mode. I had more luck racing halfway well with the standardbreds than the throroughbreds, perhaps because they are slower paced...My ability to estimate how well my horse is doing , my reaction times and my ability to keep an eye on the screen while adjusting the buttons for speed and steering etc. are not as good as the computer's, obviously. I just can't seem to figure the best time to consistently hit the accelerator coming out of the gate (the computer always gets it right) and so nearly always break last, regardless of the horse's stats.
2. You are forced to rise to the level of your incompetence, in that you do not (as you would in ral life) have the option of staying at a level where you are doing well but not outclassing everyone. Once your horse has a certain amount of money, they MUST move up in class, even if they are outclassed at that level. You can never move down in class. Also, some of the race options are bizarre. There don't seem to be any races for two year olds (makes it hard to move your horse up to G1 class by the first week in May for the kentucky derby). And you can "accidentally" enter your flat racer in a steeplechase. And there are mounted trotting races (ow). Very odd. Not bad, but not super realistic.
3. These other things are minor issues, though. The main issue is that there is not a real goal in the game besides making money and becoming famous. There are tons of races of different lengths and on different surfaces. So you finally get to a point in the game where you have several good horses and you are famous and making tons of money and have upgraded your farm to the highest level in everything, and you are at that "what now?" stage. If they ever come out with a new version of this, having some kind of championship (perhaps invitational for different lengths, surfaces, genders, ages etc.) akin to the breeder's cup races and maybe a 3 year old "triple crown" for each nation and perhaps "horse of the year" awards and "halls of fame" would be a nice addition. Maybe an international championship too. I mostly follow U.S. racing, and very few of even the best horses from the U.S. go overseas to race (maybe because our purses are richest), but if international is going to be part of the game, maybe some world "breeder's" cup that is in a different place every year or something would be nice. Maybe they also should consider having races that correspond more closely to real races in terms of their rules for entry, at least at the G1 level. It seems odd that I can enter a 5 year old male horse in the "brader's cup filly". It's also a bit strange that horses continue to race after they have foals. Maybe it's different in Europe, but in the U.S. horses are always retired once they become breeders. Choosing whether to risk the health of a possible good breeder by keeping it on the track for another year versus retiring a proven winner (who may turn out to be a dud, or even sterile, at stud) is part of the game in real life.
I don't go im for online games, because of all the conneting, politics and coordinating that's needed with other players don't appeal to me, so maybe there's more to it if you play it on line against other humans?
Still, it's much better than other PC horse racing sims I've seen that mostly focus on just the betting and racing aspects of the sports and not the actual stable management, breeding and training. The graphics and simulations of what happens during the races are quite good and being able to upgrade your stable facilities and hire different staff is a nice touch.
A Horse Racing Management Simulator - Where Can This Go?
Be warned: this is not your typical "tycoon" or management game, nor is it for people who only have a passing interest in horse racing. It is very dry and in depth, but you can learn a lot of things if you are willing to give it a lot of time and effort. Did I mention most of the game takes place in a planner screen?
Horse racing manager started out by surprising me - there were 3 modes of play. Betting, Racing and Stable. In Stable mode you are put in charge of managing every little nuance of the stable. In this mode you also get opportunities to bet at any races that come up as well as having the racing option. Whenever your horse is entered in a race, you have the choice of watching, going straight to the results, or racing the horse yourself. Of course the jockey you choose to sit on the horse, specifically their temperament (harsh, gentle, strict etc) has a lot to say. This is the only part of the game that has actual moving graphics. The learning curve for racing is fairly high, learning how to balance endurance and speed and positioning, as well as picking one of three things your jockey should focus on: Wind protection, whipping, and regaining energy to whip. Not to mention the days and weeks of training to help your horse have a greater chance to win. But just like real life, sometimes lady luck throws you for a spiral. A victory is never assured.
To greater or lesser extents you can manage the training, breeding, gambling, racing and management parts of the game, but only through management methods. You pick out tasks and make decisions from your planner book. You never actually get to see your horse being fed or trained nor your employees performing any of their tasks. It's all done through numbers and directions. You can buy about 6 buildings on the building map, and 3 levels of each type. A pretty boring and basic map with little points of colour and shapes where different buildings are. The various buildings increase different things such as training time, horse nutrition, fame etc. Some buildings become available only after you've built others. What you can build is also dependent on what country and stable you purchased at the beginning (difficulty level, weather conditions, types of racing etc is determined by which site you choose),
There is an amazing amount of detail that has gone into the information and numbers part of the game. This can actually get confusing and makes the learning curve even higher. The tutorial is basically one of the read and click variety which doesn't help out the difficulty. It is quite a simulator, but I am left with the feeling that it could have been more FUN somehow. The game is rather like looking at a horseracing magazine with the long lists of numbers and breeding etc, and the learning curve is high. Graphics are practically non-existent and the sound is mediocre. It is by no means a bad game, but be prepared for some seriously heavy management and lots of time to learn the game. A great idea, very dry implementation, but I hope to see more to come in this sub genre of simulators.
Price: $142.58
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