NB: This game is called Hotel Empire 2 in the US. Hotel Giant 2 is the sequel to a game from 2002. In this game you play the role of a budding hotel manager as you try to run a build a busy hotel empire. It is a management game where you not only have to pick the location of the hotel but also hire staff, decide on its decor and the facilities it needs to have. There are more than 15000 items that you can choose from ranging from vending machines for the lobby to the type of chairs, beds etc found in the rooms to billiard tables for the billiard room should you decide to have one. Of course your hotel has to have a lobby and bedrooms but what else do you want to provide for your guests, a restaurant would be handy so that they eat in rather than go elsewhere, but what about a coffee shop and a bar and why not a health club and swimming pool. Do you want to attract business users, well how about a business centre with its own reception etc to help the business users you have attracted? If it is non-business users how about shops such as jewellery, arts and crafts and cakes. You might want to put a library in there or as mentioned before a billiard room. At all times when placing objects or rooms etc you can see how good a job you are doing simply by clicking on a guest and seeing what he or she thinks, have they any complaints are they enjoying their stay etc. For players that didn’t play the original there is a full tutorial available which shows you how to change items found within the hotel, how to find out how the guests are feeling, how to follow an individual guest or member of staff should you wish and how to add individual rooms etc. Once you have played the tutorial you can then decide if to play a set campaign or play a sandbox game where you can do whatever you wish with no set objectives to reach. Should you decide to play without a pre-built hotel you also have to build the building from an empty piece of land? Everything in the game is done either from the tool wheel located in the bottom left hand corner of the screen or the various buttons found across the bottom and top of the screen. The developers have tried to make the game as easy as possible to learn as well as being as much fun as possible to play. Graphically the game is colourful, almost Sims like with lots of varied individuals coming to stay in the hotel. The objects are well designed and retain their design whether you view them from close up or an ariel view. The sound found within the game is ok. The music is a little like the sort you would normally find in a hotel lift, which might be suitable and appropriate for the game but, can still get annoying. The effects are ok although maybe for the next release they could introduce individual speech for the guests etc rather than the menu screens which express satisfaction. Overall there are loads and loads of these management games available for the PC, whether that is managing a Zoo or a TV studio or whatever the latest title is about and a lot are very similar to one another. Hotel Empire 2 whilst in places seeming no different to other titles out there is actually a lot of fun and you can quite easily find yourself playing this for a lot longer than you originally planned. The detail that has gone into the designs of the various items you can play with is excellent as is the complexity of running a busy hotel group as you have to choose advertising campaigns etc. There are four 3d cities to be found within the game – Paris, Rome, Munich and Los Angeles as well as 2 islands and an incredible 26 different types of hotel to choose from to run. It is not the sort of game that is going to appeal to everyone but those who like management or life simulation games could do a lot worse then pick this one up and play.
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