By Charisse Massay
The country has caught Survivor fever over the past two years. With
sites springing up like survivorsucks.com, CBS watchers can't seem
to get enough of dirty Americans fighting the wilderness and each
other. Although the second season of Survivor may be much more commercialized
than the first (e.g. all of the survivors constantly wear "Survivor"
bandanas even as shirts) web games have always been an excellent way
for fans to become involved with the show. Similar to most other television
based web games, the ones offered on the Survivor site are simple
and are well integrated with the content of the show itself.
There were four games on the site, "Outback Photo Shoot,"
"Survivor Fishing," "Bridge Rescue" and "River
Cross." All of these games have very basic rules and goals. In
"Photo Shoot," you are a photographer with a limited amount
of time and exposures. In order to move onto the next level, you need
to photograph all of the assigned animals (at higher levels, you must
photograph more animals in less time). If you capture a survivor on
film, you get extra time, if you capture another photographer, you
get extra exposures. It's a very simple game yet pretty addictive.
"Survivor Fishing" involves picking a present survivor
from the show and catching fish to eat. "Bridge Rescue"
is loosely based on Tetris. You are given blocks that need to be arranged
in a certain order to create a bridge for your fellow survivor to
cross to safety. I was slightly confused in the beginning because
I was not confident on how the blocks were supported, but I quickly
got the hang of it. Finally "River Cross" is the equivalent
of a human Frogger except you are trying to cross a river to get to
your fellow survivor on the other side.
The rules are simple and the games are fun. They are produced through
flash and I didn't find any major problems with the functioning of
the site. To encourage use, exclusive "Survivor" prizes
are offered to the high scoring players but I was not one of them.
Basically, the website offered cute games for fans of Survivor content.