Review: Cash Cow

The Overview Buck's farm is about to go under! All because those evil banks only accept paper money now! Buck had tried to pay for all his debts with buckets of coins he had collected over the years, but Bankin, the obviously evil banker pig, forces Buck to count out the pennies all by himself (Don't these banks have coin counters for their customers?!? Can't Buck just use CoinStar at the local Safeway?). Help Buck by gathering adjoining smaller coins into larger denominations: 5 pennies make a nickel, 2 nickels make a dime, 4 quarters make a dollar, etc. You can match up to 10 coins into a larger coin. Whenever you collect a full dollar's worth of coins or if you manage to collect one of the bonus objects - gold nuggets, penny rolls, safes, or cash registers - the money you collected is added to Buck's total paid to the bank. The Features Cash Cow has 5 different game modes: Arcade, Relaxed, Endless, Practice and Bonus separated in two categories: Save the Farm and Quick Play. In the Save the Farm modes, you actually go through the different challenge levels to gather the money to save Buck's farm. In each level, you are required to gather a certain amount of money in order to clear the level. After each level, you can purchase upgrades to Buck's farm (pictured to the left). Between certain levels, there are Bonus Levels where you tilt your iPhone back and forth to maneuver coins into a bucket. The only real difference between Arcade and Relaxed modes is that Arcade mode gives you a time limit within which to finish each level. Your timer is slightly refilled every time you remove coins from the board. The Quick Play modes provide pick-up-and-play games. Practice mode allows you to learn all the ropes of the game without any pressure. Endless mode throws in in all the bonus items that normally get added in as you progress through the levels and challenges you to collect as much money as you can while fighting the timer. Bonus mode allows you to replay all the tilt control levels you have attained through the Save the Farm Modes. The Breakdown The Good The graphics are extremely polished. The audio is not the best but at least it is not grating and annoying unlike so many other games that require you to do the same tasks over and over (I'm looking at YOU, Harbor Master). I loved adding money together to form sets instead of the usual shapes or colors of most Match 3 games. It also adds an educational twist for kids still young enough that they are learning how money works. Since it has the 5 different game modes and multiple slots for different farms in the Save the Farm, Cash Cow has a lot of re-playability (especially if you enjoy building up your farms in different ways each time you play it). The Bad The game does get a bit repetitious after a while, but then it IS a Match 3 game. Some people I talked to found themselves getting stuck on a level in Arcade Mode with the timer running out before they could gather enough money. Whereas, I found if you just kept playing the level over and over, it would eventually give you a set up of coins that practically collected themselves. This procedure can take a LOT of replays, though, so be prepared to switch over to other modes to relieve frustration. Overall, though, I, and a lot of other people I talked to, found the game too easy in the Save the Farm modes. The Verdict Cash Cow is an amazingly fun and addictive game. The re-playability factor is high and the graphics are great. I highly recommend it to any fan of the Match 3 genre or to anyone who loves to just casually eat a few minutes while waiting for the bus.

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