HipSoft’s latest release proves you can take a complex subject matter and make it fun. Build-a-lot 3: Passport to Europe offers a fresh set of challenges the third time around. This time around you’re stamping your passport and heading across the pond to Europe, where you’ll visit countries like England, Spain and Switzerland helping the locals to fix up their towns.

An intuitive point-and-click interface, accompanied by informative menus doesn’t bog you down with too much information at once that allows you to focus on your goals as well as a few basic resources (workers, materials, and blueprints).

Some of the most fun features of Build-a-lot 2 are back in Build-a-lot 3, including the ability to paint your house different colors and landscape the yard. The most interesting new feature are crises, random events such as fires, domestic disturbances, etc. Another new feature worth mentioning are the new weather conditions like snow and rain.

Build-a-lot 3 has more content than Build-a-lot 2 and the difficulty level seems tweaked up just a notch or two. You’ll always have something to do and will rarely feel overwhelmed by anything. If a resource management game could be calm and calculating, Build-a-lot would be that game.

3, February 2009