Shanghai Double Pack

by ACTIVISION

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00002S8WS
• Item model number: 1000029
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 10, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,602 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

If you are the type of gamer who can forgive a game with mediocre graphics as long as the gameplay is solid, Shanghai Double Pack is a terrific bargain. For those unfamiliar with the game, Shanghai uses mahjong tiles that have been arranged in specific patterns and layers. It's the player's job to match like tiles (or tiles from the same family) to remove them from the board and clear more of the playing field so more tiles can be removed. Of course, there are rules in place regarding when you can remove tiles, and often there are several possible matches, so a good deal of strategic planning is involved.

Like all great puzzle games, Shanghai is far more difficult to explain than it is to play, and it took us less than 10 minutes to learn the basic mechanics. This package comes with two of Activision's popular Shanghai titles: Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye and Shanghai: Great Moments. Purists will love the first title, which has eight tile sets including everything from standard Chinese characters to pictures of flags.

We liked Shanghai: Great Moments for adding multimedia flourishes and new modes of play to the standard Shanghai game. The Great Wall mode introduces gravity to the board, making tiles above a removed tile fall toward the bottom of the screen. Action Shanghai is a decent game for adrenaline junkies, as new tiles are added to the board every few seconds. Players have to act fast to make matches before they are blocked by incoming tiles. Finally there is Beijing, perhaps our favorite mode (besides classic), where rows of tiles must be moved all at once to make matches. This mode requires more planning than other variations. We also liked the themed tile sets in the game, depicting great historical figures, landmarks, and artworks. The Shanghai Double Pack is a great overall puzzle compilation for the price. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Plenty of play modes
• Highly addictive
• Two great games for a low price

Cons:

• Graphics are dated
• Somewhat clunky interface

Amazon.com Product Description

It's a recipe for addiction! Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye and Shanghai: Great Moments come together in the Shanghai Double Pack to deliver relentless puzzle-solving excitement and fun! You'll be scratching your noggin' as you seek to unlock the wide variety of tile-matching challenges this value-packed bundle offers. Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye is the evolution of the classic Shanghai computer game. Face the challenge with 12 unique tile layouts in solitaire, challenge, or tournament modes for one or two players. Easy to learn but difficult to master, Shanghai II will have you seeing tiles in your sleep. Shanghai: Great Moments takes the ancient Chinese tile-matching idea behind Shanghai and brings it up to date with hundreds of animations, video clips, and four exciting variations on the original game: Great Wall, Beijing, Action Shanghai, and Classic Shanghai. With more than 400 different tiles of nine themes--including music, art, and invention tiles--it'll drive you to puzzling distraction.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oldies but goodies that WILL run on Win ME and XP, January 8, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Shanghai Double Pack (CD-ROM)

Play these and you will discover why they are the best-selling computer mahjong games of all time. The number of game variations, layouts, and tilesets are amazing given the rockbottom system requirements. Though they may now be visually "plain vanilla" compared to current 3D high-action eat-your-cpu games, they're still attractive, addictive, and fun after years of play. (And unlike many games, Shanghai II will run in a window simultaneously with other applications, making it a perfect game to ALT-Tab to at the office!)

Though the installation splash screen didn't work on my up-to-date, high-end machines, I was able to install them easily by doing a Windows Explorer search of the CD to find the two Setup.exe files directly (and I didn't need administrator privileges in XP to do it).

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Mahjong on a graphic high!, November 15, 2003

By 

Deb (Plymouth, Mass) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shanghai Double Pack (CD-ROM)

This is one of the best Shanghai game that was ever made. The small graphic tidbits you get with each new found set of pairs keeps the game facinating and rolling smooth. There is only one down side, forget trying to run it on an XP system. This was made for Win95 and unfortunately no matter how many times you run it with the compatiblity wizard there isn't enough magic to make it load. We'll just have to wait for an XP version

4.0 out of 5 stars Hours and hours of tile matching, March 22, 2010

By 

Erica Hidvegi (N.E. Ohio--planet Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shanghai Double Pack (CD-ROM)

GAMEPLAY: (varies on type of play, tile layout and mode used in Dragon's Eye)

Shanghai Double-Pack Video Game can be played on an operating system using Windows XP just by placing the disc into your e-drive and letting the machine run the program. This is actually a Windows 95 Activision Video game and will take up quite a bit of space if you install it in your hard drive. I recommend just 'running' the program without actually installing it because it is a heavy-loaded with graphics and text type assembly kind of play site.

There is the icon for "games" offering a Great Wall game that is 5 Windows removed or 5 doors which is 5 tiles removed along bottom rows or the solid wall which has all the tiles featured and none removed. This is the most difficult in classic shanghai to play because its from scratch, no help. There is also Action Shanghai, Beijing a timed version and the Tournament plays.

SOUNDS: (Dragon's Eye offers instrumental as well)

You can decide as play continues to amplify sound and music or not.

OPERATING SYSTEM: (for similar games and games this review is on)
Mac/ Hybrid Windows will allow play of "Shanghai Dynasty"

IBM PC Compatible 98 2nd Ed or later allows "Shanghai Greatest Moments"

IBM PC Compatible 98 2nd Ed or later allows "Mah Jongg Magic"

IBM PC Compatible 98 2nd Ed or later allows "Moraff's Maximum Mahjongg"

Shanghai Double-Pack Video Game requires a 256 color mode be activated to load properly and this can be established by going into your properties settings off your desk top display to change from the icons listed within that box, your color resolution settings.

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATON:

I have enjoyed my Shanghai Double-Pack Video Game when the family and I received this gift from my youngest and coolest-ever baby brother, back in 1996 for Christmas. It figures the genius behind computer programming and making graphics from scratch using html, css editor and the java script features, our little guy gave us a gift for a lifetime. We still play it and with his help from the other dimension, I think we are beating this game more than we ever did before. Hail to higher concentration and FUN !

Thank you for reading and

Enjoy !