MahJong is a an ancient Chinese tile game that was adapted for the American market in the early 1920's and today several varieties are available as computer games. I first taught myself to play this fairly simple game of tile pairing in an online game room. The beauty of using your own game CD is not having to deal with online chat rooms, and web crashes. EMPEROR'S MAHJONG is especially appealing due to the challenge of progressively difficult game play with a 'prize' awaiting the victorious.

First thing I did was personalize my selections through Options. I prefer a partial screen display which enables ready access to desktop files and dock applications. Although the three different music streams have a catchy Chinese theme, it isn't long before I found this background noise tiresome, so I selected my own music through i-Tunes. Tile Design graphics is limited to a white, black or wood-grain base. Since the Chinese characters are unfamiliar to the American eye, I found the wood-grain easier to decipher. I recommend assigning your name to a Profile - it is here that all your game statistics are recorded; such as rank, time spent, tiles removed, games played, average pair time, cleaned games, average percentage and hints/shuffles used. It was a real eye opener to see how much time I spent "getting acquainted" with this game as my self-imposed prerequisite to writing this review. Wink. Wink.

I referred often to the Scroll of Wisdom in the Stats portion of my personal profile to view the 6 different game mode spheres represented by: Horoscope, Crafts, Nature, Scenery, Martial Arts, and Emperors - each with 12 layouts. Here it keeps track of how many layouts in each mode have been successfully completed. Successful progression earns new titles, words of wisdom (reminiscent of fortune cookie wisdom) and accolades from the Emperor. Each completed sphere earns a gem, 5 must be collected to enter the final challenge: the meeting of the 12 Emperor's. Ultimately you must complete the layouts in Emperor mode in order to get the Scroll of Wisdom quote.

To begin play, select New Game and choose to play Shanghai with one or two players, or take the Emperor's Challenge with your (required) profile name. Game difficulty is a choice of Normal, Easy or Easiest for Shanghai and does not apply to the Emperor's Challenge which progresses in difficulty. Competitive me took the bait right away and spent most of my game time pursuing the Emperor's Challenge. For the sake of this review, I tried a few games of single play Shanghai and discovered this is the only place hints are allowed - no wonder I wasn't getting any help. As a side note, I never figured out how to work User Layouts, and found this guessing game scenario a bit off putting. Either I missed the loop somehow, or it is assumed the beginner will figure things out eventually, which for the most part I did. My kids probably would've figured it all out in 5 minutes or less!

Actual game play is simplistic but requires full concentration. You must eliminate all or a % of the tiles by matching pairs with at least one side free and no tiles on them. Maximize full play time allotted per layout by waiting until all the tiles are laid face down before pressing start. That extra 10 seconds might mean a win for you. Chances are you won't complete all 12 layouts of a sphere in one session, so when you return to play, click on Load New Game, then make sure you select the proper mode because the default always begins on the Horoscope level. Icons represent the 12 different layouts per sphere. Highlighted icons indicate successful wins, so be sure to select one unearned or you will be repeating your games. You can retry a layout if you desire to better your time.

I tested The Emperor's Challenge on my Power PC G3 iMac, using Jaguar. On several occasions the application quit or froze and I had to force quit - which meant I lost all the progress from that play session. I also wasn't able to Resume Game as I once was able to - so I don't know if I lost that feature during one of the force quits or not. I didn't want to reload the game and lose everything I had earned, so I persevered. I decided to quit the game after each win to save it, just in case the application quit unexpectedly. I couldn't determine if this was a game glitch or my computer? I also encountered several occasions in which the time limit did not sync correctly with the game. I was often short changed even though the timer said I had more playtime... this seemed like a rip off considering I may have progressed through the game more quickly if I hadn't had to replay the same ones several times. Overall I had fairly good success with the CD for all the time I spent on it.... 2 days 6 hrs , 1107 games played. The closest I got to winning was 4 tiles remaining before time ran out. I can't begin to count how many tries it took to get that close. I'd hoped to share what the illusive Scroll of Wisdom is ... but alas, I don't know if I will ever find out! Perhaps you will.

System Requirements (minimum):
*Computer: Power Mac G3, or more recent.
*Mac OS 8.6, 9.x or Mac OS X
*Memory: 64MB RAM
*Disk: 50MB free hard disk space
*Video: 800x600 supporting millions of colors
*A CD-ROM drive