Review by: Brian Clair

An expanded and updated version of the original Gazillionaire, Gazillionaire Deluxe doesn’t disappoint with its in-depth gameplay and storyline. Reminiscent of Zapitalism, Lavamind’s other spectacular game, Gazillionaire Deluxe is almost of galactic version of the game. In Gazillionaire Deluxe, you run a corporation in a fledgling sector of a galactic empire. Your goal is to be the first company to accumulate 1,000,000 kubars which will win you praise and fame as well as the game.

The game begins with you naming your company and choosing a ship. Every ship is different with some being faster, having a bigger cargo hold, more passenger space, etc. During the game, you’ll be able to purchase bigger ships or upgrade your current one. Once this is done, you’re ready to start your quest for cash! Essentially your job is to buy low and sell high without going bankrupt. To accomplish this, you travel from planet to planet, of which there are 7. Each planet has it’s own unique history, weather, and special areas where you can access neat stuff like ship add-on’s, trade union, etc.

What really shocked me about Gazillionaire Deluxe is the shear level of detail in the game. I’ve never played or seen a game that goes into this much detail – not even Civilization 2. While I won’t discuss every aspect of the game, here are a few: Mr. Zinn – the mascot of Lavamind makes it into Gazillionaire Deluxe as the wealthy CEO of a major corporation. You begin the game by borrowing money from Mr. Zinn and can talk with him later in the game also if you’re in need of a low interest loan. The Bank is just like it sounds; you can deposit or withdraw as much money as you need to and it will gain interest every turn. This is a good way to make safe money. The Stock Exchange – each planet has it’s own stock exchange and you can buy into each one. While this is expensive, it can lead to high returns – you can even talk to your stock broker on one world who will advise you in what to buy, sell, or hold on. The Marketplace – this is the heartbeat of the game where you can buy or sell goods, or store goods inside your warehouses. In the Marketplace, you can see how much of a good is available for sale, what it costs, and how much you paid for it. You can also check to see what goods other planets are demanding – which is essential to making money.

Besides the above, you can take passengers onboard and ferry them from world to world for money. To help get people, you can advertise by fliers, newspapers, magazines, radio, television and more! There are also many other factors in the game like: loans, taxes, fuel, insurance, environment, and history – just to name a few. For example, each planet has it’s own history which you can read about! You can also get special deals or terrible actions happen to you during your journey’s between planets – of which there are many.

I played Gazillionaire Deluxe for over a week straight and still haven’t gotten everything down that I think I should’ve. You can even customize the game with different planets! I would strongly recommend gamers to download the Gazillionaire Deluxe demo and try the game out for themselves.