12 Labours of Hercules VIII: How I Met Megara is the newest addition to the 12 Labours games that once again veers from the classic tale of Hercules. This new Hercules game has us adventuring in Egypt on behalf of Megara, described as a distraught woman who is upset that the Cretans kidnapped her sister and her cat. Hercules, ever the hero, decides to pursue the villians and rescue  them. And that's pretty much the basis of the game.

As with most of the 12 Labours games, the story is a bit silly if not downright ridiculous. If you love Greek mythology and think this might provide a nerd shot of knowledge, take a hard pass because you'll just end up super annoyed with the liberties taken in the mythology. Granted there are a lot of these games now, so they had to keep coming up with new storylines, but when one of the selling points on the game is literally listed as "romance and cute kittens," you know this one might be stretching a bit. Not that there's anything wrong with romance and cute kittens, but when that's a selling point for a Collector's Edition... then you may have needed to skip the CE and go straight to a standard edition.

The 12 Labours of Hercules VIII: How I Met Megara Collector's Edition does feature some wallpapers and game art, but who really uses those? It's not like I'm super excited to add them to my laptop desktop so I can stare at the goofy artwork every time I log on. The CE does come with an integrated 12 Labours of Hercules VIII: How I Met Megara Walkthrough so that's a plus, but I'm not sure it's worth the additional money just for the 12 Labours Guide.

Overall gameplay is fine, even fun at times. There are 3 modes, relaxed, casual, and expert for whatever mood you may be in when you fire the game up. Casual is basically the normal mode with achievable times while expert will ramp things up a bit. Relaxed lets you play with no time limits. Every time you achieve gold level, the game will add a "secret" to the Great Pyramid screen. This basically just means something new will appear in the Pyramid, such as a throne room or dinosaur bones. I guess it's somewhat exciting, but because you have no control over it, it lacks a bit of satisfaction to it.

You are able to queue up your workers and assign tasks, but sometimes this seemed like a hindrance because on certain levels there is usually too much to do. You need to focus on the main tasks and if you're someone who gets distracted easily because there are items to collect, you may have a hard time hitting your goals. I did appreciate that they let you preview the board before the timer starts, so you can take a good look around and formulate a strategy before you begin the level. This becomes crucial in later levels as you have to work quickly to cross off your goals and end the level before the timer runs out.

For the most part I did enjoy playing 12 Labours of Hercules VIII: How I Met Megara, but there were just a few annoyances that kind of ruined the game for me. I think it's worth playing as a standard edition, but just didn't see the value there for a Collector's Edition. If you want to give the game a go yourself, you can get through at least 10 levels or so by playing 12 Labours of Hercules VIII: How I Met Megara for free. Just click on the "install" button above.