I like free games for my iPhone. Besides the obvious fact that they don’t hurt the wallet any, it’s a win-win situation in terms of what I get. If I like the game, it’s a bonus, and if I don’t, I just delete it and move on. Thankfully, Fish Frenzy falls squarely into the former category. My only regret was that the game came to an awfully quick end.
The premise is simply to catch enough fish to satisfy your point total for each round. You’re in a boat at the top of the lake, and you tilt the device left and right to move your boat back and forth. Tilt the device up and down to raise and lower your fishing pole. If you snag a fish they’ll jump out of the water, at which point you have to catch them in your boat. It sounds simple enough, but the game is timed, so you need to work as quickly as you can. Also, in later levels there are eels, which prove to be a shocking experience, and swordfish, which “cut” your experience short. Neither of these obstacles kill you, but rather they waste time where you could be catching fish.
I'm As Shocked As You Are
You get three lives to start, and lose a life if you run out of time before accumulating enough points from catching fish. When all of your lives are gone, or you’ve completed fifteen levels, the game is over. There’s really not much to complain about here. The game is simple to play, it’s entertaining, and it can actually be somewhat of a challenge in the later levels. It would have been nice to have more levels (this technically feels like it could support an infinite mode quite well), but in the end it’s a quick enough play that going through the whole game several times is no big deal.
The graphics are quite well done. Everything is detailed and colorful, and there’s just enough animation to catch your eye. I especially like the animation when you accidentally snag an eel. The girl in the boat has that typical “time management character” look to her, which somehow seems to fit the mood of the game. The sound effects and music make the game feel like an interactive morning cartoon, which is always a bonus for me.
Fish Frenzy might be a bit too simple or short for a lot of people, but I find it makes a nice diversion every now and again when I want to play something but don’t have the desire to jump into a time consuming game. And it sure beats playing solitaire! Also, if you’re looking for a game to throw on your iPhone for your kids, or your kid has an iPod Touch and they want games, this is a great choice.
Some games really aren’t meant for much more than acting as a nice stress reliever. You know what I mean: the type of game that allows you to do something virtually that you wouldn’t dream of doing in reality? As luck would have it, Smash It Up is just such a game. The basic premise is that you throw bricks at things. The more difficult the target is to hit, the more points you get. And, if you hit the objects you get the pleasure of watching them get wrecked in some way. There are two modes to the game. Time Attack is single player, and gives you 60 seconds to hit as many objects as you can. You get a few seconds added to your time for each successful hit, but everything takes time, from moving around the scene to watching your brick hurtle towards an object. In versus mode you can play against the computer or another person, and you get 4 rounds of 3 bricks each to see who can score the most points. There is no time limit on this mode.
The main problem with this game is that it needs more variety. There are four different characters to choose from, but no discernable difference between them. There is only one scene to play in, and while it’s pretty cool the first couple of times to see how each object reacts to getting hit by a brick, the thrill dies quickly. The other big gripe I had is that it’s difficult to select a brick for throwing, which is livable on the versus mode, but can make timed mode a bit of a nightmare. I tend to find myself often shifting the view of the screen instead of dragging a brick towards an object. One minor issue I ran into was that the instructions are not clear about how to determine the power of your throw. After you’ve selected an object to destroy a gauge appears, but they don’t tell you that you actually have to flick on the gauge to use it appropriately. This is just a minor instructional correction.
It's A Brick House
The graphics in the game are really good. The objects look decent both in pre and post-destruction modes, and the animations when an object gets hit are all well done. The characters look good as well, but the only time you really get to see them is in the selection process (full body) and during half time and end game (portraits). Half time only applies to versus mode as well. The sound effects are pretty much spot on. With a couple of exceptions, everything sounds just like you’d expect it to when getting hit by a brick. The music is actually pretty good too, but unfortunately only plays during the menus. This is a terrible trend that many mobile game developers follow and need to stop.
This game is a lot of fun in small spurts, but the lack of variety mean you probably won’t play it for more than a couple of games at a time, and most likely won’t put it on your “every day” list either. At the current price of $2.99 I’m really on the fence about recommending this one. Should it drop to 99 cents at some point, that would be the perfect time to get Smash It Up and start relieving your stress brick style.
Sparks Part 1 has been labeled as the first “motion comic” for the iPhone / iPod Touch. But let’s call it what it is: an animated video. It costs 99 cents, and the running time is about 10 – 15 minutes. Now I’ve never read the comic book version, so I don’t know if the stories are identical or mesh in any way, but I did like where they were going with this version. For what little time there was to build anything up the characters appeared interesting, especially Sparks, who seems to be a super hero without any discernible powers. The art style had a nice noir feel to it, and the animation was rather interesting – sort of reminded me of the older super hero cartoons where the characters slid around on top of the backgrounds but there was no real “animation” per se. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you’ll understand if you decide to watch it, or you can try to find some of the old Spider-Man cartoons pre-80′s.
My main gripe with Sparks is that it’s really nothing more than a video. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but I guess I figured it would be more like the digital web comics offerings that various companies have tried, or even like some of the comics available on other mobile platforms like the Pocket PC. Given that I can go buy an hour and a half animated move at Wal-Mart for a buck – quality aside – 99 cents for 10 minutes seems like a bit of a rip off. There’s not even any real impetus to watch it more than once, unless you want to refresh your memory on events that transpired before you watch part 2, whenever that comes out. I really struggle to recommend this title, other than it’s an intriguing start to what could be an interesting story.
I’ll probably say this every time such a game comes along, but I love it when a developer takes a tested, seasoned concept and adds enough twists and turns to make it new and their own. Such is the case with Tilelander from Ludimate. The game obviously finds its roots in the classic Qix, but it won’t be long before you realize this isn’t your simple 80’s remake.
The premise behind the game is a bit silly, but then games like this were never really meant to have a plot. Tileland has been invaded by the Xyzons, and it’s up to you to stop them. “How?” you might ask. All you have to do is fill each level with tiles. Well, actually you can get away with just filling most of the level with tiles. Whenever you capture the last Xyzon on a level they will leave some flags, and this will help you complete the level without totally filling it. So how do you fill a level with tiles? You start each level “attached” to a tile. As you move around the level you create a trail, and as soon as you touch another tile the trail becomes a solid wall of tiles. If you touch a tile that will cause an area to be enclosed, all the space enclosed in that area will be filled with tiles. Additionally, any Xyzon caught in that area will be destroyed.
Xyzons aren’t going to just let you surround them without a fight, however. The enemy will move around the screen in an attempt to destroy you. Some simply move up and down or left to right. Others will travel all around the screen in random patterns, while some will actually gravitate towards you. Certain Xyzons will actually produce other Xyzons to hunt you, while the shy kind will stay back and shoot at you any opportunity they get.
So besides capturing the enemy in tiles, how do you defend yourself? That’s where Tilelander sets itself apart from other games of this type. In many levels you have guns scattered throughout the screen. When you run into a gun it fires in the direction that you were moving. The second item you have to aid you in your quest is a tile that will actually create more tiles for you. At first this didn’t seem very useful, but it turns out that if you create a tile on the same area that a Xyzon is moving to, it will actually kill the Xyzon. The third, and in my opinion coolest, item at your disposal is a cloning device. This will create a “duplicate” of your ship that moves the same direction you do. However, if you move left and then stop, the clone will keep moving. In addition, clones can trigger guns, use the tile creation devices, and kill Xyzons by running into them (though some take multiple hits by clones). There are a few other items at your disposal as well, but you can check those out when you play the game.
There are two modes in the game. Arcade mode plays just as you’d expect from everything I’ve described above. The second mode, which comes in Easy, Normal and Hard flavors, has one interesting quirk to it. Xyzons will only move when you do! This restriction does not apply to Xyzon projectiles, though. However, if Xyzons only move when you do, and clones move even when you stop, hopefully you can see a huge benefit to clones in this mode. Personally, I prefer the second mode, though Arcade mode would provide an additional challenge if you’ve played through all levels in the other mode.
When I first started playing this game it seemed like just an above average Qix clone with a few twists. The more I replayed various levels, however, I really started to gain an appreciation for the work and creativity that went into coming up with some of these levels. A few of them were a bit tedious if you had to play them repeated times, but that was the exception to the rule. Some of them were brilliant, and you could tell by the themes that these guys have been video game fans for a long time, which was really neat.
The graphics in Tilelander are fairly simplistic, but serve the game well. Each of the Xyzons has a unique and discernable look, and of course your spaceship stands out from the crowd with its sleek, plus sign exterior. What’s really enjoyable about the graphics, however, is how the different tile types are used to create recognizable images of everything from Elvis to a stock market graph. Sometimes it’s almost a shame to have to ruin the cool designs Ludimate has created.
As with most puzzle games, the sound effects are nothing special, though everything did compliment its corresponding action. I did appreciate the fact that each tile type had a unique sound both when filling in an area and when being destroyed. The music was a mixed bag. What I heard of it was okay, but it seemed like on many levels there either wasn’t music or it was not playing correctly. On several occasions there was a lot of crackling but no sound, which lead me to believe that maybe their audio system wasn’t working 100% correctly on my machine.
Pros:
- Some nice twists to a vintage concept
- Several really well done level designs
- An overall polished package
Cons:
- Only being able to save every ten levels
- “Only” seventy levels
- Potential audio problems
The beauty of the Pocket PC is that it’s still trying to find its niche, so developers don’t feel constrained to the mass-market mentality that console developers have. As a result you get games like Tilelander, which takes a concept that works and makes it something unique. Hopefully this is just the first of many products to come out of the Ludimate stable.
Given the right angle, there’s always room for another vertical shooter in my collection. Unfortunately, even after being rewritten using the EDGE gaming library, I’m not sure that Burning Armor has enough of an edge to rise to the top. Read on to find out of this is one flight worth taking, or if you should just let Burning Armor crash and burn…
Burning Armor appears to be your typical vertical scrolling shooter. You wade headlong into the enemy hoping to destroy them before they get to you. Some ships come at you in formations like 1942, while others just fly in and hang out until either they’ve destroyed you or you’ve taken care of them. Destroying smaller ships yield low value coins, while bigger ships produce high value coins or more importantly, power-ups. Power-ups range from increased firepower to full ship repair, so you want to be sure that you never miss a power-up if at all possible. You should keep in mind that power-ups are ship specific, so if you fail to destroy a particular big ship, don’t expect to find its power-up in the next big ship that comes along.
As with most shooters, you have a basic weapon that can be upgraded; in this case it happens to start out as a machine gun. In addition to that you have a hyper beam, which has unlimited use but must be charged in order to use it. To initiate the charging process you press the center of the D-Pad. Once the weapon is charged, your ship will slow down, indicating that it’s ready. Pressing the D-Pad again fires the weapon, which spends a few seconds destroying everything on screen. Once the beam is exhausted it goes through a preliminary recharge, which is separate from the charge that you initiate with the D-Pad. Finally you have the evade button, which just like in 1942 causes your plane to fly around in a loop, temporarily avoiding all bullets and ships on the screen. Once you’ve performed an evade, you need to wait for the evade meter to charge up before you can use that feature again.
Burning Armor has two modes: Normal and Turbo. Even when playing normal, I found this game overly difficult. So far I have not been able to beat the first level, and to be honest, as time passed I lost my desire to keep trying. The level design is not very interesting, the enemies aren’t all that original in how they attack, and it gets rather frustrating getting all the way to the end almost every time just to get trounced by the boss and have to start over. It would have been real nice to have an introductory level or something, so that mediocre players like myself could feel at least somewhat accomplished.
You have the choice of using the stylus or D-Pad to move your ship around the screen. Unfortunately, you don’t have the ability to map the rest of the hardware buttons yourself. This is a shame, because I would really have liked to use something besides the center of the D-Pad for the hyper beam. This certainly isn’t a major issue, but I don’t understand why most games don’t allow the remapping of controls any more, especially those of the action genre.
Burning Armor Code E
While not quite up to the level of Skyforce Reloaded or Claygun, the graphics in Burning Armor are still really good. It’s nice to see a traditional shooter that doesn’t use traditional ship designs. Sure, many of the aircraft have recognizable influences, but they still look original compared to what you see in most vertical shooters these days. I also liked how they effectively used multiple layers to provide a feeling of depth, as aircraft on the lower level appeared smaller. I realize this is not a new technique, but it’s a slick one that is quite often neglected in this sort of game. My chief complaint as far as the graphics are concerned is that it was often difficult to see the ammunition that was being hurled at you, which seems to be quite common in this sort of game, especially on devices with smaller screens. Fortunately, there is a low graphics detail setting which hides the clouds, a main contributor to the lack of visibility on the ammunition.
The music in Burning Armor is well done. Sadly I can’t speak for whether or not the game has multiple tracks, since I have as yet to beat the first level, but if they’re as good as the one on the first level I’d say Burning Armor has a great soundtrack. On the other hand, the sound effects are basically limited to the firing of your main weapon and explosions. My suggestion is to leave the music on and turn off the sound effects. You won’t be missing anything.
Pros:
It’s a vertical shooter
Good graphics, especially in the ship design
Soundtrack for first level is good
Cons:
Too difficult for my tastes
Lackluster level design
Can’t remap controls
Score: 6/10
Burning Armor is not necessarily a bad game. Other than decent ship design, however, there’s nothing here that sets Burning Armor apart from the rest. Add to that the insane difficulty level, and I would have to suggest booking a flight on Claygun or Skyforce Reloaded first.
Meltdown from Momentum Games Reviewed by:Eric Pankoke
After playing Pocket Mini Golf 2 from Momentum Games, I had high expectations for Meltdown. Then, as I started seeing rather positive reviews from industry veterans that I greatly respect, the bar was raised. I am here to let you know that I was not in any way disappointed. Let the race to reactor core meltdown begin!
The premise behind Meltdown is simple. You play the part of Emgee, a nuclear power station safety control robot. Your job is to make sure that power stations run flawlessly. Unfortunately, this is not your day, as power station after power station is beginning to fall apart from rust and corrosion. To make matters worse, your legs won’t stop moving! You can’t let that slow you down, however, as you must deactivate a certain number of cores in each power station before they melt down and cause a nuclear explosion! Are you up to the task?
Emgee’s main two tools at his disposal are his super jump and his flight pack. Each has a meter on it, and the longer you hold down the button the more distance you’ll get out of the given tool. The caveat is this: the jump is only available when you’re on the ground (of course), but the flight pack is only available in the air. As soon as your feet leave the ground you can start charging your jet pack, but as soon as your feet touch the ground again that charge will be converted to your jump. Still sound pretty easy?
Here’s the element that binds the whole game together: timing. Sure you could charge your tools to full capacity every time, but you’ll never pass most of the levels that way, as you’ll continually overshoot targets (or undershoot, if a strong launch causes you to hit a pipe in the ceiling, for example). You may have to play through levels several times as you determine how much power will get you where you need to go, when you need to start powering up, and when you need to release the button. This goes for both jumping and flying. It’s also important to learn to use your environment. A low hanging platform may be your friend if you just want to turn around instead of making a long jump. Oh, and did I mention that each level is timed as well?
In addition to the clock and your perpetual movement, there are plenty of other obstacles as well. In the early levels you get simple things, such as core switches that have to be deactivated in a certain order and pools of coolant that will cause you to short circuit. As the levels progress you get more challenges, such as electric barriers that must be deactivated and radioactive gremlins that would like nothing more than to sample your circuits. Fortunately, some of these obstacles simply force you to start back at the beginning of the level, while keeping any already-triggered core switches flipped. However, anything that causes you to travel over parts of the level again wastes time, and time is definitely not on your side.
Meltdown
Besides your built in abilities to jump and jet pack, you do have a couple of things working in your favor. Scattered throughout the levels are little isotope rods that give you 5 extra seconds on the clock. You also earn one rod for each core successfully deactivated within a plant. Rods found in a level can be used in the same plant. Rods earned from saving a plant can be used on any subsequent plants. Of course there’s always a down side, and the negative aspect of the rods – at least in my opinion – is that they are automatically used when your time runs low. Personally, if I know I’m not going to finish a level even with a few extra seconds added on the clock, I’d rather not waste the rods. Unfortunately, since this is designed to be a one button game, there really wouldn’t be a way to trigger the use of the rods manually. The other benefit you have is that in Easy mode you only have to deactivate 2 out of 5 cores for each station, and in Hard mode you only need 3 out of 5 cores to succeed. If you’re like me, however, in some plants that won’t seem like much of a perk.
Meltdown
The sound in Meltdown is equally as charming. From the first “let’s go” to the quick agony of an electrified cry or a coolant filled gurgle, the sound effects in Meltdown blend together perfectly. What’s more, the music actually suits the game as well! It’s certainly not my favorite type of music, but as you’re rushing around a power station that’s about ready to go nuclear, it sets just the right atmosphere.
The graphics in are wonderful. Emgee has “mascot” written all over him, and everything that is animated looks really good. What stands out even more, however, are the layers of pipes in the background. There’s nothing overly extraordinary about them, but for some reason they really catch my eye. Overall, if I had anything negative to say about the graphics it’s that a little animation in the background might have been nice, but with all the eye candy already present it certainly wouldn’t be necessary.
Pros:
Excellent Graphics
Spot On Sound
Unique, Challenging and Addictive Gameplay
Cons:
- Can be quite challenging for the less skilled player, even on “Easy” mode
- Have no control over when to use isotope rods
-Have to replay all levels of a station to beat undefeated ones
To me it seems as if portable devices are a perfect venue for platform games, and I always thought it was a shame there weren’t more available on the PocketPC. If Meltdown is any indication of what’s possible, however, I’m willing to wait between releases. Let’s hope Meltdown Momentum Games sets a trend for what’s to come!
If you were like most aspiring young children, one of your fantasies was to stealthily take over the world… umm, yeah… Anyway, regardless of childhood aversions, Qsoftz was kind enough to help you fulfill these desires electronically with the release of Add-Venture for the Pocket PC. So how engaging is world domination? Read on to find out.
If you’ve played Risk, you know the basic premise behind Add-Venture. A combination of up to eight human and computer players each start out owning several countries scattered around the globe, and ultimately one of them ends up with everything. You start the game by picking a number of opponents between 2 and 8. At least one player must be human, and the rest can be a combination of human and computer. For each computer player you can select one of 3 difficulty levels: Novice, Advanced and Intelligent. At this point in my global conquest career, I’m still trying to survive the novice players. The one thing conspicuously missing from this game in terms of multi-player play is true multi-player play. You can play hot seat, but there is no internet or Bluetooth capabilities in this game, which is too bad given that this is the perfect type of game for it.
Once the players have been established the game begins. Each player is assigned a certain number of countries across the global based on the total number of participants. The game is turn based, and each player has 3 phases during their turn. In the first phase you are awarded a certain number of troops based on the number of territories you hold. In addition, for each round that you successfully conquer at least one country you are awarded a card. Once you have 3 or more cards you can start matching. A match is 3 of a kind (air, sea or land), or one each of air, sea and land. There are also wild cards that can be used as any of the three. Selecting 3 land cards gives you 4 extra soldiers, 3 sea cards gives you 6 extra warships, and 3 air cards gives you 8 extra planes. Trading in one of each rewards you with 10 extra land troops.
Once you’ve redeemed any cards you wish to use and placed all available troops you enter attack phase. To attack a country, you simply click on the county you wish to attack with, then click on the country you wish to attack. You keep clicking on the country you’re invading until (1) you’ve conquered it, (2) you’ve run the attacking country down to one troop, or (3) you decide to give up. If you successfully invade the country, it will change to match your color and all but one of the troops from the invading country will be transferred to your new conquest.
After you’ve had your fill of attacking you enter the movement phase, where you can transfer troops between any countries you own. To transfer troops, you first click the country you wish to transfer troops from, then click the country you wish to transfer troops to one time for each troop you wish to transfer. You can continue move troops around until you have everyone where you want them, which is one nice feature that most Risk clones don’t offer.
This cycle continues once for each player each round until someone has conquered the entire planet. If you successfully invade the only country a particular player has left, you will wipe that player from the board and all cards they had not yet played will be transferred to your control. This could be a great advantage to you if you can defeat someone that has a lot of cards.
Overall I think Qsoftz did a solid job of recreating the atmosphere of a risk style game. While Qsoftz boasts on their site about AI that’s “sensitive to the weak players”, I didn’t always feel like that was the case. However, I suppose one tends to get a bit paranoid when they are continually losing! Anyway, there certainly is a lot of challenge here, with being able to choose from a large number of players and skill levels. If you’re worried about running out of scenarios, you won’t cross that bridge for quite some time.
The graphics in Add-Venture are decent. There are no fancy special effects or wonderful hand drawn cinematic sequences, but everything is clear and well drawn, and while the interface elements are small so that they can fit in enough controls for eight players, there’s never really any question as to what anything is. Although obviously not necessary, it would have been nice to at least have some quick animated scene when one player completely eliminates another.
The sound effects are sparse yet sufficient. Actions such as taking over a country or losing a battle produce a small tone, and taking over a continent results in a cool little chime unique to each continent. Sadly, however, there is no music in this game. A little background tune, even if there was only one, would help offset the not-so-action oriented pace of the game.
I love turn based strategy games, and there’s no question that Add-Venture is a solid contender in that category. A solid strategy engine and decent audio and visual elements make Add-Venture an easy game to come back to again and again. Now if they could just add in some true multi-player and spruce up the aesthetics a bit, Add-Venture could rank at the top of the charts!
Pros:
Solid strategy engine
Many variations of number of players / skill sets
Decent presentation
Cons:
No true multi-player
Though supposedly balanced, the AI does sometimes seem “out to get you”
Rage of Mages II from Nival Interactive Reviewed by: Eric Pankoke
I’ve never been a real big fan of ports. Typically, if the port is going from a small machine to a big machine, the developers don’t want to spend the time to add extra features to take advantage of the new, expanded hardware. When going from a big to a small machine, the developers often try to cram too much in and don’t take into account the limited interface or capabilities of the target platform. Such is the case with Rage Of Mages II (also called Allods 2) from Nival Interactive.
The game has some sort of “Mad Mages trying to take over the world” type fantasy plot, but I honestly haven’t been interested enough to pay that close attention to the main story. For your part in the plot you get to choose one of four characters – if I had to guess I’d say a warrior, archer, sorceress and mage – and try to help vanquish the evil that has spread across the land. You initially have a couple of tasks to complete, but once you get to the first town beyond your starting point you can select which quests to do in what order, within certain boundaries. So far quests have typically been of the “find and kill the bad guy of the area” type, so there’s nothing out of the ordinary there.
The game is divided up into two types of areas. There are towns where you can buy goods or hang out in taverns to hear the latest gossip, get new quests and hire mercenaries to journey with you. Then there are the quest sections, which see you wandering around areas to either talk to NPCs or fight monsters, and every once in a while there might even be some goods for you to pick up. That’s basically it for gameplay.
The interface in town is simple enough. Click on a building to enter it. Click on a patron in the tavern and press “Talk” to hear what they have to say, or “Hire” if the option is available to have them join your party. In the shop, you can drag items from your inventory to the shop to sell, or from the shop to your inventory to buy.
Once you get to the quest areas, the interface becomes a jumbled mess. There are a bunch of icons on the right hand side, and it took me several times of reading the help and then looking back at the icons (you can’t have the help open at the same time) to figure out what icon does what. To move around the area you can click on an individual party member or drag and surround to select multiple party members. Then just click where you want to go. At least, that’s what you do if the area you want to move to is visible on the screen. To move somewhere farther away, you need to scroll the map first. Supposedly this can be done by clicking on the edges of the map, but that very seldom worked for me. You can use the D-Pad, which is what I primarily end up doing, but for some reason that seems awkward.
To talk to NPCs scattered around the map, you walk near them. I would much rather be able to click on them, because it’s often hard to tell whether an NPC is not responding simply because they have nothing to say or because you haven’t approached them from the right direction. However, if you want to pick up items on the map you can click on those. Of course, more often than not I seemed to have to fight with my characters in order to get them to pick anything up.
Speaking of fighting, the combat in Rage Of Mages is pretty hideous as well. To attack a monster, you select one or more player characters, then click on the monster to attack. Or, you can use some of the icons to the right. I tend to prefer the more direct route of clicking on the bad guys, which at first seems acceptable. Once that monster is killed, though, your characters seemed to get confused. Often, clicking on a new target does nothing, or results in only a portion of the selected characters actually attacking. What’s worse, if you kill a monster and another one comes up to attack you, often the character will stand there like a deer trapped in headlights. In battles that require stealth and planning, these nuances get rather frustrating.
The worst part of the whole interface is that in the two most complex areas, character creation and solving quests, there’s not really any good explanation of what’s going on. A more robust help file would have been nice, and shouldn’t have been that hard to do.
The graphics in Rage Of Mages 2 are not very consistent. Things like the menus and shops are done very nicely. However, once you get into the quest areas, the graphics get muddled and often unrecognizable. Half the time I’m not really sure what I’m fighting. The absolute worst offenders, however, are the player character and party NPCs. No matter which player type you choose, your character in the game always looks the same. To make matters worse, half the people that join your party look just like you. Short of clicking on them and listening to their voices, the only way to distinguish who’s who is to look at the inventory.
The sound effects in the game vary greatly. Some, like the ambient sounds of creatures in the forest, are really nice. Others, like the sound a mage makes when idle, can get rather annoying. The worst, however, is the voice of your main character, who feels the need to say something along the lines of “okay” every time you move. There’s no music in the game whatsoever. Not during the introduction, or when sorting through the menus, or during the game itself. To me there’s no excuse for that these days, especially from an established developer.
I think there were good intentions here. Unfortunately, instead of taking an established premise and making a unique interpretation for a different platform, they chose the “easy” route and made a flawed port in an unwelcoming environment. If you’ve run out of other role playing games, you might consider giving RofM 2 a shot. However, I strongly suggest making sure you’ve extinguished your other options first.
Pros:
At least it’s an RPG
The potential of a good story is there
Cons:
Unfriendly interface
Inconsistent audio and video
Inadequate instructions
The GP2X-F100 Handheld Gaming Unit is the next generation in portable gaming systems. It’s origins begin way back in early 2001. The History of the GP2X started with the original GP32. The GP32 is not as old as the Nintendo portable units but is unique in how the games are created and currently distributed.
Game software designers and manufacturers that create the games for Nintendo or Sony rely on licensing tools, software and hardware to create the gaming titles. This is a very costly process therefore only larger well financed companies can create titles for Nintendo and Sony portable gaming systems. On the other hand, developers and manufacturers of games for the GP2X work on the premise of Open Source licensing that is available for FREE. This means tools, software and various source code are available publically to anyone interested in creating games or software titles for the GP2X.
Creating games at little or no cost to the developers sound great but tends to attract those that are financially challenged or only interested in creating games as a hobby. This tends to limit the number of quality games and increases the number of poorly written games..
That being said, why would anyone be interested in buying a GP2X? Sony and Nintendo game manufacturers have the financing and experience to create high quality commercial games. For those that can afford to buy the handheld units like the Sony PSP, the Nintendo Gameboy or the Nintendo DS quickly realize that paying $30+ for one game quickly adds to a cost factor that more than the cost of actual gaming unit itself. With the GP2X, many games are available for FREE. I might say these games tend to be poorly written or very basic in function but that is not always the case. With the availability of emulator software, I can run many original quality games written for other platforms and other gaming systems. This opens the door to hundreds of quality games not officially or originally created for the GP2X but will run on the GPX as if it was running on the original system the game was intended for..
Since the emulator software and the games designed to run on these emulators are mostly avaialble for FREE, this makes the GP2X available for under $200.00 USD a very attractive unit to buy. Before you go out and buy one, you need to understand what the unit has under the hood.
Specifications
CPU
Dual CPU Cores
ARM920T : Host processor
ARM940T : Video Coprocessor
Internal Memory
64 Megabytes
External Memory
SD Card
Operating System
Linus
Display
3.5″ TFT LCD Hardware 16.7 Million Colors Software: 260,000 Colors
Resolution
320*240(QVGA)
Video File
MPEG 4, Dvix 3.11,4x,5x, and Higher XVID, WMV(7,8,9 Later On) Playback
Audio File
MP3,OGG,WMA(Later On)
Image Viewer
JPG, BMP, PCX, GIF, PNG
TV Output
Pal and NTSC
GP2X Games
250+
Emulator Software
70 different emulators Various games available for each emulator
EBook Reader
Power
Runs in 2 AA batteries or AC
For those that are technically inclined will have noticed that the GP2X uses 2 processors.One for the main operations and one for the video display processing. This ensures that the games run very fast. Also the operating software being Linux based also allows for an efficient processor due to the operating system having a small footprint.
The unit also allows you to watch videos. listen to music and read ebooks. This is a real flexible unit and is one way for cost conscious consumers to consider instead of the Sony PSP or the Nintendo DS. Even those considering a Windows Mobile device mainly for games may find the GP2X a low cost alternative. The GP2X uses 2 ARM processor similar to the processors used in many WIndows Mobile devices which only contain one processor.
The manufacturer expects to have over 50,000 units sold by Christmas. This does not seem like a lrage amount considering millions of Game Boy units have been sold world wide. If the manufacturer of the GP2X continue to upgrade and support the system, we will certainly see a surge in sales in 2007. Specially with the increase in games being developed and introduced for the GP2X.
You can certainly check out the GP2X more by going to www.gp2x.de and also go to http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi for a list of available games and other sofware titles available for FREE downloading.
802.11g SDIO Wi-Fi Card from Just Mobile – Mobis Reviewed by: Bob Katayama
Lately Wireless LAN access has become the rage with mobile devices. Wi-Fi hotspots are popping up in all major cities and even ome cities are creating a FREE Wi-Fi zone in their downtown core. Many of the newer mobile devices come equipped with an 802.11b wireless LAN built right in. Most of the older devices do not and to take advantage of this technology requires you to purchase a separate SDIO Wi-Fi card. This is where the SDIO wireless card from Just Mobile comes in.
It is one of the smallest SDIO Wi-Fi cards around. Externally it looks like any other Wi-Fi as you can see in this image below. The Just Mobile card is the one on the far left.
The SDIO card from Spectec is slightly smaller but only by a couple of millimeters. Certainly the Just Mobile card is much smaller compared to the Sandisk Wi-Fi card. Sandisk is the most widely recognized manufacturer of SD cards but the Just Mobile works very well.
The Just Mobile driver integrates into Windows Mobile and allows you to use the familiar Windows Mobile wireless applet. Installation is a breeze. Just insert the CD into the PC and install while Activesynced. Takes seconds to install the driver.
2 clicks of the mouse and the driver is installed. Afterwards, you can insert the card and away you go. The Wi-Fi card will activate and automatically detect an accesspoint or Wi-Fi signal. The driver will prompt you the necessary information as required by the remote connection like the encryption code. Once all the proper information has been entered, your connection will be live and you can launch the Pocket Internet Explorer from the START button. The bright LED on the card is very visible and will allow you to see if the card is active or not.
I was connecting to an 802.11b accesspoint therefore there would be no reason why I would want to install an 802.11g card on an i-Mate Jasjar which already comes equipped with an 802.11b Wi-Fi card. Surprisingly though, it does make sense to install the Just Mobile 802.11g card. I found out that on the i-Mate Jasjar, the Just-Mobile performed better than the included Wi-Fi card. The accesspoint used is a D-Link 802.11b. The Just Mobile card automatically connected using the 802.11b protocol. The web pages would clearly appear 1 – 3 seconds faster when compared to the integrated 802.11b card on the Jasjar.
Altec Lansing is a major speaker company that has been around long before desktop computers and even FM radio. In the early 1920′s, the founders started to create what is known today as Altec Lansing. Through the 1940′s and still today, Altec Lansing creates innovative audio products. The InMotion IM500 is another one of their creative product releases.
Designed specifically to work with the Apple Nano mobile audio player, the InMotion IM500 is a sleek speaker system. Though it is a one piece unit in design, the unit consists of the speaker, amplifier and docking system all-in-one.
Available for the Symbian S60, K-Rally seems like the ulitmate “Spy Hunter” type revisited with updated graphics. Look like a real intense action packed game from this video. You have a choice of different cars and different racing tracks. The game is a top view type with a clear view of the action and looks well designed.
Here is a screenshot:
You can also go to Infinite Dreams to view their trailer video. Hopefully Infinite Dreams will release a Windows Mobile or Windows Smartphone version of this game. The Symbian version is currently available for $14.95. If the WIndows Mobile version is available at the same price, K-Rally will certainly be a popular game for sure.
TR-101 Personal Tracker from GlobalSat Reviewed by: Bob Katayama
As newer more feature rich cellular phones come out in the marketplace, this will create a wider gap between technically challenged users and the technology wizards. The Personal Tracker GlobalSat is a unique product that maybe suitable for the technology challenged users.
The TR-101 will allow those that need the ability to call home or a couple of numbers only can do so easily and without a learning curve. Anyone can learn its function within minutes.
The TR-101 comes with the ability to call 3 phone numbers and also send a SMS message in an emergency to 3 numbers. The phone also supports incoming calls from up to 10 different phone numbers.
Dragon Ball from TrialAction Games Reviewed by: Eric Pankoke
One thing I like about the PDA game market is that unlike the PC and console markets, the developers are not shackled by the mantra “sell fast, sell many”. As a result we are often treated to unique, simple and fun games like Dragon Ball from Trial Action Games.
The premise behind Dragon Ball is rather straightforward. On each level there are several dragons trying to get from point A to point B along a track. Your objective is to destroy the dragons before they reach their destination. If a dragon reaches the end of the track you have to restart the level. Once you have used all of your lives the game is over.
So how do you get rid of those pesky dragons? Well, it seems that each dragon is made up of a series of sections, each section being one of several colors. Armed with your trusty “section shooter”, you must insert sections into the dragon’s body such that you create a string of at least 3 sections of the same color. Once you’ve done that, the connected sections will go away, and the remainder of the dragon will join back together. Once you’ve destroyed all of the sections in the dragon’s body, the head will disappear and that dragon is gone.
You control your shooter with the left and right directions on the D-Pad, and you can use either the stylus or the up direction on the D-Pad to fire. I prefer the D-Pad up direction, but unfortunately on my device it’s a bit sensitive, and quite often I find myself shooting on accident. Unfortunately, I can’t disable the use of the D-Pad for firing, so since the option is always there I choose to use it instead of the stylus. Optimally, it would have been nice to be able to configure the fire option to one of the hardware buttons.
From time to time sections of a dragon’s body will temporarily turn into a power-up. If you can destroy that section while it’s transformed, you will be awarded the corresponding power-up. Power-ups come in two different flavors. The first type of power-up affects every dragon on the screen. These power-ups include such things as slow-motion, stop, and reverse. The other type of power-up comes in the form of special sections that you can fire. These include a bomb that destroys everything around the vicinity of contact, a lightening bolt that destroys everything in its path, and a multicolored ball that takes on the color of the section it makes contact with.
In addition to the dragons themselves, the tracks are designed in such a way to provide their own challenges. Some of them have many twists and turns, so if your timing is off you might end up hitting the wrong section of a dragon as it rounds a bend. Other tracks cross over each other in sections, so a shot fired at a dragon passing under a section of track might inadvertently miss that dragon. There are even cases where the track has two exits, so you have to constantly watch both to make sure a dragon doesn’t get too close to either one of them.
So besides vanquishing the bad guys, what do you get for your time slaying dragons? Why, you get to rack up your score, of course! When you destroy sections of a dragon, you get points. When you destroy the entire dragon you also get points. In addition, you can score points with combos. Once you’ve destroyed a group of sections, if you can destroy another group with the next shot you have scored a combo. Each time you do this in succession the amount of the combo increases. On the flip side, the first time it takes you more than one shot to destroy a group of sections, the combo is over. The final way to score points is through a chain. Chains are formed when you destroy a group of sections, and the remaining sections that join back together have enough sections of the same color in a row to get destroyed themselves. A well placed shot could destroy 3 or more groups of sections in a dragon.
The game plays well, but is it easy on the eyes? You bet it is. All the “functional” screens (splash screen, menu, level map, etc.) are detailed and look very nice. The actual levels are a bit less detailed, but appealing none the less. Sections transforming into power-ups and back look good, and the effects when firing a bomb or lightening are pretty slick. Overall Dragon Ball presents a very professional visual appearance.
The audio is also first rate. While it appears that there is only a single track, the music matches quite well with the atmosphere. The sound effects all work together well, and the shattering of sections when destroyed gives quite an interesting impression of what the dragons might actually be. I quite enjoyed the audio element of the game.
Now we arrive at the “but…” section of the review. For the player in general, the biggest drawback to Dragon Ball will be the replay factor. There are a lot of levels to this game, but for all of the difficulties I’ve had with it, I’ve still managed to clear more than half of them already. If you aren’t into multi-pass games this might not be an issue, but I don’t think there’s much impetus to play the game once it has been completed. The next problem, and it’s possible that this is just specific to me, is that the game locks up a lot. I pretty much have to shut down the game after playing each level, and even then sometimes that’s not enough to keep the game from freezing the next time I launch it. And, since this is a full screen game, I’m pretty much forced to do a soft reset every time it freezes. I recently had to do a hard reset on my machine, and I’ve installed very little since then, so I don’t believe it’s an issue with any malicious software that’s running in the background. In fact, except for a couple of runtime files for different development environments and Total Commander, I don’t have anything else installed on my device yet. I’m using a Dell Axim X5 running WM2003. I’ve had problems with games locking up on me before, but not on a consistent basis like Dragon Ball.
Dragon Ball is a good game and presents the “three in a row” puzzle game in a unique new fashion. Good graphics and sound effects will keep you entertained until you’ve worn out all the levels, though there’s not much to bring you back for seconds. If it weren’t for the constant lock-up problem I have, I’d be a lot more eager to recommend this game, but in fairness to the product I will in this case provide two scores accordingly.
Cons:
Little replay value
Lock-up issues on my machine
Pros:
Unique twist to a seasoned puzzle game style
Quality audio and visual elements
Lots of levels
Overall:
8/10 (without the constant freezing)
5/10 (with the freezing problem)
The Experts @ Technobrains have just completed a review of the Inka Pen. Normally pens are just your run of the mill household item but not so for the Inka Pen. The Inka Pen is a marvel of modern technology.
We also asked the founder of Inka Corporation – Greg Adelman, a few key questions.
Our group review has a new format and we certainly would like to hear from you on if you really like this new format for the group review.
Bob Katayama Executive Editor
Inka Pen from Inka Corporation
Reviewed by The Team Technobrains Expert Associate on Mobility
Being a self-proclaimed connoisseur of fine writing instruments, I was absolutely thrilled to be given the opportunity to review the Inka Pen.
Upon receiving the Inka Pen, one of my first observations was that the Inka Pen is one who truly seems to care about the environment. In addition to developing a pen for those who put their bodies and their gear to extremes (more on that later), Inka Corp packages their reuseable pen in recycled packaging, which is also recyclable. Environmental responsibility, one of the companies guiding principles, is summed up in this one quote from the pen’s packaging insert: “This versatile pen is designed to last a lifetime. We hope it will replace some of the billions of disposable pens thrown away each year.”
Of all the interesting claims Inka makes of its writing instruments, the first one to catch my eye was the temperature range: -30 to 300 F. I’ve got to tell you, curiosity couldn’t kill that cat. I placed the Inka in a commercial freezer with a chilling ambient temperature of -20 and left it there for three hours and 15 minutes (the butcher was a great conversationalist). Immediately removing the pen from the freezer and placing it to paper, I was able to write a full sentence without any ink degradation whatsoever. The only difference I noticed with the pen is that the top was a little difficult to take off once it warmed up. This was explained by the loud “POP” when the air seal finally broke. Evidentally, the change in temperature had created quite a vacuum.
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Jarhead
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In an effort to make sure that you don’t forget about their stellar castle defense game Knights Onrush, Chillingo has released a promo adventure called A Quest Of Knights Onrush. Basically a “run and slash until you die” mini-game, it’s amusing in short bursts. The up side, however, is that there’s plenty of potential should they decide to make a full game out of it.
It’s time for another “dodge it all” type game for your iPhone. Trap Master takes a slightly different approach to the genre, however, with a more methodical implementation of traps and the necessity of collecting treasures. 3 game modes and 19 OpenFeint achievements to earn will guarantee that you stay busy for a while, and cool graphics, a decent soundtrack and “I can do better” game play will keep you coming back for more.
Sports mini-games have been a bit of a mixed bag for me so far on the iPhone, but with Batter Up Baseball, it looks like Skyworks has finally hit one out of the park. Great visuals, authentic sound and gameplay that keeps going and going could bring you to start singing “take me out to the ball game”.
I was just contacted by Morgan Davies who runs www.appdope.com. This is website devoted to iPhone and iPod Touch related software promotions. This site keeps track of newly released software and monitors existing software for price drops and other incentives that benefit the end user.
Every Friday, www.appdope.com also gives away promotional codes to various software titles. According to Morgan, they currently have available over 50 promotional codes to giveaway. Anyone that owns an iPhone or iPod Touch should check out APPDOPE on a regular basis and especially on Fridays. You will need to register an account on APPDOPE and follow the links associated with the giveaway apps to qualify for the promo giveaways. I would suggest you go to www.appdope.com to get the whole story and enjoy what this great website has to offer.
You can read my review of the original Frootrees here. Suffice it to say you probably should if you want to know about this game, and you probably want to know about this game because it’s a lot of fun. Anyway, just in time for Halloween Tin Man Games released a Halloween version of Frootrees. [...]
I once speculated that any scrolling shooter had to be a good game, right? One should always know better than to make such blanket statements, and iGuardian is the proof in the pudding (whatever that means). The game play is lackluster, the visuals are decent but low end compared to most other offerings, and the sound feels like it was just kind of thrown together. Fortunately there are plenty of alternatives in this genre, but I always hate having to count one out.
Technobrainsis giving away licenses of WiFi2HiFi to 3 lucky iPhone users. WiFi2HiFi for iPhone is a new app allowing users to stream computer’s music to any audio dock or home music system connected to your iPhone. Some of the features of WiFi2HiFi to note include: * Ability to use one’s preferred music program [...]
I’m not a big fan of the FPS genre, but it seems like a 3D dungeon crawl with the protagonist wielding guns should work reasonably well, right? Unfortunately, Dead Man’s Dungeon just doesn’t quite make the cut, especially considering some of the more recent 3D fare to hit the iPhone. The basics of the game just aren’t that interesting, and bland level design and mediocre graphics weigh it down even more. With some more work there could be something interesting, but right now it’s just not a whole lot of fun.
I always dread the day when I get a game from a developer I love that I just don’t care for. Unfortunately, that day has come with Comet Racer from Donut Games. It has some indications that it belongs in their family of games, but in the end the individual parts don’t add up to a Donut Games whole. Read on to find out why, then go check out one of their other games.
Don Bluth helped pioneer the age of interactive movies with such treasures as Dragon’s Lair. If Banjo The Woodpile Cat is any indication of what the future has in store for this type of game, I’ll just pull out my CD of Dragon’s Lair and keep remembering the good old days…
