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REVIEW: EDGE Coding Compo Winner Shooter Burning Armor

As the excellent Pocket PC gaming site PocketGamer.org has just reported, the vertical shooter Burning Armor has win the EDGE coding compo. Having always loved vertical scroller shooter games, I’ve jumped at it right away to find out whether it’s any good.
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Unfortunately, it isn’t. Mainly, it has major speed problems. It’s only playable on (faster – particularly NOT recommended for OMAP users like those of with the HTC Wizard!) QVGA devices. On VGA devices, it has pretty annoying speed problems even on the (in this respect) fastest x51v; on the Pocket Loox 720 (even with Picard’s VGA GAPI hack) and the HP iPAQ hx4700, it’s unplayable.
It speed, as has already been pointed out, is only satisfactory on at least 400 MHz XScale, QVGA only Pocket PC’s like the HP iPAQ 2210. On slower QVGA or any VGA devices, it will be just plain slow.
Availability, compatibility
It’s available here and costs $19.99. A trial version is available. It’s compatible with all WM2003+ operating systems and runs on all my test devices (even the WM5-based hx4700).
Sound, music
As with most EDGE-based games I’ve played with, it has in-game music but its sound quality is pretty bad (compared to SkyForce Reloaded or many other titles) because of the low sampling rate.
Visuals
Nothing to write home about. No spectacular 3D effects, not so good explosions as in SkyForce (Reloaded) or Particle Wars.
Verdict
You may not want to check out this game. It’s just poor and really overpriced. Go for SkyForce [Reloaded], GikaDiver, Darklaga or Particle Wars instead. This title is really weak. It’s probably only the Compact Framework 2-based (yes, using high-level languages / libraries will always result in major speed problems on the Pocket PC!) Star Invader II by IBE Group that is even worse. (Please see this article for more links and reviews to other vertical scroller games!)

REVIEW: Handy Entertainment’s Dreamway 1.2, a top-down racing game

Much as this racing title isn’t particularly new on the Pocket PC (not even the latest, 1.2 version), now that PocketGamer reported on it, I’ve realized I still haven’t dedicated a review to this SuperCars clone (without, unfortunately, any kind of multiplayer capabilities, which made SuperCars II just great on 16-bit home platforms back in 1990), which may be of interest to all Pocket PC gaming freaks before Infinite Dreams’ K-Rally is released.
It’s a classic example of top-down 2D racing games like Gangsta Race (also reported on in the Roundup of All Pocket PC Games Part I).
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(VGA screenshot; on QVGA devices, a similar one is here)
Availability
The game is available here for $14.95. The trial is one-level only.
Compatibility
It’s compatible with all my test Pocket PC’s. Note that while the homepage doesn’t list the game as PPC 2002 compliant, in reality, it is – it’s running just great on my PPC2k2 Compaq iPAQ 3660.
The other PDA’s I’ve tested it on are the following:
HTC Wizard (runs great even at 195 MHz)
HP iPAQ hx4700 (on it, you MUST use the stylus to control the car as not even button redefining works)
Dell Axim x51v
Pocket Loox 720
HP iPAQ h2210
It's also compatible with the MS Smartphone and the Palm OS platform.
Compared to Gangsta Race (GR) 1.1…
(Note that Garga Games’s official homepage is not accessible – this may also mean they’re out of business)
Pros
It shows much more of the playfield on VGA devices and is, of course, hi-res (GR screenshot here on VGA - note that it doesn't support hi-res on VGA)
Has better in-game music
Cons
It doesn’t show the relative position of the other cars, which is a real pain in the back particularly on QVGA devices, where it shows less of the playfield than GR
It has no stereo (!) sound effects, unlike GR – the sound effects in Dreamway are much poorer
It can’t switch to any non-Portrait mode, unlike GR
Doesn’t have a Pocket PC 2000 (MIPS) port (on my Casio E-125, the MIPS version of GR runs just great)
Compared to the Palm OS version…
There are no differences. The Palm version runs a bit slower on my T3 (even in HiRes-only (that is, 320*320, as opposed to the 320*480 HiRes+ mode) than on my Pocket PC’s. The Palm version, however, uses a clearer in-game music track with much better highs (it’s sampled at a higher sampling frequency)
Verdict
Give it a try if you liked Gangsta Race. It is in no way as spectacular than the forthcoming K-Rally, but is certainly worth giving a try, particularly on VGA devices.

REVIEW: Free Bejeweled clone Snowed In 5 - Flaked Out released!

We all know Bejeweled, one of the best action/puzzle games on the Pocket PC. There are several Bejeweled clones for the Pocket PC (some of them having been reviewed in the Pocket PC Games Bible Part I); the new title, Snowed In 5 - Flaked Out, is one of them.
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Availability, compatibility
The Pocket PC version is compatible with all WM2003+ devices and had no problems on my test Pocket PC’s. Unfortunately, it’s not compatible with devices running under operating systems prior to WM2003; that is, for example, with Pocket PC 2002.
There are separate versions for VGA, square-screen and landscape devices. Unfortunately, on VGA devices, the landscape-mode version only offers QVGA resolution (example screenshot taken on a VGA device here) and is, consequently, not recommended. That is, get the VGA Portrait version if you have a VGA device and want to enjoy high-resolution graphics.
The main page of the game is here; the Pocket PC-related downloads are here.
Sounds
Unfortunately, there’s no in-game music, which is a big minus compared to the, music-wise, world-class Bejeweled. However, the in-menu music is pretty good.
Visuals
Pretty good; definitely not as spectacular as those of Bejeweled (2) or 4Pockets’ games though. Support for hi-res VGA on capable devices is a big plus though.
Online
The game, along with its homepage (“Submit your score and represent your country”), also promises to collect your high scores on ClickGamer. I, however, couldn’t find out how this needs to be done. Hope it will indeed be added to ClickGamer some time.
Registration
The game needs to be registered for continuous play, but it’s, fortunately, pretty easy. Just navigate to here and register as can be seen in here (the answer is like this) - that’s all. To do this, you need to have a free ClickGamer account – if you still don’t have one, just click the “Sign Up” button at the bottom and fill in the fields.
Verdict
For a free title, I’d say this game is worth checking out, particularly if you have a VGA device.

hehehe... I just got to get this... if not for anything else the graphics alone

Spiral Mile releases action / platformer game Droid - The Beginning

Looking for a simple and entertaining action / platform game? Then, you may want to read further.
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Availability: the game is available here with a trial. There also is a desktop Windows version.
Compliance: I encountered no major compatibility problems with running the game on some of my test WM2003+ (the game isn’t compatible with OS’es prior to WM2003; it’s, of course, WM6-compliant) PDA’s: the HTC Wizard with the Bpepe / KTamas AKU3 ROM (overclocked to 240 MHz), the HTC Universal (running Helmi 1.1), the Dell Axim x51v with ROM version A12 and the WM2003 HP iPAQ h2210.
However, keep in mind that
albeit it runs in Landscape orientation, do NOT start the game in it unless you want to have a reversed and, therefore, useless D-pad. (And, yeah, Left-handed Landscape is even worse: then, not only the D-pad will be reversed, but also the touchscreen.)
on VGA devices (this was particularly a problem on the x51v; the Universal was still playable), the game is decidedly slower than on QVGA ones. That is, it’s highly possible you won’t like the game on VGA devices at all because of the slow scrolling / animation, which can’t be fixed at all.
Graphics: QVGA only; nothing to write home about. The same on the desktop Windows – it uses QVGA-resolution graphics there too, displayed in a VGA-sized window. (At least, it doesn’t have speed problems on the desktop – actually, it’s MUCH faster and pleasing on my 3.6 GHz P4 than on any of my above-listed QVGA Pocket PC’s.)
Music: pretty cool tracked music and, what is more, it’s played back in stereo.
Verdict: IMHO, it’s not as good as, say, BoneyBoy and it might be slow on some devices. Still, the trial might be worth giving a try.

Another 3D Arkanoid clone, Arkanoi3D released

You may still remember my roundup of 3D Arkanoid titles (if you haven’t read it, do it now; note that the chart has bad HTML markup, which will soon be fixed). A brand new 3D Arkanoid clone, Arkanoi3D has just been released for both touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC’s and touchscreen-less MS Smartphones (the latter even including 176*220 ones).
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The game has all a decent 3D Arkanoid should have: powerups (for example, to quickly shoot down some of the blocks), a line constantly showing where the ball really is in 3D and, which isn’t at all common with similar titles, a rotatable overview of the play area:
It’s available for download and purchase HERE.
Compatibility
It’s only compliant with WM5 (I’ve checked this on my WM2003 iPAQ 2210). It ran OK on my WM6.1-based HTC Wizard (Pocket PC) and (the original, factory) WM5-based HTC s310 (Oxygen) MS Smartphone. The touchscreen CPU usage bug considerably slowed down the game; fortunately, you don’t need to touch the screen all the time. Also note that, without increasing the ball speed (in Options), the game can be really-really slow-paced at the default speed. That is, make sure you increase the speed if you find the game just too slow. Still speaking of the options menu, you may also want to change the skin (the default is just too dark). Two examples showing this (the first is the default, the second is taken with the yellow skin):
Note that it shut down the backlight on my HP iPAQ 210 right away. Nothing could fix this. That is, the game (as of the current, 1.0 version) is fully incompatible with this model.
Verdict
If you’re into the genre, do check it out. I certainly recommend it over both Pocket 3DNoid and Crazy Ball 3D. Of course, it’s quite a bit more expensive than the directly comparable Pocket 3DNoid. That is, if you don’t want to spend $10 without comparing it to the alternatives first, also make sure you give Pocket 3DNoid a try first.
I only wish it had in-game music.