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
Related
Elements Interactive is a well-known developer of, in addition to some games (some of them being very cool; for example, Quartz2, which even has multiplayer capabilities and has been reviewed in the Definitive Multiplayer PPC Game Roundup), the Edge multiplatform gaming library. Their latest, just-released title is a FREE and, in spite of this, pretty decent Tetris-clone which is supposed to demonstrate the caapbilities of Edge.
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Availability, compatibility
The game is available here for both Microsoft mobile platforms (tes, Smartphone too) and the desktop Windows, all Symbian platforms and even GP2X.
The Pocket PC version is even compatible with PPC 2002 and runs just great even on my 5-year-old iPAQ 3660. Also, I haven’t run into problems on my other test Pocket PC’s either (non-overclocked WM5 AKU 2.3 HTC Wizard, WM5 2.01 VGA iPAQ hx4700, WM5 A12 VGA Dell Axim x51v and WM2003SE VGA F-S Pocket Loox 720). That is, it’s compatible with all OS’es from PPC2k2 to WM5.
In addition to the D-pad, the hardware buttons (drop down, rotate, menu) worked on all these devices flawlessly.
Visuals
The game is compatible with all the three screen configurations of the Pocket PC: QVGA, VGA (yes, it uses high resolution) and square (240*240) screens. It’s VGA-aware (uses high resolution on VGA devices) and has some pretty good visuals particularly when you drop a title to make the game a bit faster.
Music
It has in-game music too. It’s a bit repetitive (after all, the in-game MOD file – embedded in \Program Files\S-Tris 2\res\bgm.epk if you want to have a look at it / change it to something else / extract it - is some 26 kbytes only in compressed form), but is still pretty good, particularly with a free title.
Verdict
Go get it!
Nice tetris game, thanks
I just installed it on my wife's old Mio 168 and it works flawlessly
Brand new trailer & information of the forthcoming K-Rally by authors of SkyForce!
I’ve often reported (see for example this) on INFINITE DREAMS’ (iDreams for short; authors of well-known, high-quality games like SkyForce (Reloaded) (review here), Super Miners (review here, in the Definitive Multiplayer PPC Game Roundup, the premier resource of everything multiplayer-related) and Explode Arena (review also in the Definitive Multiplayer PPC Game Roundup) forthcoming big hit, K-rally.
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They’ve just posted a brand new trailer to their homepage here, which is certainly worth checking out. The video is a pre-rendered trailer, NOT an in-game video. This means it shows far less real in-game shots than the more than one-year-old, Symbian (Nokia)-based, well-known “the stolen video vol.1 ” video. The (very short) in-game shots aren’t bad at all – they clearly show the superiority of iDreams’ particle / gaming engine. Knowing how efficient, spectacular and good it is (see Skyforce Reloaded!), I’m pretty sure the game will be a REAL killer, the best arcade car racer on the Pocket PC / MS Smartphone.
The features list has also been updated; now, it also lists (native) multiplayer Bluetooth capabilities up to no less than four (!) players (just like in Explode Arena). I really hope the iDreams folks implement native support for the Microsoft Bluetooth Stack – so far, it’s really been missing from their multiplayer games. They also promise it’ll have real inter-multiplatform support, which already works flawlessly on their other titles (I’ve also tested this with them).
The official K-Rally-related discussion forum, right now, doesn’t contain any new information on the title.
All I can say is this will be probably the best game of 2006 (along with Enslave and Skyforce Reloaded).
(Original news heads-up credit: PocketGamer.org)
I’ve elaborated a lot on Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) games in my Multiplayer Bible and Pocket PC 3D Acceleration Bible. Up to now, unfortunately, there only have been two clients available for the Pocket PC; namely,
the Java-based Wyvern, which did have some Java incompatibility and / or speed problems
the Russian-language, non-free Sphere by Nikita.
Fortunately, this seems to change in the future. SmartCell, of which I’ve reviewed several products of (see for example this AquaForce 1.1 and this TextPlus review / tutorial) is working on a really promising, Pocket PC-compliant (!) MMORPG called Shadow of Legend, which even has its own top-level homepage here, which may be worth checking out. There still isn’t much tangible stuff in there (unfortunately, the first demo game clients will only be released in early January as can also be read in here); however, at least there are three MP3 files and two trailers to download.
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This is indeed a very promising project. I’ll report as soon as a playable demo is released.
By the way, in addition to the above links, I also recommend this PPCT thread on similar subjects.
(By the way, still speaking of SmartCell’s product line, they still (?) haven’t ported RemotePlus to the Pocket PC. Hope they change their minds soon – as will also be explained in my forthcoming, biiiiiiiiig roundup of all Pocket PC -> PC remote controller solutions, Pocket PC-based Terminal Server / Services clients are all pretty bad and a decent alternative would be more than welcome.)
Some weeks ago, I’ve elaborated on the forthcoming, highly anticipated Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) called Shadow of Legend.
Now, there are some news on the title; most importantly, some screenshots and two CES videos (without really showing in-game videos). Unfortunately, nothing tangible – that is, no downloadable client is available as yet.
However, the two new videos (directly accessible on the video download page) may be worth checking out.
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.
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.