Ever wanted to have a light racer / flight / bowling / golf game on your Pocket PC? Read on!
My readers surely remember the Multiplayer Bible, My Top Five Golf Games in the Apr/May 2006 issue of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine and my OpenGLES / Intel 2700G-related games / tech demo reviews. In these reviews, I’ve already reviewed some titles from Pocket PC and MS Smartphone games developer company OmniGSoft: Chopper Flight (currently, the only OmniGSoft title to have OpenGLES / 2700G support), Nine Hole Golf, 3D Mini-Jetfight and 3D Mini Dogfight.
Now that the company has just released a fully WM5- and square screen compliant upgrade of six of their titles, I’ve spent some time checking them all.
First of all, all non-Mini games have been updated. (“Mini” games, which were last updated in January, have always been WM5-compliant.) That is, if you have an OmniGSoft title whose name doesn’t start with Mini, visit the homepage of the developer to get the new version. All the new, just-released versions have the ‘u’ trailer; based on this, they’re pretty easy to be recognized.
Availability, compatibility
The titles are all available on the homepage of the developer. Their regular price is $17.95. Of particular interest is the Owen's Monster Truck and 3D Chopper Fight combo on Handango, where you get a $10 rebate ($26.96 / $29.95) if you purchase both games.
I had no problems (except for speed problems with some of them) running these titles on any of my (numerous) test devices.
The good
First, kudos for the developer for not forgetting pre-WM2003 users. This means ALL of their games run on Pocket PC 2002 devices too – albeit they can be a bit slow. For example, Owen's Monster Truck and Speed City are close to unplayable on my otherwise pretty snappy Pocket PC 2002 Compaq iPAQ 3660. Note that the homepage of the developer lists both Chopper Flight and Speed City as WM2003+ only; this is not the case, they do run on older devices too. Note that these games are ARM only; don’t even think of looking for MIPS or, even worse, SH3 versions for old Pocket PC 2000 devices (also see the Bible of All Pocket PC Games Part I for more information.)
Second, seamless WM5 and square screen support are also welcome.
The bad
I’m pretty disappointed by still not having either OpenGLES / 2700G support in any of the titles (except for Choper Flight) or multiplayer support in these titles except for 3D Mini-Jetfight 1.2f and 3D Mini Dogfight 1.5f. These games all cry for both these features: all these titles are 3D-heavy, where graphics processing units like the 2700G can prove VERY useful; furthermore, most racing / sports games cry for multiplayer options.
The lack of stylus-based (touch screen) control is a big problem with the racing titles of the developer. On Pocket PC’s, most racing titles have touch screen-based controls. Very few titles refuse to be controlled with the stylus / by the screen (for example, the great racing game port Raging Thunder).
In addition, all these titles have VERY repetitive in-game music. This should be addressed by the developer.
Finally, a problem with the graphics engine: there’s no way to decrease the graphics detail in these games. While the games run very well on today’s non-low-end devices (including my VGA devices too - I've tested the titles on my VGA Dell Axim x51v and VGA Pocket Loox 720 and had no speed problems), there are some notable exceptions: for example, current Pocket PC’s with 180…195 MHz TI CPU’s; for example, the HTC Wizard.
Other remarks
As far as the “fantasy racer” Owen's Monster Truck is concerned, anyone having read my big roundup of Mario Kart clones knows what kart / trucks game implementations there are on the Pocket PC. Owen's Monster Truck, when compared to these titles, certainly excels at square screen support and support for pre-WM2003 OS’es. It, however, has no multiplayer, unlike MicroSquad and has no REAL auto-acceleration (the, by default, enabled “Auto-accelerate Assist” only keeps the truck at the given speed; it doesn’t try to increase the speed all the time, which can be pretty annoying after, for example, running into other cars), unlike most other titles. This is a definite minus, as with the complete lack of stylus-based control (most Mario Kart clones have, in cases, freely definable on-screen controls).
SuperCars (2)? Does it ring a bell? Gangsta Race? Dreamway? Ever wanted to play something like them – but something MUCH better, with freaking good visuals, sound effects, animation, in-game music, incredibly good controls and, last but definitely not least, possibly forthcoming multiplayer support?
I’ve often reported on the current state of the K-Rally project. Thanks to the excellent folks at Infinite Dreams (iDreams for short), who provided me a pre-release beta version of the Pocket PC version of this EXCELLENT racing game, I’ve been playing this title for a week (played it almost entirely through) and am absolutely astonished. Now that I’ve also received the final, commercial version, I’ve quickly played it through to see how it has changed; I've also used this chance to update my remarks / screenshots.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(Note that this review is FULL of in-game screenshots - I've made some 60 of them. Make sure you click the links to see them - I haven't directly included them in the article to keep its size down.)
Best Pocket PC game of 2006?
I don’t think I exaggerate when I state K-Rally is by far the best Pocket PC game released in 2006. Yeah, SkyForce Reloaded, the best top-down shooter for the Pocket PC, is a very close second and there have been some other outstanding titles too; for example, Enslave in the action, Edge in the RPG and, for example, some new 4Pockets games in some other categories, but I’d say K-Rally is even better. (Actually, I’ve thought about whether Edge or K-Rally should be called THE best PDA game of 2006 as both of them are of really high quality and a lot of work has been spent on both of them. Then, I’ve chosen K-Rally because Edge is, originally, a Palm OS game.) Finally, I don’t think desktop conversions like the otherwise great Broken Sword or some Zuma ports, should be compared to native PDA titles like Edge, Enslave, K-Rally or SkyForce Reloaded. After all, they're ports "only", with most of the work (artwork, graphical, music, sound, map, conversation etc. resources and scripts) previously created for the desktop version.
Gameplay
This top-down 2D (note that it has MANY 3D effects, which will already be known to you if you have played SkyForce Reloaded) racing game is pretty simple by default: you race, possibly fire at other cars to slow them down (or, in cases, to destroy them), collect experience points and money (and different powerups from the road), buy upgrades to speed up your car / make it more durable etc. If you’ve ever played the, technically, much-much more inferior Gangsta Race and Dreamway, you already know what the weapons are for
You start the game with setting up a profile (this, incidentally, can be done any time if you, for example, find the Easy / Normal level too easy and would like to continue with the Hard level without finishing the easy/normal difficulty levels first). First, you enter your name and, then, the difficulty level must be selected. The Easy and Normal difficulty levels are very easy and don’t really present much challenge – at least in my opinion. Therefore, you may want to start with the Hard level at once. After this, you’ll need to select whether weapons are allowed. I strongly recommend enabling them – without them, the game becomes much more boring. Also, having weapons greatly enhances the strategies you can use to beat your opponents.
After all this, you start with 0 eXperience Points (XP’s). You need to collect these points to unlock different modes: with 0 points, you can only use the Tutorial mode. After finishing the tutorial, you’re given 100 XP’s and must select Quick Race to further increase your XP's – you’ll need 600 for the next step, the Championship mode.
After you’ve collected 600 XP’s, you may want to go straight to the Championship as it’s, in general, much more challenging than the plain Quick Race. Championship, depending on the difficultly level you’ve selected upon creating your profile, will offer 4, 6 or 7 leagues, each consisting of several (between, in general, 6 and 10) races.
After successfully finishing a league (if you're the first; if you aren't, you'll need to start from the beginning of the given league), you’re assigned a new car as can be seen in here (showing the best car given at the end of the sixth league on Hard level.) With this car, the maximal speed will be about 155 Mph (without turbo) with all the upgrades. (The latter, however, will cost you an arm and a leg – for example, the best engine upgrade costs $30000, which is pretty complicated to collect even in Hard mode and the last league, where the prize of the first is $3000-$3500. Compared to this speed, the speed of the car you’re given in the first league of all the three levels are really disappointing – about the half. Fortunately, as has already been mentioned, you aren’t forced to play through the easy / normal leagues if you go straight for the Hard difficulty level.)
After collecting 5000 XP’s, the Career mode will also be unlocked. It’s pretty hard even in Medium difficulty level (much harder than the Championship mode) so I really recommend playing through the Championship mode first, even if you’ve already passed the 5000 XP threshold (playing the entire Championship league through gives you some 30 000 XP’s). Also see the "Best practice" section below for more tips to follow.
Finally, there’re Random tracks (requiring 18 000 XP’s so you’ll need to play through at least both the easy and normal leagues – if you start with the former) where tracks are generated in a completely random way and a Ghost mode (requiring 3000 XP’s to unlock), which is great for practicing (it helps you in fine-tuning your controls by showing the route you've followed in the last lap) but is pretty boring and non-challenging otherwise.
Availability
The game is available for purchase at ClickGamer and Handango. The homepage of the game is here - really worth keeping an eye on it to see whether there're upgrades. Also, following the official forum is recommended.
It doesn’t have a trial version, which is pretty understandable, given that a simple dumbed-down (for example, only the first league – with a crappy, slow car; it’s only at later leagues that you’re given faster cars) would have been a severe impact on the demo – only based on my experiences with the slowest car, I wouldn’t be sure I’d buy the game. The same stands for in-game music: it’s only by playing some leagues completely through that you’ll see most leagues have at least four different, very cool and original music tracks. With an one-league demo, demonstrating this would be impossible. All in all, I understand why the iDreams folks haven’t come up with a demo / trial of the game.
In general, I’m strongly against Pocket PC developers not releasing trial versions – sometimes I even disqualify these titles from my full roundups. The case with iDreams, however, is entirely different – they produce really high-quality games and can be safely purchased without your getting, later, disappointed. I’m pretty sure your WM2003, WM2003SE or WM5 Pocket PC will run the game without problems. I haven’t had speed problems, only on my 195 MHz, non-overclocked HTC Wizard when using the stylus to control the car (as has been pointed out in many of my game reviews, the Wizard is especially sensitive to stylus usage - if you do keep the stylus pressed on the screen, the overall speed of the device decreases considerably). However, overclocking the Wizard (see this for a tutorial) to 240 MHz certainly helped this - then, the game became quite playable, even with the stylus. Note that in this case you can also disable extra visual effects in the Options menu to further increase the speed.
Also, make sure if you have a WM5-upgraded hx4700 or Dell Axim x50(v) you don’t install it into the main storage, only on a storage card. The reason for this is that the game often writes to state / config files in the home, which, if it’s in the built-in flash ROM, will, sooner or later, result in a time-consuming compaction. Please also see the comments here on this matter.
Compatibility
The game is compatible with all WM2003+ devices (not compatible with previous OS’es; that is, don’t expect PPC2k2 compatibility, unlike with, say, earlier builds of the original SkyForce). I haven’t had any problems on any Pocket PC’s I’ve tested the game on: the Pocket Loox 720, the Dell Axim x51v, the HTC Universal (all VGA devices), the QVGA HTC Wizard (running at 240 MHz to avoid stylus speed issues), the HP iPAQ 2210 and the WM5 Airis T620 (QVGA devices) and, finally, the WM5 HP iPAQ hw6915 (a square-screen device).
It runs in both portrait and landscape modes, using landscape orientation (with a game area wider than the height) in the latter. The ability to work in both cases is of great help for users that have Pocket PC models with a not very good screen, polarization-wise (for example, the x50v/x51v). Kudos to iDreams for this too!
It also supports vibrating; I’ve, however, after playing the game on the HTC Universal and HTC Wizard, haven’t seen it being used at all – not even at running on mines. I don’t know how it’s supposed to work. In the official iDreams forum, this S60 thread states you need to enable vibration on your S60 smartphones. On my doing so on my PPC PE’s (by switching off sounds entirely), I couldn’t make it work either. Hope this minor glitch will be addressed by the developers.
Note that the game does NOT use high resolution on VGA devices, despite what the blurb at ClickGamer states (“Pocket PC VGA resolution (fullscreen 640x480)”). It uses pixel doubling. However, if you're a VGA owner, this shouldn’t stop you from giving it a try - the visuals are really-really good even with pixel doubling!
Controls
Fortunately, everything related to controlling (including manual turbo mode, which isn’t really needed in the easy and normal difficulty level but you MUST use it in the last two leagues of the hard difficulty level) is accessible on the screen, by using the stylus. As a rule of thumb, you will want to control the car by the “analogue” stylus as it offers far better controllability (except for, sometimes, the car’s being hidden under the stylus) than the “digital” hardware D-pad.
You’ll only need the latter (if you don’t reconfigure your buttons) for shooting rockets and putting down mines. If your Pocket PC has a jog dial, you will want to play the game in Portrait mode, use the stylus to control the car (even including the manual turbo mode) and use the jog dial for the two kinds of weapons – it’s FAR easier to control the car this way than using the D-pad. On my Pocket Loox 720, which has a jog dial, it’s a treat to play the game using the jog dial to shoot / mine.
Unfortunately, the excellent PPC PE utility SmartSKey (see this for more info) doesn't work with title either, as with most other games.
However, the game does support the volume slider of some? most? Pocket PC phones if you explicitly redefine the game keys in Options. Just double-click Rockets and press the volume slider upwards and do the same with Mines and downwards. This will work independent of SmartSKey and makes gaming much easier on a lot of devices; for example, the HTC Wizard.
In-game tips; some stuff you need to be aware of
The game offers numerous (there’re about 33-34 of them and they’re shown in a sequence) tips upon starting to race. Some of them are just ads (like this), some general wisdom and / or silly stuff (also see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this) , some more useful ones (also see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this), some mention future (not yet existing) upgrades.
There are, however, two tips (mostly shown in the introductory, obligatory Quick Race) that can cause misunderstandings. One of them (see this) states weapons slow down your car. This is REALLY misleading and is not at all true. I’ve even done some speed tests. With the fastest car & all the possible upgrades, the car is capable of about 155 mph, with fully loaded weapons AND without them.
The other (see this) states you can earn 200 XP’s with reading the manual. This is pretty misleading too (at first, I’ve also searched hard for this in order to collect the 600 XP needed for unlocking the Championship mode as quickly as possible) – the PDF manual can only be read offline and you can’t make the game give you the 200 XP in any way. Yes, you’ll need to work through some Quick Races to gain access to the Championship mode.
Bets
You will be offered bets several times during championship (example here). In most cases, I was able to win these bets. Don’t forget to select the largest available bet by pressing the Right arrow on D-Pad. Don’t be afraid of the tip “Don’t bet too much, otherwise, you may get into debt” too much – you'll never have negative balance because you can't bet more than your currently available cash.
Sometimes you’re even asked to kill another player. In these cases, as this task isn’t very easy, you’ll be offered ten times more money and the target car will always be denoted with a red arrow so you'll always know what car to shoot rockets at / drop mines in front of.
Playability, chances
Without any hacks, I had no problems (I didn’t need to restart a league) up until the sixth league (there are seven of them) of the hard level. I, however, had to restart these two leagues several times to get thru (particularly the last one). They are really though – even with money hacks. Without them, it’s almost impossible to remain the first.
Hacking
It’s possible to hack the save file to increase your money (yeah, it’s sometimes VERY handy to have a very strong coder / programmer background ). Then, it’ll be possible to buy all the upgrades at once as can be seen for example in this screenshot. I don’t, however, publish how this should be done as I don’t want people upload “hacked” results to the online high score ranking. Don’t e-mail me on this matter either – mails asking for the hack will end up in the bin
Path finding algorithm – some minor flaws
Unlike most other racing games, there are no natural (terrain) barriers between (even close) roads. Therefore, the game has some built-in protection against users that want to cut corners to gain some advantage. This, in cases, can cause some problems because of a small flaw in the algorithm. You must be aware of this flaw to avoid being placed back on the road, which, in some case, when every second counts, can even lead to your losing a race.
The algorithm works as follows: when you just leave the road (not very far) but there isn’t anything between you and the road, nothing happens. However, if there’s a terrain obstacle (except for the three flags, which can also be seen in the bottom right corner of this screenshot) between you and the road, independent of its size, you’ll be replaced on the road. This may be somewhat annoying on straight roads where you drift off the road, without any intent to cut corners. The iDreams people may want to consider reviewing the algorithm or completely getting rid of it and implementing terrain obstacles to avoid players’ cutting corners.
Note that, before I’ve found out how the algorithm works, I’ve only had two or three cases where it caused some headaches; therefore, it’s not that big a problem. When (and if), however, the multiplayer add-on arrives, this may become an issue – after all, in multiplayer, even the slightest algorithmic flaws can be deadly. (See the example of, say, Blizzard’s Starcraft on the desktop PC, Mac and N64.)
Best strategy?
You can gain some REAL advantage if you always make sure you have at least one mine before starting a race. Then, just drop it, right after starting and getting in front of (some of) them, to get rid of at least one of your opponents for the rest of the game because opponents you take out so early in the game will battle with other opponents (which slow them both considerably down) to get further, not you.
After that, if you do maneuver well, these opponents won’t cause you any problems. Also try to put mines in front of the car that is just behind you.
The same stands for rockets – try to shoot them from as close as possible. For example, if a faster car has just overtaken you, you’re still very close to him to shoot him. The same stands for when you run into him: you can even use rockets while your cars are connected.
Using this strategy, I’ve managed to defeat many opponents even when I used much slower cars than theirs.
As far as the career mode is concerned, the best startegy to follow is just staying on the easy levels (you won't be able to beat almost anyone on Normal / Hard maps with the default car, not even fully upgraded) until you collect 25000 bucks to buy the fastest, most expensive car. With that, even Hard maps / races will be a breeze and you'll be practically unbeatable, even with a non-fully-upgraded car.
To effectively collect money on the Easy maps, I recommend either the $50 map or, if it's offered (sometimes only a $300 race is offered, which isn't as lucrative as the $50 / $100 / $200 races), the $100 / $200 races. They offer the most for the first place-winners.
Boss levels, game state backup
There are boss levels at the end of all the three difficultly levels (that is, after the first 4, 6 and, finally, 7 leagues). As far as both the easy and normal bosses are concerned, I’ve found them pretty easy to defeat. If you, however, are afraid and don’t want to replay the entire easy / normal / hard league (if you lose three times to the boss in turn, you will need to restart the entire set of leagues - nt just the last one, as is the case with not being the first after a standard league), you may want to consider backing up the profile0X.sav file (where X is the number of the used profile; 0 if you use the first profile in the row) in the home directory of the game (\Program Files\ Games\KRally if you install the game to the default built-in storage) before the game and, if you are defeated and would need to replay the entire league, just copy back the file.
Documentation
The game has an excellent online documentation. It’s really worth reading.
The game, as has also been pointed out, also has a(n obligatory – you must make it through in order to start earning Experience Points) built-in tutorial (screenshot 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), which explains the basics.
Multiplayer
The authors may release a multiplayer update in the near future. It’ll be, as usual with iDreams’ games, multiplatform – that is, you’ll be able to play your mates with non-Pocket PC’s (as could you play them in earlier iDreams multiplayer-enabled games). Also, as far as the Pocket PC version is concerned, they promise support for both the Widcomm and Microsoft Bluetooth stacks (unlike the previous two multiplayer-enabled titles), which means it’ll be compatible with 99.9% of current Pocket PC’s.
Compared to Gangsta Race / Dreamway...
(Please follow the links to see a review of these two games.)
I don’t think it’s even worth comparing K-Rally to these old(er) titles. There is just no comparison: K-Rally simply blasts them both away in almost every respect (except for, maybe, the, on VGA devices, high resolution support of Dreamway. The latter, however, doesn’t add much to the overall gameplay and enjoy factor of the game). This will be particularly true when multiplayer support is indeed released.
Pros
Even better than SkyForce Reloaded, the, up to now, best action game for the Pocket PC
Astonishingly nice visuals: fog, 3D effects, tracks on the road etc.
Unique, really good, not repeating (but, unfortunately, mono) retro music tracks in most leagues (I have counted at least four of them – there may be even more, I’m not sure) – as was the case with SF Reloaded
Very cool sound effects: laughing, explosions and even ambient sounds like birds etc.
VERY fast: it was only on really low-end Pocket PC’s (for example, the cheapo Airis T620) that I had to decrease the graphics detail. The game was extremely fast and responsive on all other devices with all effects enabled
Multiplayer, when and if it comes, will add even more to the game! Multi-platform multiplayer (as is the case with earlier iDreams titles), support for both the Microsoft and the Widcomm BT stack, four simultaneous players etc.
Incomparably better than ANY top-down 2D racing games on the Pocket PC
(the Finnish flag in here, in addition to the Polish, American and English one Yeah, the iDreams folks do pay tribute to some of the superpowers of rallying Also, I’ve seen a Finnish name in the Championship opponent list – Marko. I wonder if, given iDreams’ strong ties to the demoscene, it has anything to do with Marko Mäkelä, the well-known Finnish Commodore scener)
Cons
Sometimes annoying pathfinding algorithm flaws
No trial version
Verdict
I don’t think you should miss this title. It’s a must – it’s REALLY good, far better than, I’d say, most other Pocket PC games. Give it a try even if you aren’t a racing / action fan and/or didn’t like Gangsta Race / Dreamway much: I’m pretty sure you’ll be satisfied.
Other links
See other remarks on the game at AximSite, iDreams' forum (for example, this thread), here, here and here.
Finally, don’t forget to check out my other game reviews here. I also recommend the game reviews in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog by Ben Stanley, Al Harrington and Eric Pankoke.
UPDATE (12/25/2006): AximSite frontpage
Review slightly updated.
Article updated; a lot of new, career mode-related, useful tips added.
UPDATE (01/10/2007): German-language Pocketplayers.de has published a review of the game (Babelfish here). They are also very hapy with the game. Note that the Babel translation has rendered the verdict almost useless; it's as follows:
"As expected, iDreams has released a first-class game. All who doesn't dislike auto racing games and doesn't dislike using weapons (that is, both racing and action fans) should check it out. Even when some many visual effects are already known from Skyforce Reloaded, the visuals of the game are still excellent and so is the sound.
While there indeed are still minor problems, they will hopefully be fixed. The game has still delivered really great fun while playing. Currently, the game is between 9 and 10 (90...100%). Without the problems, it'd receive almost or even 100%."
yeah i liked this game too, very addictive.
but i had everything unlocked and had finished career and champ races in 3 days.
on my TyTN k-rally is ~10FPS - is it normal????
WM6 (Official Russian ROM) AtiFix installed
Games news (11/17/2007): New Orions & Azgard update, free, decent Bejeweled-clone etc
1. Azgard Defence and the two Orions (Legend of Wizards and The Second Age) have been updated!
These three (unfortunately, Pocket PC-only – no Smartphone / Symbian / etc. versions are available) astonishingly good games (Orions: Legend of Wizards and Azgard Defence won this year in the Turn-based Strategy and in the (plain) Strategy categories, respectively - and they certainly deserved it!) are a must-get for all Pocket PC users. (See my review of the latter HERE and that of Doug Goldring of the former HERE.) Now, they have received updates.
The changes to Orions are as follows (with my remarks in italics):
Balance Changes:
* Tython is now slightly stronger. (More HP and attack damage)
* Tython's casting no longer costs water elements. I’m not entirely sure this, along with the previous balance change, was a nice idea – after all, Tython has already been THE best way for mass re-healing. Now, a player having this card will be next to unbeatable (if he’s playing using the right strategy and is, otherwise, decent)
* Lightning Bolt damage increased to 6.
* Remade Avatar. The most important change as I really didn’t see the point in this card at all. Nice the developers have listened to me.
* Guardian: now loses less health each round. Great, now, it’s much more useful because it won’t die that fast
* Fixed cast cost for Spider. This was more of a bug and should belong to the “Common bugs” section IMHO
* Imp: Health increased. Nice idea because it was REALLY weak – now, combined with Diablo (which, unfortunately, has been made pricey), it’s much better than before
* Infernal: Level lowered to 10.
* Diablo casting now cost 1 Fire and weakened a little. Oh dear, it used to be SO cool to quickly make other Fire creatures unbeatable...
Common Bugs:
* AI no longer casts Scylla's abilities too much. Oh dear, now, we can’t take advantage of this bug to quickly bump up our Water elements…
* Leviathan, Nixie, Demon - elemental issues solved. (No more exchange nothing for fire/water). See previous remark
* Fixed Black Market issues.
* Fixed Necromancer multiplayer issue.
Incidentally, the homepage of the developer has a poll called “What game would you like next?”. Currently, “Orions: Duelist Edition (No campaign, all new cards)” has 95% of the (currently, 365) votes. This is certainly good news: we DO want more and even more cards (and, preferably, lounge-based multiplayer support!) Personally, I haven't played the campaign part of the game much - I like the dual gaming much more. Therefore, I'm absolutely satisfied with the (current) poll results.
2. A VERY decent, really multiplatform, freeware Bejeweled clone, Snowed In 6: Deep Freeze, has been released!
Last year, I’ve reviewed the previous game, Snowed In 5 - Flaked Out, in the sequel and kinda liked it – except for the lack of music.
The new sequel is available HERE for download for ALL (!!!) non-Java mobile platforms – even for Symbian S80, S90 and GP2X (not only the "traditional" ones like Pocket PC, MS Smartphone, Symbian S60(v3) / UIQ)! Quite a feat, isn’t it?
The Pocket PC version, as with the previous sequel, supports all screen resolutions (even square screens) and the VGA version natively supports hi-res, which is also very good news. Unfortunately, it (still) has no in-game music, in which it’s certainly inferior to the two Bejeweleds, the absolute star in this category (mostly because of its music). But, after all, you can run a MOD player in the background, playing back the music of Astrware’s classic as is thoroughly explained in my related tutorial. Then, you'll get a 100% - in high resolution if you have a VGA device (again, Bejeweled doesn't support high resolution on VGA devices).
3. OmniG Software has released Super-G Stunt for both the Pocket PC and the MS Smartphone platform
Unfortunately, OmniG Software's new title doesn’t support the 3D accelerators (the 2700G in the Dell Axim x50v / x51v Pocket PC's (or the GoForce 5500 in the O2 XDA Flame / Toshi G900.) Their only title to support the 2700G (but not the 5500) was Chopper Fight reviewed HERE.
As these games heavily depend on 3D, this is pretty much a showstopper for me, mostly because the new game is suffering from the same problem as ALL the other OmniG Software titles; most importantly, the REALLY repetitive music and pretty dull gameplay. Not recommended - if you want to play something like this, go for for example Warelex' Sky Racer instead (reviewed HERE) instead (not that that title were THAT good...).
1. PDAmill has released Wild Gears, a Micro Machines clone
Famous game developer company PDAmill has just released Wild Gears, a pretty decent top-down racing game certainly worth a try. The features include:
• Gorgeous Cartoon Art
• Four different cars
• Intuitive controls that make full use of Windows Mobile touch screen
• 15 awesome tracks to race on
• Rockin' Soundtrack with over 20 minutes of music
• Four different Cups to compete in!
• Records Menu keeps track of all your best track and lap times
• Auto-save
Your first question will surely be (if you’re into gaming, that is): How does it compare to K-Rally, the King of all top-down racing games on all mobile platforms, including Windows Mobile (see review HERE)? Well, it has both cons and pros.
Compared to K-Rally...
It’s worth pointing out that the PDAMill folks pay special attention to their titles’ flawless running on low-end Pocket PC’s plagued with the infamous touchscreen bug I’ve elaborated on, for example, HERE. I’ve thoroughly tested the game on my non-overclocked HTC Wizard and found it extremely well done and the graphics not stuttering at all even with the stylus resting on the screen. This certainly wasn’t the case with K-Rally. On the other hand, I’ve found the game slightly slower on my VGA Dell Axim x51v than on my (even low-end!) QVGA devices. In this regard, K-Rally might (still) be a better choice.
Pros:
- runs definitely better on low-end Pocket PC’s with touchscreen CPU usage issues
- the control scheme may turn out be better for many (see below)
Equal:
- in-game music (both games have very cool music; PDAMill’s musician is Jaybot, after all, which guarantees high-quality, non-repeating music. And we all know how nice the “scener”, “retro” music in K-Rally really is.)
- no multiplayer in either titles. iDreams still haven’t implemented this in their title (too bad) and PDAMill surely won’t. Let me cite Jaybot from PDAMill: “You know my opinion on multiplayer support on windows mobile devices already: nobody uses it It's a nice extra feature to have, but we've never been able to justify it since Snails.”
Cons:
- (no MS Smartphone version: bad news for touchscreen-less Smartphone users)
- slightly slower on some? all? VGA devices - in this regard, K-Rally is better optimized
- no weapons, which really restricts the strategies you can use. In the initial design documents, the PDAMill folks did have lots of different things planned, of course (including battle mode, stunt mode, etc). They, however, simply didn't have time to fit it all into this release. So definitely in an update, sequel, whatever. Let's hope for the best
- Landscape mode only – bad news for users with devices with landscape polarization issues like the Dell Axim x50v / x51v. In K-Rally, you could switch between the two modes (that is, you could just stay with Portrait if your eyes are sensitive to the polarization issues)
There isn’t much point in comparing it to Gangsta Race and Dreamway (old Micro Machines clones) - this title is FAR better, particularly music-wise (just like K-Rally).
Controls
The car (as opposed to most other racing games, where the D-pad can also be used) can ONLY be controlled via the touchscreen. There is a compass on the bottom of the screen, which lets you set both the speed and the direction of the car. That is, the touchscreen controls are WAY different from all the Pocket PC alternatives. In K-Rally, for example, the stylus’ distance from your car sets the speed of the car and the car always accelerates in the direction of it. This is entirely different in Wild Gears. If you’ve been a K-Rally player, the new control scheme takes a few minutes to get used to, but after awhile it grows on you and you may actually prefer it to the full screen controls (especially on tight turns, and... when intentionally ramming another car out of the way). In addition, the PDAMill folks want to get everyone used to the on-screen analog stick idea, as it's something they foresee being very, very useful in future titles (for example in a 3D platformer, along the lines of Mario64).
Of course, this approach has (other) major advantages too; most importantly, no cars will ever be hidden under the stylus (some people have complained about this with K-Rally).
Verdict
All in all, go give the trial version a go – it’s certainly worth a try. It’s available HERE.
2. Resco Table Soccer, which is a very nice game particularly on high-resolution VGA devices, is free (!!!) until 03/12. Get it HERE - it’s REALLY worth it!
3. DoomGLES, the only 3D hardware accelerated and, what is more, free (!!!) Doom port for Pocket PC, has been updated to support the GoForce 5500 hardware chip in some models like the O2 XDA Flame and the new i-mate Ultimate 6150 / 8150 (see review of the latter HERE).
So far, very few (only two: Call of Duty 2 and GeoRallyEX), otherwise, Intel 2700G-enabled 3D titles have had support for GoForce 5500 (see THIS compatibility list). Now, you, at last, have an excellent Doom clone as well. Hope Kokak also manages to make his recently-released HereticGLES. Also see THIS PG thread if interested. Finally, please don’t forget to donate some money to Kokak if you would like to see future development – I’ve just done so.
UPDATE (03/09/2008): I've forgotten to directly compare the graphics of Wild Gears and K-Rally. In this regard, K-Rally is way better with its excellent light and particle effects, pseudo-3D environment (for example, trees) and scrolling. (Thanks to my blog reader Natestera for pointing this out!)
Thanks for the info and links.
Hardware
There’s a really interesting article comparing the built-in camera of the four most widely discussed new Windows Mobile phones: HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, Samsung Omnia, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. There is also a dedicated PPCT thread HERE, with some of my comments.
Games
(game announcement heads-up source: PocketGamer.org)
1. Xassar's Quest is a new RPG from ClimbWalls. I’ve played it a bit. Unfortunately, the developers’ being a newcomer definitely shows: it’s quite bug-ridden. It’s really slow on my VGA HTC Universal while it offers no high-resolution VGA support. It isn’t faster on my HTC Wizard either. Also, it very often shows just a white screen to the gamer, which, fortunately, goes away after a screen tap. I could only make it faster by disabling both the sound engine and the “high graphics”. The latter, fortunately, only resulted in a much uglier “fog of war” effect and had no effect on the character / enemy / object sprites. After this, I wasn’t able to re-enable sounds / music to see whether it’s the sound engine that really slows the game down.
On the other hand, it has nice, stereo music; might be worth a try if you’re into top-view RPG’s. Otherwise, forget it and wait for a heavily bugfixed, optimized version – currently, it’s just too slow. There’re several other RPG’s for Windows Mobile offering much better playability. Or, if you have a (preferably high-res) Palm or a sufficiently powerful VGA Pocket PC, go for EDGE (on Pocket PC’s, with the Palm emulator StyleTao), the probably best RPG ever released for PDA platforms.
2. There’s a new adventure game, Igor, from a new Windows Mobile gaming publisher company, Summer Goth Studios. I’ve played the demo through (it took me about 10 minutes – yes, the demo is VERY short). I’ve requested a review copy; the developers promised it, along with a lot of enhancements, would be sent to me in about a week. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I manage to play it though. At a first glance, it seems to be better than some of the anti-adventure games like Lost in the Pyramid. As the demo was really short, making it impossible to get a real picture of the quality and abundance of the in-game sounds (the demo was pretty bad in this respect), music (if any – I haven’t encountered any) and whether the storyline is (any) good, I can’t say more about the title.
3. It was some three months ago that GameZoneProject has released Towers Trap for multiple smart phone platforms (both Windows Mobile platforms, Symbian and desktop Windows), a real-time strategy game. A new, 1.1 version with a sound bugfix has recently been released.
It’s looks a bit like PocketMoreGames’ Tower Defence and is highly recommended, the most recommended game of the bunch. Make sure you give it a try. Note that it makes use of the high resolution of VGA screens, which is pretty much welcome in games like this. Unfortunately, the tutorial message boxes don’t display the end of several messages; fortunately, you can still do some guesswork, which means you can easily absorb the tutorial. This isn’t a problem on QVGA devices, where, in addition, the game is MUCH faster than on VGA ones.
4. ConcreteSoft has come out with another camera-controlled (remember their 3D Lawn Darts?) game, PBA Bowling, for both Windows Mobile platforms and, in addition, the BlackBerry. As I am not a big fan of bowling titles, I don’t really want to review it. I’m not a big fan of camera-based control either. However, as some other people have had much more success with the 3D Lawn Darts’s camera control than me, I think with some patience you’ll learn how to control the swung / force.
5. Rowanvale Software's Danger Dan is a platformer game. It’s certainly worth checking out if you like light, entertaining puzzle / platformers - you most probably will like it. It also has a great tracked scene music.
Hacks, projects
Some people have been trying to make the add-on applications coming with the HTC Diamond work on other devices. So far, without success. The dedicated threads are as follows:
- the Diamond YouTube player. I, as the author of the YouTube Bible, am especially interested in this project. So far, very few people have managed to make it work. See THIS for more info.
- the new (v. 3.3.5) JBlend MIDlet Manager coming with the Diamond is stated to render Opera Mini with large fonts on VGA devices, which is a must on (W)VGA phones with a physically small screen. See THIS.
There is also a thread on hacking the RMVB decoder from the Samsung i780 HERE. I haven’t managed to make it run on my HP iPAQ 210; hope you have more luck.
The XDA-Devs ROM hackers have managed to release a decent WM 6.1 ROM for the HTC Oxygen (s310). I haven’t tested it before making absolutely sure the ROM upgrade won’t kill my call recording capabilities – currently, the main reason for my sticking with the s310 as my main phone. Feel free to provide any feedback on this issue.
My projects
I’ll attend a three-day lecture series of Osman Nuri Ucan (Istanbul Unversity) on "New approaches in turbo codes and their applications" in a week. I’ll report on it in my (hopefully) really soon-to-be-published Digital TV Bible, which will heavily discuss turbo and other kinds of coding. (Only for die-hard Electric Engineers - that is, not for the faint-hearted!)
I’ve also written a full Multiplatform Modem Bible for three smart phone operating systems. A preview version is available HERE. I plan to publish it as soon as I get feedback from the Joiku folks (and cleaning up the style / the English a bit). If you really want to check it out even in its half-baked state, feel free to do it / comment on the factual contents (but not the structure / English – they will still be fixed) - hopefully in 16-20 hours.
A quick update: Towers Trap is 6,47 € instead of 9,95 € (that is, about 10 US$) until 07/13/2008 at http://www.mobile2day.com/en/product_1018501_details.html
Well worth the price, I'd say.