as promised by the developer, currently, the, in most respects, best multiplatform game console emulator for both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones, SmartGear, has received tap area touchscreen support.
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I’ve thoroughly tested the new, really-really-awaited functionality on my various (QVGA and VGA) Pocket PC’s in both screen orientations and found it excellent. It worked flawlessly. Now, the emulator is MUCH easier to be controlled on Pocket PC’s – you MUST give it a try!
Both Resco and PDAMill (the latter “only” with Arvale, GameBox Asia, Flux Challenge, Anthelion 2, and GameBox Solitaire; see section “PC Versions of Classic PDAmill Games released” on their homepage for the individual download links) have released free (!!) desktop Windows version of their games.
Speaking of PDAMill, they have just released a a Kakuro clone puzzle: Glyphos. They have also come out with a generic, free launcher for all their (installed) games, Lawn Chair. Both titles are PPC only – no Smartphone versions are available.
And, as far as desktop versions are concerned, the desktop Windows version of C2Matrix' Fire Hawk (see review HERE) has also been released – for free. Download HERE.
Ur Mobile Game have released Ore Explorer, a pretty decent jump’n’run game, for Windows Mobile Smartphones, Pocket PC’s and Symbian UIQ 3 ((still?) no Symbian S60, unfortunately). It’s available HERE (in addition to their official homepage); make sure you give the trial a try – it’s certainly worth it. The related PG thread is HERE.
You may already know eSoft Interactive’s Traffic Jam, a very similar game to AIM’s well-known Pocket PC / Smartphone oldie “Done In 50 Seconds” and Simbsoft’s “Railroad Jam” linked to HERE) has just received a sequel, Traffic Jam II. It’s available HERE for both Widnows Mobile platforms (Pocket PC’s and Smartphones) and also Palm OS (HiRes only – no HiRes+ support, unfortunately).
Speaking of Done In 50 Seconds / Railroad Jam clones, Max Image World have just released another clone, Sheepboy. It has nothing to write home about; still, if you’re into the genre, you may like it.
Machines at War, without doubt the best RTS game for Windows Mobile right now, has been updated to 1.10 some two months ago and received a lot of goodies I’ve also asked for in my previous reviews (the last one is HERE):
* New game feature to team players so you can have 1vs2 and 2vs2 battles
* Fixed bertha guns and turrets not firing after a while
* The game can now handle more units on slower machines
* HQ and miniguns were upgraded to help with rushes
* Made the easy AI easier and the hard AI harder
* You can no longer easily rush the AI
* Fixed Smartphone issue not being able to control the tech tree
* Several other fixes and performance increases
I’ve accordingly updated the comparison chart (also linked to from the main homepage of the game – thanks guys!) to reflect the changes.
Related
Momentum Games, developers of well-known, high-quality titles like Pocket Mini Golf 2 (see review & comparison here), has just come up with a remarkable, new, platform-like game. Since there are very few really good platformer games for the Pocket PC (SuperTux, Gold Miner Joe, the free OpenJazz, Bayside Studios' Quigley's Quest 1.10, the not-sold-any-more Rayman Ultimate by Gameloft or the non-WM5-compliant, now-free Tommy Kombat come to mind as examples, in addition to N.I’s great Retro Games collection and the to-be-released Titus’ Prehistorik clone Prehistoric), I gave it a test ride right away.
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While the game isn’t exactly a traditional platform game (unlike the above-listed games) but more of a logic / puzzle game (in this respect it’s a bit like, for example, Lemmings, Cavemen, AIM productions’ Tmax or Astraware’s Mazera, reviewed in the Roundup of All Pocket PC Games Part I). It is also slightly similar to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Jet Pac (screenshot here), one of the favourite games of my childhood.
Availability
The game is available HERE, costs $15.95 and has a perfectly playable trial version.
Compatibility
I’ve tested it on my WM5 Dell Axim x51v (A12), WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720 and 5-year-old (!) Pocket PC 2002 Compaq iPAQ 3660 (yes, Pocket PC 2002 compliance is VERY rare with new titles!). It worked flawlessly on all these devices. It’s also compatible with square-screen devices and also has MS Smartphone and desktop Windows versions.
Visuals
They’re pretty good: the game, just like the new version of Pocket Mini Golf, supports hi-res VGA. On these devices, it looks pretty cool. The “thrust” effects (see the screenshot above) are pretty cool too, a bit like those of 4Pockets (the most known, excellent Pocket PC game developer company to use movement effects like these.)
Music / sounds
While the music is pretty cool, it’s pretty repetitive (as with Momentum Games’ other titles in general – they should pay more attention to less repetitive in-game music with better quality) and played back at a low quality and in mono.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a “traditional” platform game, you may be disappointed with this title. Still, give it a try.
If you more like platformer-like games where thinking is more necessary (in the Tmax / Mazera / Lemmings / Cavemen way), definitely give this title a try.
Would you like to play an Astraware's Tradewinds / Sid Meier’s Pirates! clone? Do you find Tradewinds’ battle system far weaker than that of the Pirates, the father of all such titles? I have good news for you – read on!
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Unfortunately, there are very few Pirates clones on the Pocket PC – a classic game that is, as with Elite (see the Bible of Pocket PC Gaming Part I on the latter), based on both trading and battling and can be played for weeks or even months long. Up to now, the only Pocket PC game that was, to some degree, similar to Pirates! has been Astraware’s well-known Tradewinds (not counting in the even less Pirates!-reminiscent Seven Seas, also by Astraware and also discussed in the Bible of Pocket PC Gaming Part I), but, as it almost completely lacks all arcade elements, can be quite a disappointment for a die-hard Pirates! fan.
The new, recently released game High Seas is different in this matter – it has a far better battle system than that of Tradewinds. In this respect, Pirates! fans that wanted something more reminiscent of the classic may rejoice.
Availability, compatibility
The official homepage, the game being pretty new, still lacks some essential menu items. The title is available at Handango and costs $9.95 (half the price of Tradewinds).
It’s, currently, only compatible with WM2003 and WM2003SE devices. It is NOT WM5-compliant! I had no problems running it on my WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720 and WM2003 iPAQ 2210.
Visuals, music
Pretty OK; music-wise, not so good as that of Tradewinds though (in my opinion). Note that neither of the two games makes use of the high resolution of VGA screens.
Compared to Tradewinds (as of version 1.03)
Pros
Much better battle system, pretty close to that of Pirates!
Shows low / high prices in shops and, in about 50% of cases, even for remote harbors – this greatly reduces wasted time and routes!
Landscape version also available (albeit as a separate download) – Tradewinds is portrait-only. (A quick note: the landscape version must be started in landscape mode; otherwise, you’ll be presented an error message that can only be cleared by resetting the Pocket PC) when you start the game in Landscape
Only costs the half
Cons
As of version 1.00.08, no WM5 compliance
Worse in-game music
Not so spectacular
No PPC2k2 compatibility (Tradewinds is compatible with Pocket PC 2002)
Verdict
Give the trial a try if you have a WM2003 or WM2003SE device - you may like it.
The company Oasys claims to have released Pirates! I have seen no reviews of it on the web though. The screenshots look great.
http://www.oasysmobileinc.com/products/pirates.html
TITAN-23 said:
The company Oasys claims to have released Pirates! I have seen no reviews of it on the web though. The screenshots look great.
http://www.oasysmobileinc.com/products/pirates.html
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It's still "coming soon" and, based on how lame the WM / BB Civilization IV port is of the same developer (ConcreteSoft; they're poering all these classics to the WM and BB), I'm afraid it won't be as good as the original.
Sid Meir's Pirates! works well on my Kaiser using emulators.
There is a NES version.
And a Sega Genesis/Megadrive Pirates! Gold version.
Both run full speed.
Sid Meier's Pirates for Java also works on my Kaiser 6.1 rom. You can even use the touchscreen.
Lately, I’ve had absolutely no time to test new games because I’ve spent all my time in real-world projects (yeah, I need to do some work to make both ends meet and to be able to purchase all the new gadgets), the Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible and, of course, the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine’s Annual Best Software Awards I’ve become the Nominations Manager of. So, let me quickly review two of the titles; first,
A REAL Prince of Persia-clone!
You must have heard of Prince of Persia, which, back in 1990 (in addition to Indianapolis 500 and Legend Entertainment’s Spellcasting 101), was one of my favorite games on the IBM PC.
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So far, there was no real Prince clone of the game on Windows Mobile. Up until now, that is; now, well-known (see the review of their Billiard Master 2 and Bowling Master review & comparison in the Windows Mobile Multiplayer Bible) Russian Windows Mobile & Palm OS games developer Mobirate has just started reimplementing the game on Windows Mobile.
The demo can be downloaded HERE and is WM2003+ compatible.
The project is really at the alpha stage and a lot of stuff doesn’t work. The Options screen is completely messed up (the labels are not visible at all and you can only guess what a particular checkbox does) on both VGA and QVGA devices, there’s no Button 1 (I’ve tested this on all my three Pocket PC’s (Dell Axim x51v A12, HP iPAQ 2210, HTC Wizard with AKU3.3 ROM) I’ve deployed the game on). The on-screen controls seem to be non-existent (albeit, after switching some “Off” checkboxes to “On” in Options, the game started to use them – but not the D-pad any more). Furthermore, there are absolutely no sound effects / music. Finally, the game may be pretty slow on some devices: it was barely playable (17-18 fps) on my iPAQ 2210. The HTC Wizard running at 240 MHz fared better (24 fps); finally, the x51v was the best (about 26 fps).
While the lack of for example button support may render the game completely useless (for example, you won’t be able to even do basic stuff like drinking potions), you may still want to give it a try, particularly because the developer is giving away free copies of the final version to the best, most productive betatesters (see the last sentence in readme.txt).
I really hope a (more) playable version follows very soon.
Note that the developer’s homepage doesn’t contain any real information on the game. For example, the image’s link takes you to their game compilation Brain Master. I’ve tried to supply different URL’s (by increasing the document ID referenced by the URL) to find out whether there is a page dedicated to the game; there (still) isn’t. That is, you won’t get any additional info on the game.
(News source: have run into the news upon routinely checking for a new, Microsoft Bluetooth stack-compliant version of Billiard Master 2 and Bowling Master on the developer’s homepage).
Moregames Entertainment’s NanoBotz will soon be released!
If you’re a fan of Worms and its clones and/or Atomic Cannon (of which I’ve reviewed the recently-released version 3 HERE), or, just like the previous titles of the developer (most importantly, Enslave, Azgard Defence and the two Orions (Legend of Wizards and The Second Age)) you’ll most certainly welcome their latest title, NanoBotz. I’ve been betatesting it and, so far, have found it excellent. Including the music, of course, which is on par with the music of both Orions and Enslave. Some VGA and QVGA screenshots:
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http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Controllers/PodsMainQ.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Controllers/PodsMainQ2.jpg
Also see THIS for more screenshots. (Source: e-mail contact with the dev) (PPC only)
SpaceTime’s Realms, which I’ve reported on HERE, has been made free. While it’s, in my opinion, a bit weaker than, say, SkyForce Reloaded, the above-announced NanoBotz or Enslave, for free, it’s definitely worth downloading. Get it HERE. Also make sure you check out SpaceTime Mathematics, which is one of the best maths package out there. (Source: PG, PPCT) (PPC only)
The folks at PDAMill have substantially dropped the price of all their games: their premium are now $14.95 and the other titles $9.95. (Source: PG) (PPC, Smartphone)
OK, now, some emulation-related news:
a brand new, 0.11 version of ScummVM has been released. If you’ve read my ScummVM Bible, you know what it’s all about. If you haven’t but would like to play old adventure games on your MS Smartphone or Pocket PC, go read the Bible.
Compared to the old version, there are few changes (but, of course, it’s still worth upgrading): adding support for both Lure of the Temptress and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and some other goodies:
+ Seven other new supported games: Elvira 1 and 2, Waxworks (Amiga version only) and 3 Sierra pre-AGI games for children
+ Support for the Mac version of The Legend of Kyrandia and the Amiga version of Nippon Safes
+ Better support for Sierra AGI games
+ Support for FLAC encoded music in Broken Sword 1 for the purists among you
+ Better support for non-English versions of games, including eastern languages
+ Sound compression for SAGA games
+ Much much more
Specifically for Pocket PC users, the 'Free Look' action has been improved.
(Source: the related ScumVM.org thread. It's worth checking out for additional info. Note that the thread starter post also links to the now-freeware Lure of the Temptress.) (PPC, Smartphone, Symbian, Palm etc. Also note that the engine now also has an iPhone port – not only the “traditional” mobile platforms.)
Finally, Masterall has announced he’ll be shortly releasing the 0.12 version of FinalBurn for WinCE - one of the BEST console emulators ever written for Windows mobile. He has promised a lot of improvements and adding CPS-3 support (PPC, Smartphone)
Shame Final Burn isn't for touch screens =/
suk72 said:
Shame Final Burn isn't for touch screens =/
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It is. Read my related reviews.
hehe i didnt read it,Just hit the link
Nicky Boom was a nice platformer game released for the Commodore Amiga and MS DOS back in 1992 (Wiki page HERE). While, now, fortunately, there are several platformer titles for Windows Mobile (see for example THIS, THIS for a list of newer and THIS of somewhat older titles), few of them are compatible with the MS Smartphone platform (Nicky Boom is; note that I don't know whether it's compatible with low-end / old 176*220 MS Smartphone screens in addition to the now-standard QVGA ones). In addition, the game also has a Palm OS 5 version (only compatible with comparatively new models; that is, most models starting with the T3) and a Symbian S60 and UIQ 3 version is being worked on. It even has an in-browser ActiveX version on the homepage of the developer (click the Play button), DotEmu. A pretty decent demo is available; the full version costs $14.90 for all mobile platforms.
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Note that the game’s homepage doesn’t have a trial version for Palm OS. It IS available at ClickGamer.
While, theoretically, it may be possible to run the original game under Amiga or MS-DOS emulators, I wouldn’t think it’s a good idea. The only Amiga emulator existing for all the mobile platforms, PocketUAE, is very slow and, as it’s long been discontinued, it’s highly unlikely it will ever be fixed. Emulating MS-DOS is far better on Windows Mobile (see the dedicated Bible HERE), but I seriously doubt it’s able to run this title without major at least sound problems and/or without quickly chewing through your battery. The original game having no console versions, you can't rely on much more CPU-efficient and established, commercial console emulators like the almighty SmartGear either.
On Windows Mobile (I haven't tested the game on Palm and the Symbian version hasn't been released as yet), the just-released native version behaves far better: it uses little CPU time, which means it’s quite battery-friendly and runs on even the slowest configurations like the ones based on the old TI OMAP 850, the “heart” of many popular models like the HTC Touch, Wizard and so on.
As it’s just a traditional side-scrolling platform game, there isn’t much to talk about, game story- or usage-wise.
I had no problems running / playing it. Make sure you give it a try! I think I'll also nominate it for this year's Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards contest.
Cons
* Mono music only
* Some stuttering now and then if autofire is enabled. The latter isn’t a CPU usage issue as it stays pretty low even with autofire enabled
Pros
* Much better and, what is even more important, battery-friendly than running the original game under a MS-DOS or an Amiga emulator
* Very good CPU usage: ~28% on 624 MHz PXA-310-based, VGA HP iPAQ 210 and ~60% on the 195 MHz TI OMAP 850-based QVGA HTC Wizard, even with autofire on
BTW, speaking of other platformers, a bad piece of news: the long-awaited Prehistoric: Road to Hollywood (see THIS) will be never completed / released: Bonanza Interactive has gone out of business in the meantime.