Emulation&gaming news:SmartGear with greatly enhanced NES compatibility;Civ clone etc
I think it was worth asking the developer of SmartGear to go commercial; his excellent emulator has been further enhanced after the major upgrades (the touch screen tap zones) in the previous version reviewed HERE. Now, almost all the NES mappers (more on this in the NES Emulation Bible) have been implemented, resulting in tons of previously incompatible games becoming playable. Thumbs up, Larry!
Revival will very soon be released – the first Civilization-like game for all mobile platforms, including both the touchscreen-enabled and -less two Windows Mobile platform. It seems to be REALLY great. Before it’s released, read Ben Stanley’s excellent review, “Revival: Finally a Civilization-Like Game for Windows Mobile!!!” and Masa’s in-depth one HERE (in French; the Babelfish and the Google Translator “translations” are HERE and HERE, respectively). Attila Katona’s (Symbian S60-related, but the game is basically the same on Symbian S60 as on touchscreen-less MS Smartphones) preview is HERE; his full-length review hasn’t been published yet. The related PG thread is HERE.
Lygue Games, who don’t seem to have a homepage of their own, have released a new platformer called “Bananas”. It’s available HERE and is definitely worth a try. (PPC only!)
There’s another platformer, Killer RoboRabbits from Mars; see THIS for more info.
Windows Mobile leading gaming news site PocketGamer.org has reported on some of the games of the free and pretty much high-quality games of XFlib website. See their report HERE, HERE and HERE of TangledBugs, Pipes (a Pipe Dreams clone – see the Windows Mobile Gaming Bible Part I for more info on this genre and the alternatives if interested) and ChristmasXed, in this order.
Still speaking of free games, the excellent Just Another Mobile Monday has published their Arcade Best Five (Plus Two) of 2007, listing the, in the staff’s opinion, best freeware games they’ve reviewed in 2007. Definitely worth a read. Also, don’t forget to check out their monthly freeware reports; their list is HERE.
Two new Sudokus have been released: Impossible Sudoku and Skinz Sudoku.
Related
Anyone having read my Pocket PC-based golf game reviews and comparisons (for example, the one in the Apr/May 2006 issue of Pocket PC and Smartphone Mag) have heard about OmniGSoft’s Nine Hole Golf available on the Microsoft Do More with Your Windows Mobile Powered Phone homepage.
Note that you need to have an active (but, again, FREE) Hotmail account to be able to access the game.
Again, check out my review to see how it compares to other titles. While the game isn’t so stellar as, say, Links (traditional golf simulations) and isn’t so innovative as 4Pocket’s Harry Putter's Crazy Golf and isn’t so friendly as Pocket Mini Golf 2 (minigolf games), for free, it’s definitely worth downloading.
Other recommended, OmniGSoft-related review links
OmniGSoft releases six new, WM5- and square screen compliant versions of their existing games
Multiplayer Bible
OpenGLES / Intel 2700G-related games / tech demo reviews
(News source: Dan Hanttula)
There is a lot of Windows Mobile gaming news to report on:
After Ben Stanley’s excellent review, Just Another Mobile Monday has also published a review of probably the best and, what is more, TCP/IP multiplayer-enabled, turn-based strategy game even released for the Pocket PC, Orions: Legend of Wizards. It's available here and is highly recommended. Note that I'll also publish a Strategy Guide to the game (I'm also an author of several Starcraft Strategy Guides so the genre, the ideas of micromanagement etc. are pretty well-known to me) later, as soon as I have some free time (not in the next two weeks, I'm afraid). (News source: PPCT).
BTW, note that a new, 1.01 version of the game was released some days ago; it, among other things, fixed the multiplayer functionality, which was entirely useless in the initial version. Now, multiplayer is working just great and, as it's IP address entering-based, really flexible and even allows for playing people in another continent (that is, it's not local-only). (News source: I worked very closely with the excellent Moregames Entertainment folks to quickly iron out the bug.)
Pocket Fallout, the highly recommended, free (!) Fallout clone (review here) has just received a dedicated website. (New source: private e-mail from the developer.)
[email protected] is working on a real (!) Pirates! clone Caribbean Adventures 1600AD. Unlike the other two piracy-related games on the Pocket PC, High Seas and Tradewinds (please read the full story here), this is promised to bear much more similarities with the classic Pirates! (News source: have run into the announcement while checking out the following title.)
The same developer, [email protected], has just released a space shooter Space Prospector. I haven't tested it as yet; based on the screenshots, it doesn't seem to be as good as SkyForce Reloaded, the best vertical scroller game available for the Pocket PC. I may be mistaken, though. (News source: PocketGamer.org)
The excellent Doom port (which, as can also be seen based on its name, supports the 3D hardware built into Intel 2700G and GoForce-based Windows Mobile devices) DoomGLES has been updated to version 0.5. There are two main things of interest in here (among other things):
- music support (at last! Previous versions only offered sound effects)
- can be played in Portrait mode, which is certainly very good news for Dell Axim x50v/x51v users sensitive to the polarization problems of the cheapo Dell screen in Landscape mode.
All in all, checking out the new version is a MUST for all 3D hardware accelerated Windows Mobile device users. (News source: forum announcement over PocketGamer.)
Interactive E Books Ltd has released Jurassic Adventure. It's an interactive e-book where you play the role of a research physicist sent back in time one hundred and fifty million years into the past. Don't, however, expect anything like a "real" adventure game. In my opinion, Interactive E Books's games are far inferior to that of, say, Legend Entertainment on the PC or, on the Pocket PC / Palm, Fade Team (Fade on the PPC / Acedior on the Palm - do they ring a bell?). However, it's pretty cheap and, if you're into the genre, you may want to give it a try. (News source: PocketGamer)
The free, highly recommended Transport Tycoon Deluxe has also been updated; the new features are as follows:
- Now works on VGA devices
- Loads the PC version of OpenTTD's save game files!
- Right-click emulation via hard buttons.
- Fast landscape graphics via custom raw frame buffer drawing routines.
- Full threaded sound effects and music.
- Palm TTD provides full 480x320 Tapwave API accelerated graphics
(News source & related discussion: PocketGamer)
Tetraedge has released the long-anticipated multimedia (which is bad news for fans of the "traditional" textual or Lucasfilm/Sierra-like genre) adventure game Syberia 2 in both English and German (French, Spanish and Italian versions will follow later). Note that I can only provide you a ClickGamer link (and this one for the German version) because the official homepage of the developer still doesn't have any information on the new game. Note that, while originally there wasn't, now, a trial version is also available. (News source & related discussion: PocketGamer)
PocketGear offers a 20% rebate for all their products in March with the coupon code MARCH20 (News source: PocketGamer)
UPDATE (later the same day): as is announced at AximSite, DoomGLES V0.54 has just been released. Make sure you upgrade!
Whatever happened to Live Anywhere? I would love to unlock achievements while i play zuma on my WM device and be able to chat with my xbox live friends when i'm bored in class... or customize my car on Forza Motorsport as their developers showed in the "capabilities" of live anywhere.
1. Yesterday, I reported on the new FPSEce 0.010 videos. The Pocketplayers.info folks have just uploaded two, brand new FPSEce 0.010 videos well worth checking out:
Rayman
Wipeout XL
It seems FPSEce 0.010 will indeed be a BIG hit, particularly for 3D game fans with a Dell Axim x50v / x51v: it’ll really be able to run the well-known PlayStation classics without any problems. Make sure you donate to the developer (I’ve already done so)
2. A quick overview of Prowler Studios' games
Prowler Studios is a newcomer to the Windows Mobile gaming scene but has already released several titles. Of these, I review the three most expensive ($12.95 each) one (assuming most expensive means the best). Note that they're all Pocket PC only (not compatible with MS Smartphones - I've tested) and support all operating systems starting with WM2003.
a. Toe 2 Toe Boxing Championship is (or, at least, tries to be) a 3D boxing game. I don’t recommend this title. While it tries to be 3D, it in no way utilizes existing 3D acceleration hardware (tested this on the Dell Axim x51v). The in-game sprite animation is also VERY bad: it only has TWO phases. Taken the high price of the title into account, I in no way can recommend this game even for a quick try. I know there aren’t any boxing games for Windows Mobile (quickly checked this at Clickgamer in addition to the Sports category of the PPCMag encyclopedia). Therefore, I recommend going for emulation. The home computers / home consoles had WAY better boxing games; for example, Boxing Legends of the Ring for Mega Drive/Genesis and SNES; George Foreman's KO Boxing for the same two consoles; Riddick Bowe Boxing (which is very similar to Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing for Genesis and GG) for SNES, Gameboy and GG. Make sure you check out my emulation-related articles / Bibles in the Emulators category of my blog. Or, if you don’t necessarily want boxing, just a very similar arcade game, give a try to, for example, Garou (Fatal Fury): Mark of the Wolves under the excellent NeoGeo emulator FinalBurn Alpha. (Note that I haven’t tested the title under FinalBurn. It may NOT work. If it doesn’t, you can still look for another action game to run.)
b. Shuffleboard Unlimited: Unfortunately, this title is in no way as entertaining as for example 4Pockets’ Air Hockey Challenge reviewed HERE. If you’re absolutely sure you want a simple shuffleboard simulator, you might want to check it out. However, if you want a REAL air hockey title, go for the 4Pockets game instead - it’s way better.
c. Pocket Bass Angler 2007 1.1. Probably this fishing simulator is the only game you might want to give a try – if you’re into the genre, that is. (I am not at least.)
All in all, I couldn’t find anything of real interest among Prowler Studios’ current games. Hope their future games become much better.
3. Yeah, I know it’s self-promotion like linking to frontpages of my articles, but still… in the last (Feb/Mar 2008) issue of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine, my Orions: The Second Age Strategy Guide was quickly summarized. Also, in his farewell message, Allen Gall recommended the articles of you-surely-won’t-guess-who
1. Machines at War (see review of a previous version HERE), probably the best RTS (Real-Time Strategy) for Windows Mobile, has been updated to version 1.2, introducing even some new units. Well worth checking out.
2. the free and excellent (!) Doom clone, DoomGLES, has also been updated, now delivering far better GoForce performance.
3. if you still haven’t purchased Orions (the best turn-based strategy game for Windows Mobile) during the last, 40% rebate, now, you have a chance of getting it for free if you post a reply to THIS thread
4. PDAmill has released Pachinko Go!. The blurb is as follows: "What the heck is Pachinko? Gravity, Skill, and Luck! It's a unique game which is kind of a cross between a vertical pinball game and a slot machine which is extremely popular in Japan (and growing more popular worldwide every day). This simple, yet addicting game contains 3 unique Pachinko games in one package, including many unlockable extras to acquire, extending the gameplay even more!"
5. Still speaking of PDAmill, now, after a year of their completely stopping porting their games to the platform, they’ve made available all of their Palm titles for free (!). You can find them HERE.
6. SOTi’s Pocket Controller, which is without doubt the most powerful PDA remote controller solution (see THIS for more info & comparison to the alternatives), is offered for 10 euros (about $15), incl. VAT for EU residents, only till 05/11/2008. Go get it – it’s really a bargain for this price.
7. There’s a new, free platform game Greedy Penguins HERE for both Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s / Smartphones and Symbian S60 / UIQ3.
8. If you’ve read the latest updates to my iPAQ 210 review, you already know this, but it’s still worth devoting a separate bullet in here too: I’ve thoroughly benchmarked the brand new Marvell Xscale PXA310 platform and found out that, unlike even Samsung’s low-end CPU’s, it has the same (high) power consumption upon high CPU load. It’s certainly bad news. The good news is that it’s certainly faster than the PXA270, particularly at playing back AVC stuff now that CorePlayer 1.2.x has added WMMX optimizations. And, according to the CorePlayer folks, this is just the beginning – a lot more optimizations and performance enhancements will follow! (Also see my related, new chipset reports HERE and HERE)
9. The DivX folks have released a new (0.90) beta of their free (!) DivX / XviD player DivX Mobile Player for Windows Mobile and Symbian (note that while they state there’s no 0.90 for the latter, only 0.89, the internal version number does state it’s too 0.90). Note that you’ll need to register yourself in order to be able to access the app; after this, click the URL that comes in the e-mail, change your password and, then, go HERE to directly access the downloads.
I’ve quickly tested it on several real-world (high-resolution; mostly 576- and 640-wide) DivX- and XviD-encoded videos. It delivered acceptable results on both the two Windows Mobile handsets (HP iPAQ 210 and HTC Universal running Ranyu’s 7.6 of WM6.1) and Symbian (Nokia N95 with firmware version v21) when playing back most DivX videos. There were rarely dropped frames (albeit the playback wasn’t as smooth as under CorePlayer).
Playing back my XviD-encoded test video, however, was painfully stuttering under Windows Mobile and a little stuttering under Symbian. (I REALLY recommend THIS video; pay special attention to the camera moving in the second sketch with the office dialog). The same videos played back flawlessly under the latest versions (1.2.3 for WinMo and 1.2.0 for Symbian) of CorePlayer.
It isn’t able to play back standard ASP videos created in Nero Recode (after renaming them to .AVI’s so that the player finds them); it complains about being incompatible. (The same videos, of course, play back OK under CorePlayer, as has also been explained in my H.264 Bible.) Of course it won’t play back the much more advanced AVC (H.264) videos either.
All in all, you may want to give it a try if you prefer free stuff – but don’t forget: CorePlayer is still much better, more compatible and more efficient. The only drawback of the latter is not being free.
10. New hardware-wise, there is a plethora of new information. See for example THIS (a generic overview), THIS and THIS (HTC Diamond) etc. Of course, these threads / articles will be outdated today with HTC’s official announcements, which will be reported on by many portals; see for example MoDaCo’s related thread HERE and MsMobiles’ HERE).
11. There’s a nice hands-on review of the DVB-T receiving capabilities of the Gigabyte gSmart t600 HERE at MsMobiles. Before I finally publish my Digital TV Bible, it gives you a clear picture of what you can expect of DVB-T-capable handsets, reception capabilities- and battery life-wise.
12. The Xperia X1 will be released in mid-September; see THIS and THIS. According to one of my sources, who received it for beta testing, it does have 3D hardware acceleration, which is certainly very good news. It, however, has a rather bad thumbboard – much worse than those of the HTC Universal or the HTC Kaiser / AT&T Tilt. Now, I only wish it had a digital TV (DVB-T and -H at least for us Europeans; MediaFLO / DVB-H for Americans, T-DMB for Koreans etc.) receiver.... Too bad S-E’s engineers didn’t bother including one or don’t plan to offer a version (even with slightly bigger size) with one.
13. Pocket PC Thoughts runs a Win a Copy of SpaceTime 3.0 contest HERE – might be worth checking out if you need the best calculator available for Windows Mobile and have missed Valentine’s day’s excellent ($7) offer.
14. Spb Mobile Shell has been updated to v2.1
15. Desktop grade IE6 coming to Windows Mobile 6.1 by the end of 2008 – at last. See a related thread HERE, where I’ve also posted my remarks.
UPDATE (05/07/2008 1:00AM CET): Sorry guys and gals, I’ve forgotten to provide a link to the SOTI sale: it’s HERE. (Don’t be afraid of it listing an iPAQ 5455 / 5550; it runs on everything.) Let me know if you need with the German - I've provided some instructions on downloading / purchasing in for example HERE.
Incidentally, there’re a lot more excellent titles in their "10 (apps) for 10 (euros) special" list offer; for example, for Windows Mobile, Documents To Go Smartphone, Resco Explorer and Photo Viewer 2007; for Blackberry, MSDict Concise Oxford American Dictionary and, for Symbian, ALON MP3 Dictaphone for S60 3rd Edition 2.85. I’ll definitely review the latter and compare it to VITO’s AudioNotes and the other call recording-capable apps I’ve reviewed for Symbian. By the way, as far as the Blackberry version of MSDict Concise Oxford American Dictionary is concerned, the link on the 10 (apps) for 10 (euros) special page doesn’t work; follow THIS instead.
Thank you for another great informative post!
The DivX player is quite nice, and they have a converter online that works great with shrinking files to mobile format.
1. (WinMo, desktop Windows): The creators of Shadow of Legend, a really promising multiplayer (!!) MMORPG I’ve several times reported on, have announced (see http://www.shadowoflegend.com/web/News.aspx?ID=452 ) the forthcoming, vastly enhanced 2.5D version of their game.
Unfortunately, there will be NO Windows Mobile-specific version of the new game, unlike with the previous, 2G (isometric) version. It will only be released later, if at all: the developers state they will only look into releasing the WinMo version when WinMo hardware manufacturers do come up with much more gaming-friendly (mostly importantly, 3D hardware accelerated) devices – that is, not in the foreseeable future.
2. (WinMo, BlackBerry, (Symbian?)): Concrete Software ( http://www.concretesoftware.com/ ) have announced the forthcoming native (non-emulated!) ports of the titles of the great Microprose classics, Civilization (IV?), Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon.
The ports will, at first, be released for BlackBerry. (Which may also mean they’ll also be made available for Symbian and other platforms with strong Java MIDlet support – after all, BlackBerry apps are also Java-based.) The BlackBerry games list (http://www.concretesoftware.com/blackberry/index.shtml ) on the homepage of the developer already shows these four titles; Civilization (here, referred to as Civ IV: War of Two Cities – that is, not the first episode) is slated for Sep. 2., while no release date is provided for the other two titles. The listing of other platforms doesn’t list the new titles as yet.
While, at least on Windows Mobile, you definitely can play these titles under emulators (for example, Civilization does run under n0p’s DOSBox – see The definitive guide to running (MS-)DOS (80x86) programs under Windows Mobile at http://pocketpcmag.com/cms/blogs/3/the_definitive_guide_to_running_ms_dos_8_12 for more info), doing the same with native (or, at least, Java MIDlet-based) games is much better: much less CPU usage (resulting in much better battery life), advanced (midi / Adlib / Sound blaster) audio, customizable keys etc.
3. Make sure you check out Eric Pankoke’s My World Of Handhelds http://www.myworldofhandhelds.com . Among other things, it has decent a review of Xassar's Quest ( http://myworldofhandhelds.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=33 ) and Igor ( http://myworldofhandhelds.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=122&Itemid=1 ) – two titles I couldn’t fully test upon writing a quick news items on them. Of particular interest is Xassar's Quest, an RPG, which definitely is worth paying attention to.
4. (Windows Mobile devices with accelerometer): There is a real abundance of games utilizing the accelerometer of the HTC Diamond and the HTC Touch Pro. See the list of these games at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=411419 . The thread started post is worth checking out now and then for new projects.
Still speaking of 3D hardware acceleration, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=415873 has a decent C#/.NET Compact Framework wrapper for OpenGLES. If you’re a .NET CF games programmer looking into 3D acceleration, check it out.
5. (Symbian): Several new, high-quality titles have been released for Nokia’s Next-Gen N-Gage platform. Some of the better titles include the adventure Dirk Dagger (official website: http://www.dirkdagger.com/ ; AAN post & discussion: http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/7858_Dirk_Dagger_now_available_on_N.php ) and, most importantly, Reset Generation (see related AAN story at http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/7789_Reset_Generation_The_first_Meg.php and http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/7774_Reset_Generation_out_now_on_N-.php ), a truly multiplayer, really nice game well worth trying. Note that it has a free Web version you can test in your desktop browser; it’s available at http://www.allaboutngage.com/games/item/Project_White_Rock.php . Also note that you can even put the game on your own website as is explained at http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/7781_How_to_put_the_full_version_of.php
Still speaking of the N-Gage platform, the also-new Dogz has received pretty bad press; see http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/7914_AAN_reviews_Dogz_for_N-Gage.php
6. (Symbian, Palm, WinMo): Infinite Dreams, the developer of some killer titles like K-Rally and SkyForce (Reloaded), have a blog on their own at http://idreamsblog.blogspot.com/ (also see http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/7742_Infinite_Dreams_Blog.php ). There aren’t many entries there; still, fans of the developer may still want to check the page out.
7. (WinMo): A free (!) Metal Slug-remake, Psycho Team’s Symbian Killer (see http://psygame.org/publ/2-1-0-4 ; direct download: http://psygame.org/download/SymbianKiller.CAB ) is definitely worth checking out if you like Metal Slug, one of the bets 2D platform games ever written. (See my Guide to Emulating NeoGeo and CPS: A must if you’re into quality and FREE arcade games! at http://pocketpcmag.com/cms/blogs/3/the_guide_to_emulating_neogeo_and_cps_a for more info on emulating the original titles.)
8. (WinMo): another platformer: Firetop Adventure. Allen Gall's review is at http://pocketpcmag.com/cms/blog/5248/the-week-in-games-firetop-adventure