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.
Related
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...).
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. App news / rebates:
a. (still a preview, but still much more advanced than version 1.1.3 released a month ago) CorePlayer 1.2, finally, released for Windows Mobile. See THIS for more info. The Symbian version, as opposed to what was announced a month ago (then, the CoreCodec folks only promised a Windows Mobile release for February), seems to hit the shelves very soon too - see THIS thread. It, among other things, promises hardware acceleration. I'm really looking forward to the dramatic speed / efficiency increase this could mean on current high-end Nokias like the N95 using the latest TI OMAP & PowerVR-based chipsets.
b. ALL of VITO Technology's products are available for $7 (!!) only: go purchase them while the offer lasts! (I'm pretty unlucky, it seems: it was just before MWC that I purchased their AudioNotes for Symbian S60v3 for some $25... should I have known this GREAT rebate beforehand... )
2. Gaming & emulation news:
a. Creatonia made free!
Insenic, who, in the past, have already made two of their previously commercial titles free, decided to do the same to their pretty nice RPG title Creatonia. While the biggest problems (for example, the lack of in-game music, the dull graphics etc.) are still present, it's really worth getting for free. See THIS for a review (frontpaged on several sites).
b. a new version of Commodore 64 emulator for both the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) and Pocket PC (WM6 Pro / Classic) platform, PocketHobbit, is released, with a lot of niceties like native QVGA support (remember? It was me who wrote an extended, QVGA-enabled Smartphone version of the original) and frame rate settings. See THIS for a generic overview of emulating the Commodore 64 under Windows Mobile. It's available HERE (NOT on the old links).
c. Astraware has released a fully-fledged, very interesting strategy game Westward, which is certainly worth checking out. There is a great Just Another Mobile Moday review HERE. It runs on both Pocket PC's and Smartphones (and even Palm OS devices).
d. Beijing Huike Technology, the developers of Dark Street reviewed HERE, have released four additional games for both the Pocket PC and MS Smartphone:
- 3D Mad Cars (see THIS): a racing game
- 3D Anti-terrorist action (see THIS): a simple 3D first person shooter
- Treasure Island: a Japanese RPG
- Holy Beasts: a 2D side scroller.
As far as the first two (3D) titles are concerned, unfortunately, I've found both games rather poor for their price tag. Their 3D rendering, on VGA devices (tested this on the HTC Universal and Dell Axim x51v), is slow - even on the fastest Pocket PC's (for example, a 624 MHz x51v). On QVGA devices, they're pretty playable, on the other hand - even on lower-spec'ed devices like the HTC Vox. The 3D hardware acceleration capabilities of the Dell Axim x51v aren't used either. All in all, I recommend going for a better title - there are a lot of them in both the 3D car racing and FPS categories, some with even 3D hardware acceleration support (for example, the free (!) DoomPPC / DoomGLES / HereticGLES)
All in all, don't bother with these two titles - they are simply not worth the $11.99.
The two other titles are a bit cheaper ($8.99), but this doesn't mean they're worth purchasing either. First, Holy Beasts is one of the worse side scrollers (particularly on VGA devices, where it has major speed problems). It's just incomparably worse than "real" top-down scrollers like SkyForce Reloaded (or, for that matter, emulated 1942 clones (1944 / 19XX) run under the great console emulator Finalburn Alpha). Not worth purchasing.
Treasure Island is a Japanese RPG - probably the most remarkable and recommended of the bunch. However, it's not known whether it's a long one. Fellow blogger Eric Pankoke stated "So far I've probably got 1-2 hours in it, but I have no idea where I am compared to the end. If trends adhere to this game, however, I don't expect it to be very long. Look at Angel Sword and Knight Tales: both the same style of game, both very short." (He's referring to being VERY short, playable through in a few hours only.) In addition, it's pretty much unplayable on VGA devices because of the huge, pixel doubled fonts (as of version 1.0.1), which makes it very hard to read the conversations. (The same problem exists in all the other titles of the same developer, but, as the text doesn't convey much anything in them, the bug doesn't cause as big problems as in this title.) On QVGA devices, there aren't problems like this.
The in-game music is VERY short and repetitive in all the four titles (albeit still better than in the, in this regard, worst OmniGSoft titles) - as was the case with Dark Street.
All in all, for the time being, you should stay away from Beijing Huike Technology's titles. There're WAY better alternatives.
e. SNES emulator written in assembly - way faster than even before?
Some weeks ago, I've already reported on the announcement of the developer of SmartGear about adding either GBA or SNES support (or both?) for his really excellent console emulator. Now, he has announced he'd rewrite the most time-critical SNES emulation code in ASM assembly, which means way higher speeds. This means his emulator would become the only one with real, 100% working emulation on even lower-spec'ed Windows Mobile devices (see THIS for my SNES Emulation Bible for more info on the existing emulators). Make sure you post into the original thread asking him to do this feat if you'd like to see a 100% working SNES emulator on your phone.
f. TetraEdge's games for half the price!
Many of you like TetraEdge's adventure games. They're indeed very good (albeit, of course, I still prefer old-school textual games like those of Legend Entertainment - see my MS-DOS Emulation Bible for more info on them.) The links to the individual games can be found in THIS PocketPlayers Reloaded thread; also check out my article HERE on how you can purchase from Mobile2Day if you don't speak German and Google Translator / Babelfish don't help either.
3. MWC: more to come!
I plan to publish a big writeup on the new Windows Mobile PDA's / phones on Sunday but not before that as I'm really busy.
In the meantime, some external threads / videos I recommend:
MoDaCo's E-Ten thread & MWC news& videos
MoDaCo: Toshiba's new models (G710, G810 and G910)
MDA Compact IV specs
MsMobiles' main MS Press conference video
Tuedsay's Q&A Sony-Ericsson & MS conference video (MsMobiles)
Discussion of the HP 210; my remarks; links to other tests (particularly the Axim/MobilitySite and the BrightHand forums are worth checking out if interested in the new model)
A PPCT discussion of the new Samsung SGH-i780 (a pretty promising Pocket PC with a BlackBerry-alike thumbboard, a square 320*320 (yes, you've read it right: NOT those awful, incompatible-with-most-titles 240*240 screens!) screen, the latest-and-(almost the) greatest PXA310 CPU (as opposed to the old, PXA270 series) and an optical touchpad (as opposed to traditional D-pads). I've played a lot with the latter at Barcelona and didn’t quite like it but I’ve already been spoiled by the touchpad of the HP iPAQ hx4700, which I hated.
In THIS PPCT thread, we discuss the VGA vs. QVGA question and the new, just-announced/released VGA devices.
MoDaCo's XPERIA thread
WMExpert's What’s up with Qualcomm? An Insider Q & A!
ZDNet's Readius review (also see mine HERE, should you have missed it)
Qualcomm Strikes Again: New Family of Mobile Chips Offering Rich Multimedia and Wireless Capabilities - here's the new Qualcomm chipset I referred to in my last, chipset / 3D accelerator-related MWC report. Unfortunately, not even the S-E XPERIA X1 will have this chipset - you'll need to wait more.
MoDaCo's revised Athena (Advantage)/ x7510 thread; a similar one from MobilitySite.
A quick note: I've also tested the new model at MWC and found the keyboard less-than-stellar. Don't expect anything similar to, say, the HTC Universal or the Kaiser/Tilt. See the linked threads for more info.
NVIDIA Announces the APX 2500 for Windows Mobile: in my last 3D hardware accelerator chipset roundup, I still haven't discussed NVIDIA (see their GoForce 5500 in, say, the O2 XDA Flame and the two new Xscale-based i-mate models: the 8150 and the 6150).
I can only hope that it's compatible with the GoForce 5500 so that the (unfortunately, currently, still very few - see their list HERE) GF 5500-compatible games / emulators will also work on it without explicitlly adding support.
BTW, speaking of the O2 XDA Flame (XDA-Devs thread HERE, dedicated independent forum HERE) I've asked the O2 folks at MWC about both the successor to the Flame and the possible official (!) WM6 upgrade to the device. Nobody had any information. Interestingly, while O2's homepage some months ago still listed XDA Flame 2 as "coming", now, I can't find this ad any more. They, it seems, don't plan to release an upgraded version of the Flame any more.
wow Menneisyys, you're on top of things! Tons of thanks for all of this highly-condensed, yet incredibly interesting info! I popped through a handful of links and it's all good news to me!
Now I just gotta be patient for the Xperia X1!
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.
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