The Redshift folks are back with an excellent title! Some months ago, they’ve announced they’d completely leave the Windows Mobile platform because of the rampant piracy. Now, they’ve returned with a remarkable action-puzzle mix, Dungeoned. If you like a combination of fast-paced action and puzzle games, you will really want to give it a try. It’s a bit similar to some maze games (for example, Astraware’s Mummy Maze, Monkeystone’s Hyperspace Delivery Boy! and AIM Productions’ TMax) quickly introduced in the Windows Mobile Bible of Games Part I, but is much more varied: in addition to having to find out Sokoban-like puzzles, you not only need to fight other (static) creatures, but, on some maps, also a second player, which is controlled by a pretty good AI (unlike the droid opponents in, say, the Commodore 64 classic Paradroid) and you must be very fast to attack him. This certainly makes a refreshing change to the gameplay.
{
"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"
}
(more screenshots HERE; a mini-video HERE)
The title is Pocket PC-only; that is, as you MUST use the touchscreen, won’t work on touchscreen-less MS Smartphones.
The price has just been lowered to $9.95 (along with the release of a new build). The game is available HERE and is compatible with all Windows Mobile operating systems starting with WM2003. On VGA devices, it uses high-resolution sprites; in addition, as usual with Redshift’s all titles, it supports all the screen resolutions commonly used on Windows Mobile devices. What is more, it’s one of the VERY rare games that don’t use the CPU at 100%, resulting in the game quickly chewing through the battery. On my 624 MHz Marvel Xscale PXA-310-based VGA HP iPAQ 214, the CPU usage has never exceeded 35%, which is indeed very good news - few Windows Mobile game / emulator developers strive to lowering the CPU usage.
The problems of the title is the lack of in-game music (while the in-game sounds are without doubt good). There is only (very short and repetitive) music in the menus and the shop screen. Also, completely stylus-based control would be highly beneficial as in most, say, Bomberman clones; for example, PalmStorm’s excellent, free (!) Xplodus!. What I mean is tapping the close vicinity of your character to instruct it to go (attack) that way. This would really help players with devices with a, for gaming, sub-par (or plain non-existing – see the HTC Touch series, including the forthcoming Touch HD) D-pad. Yeah, the game does have on-screen arrows, but, in my opinion, they aren’t the best.
Verdict
Highly recommended, particularly now that the price has been dropped. Well worth at least a try.
Related
As the excellent Pocket PC gaming site PocketGamer.org has just reported, the vertical shooter Burning Armor has win the EDGE coding compo. Having always loved vertical scroller shooter games, I’ve jumped at it right away to find out whether it’s any good.
{
"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"
}
Unfortunately, it isn’t. Mainly, it has major speed problems. It’s only playable on (faster – particularly NOT recommended for OMAP users like those of with the HTC Wizard!) QVGA devices. On VGA devices, it has pretty annoying speed problems even on the (in this respect) fastest x51v; on the Pocket Loox 720 (even with Picard’s VGA GAPI hack) and the HP iPAQ hx4700, it’s unplayable.
It speed, as has already been pointed out, is only satisfactory on at least 400 MHz XScale, QVGA only Pocket PC’s like the HP iPAQ 2210. On slower QVGA or any VGA devices, it will be just plain slow.
Availability, compatibility
It’s available here and costs $19.99. A trial version is available. It’s compatible with all WM2003+ operating systems and runs on all my test devices (even the WM5-based hx4700).
Sound, music
As with most EDGE-based games I’ve played with, it has in-game music but its sound quality is pretty bad (compared to SkyForce Reloaded or many other titles) because of the low sampling rate.
Visuals
Nothing to write home about. No spectacular 3D effects, not so good explosions as in SkyForce (Reloaded) or Particle Wars.
Verdict
You may not want to check out this game. It’s just poor and really overpriced. Go for SkyForce [Reloaded], GikaDiver, Darklaga or Particle Wars instead. This title is really weak. It’s probably only the Compact Framework 2-based (yes, using high-level languages / libraries will always result in major speed problems on the Pocket PC!) Star Invader II by IBE Group that is even worse. (Please see this article for more links and reviews to other vertical scroller games!)
We all know Bejeweled, one of the best action/puzzle games on the Pocket PC. There are several Bejeweled clones for the Pocket PC (some of them having been reviewed in the Pocket PC Games Bible Part I); the new title, Snowed In 5 - Flaked Out, is one of them.
{
"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"
}
Availability, compatibility
The Pocket PC version is compatible with all WM2003+ devices and had no problems on my test Pocket PC’s. Unfortunately, it’s not compatible with devices running under operating systems prior to WM2003; that is, for example, with Pocket PC 2002.
There are separate versions for VGA, square-screen and landscape devices. Unfortunately, on VGA devices, the landscape-mode version only offers QVGA resolution (example screenshot taken on a VGA device here) and is, consequently, not recommended. That is, get the VGA Portrait version if you have a VGA device and want to enjoy high-resolution graphics.
The main page of the game is here; the Pocket PC-related downloads are here.
Sounds
Unfortunately, there’s no in-game music, which is a big minus compared to the, music-wise, world-class Bejeweled. However, the in-menu music is pretty good.
Visuals
Pretty good; definitely not as spectacular as those of Bejeweled (2) or 4Pockets’ games though. Support for hi-res VGA on capable devices is a big plus though.
Online
The game, along with its homepage (“Submit your score and represent your country”), also promises to collect your high scores on ClickGamer. I, however, couldn’t find out how this needs to be done. Hope it will indeed be added to ClickGamer some time.
Registration
The game needs to be registered for continuous play, but it’s, fortunately, pretty easy. Just navigate to here and register as can be seen in here (the answer is like this) - that’s all. To do this, you need to have a free ClickGamer account – if you still don’t have one, just click the “Sign Up” button at the bottom and fill in the fields.
Verdict
For a free title, I’d say this game is worth checking out, particularly if you have a VGA device.
hehehe... I just got to get this... if not for anything else the graphics alone
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.
{
"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"
}
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).
You may still remember my roundup of 3D Arkanoid titles (if you haven’t read it, do it now; note that the chart has bad HTML markup, which will soon be fixed). A brand new 3D Arkanoid clone, Arkanoi3D has just been released for both touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC’s and touchscreen-less MS Smartphones (the latter even including 176*220 ones).
{
"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"
}
The game has all a decent 3D Arkanoid should have: powerups (for example, to quickly shoot down some of the blocks), a line constantly showing where the ball really is in 3D and, which isn’t at all common with similar titles, a rotatable overview of the play area:
It’s available for download and purchase HERE.
Compatibility
It’s only compliant with WM5 (I’ve checked this on my WM2003 iPAQ 2210). It ran OK on my WM6.1-based HTC Wizard (Pocket PC) and (the original, factory) WM5-based HTC s310 (Oxygen) MS Smartphone. The touchscreen CPU usage bug considerably slowed down the game; fortunately, you don’t need to touch the screen all the time. Also note that, without increasing the ball speed (in Options), the game can be really-really slow-paced at the default speed. That is, make sure you increase the speed if you find the game just too slow. Still speaking of the options menu, you may also want to change the skin (the default is just too dark). Two examples showing this (the first is the default, the second is taken with the yellow skin):
Note that it shut down the backlight on my HP iPAQ 210 right away. Nothing could fix this. That is, the game (as of the current, 1.0 version) is fully incompatible with this model.
Verdict
If you’re into the genre, do check it out. I certainly recommend it over both Pocket 3DNoid and Crazy Ball 3D. Of course, it’s quite a bit more expensive than the directly comparable Pocket 3DNoid. That is, if you don’t want to spend $10 without comparing it to the alternatives first, also make sure you give Pocket 3DNoid a try first.
I only wish it had in-game music.
eSoft Interactive (product list HERE) have released quite a few titles in the past, some of them (for example, Open TTD, Traffic Jam, Traffic Jam Extreme and Traffic Jam 2) being pretty famous. Let’s take a look at their three latest titles compatible with both Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s and touchscreen-less Smartphones.
Hot Pursuit is the latest title of eSoft interactive promising “[a game] that sets you on a thrilling chase of crime solving action right at the palm of your hand! Catch the most sinister thieves by travelling from one country to another and climb along the Interpol ranks by solving hot cases! Hot Pursuit will keep you glued to your device for hours of crime-solving fun and challenge!”
Personally, I didn’t really find this title worth paying 10 bucks for. It seems to be quite shallow. I think, should you need a detective game taking you all around the world, which, at the same time, also teaches you a lot on the different countries, go for for example Learning Company’s (ex-Brøderbund Software) Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. I really think it’s a much better a choice, particularly if you run it under PocketDOS. (Under n0p’s DOSBox, even the just-released 0.72, it has mouse cursor control problems; see THIS for more info on this.) An example screeshot of it (running under PocketDOS):
{
"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"
}
Some other in-game shots:
I didn’t find Totem, eSoft’s previous (released in October 2008) Windows Mobile release very interesting either (as opposed to the JAMM review). It’s just too expensive ($9.99) for what it offers (which is pretty shallow and, in my opinion, pointless). It has better feedback on the iPhone, where it only costs a buck ($0.99 – for that price, I would already consider purchasing it) and (of course) has better resolution (HVGA as opposed to QVGA). Neverthless, if you’re an iPhone / iPod Touch user, you might want to check out the best title in this category, Tower Bloxx™ Deluxe 3D instead, which takes advantage of the iPhone’s 3D hardware acceleration and looks very-very nice. It’s a bit more expensive than eSoft’s title ($4.99), though.
Yes, I know I’m a bit spoiled (when I want to play a quick game, I just take out my iPhone 3G with tons of cheap (!!) and great games) – anyone not having an iPhone or an iPod Touch might still enjoy this title.
Finally, Earth Day, an arcade game, which was released before Totem. Probably the best of the bunch: thanks to the weapon / rotation / clone / shield / rapid fire upgrades, it can become pretty much entertaining. Of course, if you also have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you’ll want to go for that version (just like with Totem): the game is, technically, far superior (far better resolution) and far better playable. In addition, on these platforms, it only costs a buck (that is, one-tenth of the Windows Mobile price). Nevertheless, if you only have a WinMo phone, you might also want to give it a try. Also see THIS thread for more info. Note that the WinMo version was nominated in the 2008 Windows Mobile awards in the Classic Arcade category.