Air Hockey Challenge :: GearStorm :: Thought of the Week 

The game I played most this week: Moline

Sink the Puck: Air Hockey Challenge

Over the years, 4pockets has built up a reputation of coming out with decent arcade and sports games. One of their first decent titles, 4Pinball, is still one of the better pinball games available on our ever-dwindling platform.

Their newest title, Air Hockey, tries to recreate the old parlor game and actually does a pretty decent job. Sure, the game is really not much different than pong, but the real world physics of parlor games is often hard to replicate convincingly on an electronic platform. AHC is credible mainly because it has believable physics and decent controls. Play testing helps out quite a bit in this type of game, and AHC is neither too fast nor too slow, and I didn’t notice any jerks in the animation during my play testing. The game plays quite well, and the graphics, sound, and interface all come together very well to create a nice illusion that you’re playing the game of Air Hockey. One neat feature the game has that I’ve yet to see in any other title in this category is the inclusion of power-ups, which can do things like freeze the other player’s puck in order to give you a temporary advantage.

Graphically the game is pretty good, without any visual clutter or glitches. Overall, the graphics are about on par with 4pockets’ other titles, particularly 4Pinball. Although 4Pinball came out way back in 2002, AHC is still a notch or two above a majority of the titles released these days since so many of them are slapped together. But 4pockets.com really needs to get on the VGA bandwagon soon; otherwise their titles are going to start looking dated. 

Shootouts: GearStorm

Gearstorm is based on the popular Japanese shooting game category. GS needs to be speed-bumped, optimized, and refined well beyond its present state, but it does have some redeeming value. The good news is that it has all the makings of a great scrolling 2D shooter. The main selling point is that while the game is a side scroller, your character is a giant robot instead of the usual ship. You can walk around on the ground, aim your weapon up or down in a wide arc, and you can also jump halfway up the screen. This different arrangement both makes the game a little fresher than the horde of other scrolling shooters and creates interesting tactical possibilities in how you aim shots and dodge enemy fire.  

Thought of the Week— Syberia Released – PDArcade Making a Comeback?

Syberia came out a few weeks ago on the Pocket PC. Although not perfect, the original Syberia was a pretty solid adventure game when it was originally released back in 2002. The game features a revamped 3D engine for the Pocket PC version and takes up a whopping 280 MB of storage space. And that’s just with standard QVGA graphics—the full VGA version of the game will take up a record 400 MB once it’s been released after demands from gamers on the forums. That will likely make the game the biggest space-hungry title in Pocket PC history. Storage cards that can hold such a game certainly aren’t expensive these days (I picked up a 1 gig mini SD card for my Smartphone a couple of months ago for $30 shipped), but titles like this are always a mixed bag. The Pocket PC platform, at least in its current state, isn’t really practical for playing such games which require staring at the screen for hours on end. Sure, it’s neat to have such games on your device, but the market for this type of game is really a pretty small one.

Discuss...
 

Subscribe to Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine

Allen Gall's The Week in Games is a free service of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine and Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine ONLINE: in-depth articles, tips, an Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories, and links to the best Windows Mobile PDA and Smartphone Web sites. It is edited by Duncan H. Brown.

This Newsletter is published by Thaddeus Computing, Inc., 110 North Court Street, Fairfield, IA 52556.

Allen Gall's The Week in Games  Copyright ) 2006 by Thaddeus Computing Inc.