The game I played most this week: Respox

Oh, Goody!: Respox

Respox, which is a free title as of 2/15/07, doesn’t bother to include any kind of directions. I guess that’s OK, because the game is easy enough to figure out on your own. Each level is a little different, but you basically just drag your square around the screen, collecting goodies while avoiding the other squares and being careful not to collide with the “walls” surrounding you. If either happens, you die. The goodies can do helpful things like temporarily freeze the enemy blocks.

There’s just something a little surreal about Respox. Maybe it’s the odd graphics, the developer’s complete failure to describe the game, the lack of any plot, or the fact that the game just doesn’t seem to have any particular reason to exist. Or maybe it’s that slightly disconcerting eyeball that seems to lurk everywhere in the game. While the game doesn’t have anything new to offer, it’s not a direct copy of anything else I’ve seen. Now that it’s free, it’s worth downloading if you’re looking to test your reflexes or if you’re just looking for the kind of game that’s almost absurdly simple.

Spike It: Beach Volleyball

I’m glad that RESETgame was the first to make a volleyball game full of scantily-clad women. Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing the game gets right. This game was ported over from a low-level PC/Mac title, and I’m guessing was a rather hastily-done job since the game’s help screen still has plenty of references to the desktop controls.

Beach Volleyball doesn’t do its job very well and makes me wonder why it needed to be ported over to the Pocket PC. I doubt that it works very well on a PC or Mac, and on a Pocket PC probably only exaggerates its flaws. While the characters in the game are easy on the eyes, their movement around the screen is robotic. Even the rolling waves in the background are very jerky. Placing the viewing angle directly behind the player doesn’t work very well at all and makes it pretty difficult to both judge where you need to be in your court when returning serves. It also makes it hard to tell exactly where to send the ball once it’s in your court. The poor controls make the depth perception problem worse, and I end up having to hit the ball twice just to get it over the net. Since the players don’t move with any kind of fluidity, getting them over to where the ball is and getting them to send it back over the net feels both overly difficult and mechanical.

News: Dell Axim Bows Out

As reported on Mobility Site (via Pocket PC Thoughts), the Dell Axim has been discontinued. According to the PR person interviewed, once remaining stock is depleted, no more units will be produced. Too bad!  Dell also no plans to produce another unit, nor are they going to move over to the smart phone space, as many other manufacturers are. The Axim X51V will probably go down as the last great Pocket PC. I’ve had one for about a week, and it’s one of the most well-made devices I’ve owned. Not just in terms of features such as the built-in wireless and the 3D, but small things like the feel of the plastic case, the build materials, the feel of the buttons, the overall fit and finish, and even small things like the no-slip rubber grips on the back of the device were all marks of quality. In fact, it probably rivals the Casio E-125, my personal favorite, in terms of overall quality. The E-125 was, at the time of its release, the best Pocket PC on the market. The Fujitsu Pocket LOOX 600 also had an excellent feel and a smart design, but its under-the-hood issues (button lag and screen dust) limited its appeal.

The end of the Axim is another deal knell for the Pocket PC and is likely the beginning of the end of the games market. If any of you are thinking about upgrading your device one last time, now is probably the time to grab an Axim while you still can. We already have a few good 3D games, and we’ll probably have a few more before all is said and done. It’s fantastic game device, and the unit’s LCD screen is the best I’ve ever seen on a mobile device. The clarity, color depth, image quality, and text readability are all top-notch. Up until last week I was using my smart phone as an e-book machine, but after seeing the Dell’s screen quality, I gladly switched over. At the very least, the Axim is a terrific e-book reader, and I’ll keep mine around for quite a while for that purpose alone.

Dell’s exit from the mobile space leaves us with just Asus and HP. Asus was an interesting player, though never a major one, and I don’t see them investing any more R&D into the Pocket PC platform. Looking at their Web site, it looks like they have two new models that are Windows Mobile-based GPS devices, and there’s no mention of their older Pocket PC devices. That leaves us with just HP. Currently they have four Pocket PC-only devices and are clearly moving toward the phone market.   My guess is that in the next year or so we’ll see perhaps a Windows Mobile 6.0 Pocket PC from HP, and that’ll probably be the last hurrah for those of us who like our standalone Pocket PCs with big comfortable buttons and large screen sizes. 

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Allen Gall's The Week in Games  Copyright © 2007 by Thaddeus Computing Inc.