K-Rally (A Pocket Pc Review) By Kevin

K-Rally is a top-down racer with rockets and mines. K-Rally is made by Infinite Dreams. These people brought you the popular pocket pc Shoot em' up game called "sky force (reloaded)." This is probably Infinite Dreams best game. But it's Infinite Dreams only racing game. Anyways, the game is basically a buy,race, and earn money to get a car game. There several types of modes. You first have to beat tutoial,quick race,championchip,career,and then the extra random track in that order. The random track generates a random track....and if you like the track you would write down the code it gives you.

The gameplay is ok....the problem is that it doesn't have a fast since of speed but it feels intense. It's more of a simulation game suprisingly. It's pretty hard to control the car at first because of it over steering but soon you'll get the hang of it. Sadly there is no story line....but that doesn't effect the game to much. Its a pretty long game. It can be finished around 5 hours. But i have heard that there are free expansion packs on their site. Also the loading times are short but there is usually a funny message or tip they put there that are useless EX:"sixteen plus nine equals twenty-five." The game often "cheats" usually what happends is if your in first place and the finish line is ahead you WILL get shot or hit a mine or rocket. So it gets ugly and frustrating.

The graphics in this game were almost shocking. The graphics engine has been unbelievably upgraded since "Sky Force". The fade effects in the main menu even looked good. But the tracks felt somewhat repetitive. Every turn you'll see that same tree. But the tracks do look good. The car sprites are good too (although you can't really see them.) But overall the graphics are ungodly polished by every little detail.

The music in this game is holy feaking crap incredible! I'm a big fan of techno and this game has the best techno music yet. I has a mixture of breakdown beats and trance with a little touch of sparkles. But I think it only has 5-6 songs. But doesn't mean that if it has a good soundtrack it has good sound effects. The soundeffects are kind of bland and boring. From the engine not changing tune to not enough sounds.... it really doesn't matter.

The Controls in the game are where the buttons should be set to. But controlling the car is a different story. Sometimes i accidentally hit up or down and it ends up shooting a rocket or laying a mine.

I really did enjoy this game. Every second of it. One of the biggest downsides is that there is not a demo I can find of this game so that means buy at your own risk.


Graphics: 8.8

Sound: 9.6

Controls: 8.2

Gameplay: 8.4

Overall: 8.8

Pixelogic's Street Duel (A Pocket Pc Reivew) by Kevin

Street Duel: Underground Racing is a racing game from Pixelogic, the company that brought you The Italian Job for Playstation. Street Duel is their first Pocket PC game. Street Duel is similar to the Playstation 2 game Midnight Club: Street Racing.

The object of the game is to complete 32 missions, each one with a different objective. Objectives range from racing other cars to racing through checkpoints against the clock to knocking over pylons. Sometimes, when you complete a race against another car, you unlock the player’s car. Unfortunately, you can only use that car on certain missions. There is no time trial mode.

Since the game is played in a landscape view, the D-pad of your device is on the left. You use the D-pad to control the direction of the device. If you have a jog dial/switch on the side of the device, you can use that to steer too. Because the left side of the device is used for steering, it would be impractical for you to have to use the hardware buttons to accelerate the car or brake. Pixelogic has put in three virtual buttons to use on the left side of the screen. One problem I found was that using the virtual buttons leaves fingerprints on the right side of the screen. I decided to use the hardware buttons to accelerate and steer, and the jog switch to steer. The game was comfortable to play this way.

Street Duel has 3D cars, buildings, and other objects. The graphics are crisp and everything is easy to see on the Pocket PC screen. The car itself has brake lights that light up when you press the brake button and skid marks are left when you turn at high speeds. Also street lights that are lit up when standing go out when they fall. Also, the game offers a slider to control the drawing distance, the further the distance, the more realistic the game seems, but if you have a slower device, a closer distance improves speed.

There are four different audio tracks in the game, and I found them to be catchy. They do get somewhat repetitive, but for a Pocket PC game, they’re good. There are also sound effects if you crash, your tires squeal, the engine revs, or if you win a race. In the menus, if you select something it makes a “blip” sound. You can also control the volume in the game.

I also hate that when you boot up the game it takes forever. usually it take 1 to 2 minuets to boot up.

Overall, this game is worth the $19.99. It’s a great racing title with the theme of street racing, has good music and sound effects, and is really fun. If you like titles such as Midnight club, you will love this game. Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!

Graphics: 9.2

Sound: 8.2

Controls: 8.5

Gameplay: 8.2

Overall: 8.5

Fire Power (A Pocket Pc Reivew) by Kevin

ManaSoft's FirePower is making a bit of a surprise entrance on the Pocket PC. Fans of arcade shoot-em-ups from yesteryear will find a lot to love with FirePower, but newcomers and casual fans won't be left out. Not only are the graphics a dead match for the Neo-Geo days, the gameplay maintains an impressive level of depth above and beyond most arcade shooters.

The gameplay of Firepower is deceptively simple. Under the pick up and play shooter is all the depth serious fans of the genre would hope to find. Destroying background items and waves of enemies will reward you medals, which in turn rewards score, and at enough score grants extra lives. Four main stages along with four sub-stages make for quite a long experience, so you'll need every last one. The two choices of ship change gameplay drastically between easy and hard, as each controls quite differently. It's a quite clever way of making the game both accessible to all and challenging to old pros.

Enemy AI is quite impressive throughout. Almost nothing in the game is a simple static sprite, everything moves, flies, rolls, and attacks with realistic accuracy. Tanks get knocked back by the force of their shots, planes fly in formation, and lasers charge before firing it's all very impressive. Bullet patterns and enemy waves are varied, challenging, but never cheap.

The controls are sure to give a few people trouble, but once I practiced with them for a bit they fit perfectly. Stylus control is possible, but I really don't recommend it. The hardware game controls are actually quite perfectly suited. Firing is done via an autofire toggle to free your hand for movement, super attacks are a single button press, and movement is very, very accurate.

"Oh Lawd! Them Graphics Are Da Bomb!"

FirePower's graphics never fail to be both eye catching and highly functional. The multiple layers of scrolling make the game feel both extremely fluid and exceptionally detailed. The sprites all feature an abundant amount of high quality animation and the color schemes blend wonderfully together. It can be a little difficult to keep track of enemy fire at times, but with practice it's not a big deal. Firepower also features an enjoyable, if somewhat simple, arcade like soundtrack and very well suited sound effects throughout.

I thoroughly enjoyed FirePower from the first mission to the last, and every replay in between. There's plenty to keep fans playing, and plenty to enjoy. If I had one complaint, it would simply be that a level based save would have been great for the Pocket PC. Each level takes upward of ten minutes, and with no save and continue later feature it's rather all or nothing. Either you play the entire game, or quit and lose your progress. Hardly enough to take anything away from this great shooter though.

Graphics: 8.0

Sound: 7.5

Controls: 7.5 (it was hard on my ppc)

Gameplay: 8.6

Overall: 7.9