Mobile games
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 11:29 am
Let's talk about wargames made for devices like GameBoy, PSP, Palm, N-Gage and what ever fits to pocket. I've got Pathway to Glory for N-Gage and played it few missions.
Time is World War 2 and game starts with invasion of Sicily. Player is in command of elite group of soldiers and can choose small number of them for mission (4-8). Missions are mostly special assignments, like destroying mortars and warehouses. Besides soldiers under player's control there might be other allied units operating in the area. Soldiers can take cover on trench and behind (sandbag) walls. If there are enough action points left on end of turn, soldiers can shoot enemies if they come too close. Changing stance (stand, crouch, prone) don't require action points. Soldiers are specialized to handle certain equipment, like radio, bazooka and sniper rifle, but everyone can use everything. Does this sound like Jagged Alliance? My thoughts exactly.
Graphics and interface are good looking and realistic for mobile game but bright daylight ruins screen's visibility. Status bar displays bare minimum: action points, health and two items. Other stuff, like overview map and full inventory, are accessed through game menus and number buttons. Sounds aren't that great and I don't understand much from speech while playing on bus. With decent earphones audio quality might be better. Hour of playing eats battery about day's worth of readiness time.
Multiplayer options include hotseat, bluetooth and GPRS. GPRS traffic is billed by amount of transferred data which isn't much for turn based game. There can be multiple players on same side. Players can communicate either with text or audio messages. In case of audio, message is first recorded and then transmitted to other players. I don't have personal experience about multiplayer yet.
There is bit of realism involved. Heavily loaded soldiers, bazookas and light machine guns for example, have less action points available. One bullet from any weapon can be deadly but for some reason tanks seem to take a lot of punishent and tracks don't break up. Soldiers can take unoccupied heavy weapons under control, like already mentioned tanks, cannons and heavy machine guns. For some reason in single player missions german 88 AA cannons seems to be always unoccupied just waiting for player to grab them and blow things up. And they hit even individual soldiers!
Overall Pathway to Glory is decent squad based wargame which don't get overshadowed by similar games of heavier computers like Laser Squad (Nemesis) and Jagged Alliance. N-Gage itself is decent mobile device to play games, it has more buttons than most mobile consoles, microphone and excellent readiness for wireless multiplayer. There aren't many good N-Gage specific games, but I guess most of other mobile phone games, like Age of Empires 2 and Worms, work on it.
Would you like to know more?
Time is World War 2 and game starts with invasion of Sicily. Player is in command of elite group of soldiers and can choose small number of them for mission (4-8). Missions are mostly special assignments, like destroying mortars and warehouses. Besides soldiers under player's control there might be other allied units operating in the area. Soldiers can take cover on trench and behind (sandbag) walls. If there are enough action points left on end of turn, soldiers can shoot enemies if they come too close. Changing stance (stand, crouch, prone) don't require action points. Soldiers are specialized to handle certain equipment, like radio, bazooka and sniper rifle, but everyone can use everything. Does this sound like Jagged Alliance? My thoughts exactly.
Graphics and interface are good looking and realistic for mobile game but bright daylight ruins screen's visibility. Status bar displays bare minimum: action points, health and two items. Other stuff, like overview map and full inventory, are accessed through game menus and number buttons. Sounds aren't that great and I don't understand much from speech while playing on bus. With decent earphones audio quality might be better. Hour of playing eats battery about day's worth of readiness time.
Multiplayer options include hotseat, bluetooth and GPRS. GPRS traffic is billed by amount of transferred data which isn't much for turn based game. There can be multiple players on same side. Players can communicate either with text or audio messages. In case of audio, message is first recorded and then transmitted to other players. I don't have personal experience about multiplayer yet.
There is bit of realism involved. Heavily loaded soldiers, bazookas and light machine guns for example, have less action points available. One bullet from any weapon can be deadly but for some reason tanks seem to take a lot of punishent and tracks don't break up. Soldiers can take unoccupied heavy weapons under control, like already mentioned tanks, cannons and heavy machine guns. For some reason in single player missions german 88 AA cannons seems to be always unoccupied just waiting for player to grab them and blow things up. And they hit even individual soldiers!
Overall Pathway to Glory is decent squad based wargame which don't get overshadowed by similar games of heavier computers like Laser Squad (Nemesis) and Jagged Alliance. N-Gage itself is decent mobile device to play games, it has more buttons than most mobile consoles, microphone and excellent readiness for wireless multiplayer. There aren't many good N-Gage specific games, but I guess most of other mobile phone games, like Age of Empires 2 and Worms, work on it.
Would you like to know more?