Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page
1 Page 2 Page
3
With that rambling taken care of, I can now
enjoy the view, albeit a small but quite pocketable one, of the
landscape from the pilot's seat of my fully fueled Apache. Loading
up weapons was fun, until it struck me that I can't use them as
of yet. Forcing this war machine into its full forward velocity
of just over 300 km/h, it doesn't take much to understand the
anticipation and impatience of PDA users to get their hands on
this game. As a part of the Beta Crew, I was able to check it
out first hand with several pre-release versions. From the roughest
builds to the present release, there was never a doubt in my mind
that Sven's graphics wouldn't be considered the apex of what a
Pocket PC can presently offer. The textures and colors are vivid
and brilliant, and vary unpredictably as one continues flying.
All of the landscapes offer different locations, terrains, and
skies, each one with its own unique look and feel.
With my Graphics settings at Very Far
for draw distance, and Highest for image quality, my iPAQ renders
each frame smoothly and surely- I rarely even skip a beat when
listening to a .wma file while playing. I have to make sure not
to become too absorbed in the music however, as the ability to
actually crash into the side of a mountain has been added since
the most recent pre-release version.
Having noted the great strides in Pocket
PC gaming evident in this game, I have only two suggestions, and
one rant to add. Going through each of the menus each time I want
to start a game may become tiresome, so a method of saving a game
or loading settings specific to a player should be incorporated
into future versions. Also, where's the 'minimize to OS Boss'
button? I need to get my work done anyway, but as Sven's obviously
a perfectionist, I feel I should take the liberty to help him
fully achieve his vision. My rant? The "Big Bug", that
due to circumstances outside of Sven's control, was found too
close to release and ended up preventing the Mission logic from
loading in the first Release version, resulting in no missions,
no weapons, and no sound.
Without actually having tried out the
missions, I can already confidently urge anyone with $20 lying
around to register this software. The choice of five helicopters,
weapons, landscapes, and 25 missions to embark upon make this
a truly magnificent game for the Pocket PC. Bravo.
Previous
Page
Previous Page