Recommendation for a game

[binstpa]

As a treat to myself for finishing my first year of law school I decided that in addition to purchasing dozens of books for summer reading I would also splurge and get myself a pocket pc game. I want to keep the price between $10 and $15 dollars unless there is an exceptional reason for going over that.

I am looking for an addicting game that can be played off and on fo short period of times. I don't want a game that requires a lot of learning and a time commitment. I want it to be well made and graphically impressive. I will buy a couple of games if they both fall under my imposed price ceiling.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Oh, here are the games that I already own:

Mini-Golf Challenge
Crazy Kart
Tower Mogul
(all 923 nintendo games and an emulator)
Nodes of Yesod
All-in-One Solitaire

Thanks for your suggestions.

[tanalasta]

Consider subscribing to pocketpcthoughts and get a free copy of snails!!! You can still do that right?

Here're games I've played and found to be worthwhile:
Big2 (free shareware - you'd know this game if you're an asian... it's about 50kb and i can send it to you if you msg me)
Gangsta race - not too bad a driving game but gets repetitive after a while.
Kasparov Chessmate - Another one for the chess buffs. You law students are thinkers rite? ;)
Warfare Inc: Great c&c clone for those who can't afford AOE.
Snails.

For more recommendations - you can check out www.pocketpcmag.com and see which games won last year's PPC awards.

[binstpa]

Thanks for your reply. I don't know how I forgot to mention that I own Snails as well as Anthelion.

[Deltrevan]

Hi, Binstpa!

I can't think of a better treat for oneself than a nice PPC game. They're affordable, you can take 'em practically anywhere, and they help you get more time with your PPC!

The two I've been playing the most recently within your price range are Diamond Mine ($14.99) and Bookworm ($14.99).

Others I like, and that would be worth considering (IMHO) are Netmaster (very unique, $9.99), Traffic Jam ($9.99), Painter's Battle (really fun!, $12.99), TMax ($7.99) and Rook's Revenge (real time chess, $9.99).

In the future, if you ever decide to go beyond your price ceiling, it's hard to go wrong with some of the Handmark ports such as Yahtzee, Scrabble, Monopoly and Battleship. These are all well done, and range in price from $19.99 to $29.99. But watch for specials/sales and you can sometimes get them for less.

Now, my one warning for a game to stay the hell completely away from...Concentrix by ScaleneSoftware. There is a problem with getting the unlock codes to register the full version of the game. I bought it over a week ago, and never did get the full version to run on my machine, despite the fact that the demo ran just fine. Plus, to make matters worse, the developer tried to stop me from getting a refund from Handango. I did ultimately get the refund, but the developer fought tooth and nail for a week to stop it. Just a friendly warning.

[Ripper014]

Well I am kinda hooked on a game called SpaceTrader... it's free and the graphics are not all that impressive but it will widdle the time away. The Galatic Map is a fair size and the game itself is simple and fun. I believe it was ported over from the Palm.

Space Treker 3 is nearing the finishing stages and looks impressive as well. I am not into all these action games so when something that offers a little more strategy, I am always up for it.

Now if they would only port Civ2 over to the PocketPC... XCom... or even the Lost Admiral...

[scalene]

As any reader knows there are two sides to every story, and I feel obligated to reply to Deltrevan's inappropriate post.

Concentrix works fine on all Pocket PCs, there is no problem registering on devices. The registration code is portable and in fact runs fine on Windows and Linux also. I know, I wrote it, it uses only integer math.

If there genuinely were a problem with a device, it would be trivial for me to create a custom version of the application that is hardcoded to work on that device, bypassing the registration system entire. Who here really believes I wrote all of Concentrix, but can't do that simple task?

Despite the fact that Deltrevan tried to obtain a review copy from me, before purchasing the game and receiving his Key, I assumed he genuinely had a problem and set about to fix it, wasting several hours preparing a new version to do just that. The data file he sent back to me indicated several things. First, that everything is working properly on his system, and second, that he attempted to tamper with the data file to make it look otherwise.

Just to be sure, I solicited other Toshiba e805 users to verify that it runs on your device. Interested readers can find this solicitation on PocketMatrix forums, "General Pocket PC Discussion". The lucky tester got a full copy of Concentrix, because obviously it registered fine on his device.

The Product ID Deltrevan sent to me was good, and they cannot be forged, there is too much redundancy in them. I have successfully rebuilt IDs with up to three missing digits. Once the Product ID is created, it's all integer math from there, and we know that works. The Key I gave him is correct and works on his device. He has a working registered copy.

Incidentallly, if the integer math was in any way flawed on his device, for whatever reason, he wouldn't be able to load the game, because it wouldn't be able to load the recorded demo games, which are encrypted using the exact same mechanism.

All in all, it's a brilliant piece of what hackers term "social engineering" to obtain a copy of the game. There's nothing I can do about it, he did in fact receive his refund. I don't have a problem with refunds otherwise, I granted one other refund to a user who didn't want software with a device-specific key, but they were honest and didn't try to obtain a working key first. All other customers are thrilled with the game, and many request to beta test anything else I develop.

So readers can choose to believe one side of the story or the other. But it is important to always hear both sides. I have nothing to gain by pissing off real customers, but at the same time I do not appreciate being made a fool of.

Deltrevan, I would suggest that you be content with your refund and discontinue libeling me in online forums, and I will consider the matter closed. Apologies to all.

[Steven Cedrone]

So readers can choose to believe one side of the story or the other. But it is important to always hear both sides.

O.K., since we have heard both sides, I respectfully ask that you two take it off-line...

Steve

[juni]

Almost all PDAmill games are great, especially this one:

http://www.gameboxclassics.com/

:)

[scalene]

Agreed with the Moderator.

Also agreed with the PDAmill game recommendations.

It would help to know what genre of games you enjoy.

There are also some relatively different games out there, besides Concentrix. Stuntman Evolution is quite different from other games and includes a level editor. Battle of the Generals is a unique blend of several board games. There are others but sometimes they can be hard to find.

[Raynne]

Your favorite genres would help a lot.

PDAMill is a great developer. I love Gamebox Gems and Gamebox Asia. Another one of my favorite games is Legacy.

[sublime]

How about you tell us what books you plan on reading for the summer?

Just out of curiosity...

[piperpilot]

Being a lawyer myself, and therefore knowing how your brain operates now that you've undergone the transformation in thinking that occurs during the first year of law school, I would recommend Astraware's Cubis. It's a three-dimensional block matching game that is very addictive. I have been playing it every day for a couple of months now and I still haven't gotten tired of it. It's easy to play but hard to master, and there is a lot of strategic thinking involved. If there were such a thing as Pocket PCs when I was in law school, I would have been able to do a lot more than sleep in my carrel in the bowels of the library! Congratulations on making it through the first year. The second year will be interesting. The third year will be boring, but you've definitely made it through the hardest part. :way to go:

[Zack Mahdavi]

Here's my personal collection:

Bejeweled - the best game ever!
Kevtris - freeware Tetris game. Very nice graphics and animation
Snails - you already have it.
Gamebox Gems trial - very cool game (actually 6). I'm going to buy it soon.

[tanalasta]

Just remembered - here's an old, often forgotton game that definitely deserves a mention.

Rocketelite Gold

www.rocketelite.com
Give the shareware a go :) It's addictive once you master it.

So what did you eventually decide upon?

[Oreocat]

My favorites are

Brickslider (14.95) at http://www.ballshooter.com/ (they have a special right now, buy 2 games for $20 & get a 3rd free)

Lexicon (14.95) at http://pocket.derelictsoftware.com/

Slurp (4.95) at http://www.hexacto.com/game_slurp.php (Award winner!)

And some free games, PocketPop, Alienrat Canfield, & Hot Death Uno.

You might check out http://www.freewareppc.com/ & http://www.pdahay.com/ for free app's and games :)

Good luck on whatever you decide to get.

[binstpa]

Sorry I haven't interracted but my laptop crashed and needed an entire new system board (IBM T40 - great laptop and onsite service was great). For the person who asked here is my summer book reading list - it is probably going to be too much but hey set your goals high and what you accomplish may be higher than if you set your sights low. The books may seem random but they are books I bought in wonderful Ann Arbor, MI bookstores over the course of my first year of law school but haven't gotten around to. I decided to read all the books I bought before buying any more.

1. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
2. Lenin’s Tomb – David Remnick
3. The Castle – Franz Kafka
4. The Stranger – Albert Camus
5. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
6. Peace to End all Peace – David Krumpkin
7. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
8. The Dante Club -
9. The World According to Garp – John Irving
10. Baudolino – Umberto Eco
11. A People’s History of the United States – Zinn
12. The Awakening – Kate Chopin
13. My Antonia – Willa Cather
14. In the Lake of the Woods – Tim O’Brien
15. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
16. Far From the Maddening Crowd - Hardy
17. August 1914 – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
18. The Stones of Summer – Dow Mossman
19. Silas Marner – George Eliot
20. The Perfect Heresy – Stephen O’Shea
21. Pushkin’s Button – Serena Vitale
22. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
23. A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
24. The Koran
25. Out of Silent Planet Series (3) – C.S. Lewis
26. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
27. Flight to Canada – Ishmael Reed
28. Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte
29. The Island of the Day Before – Umberto Eco
30. Going Home – Dorris Lessing
31. The Pickup - Nadine Gordimer
32. How the Steel was Tempered – Nikolai Ostrovsky
33. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
34. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexander Dumas
35. Underworld – Don Delillo
36. The Hiding Place – Corrie Ten Boom
37. The Strange Case of Jim Crow – Woodward
38. Republic – Plato
39. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolfe
40. A Civil Action - Barr

I don't really like mahjong and I am happy with my chess games. I pretty much have scoured the freeware stuff and have most of the things that you recommended. One week from thursday I will be all done with finals and purchase one of the great games. I am looking for a game that I can play in short bursts and is very visually appealing.