MetalShard Releases Pocket War 1.5

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.metalshard.com/pocketpcgames.html' target='_blank'>http://www.metalshard.com/pocketpcgames.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Pocket War 1.5 brings a whole new level of strategy to the game by removing the randomness of previous versions and replacing it with more predictable outcomes. These changes make Pocket War play less like the old Empire game and more like Advanced Wars for the GBA. Futuristic units have been removed from the game and have been replaced by even more real world combat units. This change increases the overall number of units in the game to more than thirty with even more units available for download on the MetalShard website."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/screenshot1.jpg" /><br /><br />I haven't played this game in quite some time, so the new version seems quite a bit different to me. If you're a fan of the game, check out 1.5!

[bigray327]

No true VGA support, therefore useless.

[tedson]

True VGA support will be the only major feature added Pocket War 1.6 which is planned for release in Feb. The game does run fine in the normal (slightly screwed up VGA mode) but in True VGA mode it still has issues.

[hotweiss]

I really miss Deluxe Empire - that was one of the funnest games ever. Oh no, it's multiplayer, must resist purchasing this time killer...

[Jason Dunn]

No true VGA support, therefore useless.

Maybe for you, but keep in mind that the majority of the readers at this site don't have VGA devices yet. :wink:

[bigray327]

Maybe for you, but keep in mind that the majority of the readers at this site don't have VGA devices yet. :wink:
Yeah, sorry, I should have put "for me." It's time for developers to read the writing on the wall, though. Seems like tedson is, so that's good.

[tedson]

The real writing on the wall is square. MS is going to allow devices with 240x240 and 320x320 displays. Doubling the size of something is easy but when the new (treo like) devices come out with square displays that's gonna be a killer for a lot of apps.

[Menneisyys]

No VGA? No-go.

[tedson]

Just so noone is confused (I am getting a lot of emails about this) pocket war will work fine with SE_VGA. It works fine in standard VGA it only has problems if you are running in True VGA mode and that is what we will fix in the next release.

[sponge]

For those who won't play the game because there is no VGA support, keep in mind one thing:

Drawing to the screen is what takes up the most time on PocketPC games. 640x480 is 4x more pixels than 320x240. So, if you have a game that runs at 60FPS on current QVGA PocketPCs, it will effectively run at 15-20FPS on VGA devices.

Add to that the current VGA devices have an awful time at blitting to the screen (unless you're running a hack like Picard's) and gaming on VGA devices is basically useless until MS/OEMs get their act together.

Of course *working* in whatever mode is a different story altogether.

[Menneisyys]

Drawing to the screen is what takes up the most time on PocketPC games. 640x480 is 4x more pixels than 320x240. So, if you have a game that runs at 60FPS on current QVGA PocketPCs, it will effectively run at 15-20FPS on VGA devices.


But this one is a strategy game, where there is no need for fast screen refresh, but for high resolution. For compariosn: would yu play Starcraft in MCGA (320*240*256) instead of VGA (640*480)? Surely strategy games require as much resolution as possible.

[hotweiss]

Drawing to the screen is what takes up the most time on PocketPC games. 640x480 is 4x more pixels than 320x240. So, if you have a game that runs at 60FPS on current QVGA PocketPCs, it will effectively run at 15-20FPS on VGA devices.


But this one is a strategy game, where there is no need for fast screen refresh, but for high resolution. For compariosn: would yu play Starcraft in MCGA (320*240*256) instead of VGA (640*480)? Surely strategy games require as much resolution as possible.

If they only had Starcraft or Warcraft for PPC...