Guitar Hero franchise keeps expanding and has now reached the smallest screen available: your cell phone. Guitar Hero III Mobile is based on the latest console Guitar Hero III. By eschewing the plastic guitar, you have to rely on your phone’s keypad to rock. Instead of 5 frets, you have to contend with 3 only - activated by keys 1, 2 and 3. Of course there are blue glowing notes and when you hit a series of notes correct, you can collect star power.
The effort to shrink the experience to the small screen is overall succesful. The game ships with 15 songs initially, and there are 3 new downloadable songs each month. If you’re into the Guitar Hero franchise and you’d like quick fixes outside of your home (or when you don’t have a DS around), Guitar Hero III Mobile is perfect for quick diversion.
Rating: 80%
Live Search Mobile, first released last year for Windows Mobile, BlackBerries and other phones, has now been updated that includes many new functionalities. (I first talked about it on May 31 2007.) In addition to Map, Directions and Traffic, the application can search for Movies, display local Gas Prices, search the Web, display local Weather and even get updates from other websites such as HomeThinking and Flickr. Another big improvement is the addition of voice search. By pressing "Speak" button, you can now search without typing.
Overall, the new additions improve the usefulness of the application over and beyond what Google Maps offers. Although there are plenty of websites and applications that offer weather forecast, it is a nice idea to put it all in one place. It is easy to find out gas prices in your region (especially if your phone has GPS capability since it will know exactly where you are, and then to route to the gas station).
As this is a free download, you should head over to wls.live.com on your mobile device and download Windows Mobile version as it will complement your other applications.
[Visit Live Search Mobile website for more details | Go to wls.live.com to download Live Search Mobile]
Herocraft’s game Robo has a simple concept: navigate a level and get through to the exit without getting killed by many lasers in the level. To do so, you must disrupt laser’s path using rocks and mirrors, move them or blow them up with bombs scattered throughout the level. While the premise is simple, the game is incredibly tough to beat as simply moving things around at random will not get you to the exit.
The game requires a lot of advance planning and strategy as you need to figure out how to change a laser’s path and which one to take out. Even if you think you have something figured out, you will have to try a level many times as it’s tough to anticipate every move. Robo does feature an undo button but you can only undo one move… the game would have benefited greatly from undo button that can take you all the way to the beginning of the level.
The biggest problem with this game is the difficulty spike. First 4 or 5 levels are pretty straightforward, and then you are suddenly stuck in a level where nothing you do makes sense. Often, there is only one way to get through the level, and it can take a long time and many tries if it didn’t click in your brain.
If you like a lot of strategy in your puzzle game, you will definitely enjoy Herocraft’s Robo. With 76 levels, you will get plenty of game time out of Robo. This game is available for many devices such as Windows Mobile (where I tested it) and even TomTom navigation devices at various prices (ranging from $7.77 to $15.85).
Rating: 75%
[Download trial and buy full version from Herocraft website]
Based on the PC game Westward (available from BigFishGames), mobile version was developed by Astraware for Palm OS, Windows Mobile Standard and Professional. It bills itself as a Wild West adventure, and it mostly delivers. Graphics are great for a mobile game, gameplay is very engaging and deep and it is an overall fun game.
You experience the life of a frontier settler by building towns, giving your folks places to live, employ them to produce food and gold, defeat bandits as you track down Mad Russian to bring him to justice. There are over 20 levels in the game and it will give you plenty of gameplay. The game is perfect for you to be playing in short bursts as it is easy to save and return to the game later.
It isn’t exactly bug-free though. On several occasions, I encountered game-stopping bugs such as characters not responding to commands. It is also pretty difficult to control multiple characters at the same time when your town grows to a certain size, particularly with the limited input options on the Smartphone version. You basically move the d-pad to select and issue commands, and when maps get big, it’ll take a long time to scroll anywhere.
Nonetheless, if you’re interested in a town-building game with some action/adventure components, this is perhaps your only choice. Priced at $19.95, it is a reasonable deal for the amount of fun you can get out of this game provided you don’t encounter too many bugs.
[Download trial/buy game from Astraware]
*Reviewed on T-Mobile Shadow running on Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard
Conversion softwares are incredibly useful on your phone and Paragon Software’s Handy Converter is a versatile and affordable tool. Capable of handling currency, temperature, length, weight, area, volume, speed, power, clothes size and even torque, it can convert practically anything. As for currency, it will connect to the internet and download latest rates to keep the conversion as accurate as possible.
It only costs $9.95 which is a pretty good deal for the functionality you get. Granted there are other free converter softwares available but none has as sleek, easy to use interface, and currency rate download is more useful than you think.
[Download Handy Converter for Windows Mobile, and other devices]
*tested on T-Mobile Shadow running Windows Mobile Standard 6.0
Tower Defense games are everywhere, from your computer to your PS3 console. Resco Defender is a well-executed handheld version available for both PocketPC and Smartphone devices. The objective of the game is to prevent monsters from reaching your castle wall by building defensive structures to kill them. There are basic attack towers, advanced towers, rocket towers, freeze towers, glue towers, teleport towers and magic towers, each with different abilities and damage.
The game is simple to understand, but it is quite addictive. You will spend a lot of time customizing your play field, to maximize monster deaths. With each monster destroyed, you earn gold which you use to build new towers and upgrade existing ones. At about $15, this is a good purchase if you like tower defense games and would like to play on the go. The repetitive nature is perfectly suited for short-burst handheld gaming.
[Download trial and buy full version game from resco.net]
Back when print newspaper was relevant in daily lives, people used to do the games such as crossword and wordsearch. Pockster brings those games in addition to Crypto and Sudoku in an unappealing package that is overpriced for its own good.
It includes 50 crossword puzzles, 50 wordsearch grids, 50 crypto puzzles and 75 sudoku games for a total price of $19.99 (yes, that’s $19.99). To put it in perspective, you could get a puzzle title on the Nintendo DS (such as Brain Age 2 which comes with 17 minigames, and 100 sudoku puzzles).
How does this game stand on its own? Not so well. The interface isn’t ideal on a smartphone, the graphics look incredibly dated and the puzzles aren’t as interesting as they could be.
There are much better options if you want puzzle games on your phone than this overpriced package of mediocre games. But if you’d still like to give it a try, visit their website.
Windows Mobile’s default alarm settings are anemic, and Efficasoft’s AlarmU seeks to change that while maintaining an easy-to-use interface. You can have multiple alarms at different intervals (such as every Tuesday) instead of what Windows Mobile offers you (either everyday or every weekday).
Another feature of Efficasoft AlarmU is Schedule which can put your phone in Flight Mode (disabling all radios so you won’t get disturbed during the night with a phone call) and you can also automate phone restart which may help you deal with memory issues.
Overall, this easy-to-use application is what Windows Mobile OS should have built-in, but until that happens, $5.95 will get you added functionality.
[Download Efficasoft AlarmU here]
DeveloperOne’s Agenda One is a complete contact and calendar replacement for your Windows Mobile devices. Agenda One seeks to replace Contact, Calendar and Tasks that come with the phone by offering a much more flexible and customizable experience. You can now use templates to make those screens as you’d like and you can create appointments while looking at contacts (just like in Outlook).
From one view, it is easy to navigate to another (such as going from daily agenda view to contacts). Another additional feature is search, which is curiously absent from built-in applications of Windows Mobile.
Overall for users who are unhappy with limited options in built-in applications, this is one of the best ways to add additional functionality. This robust suite, costing just $24.95, is great deal if you use your mobile to schedule lots of appointments and tasks, and were always disappointed by the limited options.
As always, there is a free demo available, so give it a try before you buy it.
[Download free demo and buy full version from DeveloperOne]
MSN Direct has been available for certain devices such as watches and GPS navigators, but it has never found a proper place on a mobile phone. Microsoft is remedying this by launch MSN Direct for Windows Mobile, a home screen plugin and application for Windows Mobile devices (WM5 and over, smartphone devices only so far). At the moment, weather, news and stocks channel are available. Instead of relying on FM transmissions, MSN Direct for Windows Mobile wisely relies on the phone’s data connection such as wi-fi or 3G, allowing you to receive updates in any cities whether you are covered by regular MSN Direct or not.
The interface looks very pleasant, and it integrates well to existing home screens. Pressing left and right while highlighting the plugin will let you scroll between weather, news and stock. Press ok to get more detailed information. There are plenty of third-party options available, but they are not easy to install nor to configure. This new MSN Direct for Windows Mobile is a must install for all users, especially given the fact that it is free.
Point your mobile phone’s browser to http://phone.msndirect.com or go there with regular browser and use ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center on Vista to install the application.
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