[General Topics] Menneisyys:
There is a lot of Windows Mobile gaming news to report on:

After Ben Stanley’s excellent review, Just Another Mobile Monday has also published a review of probably the best and, what is more, TCP/IP multiplayer-enabled, turn-based strategy game even released for the Pocket PC, Orions: Legend of Wizards. It's available here and is highly recommended. Note that I'll also publish a Strategy Guide to the game (I'm also an author of several Starcraft Strategy Guides so the genre, the ideas of micromanagement etc. are pretty well-known to me) later, as soon as I have some free time (not in the next two weeks, I'm afraid). (News source: PPCT).

BTW, note that a new, 1.01 version of the game was released some days ago; it, among other things, fixed the multiplayer functionality, which was entirely useless in the initial version. Now, multiplayer is working just great and, as it's IP address entering-based, really flexible and even allows for playing people in another continent (that is, it's not local-only). (News source: I worked very closely with the excellent Moregames Entertainment folks to quickly iron out the bug.)

Pocket Fallout, the highly recommended, free (!) Fallout clone (review here) has just received a dedicated website. (New source: private e-mail from the developer.)

Byte@Hand is working on a real (!) Pirates! clone Caribbean Adventures 1600AD. Unlike the other two piracy-related games on the Pocket PC, High Seas and Tradewinds (please read the full story here), this is promised to bear much more similarities with the classic Pirates! (News source: have run into the announcement while checking out the following title.)

The same developer, Byte@Hand, has just released a space shooter Space Prospector. I haven't tested it as yet; based on the screenshots, it doesn't seem to be as good as SkyForce Reloaded, the best vertical scroller game available for the Pocket PC. I may be mistaken, though. (News source: PocketGamer.org)

The excellent Doom port (which, as can also be seen based on its name, supports the 3D hardware built into Intel 2700G and GoForce-based Windows Mobile devices) DoomGLES has been updated to version 0.5. There are two main things of interest in here (among other things):

- music support (at last! Previous versions only offered sound effects)

- can be played in Portrait mode, which is certainly very good news for Dell Axim x50v/x51v users sensitive to the polarization problems of the cheapo Dell screen in Landscape mode.

All in all, checking out the new version is a MUST for all 3D hardware accelerated Windows Mobile device users. (News source: forum announcement over PocketGamer.)

Interactive E Books Ltd has released Jurassic Adventure. It's an interactive e-book where you play the role of a research physicist sent back in time one hundred and fifty million years into the past. Don't, however, expect anything like a "real" adventure game. In my opinion, Interactive E Books's games are far inferior to that of, say, Legend Entertainment on the PC or, on the Pocket PC / Palm, Fade Team (Fade on the PPC / Acedior on the Palm - do they ring a bell?). However, it's pretty cheap and, if you're into the genre, you may want to give it a try. (News source: PocketGamer)

The free, highly recommended Transport Tycoon Deluxe has also been updated; the new features are as follows:

- Now works on VGA devices

- Loads the PC version of OpenTTD's save game files!

- Right-click emulation via hard buttons.

- Fast landscape graphics via custom raw frame buffer drawing routines.

- Full threaded sound effects and music.

- Palm TTD provides full 480x320 Tapwave API accelerated graphics

(News source & related discussion: PocketGamer)

Tetraedge has released the long-anticipated multimedia (which is bad news for fans of the "traditional" textual or Lucasfilm/Sierra-like genre) adventure game Syberia 2 in both English and German (French, Spanish and Italian versions will follow later). Note that I can only provide you a ClickGamer link (and this one for the German version) because the official homepage of the developer still doesn't have any information on the new game. Note that, while originally there wasn't, now, a trial version is also available. (News source & related discussion: PocketGamer)

PocketGear offers a 20% rebate for all their products in March with the coupon code MARCH20 (News source: PocketGamer)