[General Topics] Menneisyys:
1. PDAmill has released Wild Gears, a Micro Machines clone

Famous game developer company PDAmill has just released Wild Gears, a pretty decent top-down racing game certainly worth a try. The features include:

• Gorgeous Cartoon Art

• Four different cars

• Intuitive controls that make full use of Windows Mobile touch screen

• 15 awesome tracks to race on

• Rockin' Soundtrack with over 20 minutes of music

• Four different Cups to compete in!

• Records Menu keeps track of all your best track and lap times

• Auto-save

Your first question will surely be (if you’re into gaming, that is): How does it compare to K-Rally, the King of all top-down racing games on all mobile platforms, including Windows Mobile (see review HERE)? Well, it has both cons and pros.

Compared to K-Rally...

It’s worth pointing out that the PDAMill folks pay special attention to their titles’ flawless running on low-end Pocket PC’s plagued with the infamous touchscreen bug I’ve elaborated on, for example, HERE. I’ve thoroughly tested the game on my non-overclocked HTC Wizard and found it extremely well done and the graphics not stuttering at all even with the stylus resting on the screen. This certainly wasn’t the case with K-Rally. On the other hand, I’ve found the game slightly slower on my VGA Dell Axim x51v than on my (even low-end!) QVGA devices. In this regard, K-Rally might (still) be a better choice.

Pros:

-	runs definitely better on low-end Pocket PC’s with touchscreen CPU usage issues

-	the control scheme may turn out be better for many (see below)

Equal:

-	in-game music (both games have very cool music; PDAMill’s musician is Jaybot, after all, which guarantees high-quality, non-repeating music. And we all know how nice the “scener”, “retro” music in K-Rally really is.)

-	no multiplayer in either titles. iDreams still haven’t implemented this in their title (too bad) and PDAMill surely won’t. Let me cite Jaybot from PDAMill: “You know my opinion on multiplayer support on windows mobile devices already: nobody uses it :) It's a nice extra feature to have, but we've never been able to justify it since Snails.”

Cons:

- (no MS Smartphone version: bad news for touchscreen-less Smartphone users)

- slightly slower on some? all? VGA devices - in this regard, K-Rally is better optimized

- no weapons, which really restricts the strategies you can use. In the initial design documents, the PDAMill folks did have lots of different things planned, of course (including battle mode, stunt mode, etc). They, however, simply didn't have time to fit it all into this release. So definitely in an update, sequel, whatever. Let's hope for the best :)

- Landscape mode only – bad news for users with devices with landscape polarization issues like the Dell Axim x50v / x51v. In K-Rally, you could switch between the two modes (that is, you could just stay with Portrait if your eyes are sensitive to the polarization issues)

There isn’t much point in comparing it to Gangsta Race and Dreamway (old Micro Machines clones) - this title is FAR better, particularly music-wise (just like K-Rally).

Controls

The car (as opposed to most other racing games, where the D-pad can also be used) can ONLY be controlled via the touchscreen. There is a compass on the bottom of the screen, which lets you set both the speed and the direction of the car. That is, the touchscreen controls are WAY different from all the Pocket PC alternatives. In K-Rally, for example, the stylus’ distance from your car sets the speed of the car and the car always accelerates in the direction of it. This is entirely different in Wild Gears. If you’ve been a K-Rally player, the new control scheme takes a few minutes to get used to, but after awhile it grows on you and you may actually prefer it to the full screen controls (especially on tight turns, and... when intentionally ramming another car out of the way). In addition, the PDAMill folks want to get everyone used to the on-screen analog stick idea, as it's something they foresee being very, very useful in future titles (for example in a 3D platformer, along the lines of Mario64).

Of course, this approach has (other) major advantages too; most importantly, no cars will ever be hidden under the stylus (some people have complained about this with K-Rally).

Verdict

All in all, go give the trial version a go – it’s certainly worth a try. It’s available HERE.

2. Resco Table Soccer, which is a very nice game particularly on high-resolution VGA devices, is free (!!!) until 03/12. Get it HERE - it’s REALLY worth it!

3. DoomGLES, the only 3D hardware accelerated and, what is more, free (!!!) Doom port for Pocket PC, has been updated to support the GoForce 5500 hardware chip in some models like the O2 XDA Flame and the new i-mate Ultimate 6150 / 8150 (see review of the latter HERE).

So far, very few (only two: Call of Duty 2 and GeoRallyEX), otherwise, Intel 2700G-enabled 3D titles have had support for GoForce 5500 (see THIS compatibility list). Now, you, at last, have an excellent Doom clone as well. Hope Kokak also manages to make his recently-released HereticGLES. Also see THIS PG thread if interested. Finally, please don’t forget to donate some money to Kokak if you would like to see future development – I’ve just done so.