Menneisyys

As the excellent Pocket PC gaming site PocketGamer.org has just reported, the vertical shooter Burning Armor has win the EDGE coding compo. Having always loved vertical scroller shooter games, I’ve jumped at it right away to find out whether it’s any good.



Unfortunately, it isn’t. Mainly, it has major speed problems. It’s only playable on (faster – particularly NOT recommended for OMAP users like those of with the HTC Wizard!) QVGA devices. On VGA devices, it has pretty annoying speed problems even on the (in this respect) fastest x51v; on the Pocket Loox 720 (even with Picard’s VGA GAPI hack) and the HP iPAQ hx4700, it’s unplayable.

It speed, as has already been pointed out, is only satisfactory on at least 400 MHz XScale, QVGA only Pocket PC’s like the HP iPAQ 2210. On slower QVGA or any VGA devices, it will be just plain slow.

Availability, compatibility

It’s available here and costs $19.99. A trial version is available. It’s compatible with all WM2003+ operating systems and runs on all my test devices (even the WM5-based hx4700).

Sound, music

As with most EDGE-based games I’ve played with, it has in-game music but its sound quality is pretty bad (compared to SkyForce Reloaded or many other titles) because of the low sampling rate.

Visuals

Nothing to write home about. No spectacular 3D effects, not so good explosions as in SkyForce (Reloaded) or Particle Wars.

Verdict

You may not want to check out this game. It’s just poor and really overpriced. Go for SkyForce [Reloaded], GikaDiver, Darklaga or Particle Wars instead. This title is really weak. It’s probably only the Compact Framework 2-based (yes, using high-level languages / libraries will always result in major speed problems on the Pocket PC!) Star Invader II by IBE Group that is even worse. (Please see this article for more links and reviews to other vertical scroller games!)

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MS MVP- Mobile Devices.