Menneisyys

If you have MS-DOS background and played demogroup Renaissance's (Epic (Mega)games’) famous shooter title Zone 66 (another link to check out here) back in 1992, you may welcome the brand new game Alpha Rebellion by SwordAndSpirit, which is based on the same “360 degrees turning” scheme and has (at least compared to some of the alternates) pretty good in-game music and sounds.



Availability

The title is available on the homepage of the developer. ClickGamer page here. There’s a trial version; the full version costs $9.95 (I think – being in Europe, I’m shown the price in Euros, which is €7.96 ).

Gameplay

Please see the above-linked pages on how the games in this genre are played. If you know Zone 66, then, the new title will be familiar.

Compatibility

The game is compatible with WM2003+ (sorry PPC2k2 users, it isn’t compatible with your devices – I’ve tested.)

On all my VGA devices (Pocket Loox 720, Dell Axim x51v and the WM5-upgraded iPAQ hx4700 - yes, the game runs on the latter too, which is certainly good news), the scrolling was pretty choppy and uneven (this is pretty bad news particularly for x51v users – most scroll-intensive, well-written and optimized games, even ones without explicit 2700G support, run OK on the Dell, unlike on the other two, listed VGA devices). That is, I don’t necessarily recommend the game if you have a VGA device. (Note that the game, as you may have guessed, uses QVGA in-game resolution only – there is no hi-res graphics.)

On (faster) QVGA devices like the WM2003 iPAQ 2210, I had no problems like this – on them, the game is pretty enjoyable. As far as slower QVGA devices are concerned, the non-overclocked HTC Wizard, unfortunately, had the same choppy scrolling problem as the VGA devices. With overclocking, this problem may go away.

Controls

The game is stylus-controllable; that is, you don't need the D-pad. This is certainly good news.

For shooting, switching between weapons and displaying/hiding the minimap, you'll need the hardware buttons. They were available on all my devices except the hx4700, where the tap-and-hold functionality of the WM5 device made it impossible to keep the fire button constantly down. (But, as has already been pointed out, I don't think you'll find the game enjoyable on a VGA device because of the choppy scrolling.)

Visuals

Pretty good, albeit the hand-drawn debriefing characters are pretty ugly. Also, the explosions (particularly air - ground bombs), while definitively not so spectacular as with SkyForce Reloaded, the king of all scrolling shooters. The bomb explosions also really slow down the animation.

Sounds, music

Pretty nice, albeit repetitive, mono in-game music. Not as good as that of SkyForce (Reloaded). The sounds are OK.

Verdict

If you’ve been a fan of Zone 66, you have a fast QVGA device and would like to give a try to a 360-degree shooter on the Pocket PC, give this title a try. Otherwise, SkyForce (Reloaded) is still a much better choice because it’s visually stunning, doesn’t have choppy scrolling and offers far more action.

__________________
MS MVP- Mobile Devices.