Resco has always been probably the best utility developer for the Pocket PC. Their Picture Viewer (see my all-in-one roundup for more information), File Explorer, along with Registry Editor (see my all-in-one roundup for more information) etc. are all top-notch.

Does being able to produce quality utilities mean also being able to produce high-quality games? Not necessarily. Read on!

Unfortunately, Resco’s current games, in my humble opinion, aren’t as good as one would expect based on the quality of their utility applications. For example, their Resco Guardians (quickly reviewed & compared here) is definitely worse than the best titles (SkyForce or Darklaga) in the category (see for example this article for more information). Resco Sokoban, while having definite merits (VGA resolution) is also suffering from the “great utility but not-that-great game developer” syndrome.

What’s Sokoban, anyway?

Read this Wiki entry.

Downloading, technical data

Get the game here. It can be installed on anywhere (on storage cards too) and takes up approximately 2.5 Mbytes of storage. The price is $14.95.

Compatibility

As opposed to what the download page states, it’s not compatible with PPC2k/PPC2k2 (the latter tested on my freshly hard reset iPAQ 3660 - screenshot here) – that is, you will only be able to run it on WM2003+ devices.

Note that, lacking a square-screen device, I haven’t been able to test its 240*240 compliance. I've "only" tested it on the following Pocket PC's: iPAQ 3660, iPAQ 2210, Fu-Si Pocket Loox 720, Dell Axim x51v and iPAQ hx4700 (with WM5).

In-game and menu music

Really repetitive, mono. Far-far away from the soundtrack of, say, the games by Isotope 244 Graphics (for example, Acky's XP Breakout). Even the (shorter) tracked music of, say, TapZMania (review here), Arcade Park (review here) or Ballshooter Games titles (review here) is much better.

Controls

D-pad only. The stylus can only be used to drag the map (and to click the icons in the upper right corner). This also means the game is almost unplayable on the touchpad-based HP iPAQ hx4700.

Configuration options

As can be seen in this screenshot, you can switch to (if you want, left-handed) landscape mode (which works on WM2003 devices too) and also configure the game to use single-step (to avoid overrunning – even if you can always use the Undo feature in the game) and rotational movements. Also, it’s here that you can assign the Rotate, Undo, Restart and Exit functions (Undo and Restart are also available as icons) to buttons for faster access – or, with WM2003 devices, to be usable at all.

Bugs, problems

Major bug with WM2003 devices

The icons (Undo, Exit and Transparency) don’t work in Landscape mode - they are highlighted when you click them, but nothing happens. You must use the game in Portrait.

Bugs with all QVGA devices

The game, as opposed to VGA devices, can’t use the right-hand/ bottom third of the screen as can be seen for example in this screenshot (where the right part of the map isn't visible because of this bug). This is also visible in the main menu, where there will even be remnants of the game screen itself as can be seen in this screenshot. The VGA menu, on the other hand, will be perfectly OK as can be seen in here.

Problems on VGA devices

On VGA devices, the playfield will be very small and hard-to-make-out, as opposed to QVGA devices (example screenshot of the latter here). There’s no zooming in the game to help the situation.

Bad English

The game would indeed need a native English speaker to clean up the mistakes. Much as I’m not a native English speaker either, I wouldn’t make mistakes like putting the word “information” in plural as in “informations” (see the main screen) – my English teacher some 20 years ago has made it clear that doing this is one of the biggest mistakes in English. Also, there’re numerous other mistakes in the English of the game (for example, the lack of articles, which is a very common mistake with Slavonic languages, Finns and Estonians, as in, for example, “you have finished level”).

Verdict

Well, the QVGA version of the game certainly needs some serious bugfixes. The VGA version should benefit from some kind of zoom-in. Also, better, much longer, less repetitive, preferably stereo music would be welcome.

You may still want to give this title a try – if not going straight to some alternates (just enter the word “Sokoban” at PocketGamer to get a list of them).

Recommended link

The Games category in my blog.

Microsoft MVP - Mobile Devices, 2006, 2007. See my PPC & SP blog HERE.