Warelex, an established Symbian / Java developer but a newcomer to Pocket PC development, has just released their second Pocket PC title (the first, Sky Striker, was released back in July), a flight simulator title Sky Racer.





The game, which is a traditional mission-based title, starts with a pretty simple tutorial (screenshot 2 3), which, then, is followed by more interesting missions.

Availability, compatibility

Te game is available here. The trial is pretty playable; the game costs $19.95.

Currently, while the developer advertises it as WM2003(SE)-compliant, it isn’t – it can’t be installed on these devices. That is, it only runs on WM5 ones.

As far as the latter are concerned, I have’t had any problems on mine.

Sounds, in-game music

There is no in-game music, just in the menu (the same as in the previous title, Sky Striker); the sounds are pretty OK.

Visuals

They’re pretty OK for a non-3D-accelerated title. If you are into nice visuals (and don’t mind the close-to-unplayable speed on even the, for gaming, fastest Pocket PC’s like the Dell Axim x51v), you may like the visuals. Needless to say, it doesn’t make use of the high-resolution capabilities of VGA devices – except for the space shooter Anthelion II, no 3D simulation title does that without true 3D hardware acceleration support.

Compared to Sky Striker

Pros

1. Controls at last definable (screenshot 2) – no more problems with few-button or PPC Phone Edition devices like the iPAQ 2210, the HTC Universal and the HTC Wizard
2. Support for different profiles
3. Touchscreen support at last (should be controlled in the lower right quarter only)
4. Screen orientation can be freely chosen: Portrait (great news for Pocket PC users of models (like the Dell Axim x50v/x51v) having polarization problems in Landscape) and two Landscape modes. Sky Striker only supported the two Landscape modes but not Portrait

Cons

1. Without explicitly switching to using low-quality textures, it’s pretty slow on the x51v - Sky Striker was definitely faster, albeit it had much worse visuals (no skies, pretty low-res textures etc). On the overclocked (!) HTC Wizard, it’s almost unplayable – in there, I needed to switch to even low-resolution (160*120), which, of course, looks pretty ugly low-resolution. With everything setting to low-quality, it’s pretty responsive – but, then, the visuals really suffer. That is, on some devices, you MUST manually decrease the graphics detail, while, on some other, the default “auto detect” will be OK.
2. Only available CAB installer is WM5-only – no WM2003 support any more (unlike with Sky Striker), despite what the official compatibility statement states

Generic problems

1. No pre-WM5 support – I’ve tested the (slightly different) CAB files on both the official homepage and Handango.
2. No in-game music and it uses exactly the same menu music as Sky Striker – I’d expect of a pretty expensive ($19.95) title at least a new menu music!
3. Still no OpenGL-ES / 2700G or any kind of 3D support. Developers, we do want hardware 3D support!
4. Bad English, a lot of typos (examples: the resolution setting dialog, the video scheme dialog

Screenshots

The new settings screen: advanced video settings: 1 2 3 4. Also see the homepage of the game for more screenshots.

Verdict

This title definitely has advancements over the first Pocket PC title of the developer, particularly controllability- and fine tune-wise – it seems the developers have really read my Sky Striker review and implemented what I’ve mostly complained about (except for OpenGL-ES / 2700G support).

I can also recommend it over OmniGSoft’s well-known Mini-Dogfight and Mini-Jetfight (please see the Multiplayer Bible for more information on these titles) because, now, controllability- and fine tuning-wise, this title is considerably better, not to mention the much better missions. You may only want to stick to the OmniGSoft titles if you need multiplayer support, which the Warelex title, unfortunately, (still?) lacks.

If you are a flight simulation fan, give this game a try.

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

    

Thanks for the review.

Paul