REVIEW: IBE Group's brand new vertical scroller shooter, Star Invader II

http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=812&productId=189091

I really-really wish (would-be) game developers had some kind of self-restriction or, at least, throrough knowledge of the other games in the same category (easily obtainable by, say, reading the Games section in my blog). Some of the released titles are of really questionable quality for the price asked – as is the case with IBE Group’s new game, Star Invader II (tested version 2.0 build 1.0.0.2006). The game The game itself is that of the well-known vertical shooters: you control a spaceship and need to kill or at least evade the enemies that fly down the screen. There are several Pocket PC titles that are based on the same idea: the excellent GikaDiver, SkyForce, Darklaga, Particle Wars, AIM Odyssey, Siberian Strike, Resco Guardians, Turjah II, AngelFish etc. (see for example this thread and this article for more info on these games). If you see one of these titles, you see them all - therefore, I won’t elaborate more on what the game is about. I won’t go into details like what you can set in the Options menu or what kinds of power-ups there are either - these are things anyone can find out in one minute. Instead, I concentrate on comparing the title to other titles of the same genre and scrutinizing its problems – that is, stuff that serious gamers really need. Problems

1. Much as the game has in-game music, it’s really short (some 10-15 seconds) and, therefore, highly repetitive. (The boss music is different from this.) Decent titles (Gika, SkyForce etc.) have much longer in-game music.
2. it installs about 360 files (decent games would use one big resource file and not put every single sprite or sound effect in a separate file). This means the installation will be pretty slow if you install the game on an unoptimized memory card (I can’t stress enough the importance of optimizing your memory cards for optimal speed).
3. during the first execution, the game automatically cranks up the system volume to maximum. This is not necessarily what you want, particularly if you have a Pocket PC with a buzzer that is known to easily burn down (like that of the HP iPAQ hx4700 without the speaker patch, or the iPAQ 2210) or you don’t want to disturb other people. As I’ve done the tests around midnight at home and hadn’t a headphone to mute my devices, I had to find out how the game stores its sound and other configuration data so that, once configured on one Pocket PC, I can easily deploy a version on my other Pocket PC's so that I don't wake up others in my neighbourhood. (These settings are stored in \Windows\ttp.ttr and can indeed be deployed on other devices before starting the game for the first time.)
4. your ship can only be controlled with the D-pad, not with the stylus. Almost all the other vertical scroller shooters have stylus control in addition to the D-pad (the only notable exception is Angelfish).
5. It’s only with very few Pocket PC’s that it will work at a really good speed – only on two of my five test Pocket PC’s I’ve tested the game on. That is, the game seem to have limited compliance with current Pocket PC's.
6. The price. $19.99 is just too much for a game of such a quality. Let’s not forget there are a lot of other vertical scrollers out there; the vast majority of the titles being considerably better than this one (for example, the free (!) GikaDiver, the much cheaper SkyForce etc.)

Compliance report I’ve tested the game on five of my Pocket PC’s: HP iPAQ 2210: pretty slow, even in the Fast speed HP iPAQ hx4700 with WM5: the main game doesn’t run Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720: unbelievably slow. Picard's VGA GAPI hack doesn't help this. HTC Wizard (latest i-mate ROM): this was the only device that ran the game at a really good speed. Dell Axim x51v: it's much better than on the also-VGA Pocket Loox 720, considerably better than on the iPAQ 2210 but nowhere as good as on the HTC Wizard. Playable. The game is only compliant with WM2003+ devices (including WM5). The best titles of the genre like SkyForce or Gikadiver are also PPC2k2 compatible (Gika even has MIPS/SH3 Pocket PC 2000 versions, the former running great on my Casio E-125.) Verdict Not recommended. Technically, the vertical scroller shoot’m up games I’ve reviewed in my blog/articles are much-much better, offering much better gaming experience. There is not a single strength of this title compared to, say, the much cheaper SkyForce, particularly not for 20 bucks. Additional remarks Unfortunately, this isn’t the only title of questionable quality from this developer. I’ve reviewed their mailer client IBE Mail and found it also pretty weak and severely overpriced. I think the folks at IBE Group should reconsider their business model and either considerably drop their prices or considerably raise the quality of their titles. Right now, neither of the two tested products are worth purchasing - in my opinion.