Curse of the Pharaohs  ::  Spot!  ::  News

Egyptologist Extravaganza

At first glance, you might dismiss Curse of the Pharaohs as yet another hokey-looking platform scroller. But you'd be wrong—while the game definitely doesn't have the best graphics, it's a surprisingly enjoyable and sophisticated adventure centered on exploring tombs in Egypt. Although the game does have its share of shooting enemies and treasures to grab, it's much more involved than just that. COTP also has you doing such things as excavating old mummies, using dynamite, flipping switches, and manipulating your environment in various ways in order to get the job done.

At its heart, the game is as much about solving puzzles and getting around obstacles as it is about hacking stuff to bits. It can be a little frustrating at times, but it's a good concept. There's even a hint of RPG-like character development, as increasing your knowledge allows you to access additional levels. A lot of effort went into the design and game play of this title, and it shows. COTP isn't perfect, but it's very playable and definitely an impressive first effort for Just Mobile Games.

Spot!

From eSoft, Spot! is one of those games that has you identify the (usually subtle) differences between two pictures such as you sometimes see in newspapers. Although it's a rather simple concept and probably isn't the most entertaining type of game for those who are into action, the concept is very well implemented here. Included are three game modes: Spot! Career, which allows you to see how far you can progress, Spots Galore!, which has you identify all the spots you can within a given time frame, and the challenging Spot Check!, which has you identify a single difference in two images within a time limit. Graphics consist of the colorful pastel-colored cartoon images typically seen in eSoft games. Included are five "spotpacks," each with 10 different puzzles, and they’re promising a new one every week for registered users. These range in subject matter from wallpapers to a mock tribute to Vincent Van Gogh. I'm sure that eventually there will be a fairly sizable selection from which to choose.

One minor, but very important feature of game: there is some randomization among the picture differences, meaning that once you detect a difference between two pictures, you won't be able to just blow through it the next time it comes up. This feature, along with the ability to add extra screens, gives the game some replay value that's critical in a title such as this. As I said before, Spot! is the sort of game that won't appeal to everyone. However, those looking for something a little more cerebral but not terribly complex should find this title worth the space.
 

NewsNews

Pocket PC Studios has announced that it's completing work on Europa Universalis, its next big title for the Pocket PC. This is another port of a classic PC game that I missed the first time around, but it looks quite good. There are some newer screenshots in this PocketMatrix.com thread: http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/
viewtopic.php?t=20898&start=15 posted by G.R. Moore. These are just scaled down from the PC version with most of the UI removed, but they are pretty impressive. I'm excited, and I don't even have a VGA device yet.!

You know what someone ought to port? Populous II from legendary PC game designer Peter Molyneux. Aside from the fact that it would make me nostalgic for 1993 again, it has lots of things going for it: it's graphically appealing yet simple, it has addictive gameplay that's not terribly complicated, and it's the sort of game that I would think wouldn't be horrible difficult to implement in terms of graphics performance and UI. So if you're a developer in search of ideas, there you go. Apparently, it's also now abandonware.

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