Atomic Battle Dragons :: Obulis: The Second Epoch :: News

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The game I played most this week:

Atomic Battle Dragons

Jousting Once More: Atomic Battle Dragons

From Isotope 244 (the company who brought us Acky’s XP Breakout (a superb breakout clone and our 2005 Best Software Awards winner in the Action Games category) comes a strange new game called Atomic Battle Dragons. ABD is an arcade-based RPG based on an old game called Joust, where you rode around on beasts that looked like ostriches and tried to knock other riders off their mounts with a lance.

If you played the original Joust, you remember how fun it was, even it was a bit unusual. If you’re thinking that trying to turn Joust into an RPG is a little strange, the idea actually works out pretty well. The game’s back story is pretty typical and involves wiping out a bad guy called Belzom and his agents, and your character is conveniently the only person able to carry out the task. Although the game is level-based (with 40 overall), the game play is pretty similar to Joust and basically involves killing everything in sight (of course, everything in sight is trying to kill you, too).

However, as with Acky’s XP Breakout, several new dimensions are added to the original idea. Cutscenes between each level move the story along, and your character is given a variety of special power-ups and weapons. Unlike the original Joust, it’s not possible to get killed while riding your mount: if you’re unseated by an enemy, you can walk to a generator which will create a new rider for you (some of the levels even involve quite a bit of walking around on foot). And your enemies can do the same thing, so you’ll need to kill each one of them by having your dragon gobble them up, or, if you’re particularly cruel, you can pick them up and drop them onto spikes or into a pit of fire. This is plenty of fun, although I find that the game is very picky about what constitutes a hit against an enemy.

Until you learn how to aim and coordinate your flight, you’re just as likely to damage yourself as you are your opponents. And yes, there is some character development in the game: you’re given four character attributes: health, attack, speed, and strength. You level up the usual way of by earning experience points and collecting gems. At each level-up point, you are given an allotment of points to distribute among your attributes.

The most difficult aspect of ABD is the controls. They work sort of like a helicopter: you have to maintain upward thrust constantly to get off the ground and then apply left or right thrust to move in either direction. Fortunately, ABD provides a variety of input methods ranging from the directional pad to different stylus modes ranging from a tap-and-drag scheme to a tap-anywhere method (the buttons can be customized). Since the stylus and d-pad aren’t mutually exclusive, it’s possible to use both, which I recommend doing until you get the hang of flying around. For me, using the d-pad for directional movement and one of the buttons for flight seems to work best, although it will depend on how comfortable and responsive the buttons on your device are. Alas, the controls still aren’t as good as the original game. This is more the fault of the hardware of the game, though: the game still is very playable.

Like Acky’s XP Breakout, lots of simple features add up to a great game. Enhancements like a strength meter on your enemies, special effects, a “radar” screen at the top right of the display, support for both portrait and landscape modes, and numerous other things help improve the quality of the overall package. That being said, I would classify ABD as more of an action game with RPG elements rather than an RPG designed to be an action game. If you’re into more traditional RPGs and don’t like games like Joust, you should pass it by; but if you’re fond of Joust, the extra enhancements are enough to make a good game great.

Since the graphics and audio are as strong as the game design (the rendering of the dragons is exceptionally good), I would place this game in the same category as Rocket Elite. Both games show attention to detail and quality construction, and ABD successfully combines different genres into an innovative (if not entirely original) end product. This is a well-done, top-shelf entry in the action games category.

Rube Goldberg's Revenge: Obulis: The Second Epoch

The first Obulis game, which came out about a year ago, was an unusual level-based puzzle game based on gravity and physics. If you missed it the first time, the game involved cutting chains to get balls to swing, drop, and roll into their color-coded pots. Sometimes the balls needed to be dropped directly; sometimes helper balls and multiple steps needed to be used in order to get the balls where they needed to go. Platforms, tricky gimmicks, and plain old gravity made for some challenging game play, and the game's well-designed levels reminded me of Rube Goldberg contraptions.

The sequel is now available and is pretty much the same in every way except for new levels. In the case of Obulis, this isn't a bad thing. The graphics and sound haven't changed much, but they were pretty good to begin with. Like in the original, the levels are highly varied, and locales vary from outdoor jungle areas to dungeons and even medieval cathedrals. What made the original Obulis a believable, winning concept were the realistic physics and the smooth animation. While the game often conveniently ignores the fact that the momentum causing objects to swing eventually runs down, most of what happens in the game doesn't seem out of line at all with what would happen if someone were to duplicate the levels in real life. The original didn't seem to have any major flaws, and I can confidently say that if you enjoyed the original, you probably won't find much in the sequel to dislike.

Here's an idea: someone ought to make a game based on those old gravity maze puzzles. They involved a metal ball placed on a wooden platform. You could turn the platform on its X and Y axes via knobs on the side of the maze, and the idea was to get the ball from the start to the finish without getting the ball into any of the holes that were scattered throughout the maze. I think it could be done on the Pocket PC, and it might be neat to play.

News: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Coming

Aspyr, a game publisher known mostly for porting major titles over to the Mac, announced a month or two ago that they were going to port Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 to the Pocket PC. I really hate those games where you do nothing but stunts and silly tricks, but the fact remains that the Tony Hawk franchise has been pretty important in the console world and has sold many copies. If the game is ported successfully (without any major compromises or game play issues), it will definitely be a major release for the platform.

Aspyr will be porting the game over for devices with 600mhz processors and the Intel 2700G 3D graphics accelerator. That’s going to rule out most of the devices out there (including those owned by yours truly), but I’ve seen some of the screenshots, and it looks like the mobile version is pretty ambitious and will push the limits of current hardware pretty hard.

The game isn’t out yet, and there’s no demo. If it matches expectations, it’ll be one of those landmark releases and will hopefully convince some other major developers to consider the Windows Mobile platform. By the time the “rest of us” get devices with 3D acceleration and processor speeds approaching the 1Ghz mark, perhaps we’ll have some games out there that’ll make serious use of the hardware. You can read more about it here.

Discuss...

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Allen Gall’s The Week in Games is a free service of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine and Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine ONLINE: in-depth articles, tips, an Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories, and links to the best Windows Mobile PDA and Smartphone Web sites. It is edited by Duncan H. Brown.

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