Expert: Eric Pankoke

It appears that Astraware read my mind! After their first two specialized solitaire releases (Halloween and winter), I was beginning to wonder why they didn't just make them add-on packs to the original Astraware Solitaire. Well, it seems that now they have! See the full details below. You can read my opinion of the game here: Astraware Solitaire Review.

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While I’m more into the traditional Jazz Jackrabbit / Super Mario Bros style platform games, I don’t mind the occasional “puzzle in a platform guise” type adventures. This is just the type of game Ur Mobile Game has brought us in its first portable outing, Ore Explorer. You play the part of Jack, an explorer who is trying to gather up a very rare kind of ore for his country. Unfortunately, this ore only appears in certain places around the world (and out of this world), and those places have been overrun by monsters. With a sharp mind and keen reflexes, however, you will be able to overcome the obstacles and recover all of the ore for your country. To ultimately triumph you must overcome 60 levels of box pushing and demolishing, monster stomping or avoiding, and some often tricky platform jumping.

Your arsenal consists of jumping, kicking, pushing and bombs. The game is completely stylus driven, which is nice in theory but in practice causes its share of problems. To move left and right, simply press the stylus to somewhere in front of Jack either on his left or right side. To jump you do the same, though you must also have the stylus over Jack’s head. If you want him to jump straight up you simply hold the stylus right above his head. For the most part moving isn’t a problem, though there have been a couple of times where I had the stylus too far north and ended up jumping instead of moving. Usually such a mistake was recoverable. However, there have been far more times where I’ve actually just moved when I thought I had the stylus high enough for Jack to jump. This type of error is not always easy to recover from.

Dropping a bomb is much like digging a hole in Lode Runner, where you must stand on the space next to the one you wish to blow up and then face your target. When you press the button for bombs Jack will kneel down and place a bomb on the appropriate square. If there is a block right next to the bomb, the block will be sent flying in the direction opposite where the bomb sits. This little extra will come in hand on occasion. The biggest problem here is that if you happen to place the bomb right on the line between two blocks, it could possibly blow up the wrong block. If you can get the bomb in the middle of the block you want to remove you’ll be in the optimal situation. To kick you must click by Jack’s feet. When you’re on the ground this isn’t such a problem, but when you’re trying to execute a jump kick, which is possible and necessary at times, it can become cumbersome. For me it has caused more than my fair share of do-overs on certain levels.

Finally you have the viewer tool, which allows you move around and view the level without actually moving Jack. You will find this tool invaluable on larger levels, as Ore Explorer is one of those games where you often have to plan the entire thing in advance to avoid unattainable areas in a later part of the level. It would have been nice to be able to control this tool with the D-Pad, because if you don’t click on it quite right or accidentally slide the stylus of the viewer while using it you could accidentally trigger a jump from Jack, which could provide disastrous depending on where you left him. While I like the fact that they tried to do something different by making a platform completely stylus driven, I think they could have left some options for those like myself who aren’t very skilled with controlling a game like this via a stylus.

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Well, for many of you Christmas is long gone, and for some - like me - it's almost gone. For those keeping tally, I only posted 9 reviews for the Christmas run. But, at least that's a 75% (or in reviewers' terms, 7 out of 10), which isn't all bad, right? At any rate, we'll now lovingly call this segment "The 12 Reviews Of December", and if I get the time maybe I'll throw in an extra one just for kicks. Hope you've enjoyed reading them so far, and to all a happy transition to that thing we call a "new year".

eSoft Interactive is the “home of the think and tap games”. The nice thing about such a mantra is a game doesn’t have to be overly complex to force you to think. Such is the case with Traffic Jam 2, eSoft Interactive’s latest offering. I never had the opportunity to play the first one, but I’m beginning to see why it’s maintained its place as one of their most popular games.

Your poor Beetle is trapped amongst a myriad of cars during rush hour, and it’s up to you to free it from each of the 250 precarious situations it’s gotten into. The task is simple enough: some cars move left and right, and others move forward and backward. You must slide the cars around until you’ve cleared a path between the beetle and the exit circle. To move a car, you simply click on it and then click on the square you want to move the car to. If a car takes up more than one square, the front of the car will occupy the destination square you’ve selected. There are two viewing modes for the game, 2D and 3D. In 3D (actually isometric) mode there is a 2D view of the playing field in the upper left corner of the screen. At times this will be quite useful, both to give you a different perspective on the layout of the cars, and to help you in selecting a car, as sometimes the isometric mode can be a bit finicky.

The game is comprised of 250 levels, and for each level you receive a time mark as well as a mark for the number of moves taken to complete the level. This doesn’t really translate to anything like a score, but you can always go back and play again to see if you can beat your time and / or number of moves on certain puzzles. You can, of course, also use this benchmark to compare against your friends. When the game starts out the puzzles are pretty straightforward, but as you climb up in levels they start throwing all kinds of snags in your thought process, like cars that take up more than 2 squares and squares that can’t even be used at all. You’ll eventually find yourself even moving cars in one direction just to move them back the other way later on in the level. After a while there’s definitely some thought involved in completing these puzzles. And, if you really get stuck, you will earn a token every ten levels that you can use to automatically complete a level.

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In my opinion, platform games were the staple of the video game industry in the 80s, and there’s still very much a place for them today on devices that don’t quite have the capabilities of modern 3D graphics systems. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of creativity these days when it comes to actually implementing this treasured genre of game. Fun And Mobile decided to take a stab at it with their first game offering, I Hate Guns, and what could have been a good platforming romp ultimately left me feeling a bit unfulfilled.

The basic story is that you play McGrady, a 50 year old ex-cop whose daughter has been kidnapped by an evil tyrant in the Near East. It’s up to you to save your daughter and figure out why she was kidnapped in the first place. The story is told through letters left by the mysterious HQ and phone calls between you and the man who tipped you off to your daughter’s whereabouts in the first place. It is somewhat of an interesting story, but through six short levels you don’t get enough build up, and by the time it’s through you’re left with more questions than answers. I’ve seen no indication of a sequel, either, so this may be one of those “never-ending stories”.

The game plays out in standard platform fare. You run and jump to get through each level, often employing the aid of trampolines to reach higher places that you normally couldn’t get to. To pick up items such as health and treasures you simply run into them, and to open chests that contain such goodies you push down when standing in front of the chest. There are six basic combat moves – 3 kicks and 3 punches. They are certainly enough to get you through the game, but don’t make for a very diverse combat environment. The lack of use of weapons on your part really limits what you can do in the game.

On the other hand, there is a nice variety of opposition. Amazingly enough, most of it comes from things besides the enemy soldiers. The soldiers range from sword wielders to staff fighters to camel riders. In addition to the soldiers, however, you have to watch out for things like falling coconuts, mechanical animal traps, poisonous snakes, and spitting camels. Yes, the camels that some of the soldiers ride actually spit at you for an additional attack! And the best part is that everything is integrated into the environment. Coconuts fall from trees as you pass under them. The snakes slither around on the ground and actually rise up to strike you. Your surroundings are very alive as far as the enemies are concerned.

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