K&G Arcade
K&G
Price: $9.99
O/S: Windows Mobile for Pocket PC 2003
For Axim Users Dot Com
By schoon
Remember those arcade games of early years? Pac Man, missile command, space invaders, frogger? They were simple but addicting and kept you coming back to see if you could get a score higher than your last time, and they kept eating your quarters. Now, for a small price, you can pick up K&G Arcade. A simple title but it means so much more!
You see, our hero, Henry Miller, has been snatched from his time and place by two pesky little aliens. Krelmac and Gentoo, or K&G, love to mess with people. They have really put our hero into a pickle. They've trapped him in a 5 level maze, each level has 5 mini games that you must complete at a certain level to move on. To make matters worse, the levels are scattered with killer robots that take away Henry's health. Fear not though, there are others who are trapped in the maze that will help you, if you get on their good side.
There are two ways to play K&G Arcade, you can play in adventure mode or mini game mode. In adventure mode you are put into the maze and must complete the 5 games on each level to proceed to the next level. As you complete each mini game it will be unlocked for you in the mini game menu. I will run down the list of games to give you an idea of what to expect.
A Day in the Strife - Space Invaders
Alien Babble - Dance Revolution
Antigravitator - Sideways shooter
Conquerorror - Destroy city by finding right trajectory
Copycat - Simon
Cosmic Squirrel - Frogger
Deathtrap - Find the right path through electrified grid
DefenDOH! - Side shooter
Engineer - Direct particles to their homes
Far Out Fowl - Catch eggs as chicken drops them!
Flight of Doom - Blast Asteroids as they come down
Glutton - Snake eats dots and grows
In Memoria - Concentration
Lepar Lana - Grab the gold from lepars
Muncher Dude - Pac Man
Paehc Sirtet Ffopir - Tetris (Spell it backwards)
Refluxive - Keep all the objects in the air
Reluctant Hero - Lunar Lander
Son of Eliminator - The Peg Removal Game
Squish'em - Variation of Wack a Mole
The Bogaz Derby - Hovercar Racing
The Escape - The Box Game
The Redeye Order - Numbers Sliding Puzzle
Trouble in Vectropolis - Star Wars Trench Game
Virus - Eliminate blocks of 3 like colors
And there you have it, 25 mini games. Most of which you've played in some form or another. All with very nice animated graphics and good sound effects. There is also the promise of additional games from a thread I read on Pocket Gamer where the author stated that adding games is a very simple process so hopefully we'll see some additions.
But let's talk about the actual gameplay. Starting in the adventure mode, Henry has to walk through a maze while avoiding robots looking for joystick icons which are links to the 5 mini games on that level. Once you find it, hit the action button and you're in. You're given 60 seconds to complete a certain task, usually scoring X number of points. The tasks are difficult, but not impossible. In one instance you'll scratch your head on how in the world you're ever going to complete the task but once you talk to the other guy trapped in the level a secret will be revealed to you that will make the task so much easier. The first level of the game is quite difficult, simply finding all five mini games is a task while avoiding the robots but it does appear to save often so if you die, you'll not be far from where you left off. Level two had faster robots and slightly harder games so the difficulty ramps up accordingly. It will probably take somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 hours to complete the whole game, IF you're good. After each level or if you die, you're treated to a nice cut scene hosted by the two aliens and usually proves to be an entertaining diversion.
All of the games use the directional pad and usually one button. On my Dell Axim X3i this proved to cramp me up after a while because the directional pad is simply not made for long term gaming. To fix this, i'd propose onscreen buttons, the game screen itself is inbedded in what looks like an arcade cabinet so there should be enough screen real estate to make this happen. I long for my Casio E125 directional pad for this game. The diagonals are especially hard to pull off in games like Squirrel.
My other complaint lies in the fact that there is no saved high score. I'd like to see what my high was for each game and have it saved, either in adventure or mini-game mode so I have something to shoot for the next time I play. I'd also like the ability to hand off the unit for two player gaming. With a 60 second time limit, it would be fun to pass back and forth to see who could score the most points on certain games that you really enjoy. Also, a tournament style game where you could choose which mini games you wanted in say, a 5 game tournament could be picked and the winner is the one with the highest score across all 5 games. Again, these are just suggestions and i'm not bashing the game in any way, it truly is a lot of fun.
If you're looking for a quick diversion or even an hour long gaming session, K&G Arcade is your answer to a fun and challenging time. The authors have packed in just about every genre of Arcade fun and have the ability to add more in the future. The graphics and playability are there and the price is right, so what are you waiting for? Go grab your very own full version or trial if you'd just like to check it out, I know you won't be disappointed!
Rating: 4.5/5
Original Review at Schoon's Place
Linear Mode
