Review - GameBox Classics by PDAMill.com

Review

August 2, 2003

PDAMill

www.pdamill.com

Reviewed item (Product ID GameBox Classics Retail Price $9.95 USD)

I am fortunate enough to have recently been asked to review “GameBox Classics” by www.pdamill.com . I say fortunate, but I don’t know if that word is quite accurate. The most appropriate exclamation I can express is, “Wow!” I’ll say it again, “WOW!” PDAMILL has really outdone themselves with this application.

PDAMILL’s homepage, www.pdamill.com, is wonderful. The links are well defined and easy to follow. I’ve got to warn you though, if you are on a strict timeline you might want to put your visit off until later. I guarantee you will quickly become lost among all the awesome products this site has to offer.

Getting back on track…. I decided to give “GameBox Classics” a try. I am not a serious gamer, but I love a good deal. I am thinking that if I am able to get a couple of older games for the price of one newer one, I’ll be doing okay. At the top of the homepage is the textbox containing the link to “GameBox Classics” and the following brief description. Quote

"Can best-sellers get any better? Can you improve on the world's most popular game collection for the Pocket PC? Sure we can! GameBox, being my pet project for over two years now has made the next big step towards world domination. We've just released GameBox Classics, a collection of six great games in a quality never seen before on Pocket PC. Wonderful graphics, over 20 minutes of music by Jason Surguine and captivating gameplay makes it the an absolute must have".

Six games in one? Now I’m saying to myself, “this might get a little spendy. $20, $30, or maybe even $40.” A bit dubious, I follow the “read more” link. The next page has tons of information about the games included in this collection, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Why? because I am a bargain shopper. Something has to be a good deal before it peaks my interest. I scroll down to the bottom of the page and there it is…. $9.95!! “$9.95 is pretty good,” I think to myself. “You can barely buy a hamburger for that.” I scroll back up to see what I get for the price of lunch. Here is how PDAMILL describes the games:

· Blocks:

Piloting a submarine underwater is tough. If you had to arrange falling blocks in a logical order at the same time, it would be an impossible task! Luckily, you don't have to pilot the sub! As Captain Isak, you are stuck in your stationary sub, as you have stumbled upon an aqua block field! The only way to get past the blocks outside of your port hole, is to disintegrate them by arranging them to form solid lines as they fall down.

· Blocks+:

Piloting a submarine underwater is tough. Captain Isak knows this, after his first encounter with a field of Aqua Blocks. The Captain, continuing his journey through uncharted waters, stumbles upon another field of Aqua Blocks. However, this is a type he has never seen, or even heard of before... each Aqua Block was Multi-colored! Isak quickly learns that these Aqua Blocks must be disintegrated by forming lines of at least 3 of the same color in a row...

· Snake:

Jimmy the Snake is hungry, and its feeding time! There is only one problem, once Jimmy starts eating, he can't stop! He'll eat anything that gets in his way, including himself! Take control of Jimmy and guide him safely through his favorite eating spots in Serpent Grove.

· Jewel Master:

Every century, the dwarves of the Melonchi Caves have to choose a new Jewel Master. The Jewel Master's job is to devise the most efficient way of mining gems. However, the gems of Melonchi can only be mined from the cave walls in equal color sets. And if there are any gems left over in a wall when picking them out, all of the gems are destroyed! As Grwyth the Dwarf, you must prove yourself worthy of becoming the new Jewel Master!

· Cannons:

After his retirement, General Aggressive was in no happy mood at all. When last Saturday he's spotted an old HE-181 Tiger at the flea-market he felt his body filling with life once again. After paying the two pounds fifty and driving it home through (and over) half the city, he challenged his neighbor, Sgt Tolerance for a friendly duel. Ever since then, they've been having the most fun shooting each other to pieces.

· Fireball:

In the year 30X7, Tom Tulkit makes his living in spaceship maintenance. His job that brings him the most money is getting rid of space barnacles that collect outside of spaceships' hulls. These barnacles will slow down a spaceship and eventually start to eat away the hull.

I’ve made up my mind, this is something I’ve got to try. Down at the very bottom of the page are three links: one for discussion forums, one for a free trial, and one for buying a full version.

Downloading this little gem is childproof. The self-extracting EXE file saves into a location of your choice. A double-click on the icon and you are only seconds away from some serious fun. GameBox installs itself into your games folder by default. No problem here. Believe it or not, this program is not a memory monger that will make you regret you gave up that cheeseburger.

I get everything quickly installed and decided I need to take it for a test drive. Now, I have tested a lot of PPC products, but this is the first time I have ever completely drained my battery the first (and second) time I have taken a product for a test drive. PDAMILL has a real winner with this product.

Here Are My Ratings

Graphics	10
Sound	9.5
Value	10+
Overall	10

I would like to thank Bob Katayama, Administrator at www.technobrains.com, and the people at PDAMILL, www.pdamill.com, for providing me the opportunity to test this awesome program. You are both bookmarked in my browser and will receive hits daily from me and everyone I speak with.

Reviewed and written by Aaron Marohl

jarhead@technobrains.com

Edited by Bob Katayama

www.technobrains.com

Available online through www.pdamill.com

bkatayama@technobrains.com