 | RATINGS: | out of 5 Maple Leafs |
| Resources Needed |  | |
| Installation | | |
| Multiplayer | | |
| Graphics | | |
| Sound | | |
| Gameplay | | |
| Interoperability |  | |
| Overall Score (not an average) | | |
| Overall: 1 out of 5 (can't play it), would be 4 out of 5 if it had VFS support, and 5 out of 5 if they made the installer useful as well. First impressions of the game: The game itself, once installed, is pretty darned good. Relative to other Palm OS games Rayman is clearly superior -- well animated, interesting, fun and innovative game play (essentially the same as Rayman on other platforms, but new to Palm OS) -- just lots of "wow" factor. The developers and team have obviously spent a lot of time on this game getting it how they thought it should be. However, it also appears they forgot to include the customer in the process -- the game is excellent, but it definitely illustrates the reason we do "field testing" (involve the end customer, to find out what *they* want). Read on... Resources: "Brutal" (1 out of 5 for lack of VFS support) This game is *huge*, especially for colour devices. It does *not* support VFS (expansion media like SD, MMC, Memory Sticks, etc) so all game data must be stored on internal memory. To get the game and first level or two onto your handheld you'd better have 4 or 5 megabytes free (of internal memory!) which essentially means trimming your handheld to base functions, and this game. (I am betting most people run an 8MB unit with 2-4MB of memory free). One can change levels pretty quickly in the game, so you will want as much memory as you can get, so you can have the other levels to move to.. otherwise you'll be syncing all the time to bring in the missing levels! Installation: "Brutal" (1 out of 5 for bad documentation, requiring online interaction, and, in general, a clumsy installer) The installation process for this game is universally disliked (check every review and online comment if you like), which is really a shame, since you'll be doing a lot of installations (due to resource problems, you'll be sending up groups of levels all the darned time). I didn't find it intuitive or well documented -- I wasn't sure which levels I needed to upload to the handheld, so I randomly picked a few, and found out those are the later levels so I needed to get earlier levels first. During the process you'll need to go online and fiddle around, etc etc. All in all, its not difficult, but its annoying since we're used to just getting a file, opening it in WinZip, and installing a .prc or two and voila, we're good to go. Not so with Rayman, where we need to install the high scoring service and pick and choose levels and do some twiddling online to the server. A big thumbs down for conveniance, which of course is what PDA's are all about. Multiplayer: "Neat" (3 out of 5) You don't play head to head (that'd be really whacky, and likely not workable with this sort of game), but you can compete score wise with others. Hotsync and your scores magicly work things out. Not a lot of use to most people, though, but neat nonetheless. Graphics: "Wow" (5 out of 5, or even 6 out of 5) Very well done; everything looks great (didn't check black and white) on Palm IIIc and Visor Prism and Sony Clie. Looks best in the vibrant colour of IIIc and Prism, I think.. the Clie's always wash out a little of the colour. The game does not run in high resolution, and probably does not work on Handera's at all. Rayman himself is a delight to watch as he runs and jumps around, grabbing onto ledges or even getting bored and amusing himself. Everything looks and moves smoothly and is much the same as you'd expect on a PC desktop game. High kudos to the team. Sound: "Good enough" (its a Palm after all) As good as one can expect on current Palms. It does not take advantage of special sound hardware (like Visor modules or Sony enhanced mp3 playing). Gameplay: "Good" (4 out of 5) Some people love it, some people like it.. no one hates it. You're using the hardkeys on your device here and not a stylus, so it really depends on the quality of those buttons. A visor hasd great feedback and is good for gaming, while the Clie's squishy recessed buttons aren't as easy to push or ahve the same quality of feedback, making the game a little harder to play. I'd say it works out pretty well. I do not have a Gameface or other supplemental joystick. The game itself is fun -- you run around, piccking up things, jumping over or under ledges, climbing up trees, and shooting at a few baddies once in awhile. Its gorgeous to look at and just run around the world you're in, looking for things :) You occasionally run across portals to other levels (worlds), but due to resource requirements you often don't have the right ones loaded, so they show up as question marks. Took me forever to figure out the question marks were the world portals I didn't have. (And you can essentially never have all the worlds on your device, so you'll see a lot of these). Interoperability: "Okay or good" (3.5 out of 5) Not well tested I must admit, but alarms, Find, and other stuff seemed a little fritzy... | |
