JadeDragon's
reviews and playing tips: Pocket PC games
Podz by AcePocket,
Price: $14.99 Reviewed November 2004 by Tony Peak
After a certain amount of time in PPC
or PDA gaming, one has to wonder if there’s simply no end to the uses of spheres
in games. They’ve been clicked, popped, squished, flung,
blown up, counted, scattered, and dropped countless times,
yet they keep on coming in game after game. You might say that
Podz is their revenge.
The year is 9xxx AD, mankind’s greatest threat are the
relentless spheroid life forms, Podz… (Too many sphere
games?) These ruthless spheres attack in chains heading straight
for the core of all the planets we inhabit. How are they able
to do this? Well, “for some reason” we built direct
access into all of the planets we colonized. Sort of like a
bad case of the Y2K bug I guess, it must have seemed like a
good idea at the time.
At any rate, it falls to you to combat
this threat by way of a turret system and clone Podz. Thankfully
if Podz of the same color are bunched together in sets of
3 or more, they explode. To their continued annoyance, Podz
of the same color also attract each other… making your job that much easier.
So that’s the story in a nutshell, are you ready for
the ultimate sphere challenge?
Controls are fairly straight forward, dragging the stylus
around shows a crosshair on the screen to aid in aiming. When
you jam the fire key, a pod shoots in that direction until
flying off screen or hitting the chain and taking its place
in line. Three or more of the same color explode, leaving gaps
in the chain. The line is pushed from the back, so gaps can
give you some much needed catch up time. Spheres of the same
color will rush backwards like magnets to attach to the line,
giving you a big advantage and possible chain combos in the
process. Various power-ups and power-downs help to keep things
interesting and challenging.
Despite being a game about spheres,
Podz doesn’t skimp
one bit on the quality of its sounds and visuals. I’m
not just talking about another coat of polish on the shiny
spheres here, but detailed and varied landscapes, cool effects,
and a great soundtrack. The music particularly impressed me,
It’s nice to hear something a little more advanced and
engaging than the usual fare.
Podz may basically just be another
action / puzzle sphere challenge at its core, but the exciting
gameplay, story, graphics, and music quality really help
to kick it up to something special regardless. Featuring
25 detailed levels over 5 stages, survival, challenge, and
internet based high score listings, if you’re
a fan of the genre, Podz should definitely be on your most
wanted list.
Playing Hints and Tips
Do your best to make every shot count, and fast. Keep the
Podz line / queue low, and take them out as soon as they
come on screen if possible. Getting swamped is a sure way
to lose.
Be very cautious of the power-downs. Even one bad power-down
on a tough level could easily spell defeat.
Always, always try to make combos
by causing Podz of the same color to collide. Even if you
can’t make a combo
out of it, always connect chains just to give yourself more
time. The collision will push the whole line backwards. The
easiest way is to simply shoot the needed color onto the
start / end of the opposite side of the Podz gap.
If you can’t use the Podz
in your queue at the moment and need another color fast,
try purposely shooting off into the distance and missing
the chain. This might give you another color to work with.
Ratings (scale of 1 to 5):
Graphics
Detailed stages and great looking effects
throughout. There’s a bit of slowdown at times, but it
doesn’t really affect anything as the game plays at a
deliberately slower steady pace regardless. This really isn’t
a frantic shooter, but rather more skill and timing based.
Sound
A great soundtrack for a puzzle game,
a lot more than one would expect.
Fun Meter
If you like action / puzzle games, you’ll probably dig Podz. There’s
a good, lengthy challenge and everything feels pretty very solid. Ideally, I’d
like to be able to speed up the starting speed quite a bit in the challenge mode
though. It would help to make things a bit more frantic and challenging once
you’ve got the basics mastered.
Addictivity
25 stages are quite a nice package,
though the difficulty isn’t really too out there once
you master the basics. Even on the highest challenge mode level,
which is basically just the original game in a score trial,
it’s not that difficult. Survival mode is a great bonus,
though it can get a bit old quick if you’re in little
danger of losing any time soon.
