Also announced on Clickgamer is Hyper Vortex, a relatively simple one-button game for the Smartphone platform but with a description that promises oh-so-much.  According to the blurb, "A tear in the space time continuum has created a Vortex of unknown significance. Scientists believe the Vortex will become unstable unless an object can enter and exit it safely. You are our best pilot and have been selected for this perilous task. We have injected the Vortex with collectible micro energy stars to help you along the way. Scientists also believe the Vortex is filled with strange objects that look like asteroids. If collided with, these asteroids will damage your space craft and some may even create temporary imbalances in your ship’s operating system." 

"The Vortex appears to be emanating a strange sequence of audio pulses. It is predicted that these sounds will keep changing based on your performance and progress through the Vortex.  As the Vortex is spinning and circular in nature, press the FIRE / 5 key to change rotation clockwise/anti-clockwise to avoid asteroids and collect micro energy stars."  Simple, no?

Hyper Vortex is available to try or buy for the Windows Mobile Smartphone platform for $4.99.

Frobbles is a colourful Bubble Shooter clone described as a "fast-paced arcade puzzle game".  If you're not familiar with the genre, the goal is to "try to clear the field from all bubbles by firing color bubbles with the canon and making 3 or more bubbles withe the same color disappear. You can play Frobbles using your device's directional pad, stylus or both. Your goal is to clear all the bubbles in all 100 levels." 

Features:

• Two game modes: Classic and Survival Mode
• High score table
• 100 amazing levels!
• Cool graphics and music

Frobbles is available to try or buy for $8.95 for all major Pocket PCs.

As spotted on Clickgamer is Chaotic Antibiotic, a simple puzzle game where "you must add and subtract drops from the 3 components until the antibiotic formula color matches the color of the bacteria before it overgrows.  Since the bacteria grows fast and even the smallest formula difference matters, you have almost endless hours of play and nerve wrecking fun for the whole family!"

Chaotic Antibiotic is available to try or buy for $9.95 for all major Pocket PCs and Smartphones.

This week's Handmark newsletter bears details of a 20% discount on all EA games at the store.  Games on offer include Trivial Pursuit, American Idol, Need For Speed amongst others.  Further details are available in the web version of the newsletter.

Menneisyys continues his excellent coverage from the MWC with a thorough overview of the Zeemote Bluetooth controller, described by him as the "best external game controller solution for gamers on both Symbian S60 and the Blackberry" and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the Wii nunchuck.

Sadly, there's no confirmed Windows Mobile or iPhone support yet, although a Windows Mobile version is coming later this year and the iPhone version due as soon as Apple open up their Bluetooth API.  For further details and the full write-up, see this forum thread.

Jason Surguine very kindly drew my attention to the release of the long-fabled and much awaited Duke Nukem 3D- uh, Broken Blueprint, a graphical adventure of which rumours have been circling for the last five years. 

"The game is called Broken Blueprint Beginnings, and has been a work in progress for about 5 years. Varying with work from different artists, designs, programmers, and tons of other things, so I finally decided to nail it down. You may noticed a few mismatching art styles due to the smorgasbord or time and people that worked on it, but hey, it’s FREE and it’s just a short demo to show you what it can be in the future.

Anyway, Broken Blueprint is about a tribe of Frogs and Snakes living together in The Caves. You play as Hunka, the tribes Witchdoctor It’s very reminiscent of the old Lucasarts Graphic Adventure games such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, etc. Or if you were a Sierra fan of Leisure Suit Larry, King’s Quest, Willy Beamish, etc. So if you love those games, you’ll be right at home with Broken Blueprint."

Unfortunately, it is PC only but to make up in some small way for this travesty it is completely free.  Additional screenshots are available by following the Read More link for this news item.

Many, many thanks to Menneisyys for writing in to announce the first high resolution videos of Gameloft's Prince of Persia - in particular, the 3D-accelerated version running on the Toshiba TG01.  The TG01 is unique amongst the Windows Mobile family with its 1GHz CPU combined with a 3D accelerator, and Menneisyys has managed to grab some HD video of it at the MWC. 

"The YouTube version (see THIS) has a lowish resolution, even in high-res mode (I’ve uploaded the original version to YouTube; too bad the engine downgraded it); therefore, I can’t really recommend it if you want to admire the full WVGA (800*480) resolution of the game. You’ll want to download the high-quality H.264 version of the video HERE [mirrored on our server here] and HERE [mirror here] to admire the full glory of the graphics."

Menneisyys notes that Gameloft's restrictive (and I'll go so far as to call it completely backward) purchasing system does preclude running the game on anything other than an extremely limited series of devices, assuming you're able to buy it in the first place.  I'm pretty sure it'll run on my Touch Diamond, but it won't let me get close to a purchase...

Update: The video is now mirrored locally on the PocketGamer server.  Thanks again to Menneisyys!

Many thanks to Jason Surguine for drawing my attention to a newly released Arvale mini-game.  It's actually a fully-playable prototype of a new engine he's been working on.  In fact, if you're aware of the series of prototypes released for Spore you'll be instantly familiar with the concept.

Arvale is a big hit on the iPhone platform (that'll teach me for buying a Touch Diamond...), and there's a brand new 3D engine waiting in the wings if the teaser screenshots on the PDAmill forums are anything to go by.  According to the blurb, "It’s called Arvale: Really Short Tale. It involves Duncan after the events of Arvale: Journey of Illusion, and all Arvale fans will enjoy seeing him and Entoque again, I’m sure.  Veteran RPG’ers will most likely breeze through it in about 15 minutes.  Veteran Arvale players will probably occupy themselves for about an hour just checking things out (yes, there are a few Wheelbarrows)".

Further details available in this blog post, and I'm afraid that it's PC only for the time being.

PDATopSoft is running a promotion on Multiplayer Championship Poker - Texas Hold'em, offering a saving of 30% on the usual retail price.  The new price appears to be $19.95 - unfortunately, I can't tell if this is with or without the discount.  There's no mention of a coupon code, although I'll try to track down more details.  In the meantime, more information on the game is available on the product page.

As discovered in our forums (even I was beginning to forget we had them...) is news of a major update to both Hexxagon Labs and Arcade Park from HeroCraft.  According to the blurb, the "main new common features are support of new Windows Mobile & Symbian devices (Sony Ericsson Xperia, Samsung Omnia, Nokia 5800 and many others), improved graphics, new levels and so on."

The full press release is available by following the "Read More" link for this news item, along with a couple of YouTube videos of the games.  Needless to say, the update is free for registered users.