Syntact Gamebox

.: By: Corn Bread :: Device used: iPAQ H3650 :: January 22, 2002 :: Buy this game :.

Its not every day that you can buy eight games for less than $10, but the guys from Syntact, the same people who have been offering the popular Peter’s Gamebox for free, have bucked the trend with the release of their latest game pack, Syntact Gamebox.

 
Blocks

Blocks is your typical Tetris clone: blocks are dropped at random and you must arrange them to form horizontal lines in order to firstly get rid of them and secondly to prevent them from piling up too high. The game is over once the blocks reach the top of the playing area. As if the world needed another Tetris clone, this game should have been scrapped in favour of another title since this particular clone adds no new options or twists to the same tired old formula. You can use either the direction pad or your stylus to control the game. As you might expect, the blocks fall down faster as you progress through the levels.

 
Blocks2

This is along the same lines as the first game, Blocks, but instead of forming horizontal lines, you must form either vertical or horizontal lines of 3 or more blocks of the same color. The blocks used are the standard shaped blocks that can be found in Tetris along with a few unusually shaped ones thrown into the mix. Just like the first game, Blocks, the higher the level the faster the blocks fall.

Snakes

Now this game leaves me scratching my head and asking myself, “why did they bother adding this game?”. It's not that I don’t like playing the game Snake, mind you, it's just that the graphics in the game just leave me thinking, “eh?”. As you can see from the screenshot below, the graphics in this version of Snake look exactly the same as the Snake game you can find on any Nokia phone, or one of those cheap "Made in China" mono screen Snake game handhelds.

 
Same

In this game, the screen is filled with an assortment of multi colored bubbles and you must remove them all from the screen at the shortest time possible. Clicking on a bubble will remove the bubbles of the same color that it is touching.

Canons

A one-on-one tank shooting game. You simply calculate the angle and the power-to-distance ratio and shoot. Outside factors such as wind and terrain will greatly affect the accuracy of your shots. This is a twelve round game and the person who scores the most hits within the twelve rounds wins. Essentially, this is a very simple Worms clone with no additional weapons or special bombs.

 
Squash

Squash is a Breakout/Arkanoid type game in which you control a moving platform with either the stylus or directional pad and catch the ball in order to destroy the assortment of blocks on the screen. I love a good Breakout game but I didn’t enjoy playing Squash as there were no power-ups to liven up the game. The game gets really boring after just a few minutes.

 
Mahjong

Don’t let the name fool you - this isn’t the real Mahjong game that I was hoping for; this is more like a Shanghai clone where you match tiles of the same kind. Pretty standard stuff, in which you have to match and clear the board of tiles in the shortest time possible. The tiles used here don’t contain the usual Chinese characters but instead serve up some neat cartoon-style drawings.

 
Mahjong Rivers

A Shanghai clone with a twist! You match tiles of the same kind but you can only do so if the tiles are vertically or horizontally in line with each other and have no other tiles in between them - good stuff. The tiles used here are similar to the ones used in the other game, Mahjong.

 
The graphics the game selection menu uses look really great so it’s a shame that the graphics featured in most of the games don’t look quite as good. The music, on the other hand, is excellent - it's one of the things that I really like about Gamebox. The game menu and each of the games has its own individual music (except for Blocks/Blocks2 and Mahjong/Mahjong Rivers which have shared music) which is a nice touch. I usually turn the music off in every Pocket PC game that I play because most of them have horribly written or boring music, but Syntact Gamebox is one of the few exceptions to this rule. The music is easy on the ears and the beat is very catchy. What's more, the sound effects are also very well done.

Each of the eight games has three difficulty levels, an in-game volume control (limited to turning the music or sound effects off or on individually), a short description of the games and a high score chart. The downside to the high scores chart is that you aren’t able to put your name or initials on it.

The problem with this game pack is that most of the games included have a freeware counterpart, an issue that makes it hard to justify spending $8 since you can just download and play many other, very similar titles for free. But what this compilation has that the freeware offerings don't is the fact that you get all eight games bundled in a neat and attractive package. I honestly enjoyed playing the games Blocks2, Mahjong and Mahjong Rivers, which I feel are worth paying for. On the other hand, the remaining games, Snake, Same, Blocks, Squash and Canons are a total waste of time and money. Just try the demo first and, if you find that you enjoy at least half of the eight games available, then by all means buy it.

Syntact Gamebox is available for all major Pocket PCs and can be installed in either the main RAM, or on a storage card. 1.35MB of storage memory is required.

Pros:

• Excellent music and sound effects.

• Attractive game selection screen.

• All of the 8 games are easy to learn.

Cons:

• You can find freeware versions of most of the eight games.

• Some of the games are too simple and can be quite boring.

• Game graphics are a bit hit and miss - some are good, but the majority are sub par.

.: Game category: Collections & Compilations :: Reviews Index :: Buy this game :.

Editor's Note:

Please note that a site reviewer, Jason Surguine, was a member of the development team behind Syntact Gamebox. In addition, I (Mike) was involved in the game's testing process. A Gamebox discussion forum is available at PocketMatrix.