Review written by Corn Bread

Buy GameBox Solitaire from Clickgamer

Solitaire games are a dime a dozen, if you go to any online PDA software store like Handango or Pocketgear you'll be amazed to see the astounding number of Solitaire games there is for the Pocket PC, next to the Bejeweled clones, the number of Solitaire clones can indeed be overwhelming. Now when I received my review copy of PDAMill's new game, Gamebox Solitaire, I wasn't thrilled about it since I thought it was just another Solitaire game, but I was surprised to find myself actually playing this for hours.

GameBox Solitaire, as the name would imply, is a compilation of popular Solitaire games like Pyramid, Freecell, Canfield and Klondike. Once you start the game, you are taken to a menu where you get to choose a game from 10 different solitaire variations, each of the ten solitaire variant comes with a short description and instructions as to how the game is played. Each game has its own player statistic so you can keep track as to how good you are in each of the game. As you would expect from any Solitaire game, controls are standard fare, tap and drag to move the cards around the playing board, double tap to automatically make a valid move or you can set the option to automatically flip/play a card. The game is played on landscape mode thus giving more playing room and bigger card graphics, at first I was thrilled to play via landscape view, but after a few hours, it got a little irritating since it's not as relaxing to hold a Pocket PC sideways as it is to hold it upright. I wish there was an option to orient the screen to play in portrait mode.

Aesthetically, the game looks really nice; the choice of color scheme, overall card and background graphics successfully imparts a very relaxing and western ambience (Well, it looks western to me). The animations of the cards when you drag them around the screen is surprisingly smooth, the cards actually looks like it's floating above each other. I am used to playing card games on my Pocket PC in silence since most developers seem to think that a card game doesn't need music, PDAMill decided to take an opposite approach by including both sound effect and background music in Gamebox Solitaire. No matter what the game genre is, I appreciate good music and sound effects and Gamebox Solitaire offers this in abundance, as with their previous offering Snails, I find the music and sound effects really nice.

Ever since playing Rapture Tech's KingSol Solitaire compilation, never have I been so impressed with a card game as I have been with PDA Mill's Gamebox Solitaire, from the beautifully rendered graphics, to the smooth animations, ambient musical score and sound effects, it is clearly obvious that PDAMill has put a lot of work and thought in the making of this game. This game truly shines above its competition, if only it has more than 10 games, GameBox Solitaire would be one of those rare games that would have gotten a score of a perfect 10. Whether you have or don't have a Solitaire game collection on your PPC, I strongly suggest you give GameBox Solitaire, believe me when I say the graphics and music alone is worth the $9.95 asking price and in terms of value, this game is a shining example of quality over quantity.

Pros:

• Awesome graphics and animations

• Nice musical score and sound effects

• Uncluttered interface

• Auto save feature

• Player statistics available

Cons:

• Only 10 games to choose from

• No portrait view, only landscape view

Overall Score: 9/10

Many thanks to PDAmill for providing us with our review copy.

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