Review written by Matneee
Chillingo - The Premier Games Publisher
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Not that long ago, I used to carry a Palm Tungsten T3 in my pocket. It did the job. It could run the apps I needed for work, the screen had better resolution than most Pocket PCs of the time and some of the games were pretty good… which proved to be its downfall. Last Christmas, while visiting my sister, I let my Niece and Nephews have a play with some of the games on it without really keeping an eye on them and consequently my trusty T3 ended up with rather more jam in it than I'd usually like.
Time for a new PDA, then. A minimal amount of research showed the best PDA available was the Dell X50v, providing not only a top of the range processor and VGA screen but also intriguingly an Intel 2700g 3D graphics accelerator. Reasoning that with this kind of spec I could happily sell the Archos AV440 I'd been using for mobile music and videos and use the X50v instead, I went out and bought one. Bundled with it were a couple of 3D games to show off the graphics chip (I still play Enigmo from time to time..) and I had a look at some of the graphic demos on the PowerVR website – by and large pretty impressive stuff that showed if nothing else the X50v was capable of graphics streets ahead of anything else seen on a Pocket PC.
But what is it really like? Well, actually, it's pretty darned good…
That was 10 months ago and after a long wait, dedicated X50v games are finally starting to appear (well, these things take time to write, you know…) One such game is the eagerly anticipated GeoRally EX, developed by IonFX who already have a couple of rally games under their belt. As with all rally games, you're presented with a series of courses and basically have to get from point A to point B within the allotted time limit whilst careening around the track with the sort of driving that would usually have the Safety Camera partnerships rubbing their hands together in glee. The race is a solitary affair (it's a rally, after all) although there is a yellow “ghost car” that goes round the track and finishes each course exactly on the time limit. Finish before the ghost car and you unlock the next track, and every couple of races you unlock a new car to drive. There are 14 conventional tracks to race on, after which you unlock the Stunt Track. But what is it really like? Well, actually, it's pretty darned good…
What people are probably most interested in are the graphics. Clearly, these are far better than anything seen on a non-accelerated Pocket PC and would easily score a 10 if those were used as the yardstick. Realistically though, the game has to be compared to Stuntcar Extreme (the accelerated racing game that ships with the X50v) and to a certain extent the PVR Racer demo. The car models are very well done. There's a fair level of detail involved in them and although the paintwork on any given car is uniformly one colour there are some excellent effects with light reflecting of the bodywork with a fair degree of realism.
The game's races take place at different times of day (day, night and dusk) and the cars have headlights that light scenery about you in the way that, well, real headlights do. It's more for cosmetic effect than anything as the track is never so dark as to really ‘need' the headlights, but it's a good cosmetic effect. Brake lights also work and the cars even have driver models inside that steer as you change direction. So – car models excellent, though I'd perhaps liked to have seen some decals on the bodywork, or more than just one colour of paint ( you can paint your car a different colour in the ‘garage', but it's always one solid colour all over the car). Better than Stuntcar, then, and nearly as good as the models in PVRracer – and it must be remembered that PVRracer is actually a graphical demo, not a game.
The actual graphics of the tracks, while not brilliant, aren't too bad either. Covering a few different environments (forest, urban, village, snow and the bizarre steel stunt track), there's a reasonable level of variety and there's some cool effects like working lampposts in the towns and villages and so forth. Compared to Stuntcar and PVRracer, the backdrops aren't quite as complex and I would have liked to have seen more detail in the textures used as they can feel a little ‘chunky' at times – although you only really notice this during the various camera angles of the automatic playback that follows each race.
And they're still far better than any other racers on Pocket PC. But – and it's a big but – the graphics are very smooth. Not ‘acceptable', not OK, but smooth. Even when you unlock the faster cars the framerates positively glide along and there's a palpable sense of speed which is genuinely exhilarating at times. Stuntcar always felt pretty treacly to me and it's a really important factor in GeoRally's playability that you'll find none of that choppiness. And the game really is eminently playable…
Previous Pocket PC racers have always felt a little distant to me and in stuntcar extreme I frankly always felt I was wrestling with the cars to try and get them to go in the direction I wanted. But GeoRally EX is Different. GeoRally EX is a joy to drive. The blurb tells us it boast a ‘photo-realistic RBD physics engine' and while I have no idea what photo-realistic physics is (has anyone ever tried to photograph a physics?) I can say the cars handle almost exactly the way I'd like them to. Cars lift off when going over rises too fast, you can ‘feel' the wheels drift as you hurtle round wide bends, power-slides are handled well (and are even necessary if you want to rack up some decent times).
It's quite a feeling as you crest a hill at full speed only to find the car twisting in mid-air, land at an unexpected angle and only just manage to scrape round the next corner on two wheels. And although the game has no damage modelling, this works to it's advantage as the physics engine allows the car to perform some truly spectacular flips and rolls. At one point I found myself deliberately crashing into scenery just to see how many times I could flip the car, it's that much fun. There's a genuine tactile connection with the car here - this game feels like an arcade racer should. And, as you unlock the various available cars, you'll quickly realise that their listed stats really have a noticeable effect on their performance.
Controls are good as well. There's some default options where you can use the D-Pad on it's own, or you can use the screen to accelerate or steer according to preference, but every single control in the game is user definable so there's no excuse for having controls you don't like. And while basic controls work well, you can also map the controls to external devices if you like – I've been playing it with an IR Stowaway keyboard which makes for an infinitely more enjoyable game experience (take note, developers… there's no excuse for this not being standard in every game.). I've talked to the game creators, and while they've only done minimal testing, they're pretty sure it should work with just about any input device you chose. It's also playable in portrait and left/right handed screen orientation, so you can position the PDA however suits you best.
Sound does the job. There's some generic muzak that plays during the pre-race and options screens and during the race there's some fairly throaty engine growling going on. Different cars have different engine noises, collisions produce the obligatory selection of crunch noises, and there's even some environmental effects such as appropriate echo effects when cars go through tunnels. A word of advice though – play the game using headphones. Sound over the speaker is understandable rubbish (although this is the fault of the speaker, not the game).
And the bottom line? If you've got an X50v, buy this game.
There are some downsides to the game. Curiously, GeoRally EX doesn't seem as polished in parts as IonFX's other rally game GeoRally 2005. For example, the race playback after each track in 2005 allows you to view different camera angles as you choose and also to rewind and fast forward to any point of the race, much like media player would. In EX, it just plays back from start to end with pre-set camera angles, sometimes missing the car entirely and bizarrely just seeming to point at the sky on occasion. Also, the ‘direction arrows' that appear before turns in 2005 are absent – I know some people feel they get in the way on rally games, but it would be nice if they were there as an option.
And then there's the stunt track, which is downright infuriating at times. It's presented as 6 different races, but is in fact actually one long obstacle course of ramps, loops etc (reminiscent of Trackmania) and in the first race you have to clear obstacle 1 to finish, in the second race obstacles 1 and 2, the third race obstacles 1,2 and 3 and so on. Unfortunately, one of the obstacles halfway round the course is really annoying to get past, and it's a pain to have to go over it several times more with each successive race. The Stunt track really is a case of a good idea badly executed. Perhaps it would have been better if each race was made of one element and once the final one was completed, the whole course became available to race over at your leisure. If you're willing to ignore little niggles such as these, add one point to the final score.
On the whole, the good points far outweigh the bad. In GeoRally EX, IonFX have created a fun game that makes good early use of the X50v’s technology. It’s certainly the most enjoyable racing game I’ve played on a Pocket PC and while perhaps not as pretty as rally games on some other platforms, it certainly has that all-important playability that makes a game worth playing. It should also be noted that while other racers on other platforms have large teams with much better resources available to them, as far as I can gather GeoRally EX has basically been coded by 2 people, which makes it all the more remarkable. It makes one wonder what could be accomplished on the X50v if some ‘serious’ development was funded on it. And the bottom line? Well, if you’ve got an X50v, buy this game. It’s a lot of fun and it deserves to do well.
Overall Score: 8/10
Many thanks to IonFX for providing us with our review copy.
You may wish to search for more reviews of games from IonFX. Alternatively, you can view all the reviews written by Matneee.
