Review written by Justin Cheng
[Editor's note: Monkeystone Games was a game developer and publisher founded by John Romero (of id Software fame), Stevie Case, and Brian Moon. After Hyperspace Delivery Boy, they published several games for multiple platforms including the highly acclaimed Argentum. Unfortunately, the company closed down in January 2005.]
Hyperspace Delivery Boy (HDB) is RPG, Action and Puzzle Game all rolled into one.
Monkeystone is a new gaming company founded by the legendary John Romero, Tom Hall, Stevie Case and such. Therefore, when I bought this game, I expected it to be of a certain calibre as Doom in its time, and to be very interesting and fun.
I started by installing the game. No biggies here. The installer was OK and intuitive, and I had it running in 10 minutes. The game was just over 8 mb, and took quite a while to completely install. Included in the zip file I downloaded was a manual teaching the user how to play HDB.
It took under 5 seconds to start the game, and I must say that I'm very impressed. The interface is snazzy and the intro screen is above average. Nonetheless, it takes time to load new levels, and averages about 10 to 20 seconds. You are given a nice stars to look at as the level loads, and it will not leave you in the dark, thinking "Has the Game hanged?" or "Why is it taking so long?".
I then clicked on "new game". It then showed a cinematic about you, the protagonist Guy Carrington having to deliver stuff all around the galaxy. You can choose either Puzzle Mode or Action Mode, the latter which will contain more baddies to destroy.
You start in the mother ship, the HDS Colby Jack, where you have to help some people in their duties. Into the game, there will be more encounters along the way.
I liked the save game method a lot. There are Vortexians, or save-game sites, littered around the play area, and they save promptly by moving onto them. The main save game screen allows you to load the game from when you last saved, or at the beginning of each level. The screen provides access to the last 5 levels which you've begun. One note however: I feel that there should be an area where you can load from a previous Vortexian, rather than only from the latest one you've saved from. There was quite a lot of frustration when I couldn't complete a level quickly because I had to keep starting over from the beginning.
The game is intuitive and simple to learn. You use your stylus to tap on the screen, and little circles appear showing where your character would move next. On the other hand, you can use the D-Pad to navigate. The buttons are of little use here: One Saves your game, and the other can be used as a Attack weapon. The stylus method is the most efficient of all, although sometimes irritating if you don't control it properly. Sometimes I saw myself falling to doom because I accidentally clicked one square from where I wanted to go.
The graphics are top-notch; what would you have expected from these game developers. They blend nicely with the sprites and the animation is good, and not does not become irritating. When you talk to people, a nice dialog box appears, and you tap on it to dismiss it. The font it uses is highly readable, and I didn't have a problem misunderstanding my objectives. One misgiving, however, is that when the ice tiles are next to the land tiles, there is a jagged extra white space making the game a little imperfect. Also, one some terrain, the Vortexians have a halo effect.
The sound is excellent. There is a wide variety of music, and it did detract the quality of the game. For each level there is new music, although some repeat throughout. The sound blends nicely with the levels. When you are in a factory with robots, an electronica theme plays. Also, the game appears to have maybe 3 or 4 channel sound, so you can hear your character walking and pushing crates at the same time, however not all the time. Sometimes only the music can be heard. One fault, however, is that sometimes the music does not repeat correctly, and there is a slight somewhat noticeable gap between the repeats of the music. Also, in some levels, the high-pitched sounds that some aliens make are a bit annoying.
There also is a lot of humor in the game, making it very light-hearted, and not like Final Fantasy at all, which is very serious and maybe mind-boggling. The puzzles are not that easy and not that hard, so it will not send you crazy trying to advance in the game.
Also the replayability of the game is high. There are many secret areas and passages to go to, and gems hidden under trees and pipes. There are also Monkeystones to collect, which reveal new previously hidden options on the main screen. When you collect 7, you get to play a jackpot, and when you collect 14, you get to see an exploding chicken. I haven't played until 21, so you'll have to find out yourself. There also is a warp zone in the game where you can advance to any level, but I haven't been able to get it to reappear.
Overall the game quality is good, and it is one of the few games worth buying. With 30 levels, this really is a good buy. Some might say it is a Sokoban clone, but I don't feel so. I hope the developers can come up with extra mission packs that you can buy. This game will remain on my Pocket PC until I complete it.
Pros:
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Great graphics.
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Excellent sound.
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High replayability.
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Loading speeds.
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Nice little extras.
Cons:
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Navigational controls.
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Slight graphic and sound hitches.
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Game size.
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Not being able to load more save game states.
Overall Score: 8/10
Many thanks to MonkeyStone Games for providing us with our review copy.
You may wish to search for more reviews of games from MonkeyStone Games. Alternatively, you can view all the reviews written by Justin Cheng.
