Can't Stop The Riot

.: By: Corn Bread :: Device used: EM-500 :: October 3, 2001 :.

Simple and Addictive.

These are the words that I can think of to best describe the game, Can’t Stop the Riot.

The object of the game is to swap adjacent pieces of icons to form a vertical or horizontal line of 3 or more of the same icons. When you have successfully formed a line, the icons will be removed from the board causing the icons on top to fall down and to fill up the spaces caused by the removed icons.

There are 3 modes in this game Easy, Normal and Expert:

• Easy Mode: This mode has no time limits and you can play until there are no more matches to be made.

• Normal Mode: This mode is the same as Easy mode except that there is a time limit. For every line that you make, you are given more time to play. The game is over either when there are no more matches to be made or the timer has caught up with you.

• Expert Mode: This mode is not for the faint of heart. This one is the same as Normal mode except the timer goes much faster and in this mode, you also have the ability to swap icons even if there are no matches, although doing this causes a penalty of –50 points. The game ends when you run out of time.

Don’t let the simple graphics fool you -
this is one addictive game

For those of you who are very competitive in nature, I’m glad to say that Can’t Stop the Riot will fulfil your needs adequately - it has a very thorough scoring system. There’s a Top Ten Score board for each of the modes, plus the ability to import/export your high score to other player’s Pocket PC via a password system. Pocket Innovations, the makers of Can’t Stop the Riot also has a website where you can post your best scores to compete with players from all over the world.

Another feature worth mentioning is that Can’t Stop the Riot is fully skinnable. A theme factory software for your desktop PC is included when you register the game. The instructions can be found on the Riot website. The theme factory is very easy to use and gives the game a personal touch. There’s already a few pre-made themes that’s already included with the game.

The menu screen where you can choose the skin you want to use. Food Fight is one of the pre-loaded
themes that you can choose from.

This has almost become a perfect game except for a few nagging issues. As we all know, the Pocket PC is capable of high quality graphics and smooth animations as displayed by games like Turjah 2 and Metalion, so I was disappointed when I saw that the graphics used in this game were really very simple. The animations in the game are jerky and poorly done which also added to my sense of disappointment. Also, when the game gets a little hectic, you’ll notice a few graphical glitches in the game, and the animations start to stutter. The sound effects are also a little under-whelming compared to other puzzle games.

Another unforgivable glitch in this game is the pause screen for, whenever you hit pause, a small pop-up screen with a warning note appears. The problem is that the pop-up screen will follow you to every application you may go, which in effect makes the pause command completely useless. For a totally unknown reason, the pause command caused my Pocket PC to do a soft reset. This only happened rarely, but it was irritating when it did happen. Another irritating bug is that your alarms/reminders won’t trigger while playing this game - your alarms/reminders will only trigger once you’ve stopped playing.

The dreaded Pop-up pause screen The pop-up pause screen will follow you
everywhere!!

Overall, this is one of the better puzzle games for the Pocket PC and, even with its shortcomings that I have mentioned, I can heartily recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good puzzle game. I just hope that the makers of the game make an update on it because, frankly, there’s still lots of room for improvement. The asking price for this game is $9.95, and is available for all Pocket PC devices (SH3, MIPS, ARM). The game requires 165 KB of storage memory and 10 KB of program memory, and can be installed in either the main RAM or on a storage card.
 

Pros:

• East to learn

• Very addictive

• Reasonably priced

• Customizable themes

Cons:

• The graphics and sound effects are too simplistic

• The animations are jerky and lack fluidity

• Nagging “pause” pop-up screen

• A few bugs are present that need to be ironed out

.: Game category: Puzzle Games :: Reviews Index :.