Review written by Corn Bread

Less than $5 for 6 games??!!! That’s sweet!!! This was my initial reaction when I first heard that ScaryBear Software was offering a game pack of 6 games for just $4.95. Having a weakness for bundled deals, I just had to take a look at it.


Ask Leonardo

Storage memory required: 84KB
Program memory needed: 110KB

This program can’t really be classified as a “game”, its more like a fortune cookie program where it would simply answer “Yes”, “No and “Maybe”. A human version of the ever popular Magic eight ball , this program has you tapping on a picture of Leonardo da Vinci to answer some of your questions like “Will I get a date?”, “Should I buy these Shoes?”, etcetera. Personally, I find no use for programs like these, but that’s just probably me since the Magic Eight Ball is so popular. Baffling!

GuessIt

Storage memory required: 57KB
Program memory needed: 70KB

Now this is more like it, a Master Mind Clone. As a kid, I really enjoyed playing guessing games and Master Mind was definitely one of my favorites. In GuessIt, you have 8 chances to guess the arrangement of the colored pegs that the CPU randomly makes. After making a guess, you are given a clue found on the right side of the board. A white peg means that you made a wrong guess on the color and position of a peg whilst a black peg means that you made a correct guess on the position and color of a peg. You have the option of choosing whether you want to make a guess for 4 or 6 pegs.

Tic-Tac-Toe

Storage memory required: 95KB
Program memory needed: 50KB

Whats there is to say about Tic-Tac-Toe? It’s a game using a grid where the first player to form a horizontal or vertical row wins. The game uses the usual X and O as player pieces. There are 2 levels of difficulty, easy and difficult. The CPU controlled opponent is very easy to beat, even if you put it on the “difficult” level. At least the developer has included an option whereby you can play against a human opponent, although frankly, its really a waste of processing power to use a Pocket PC to play Tic-Tac-Toe. Talk about old school.

TriPegs

Storage memory required: 20KB
Program memory needed: 40KB

The purpose of this game is to remove all but one of the 15 pegs from a triangle shaped board. You start by removing one peg from anywhere in the board, then continue by moving/jumping one peg over the other to eliminate the pegs until only one is left. I usually enjoy this type of game, but since TriPegs only offers one formation/board only, you’ll find no incentive to play this again once you have solved it.

LightsOff

Storage memory required: 24KB
Program memory needed: 50KB

This is one of the more difficult puzzle variations out there (for me anyway). LightsOff has you turning off all of the lights on the screen by tapping on the squares. When you tap on a square, the square directly above, below, to the left, and to the right are switched to their opposite condition. There are 26 levels here to solve, and this puzzle game had me tapping the resources of what’s left of my brain matter - very difficult indeed.

Recall

Storage memory required: 35KB
Program memory needed: 50KB

Good old memory game, this one is a classic. The game has you opening and matching similar pair of cards. You have the option of choosing 6, 10 or 21 pairs of cards, and you can also set how long you want the unmatched cards to remain open. Sadly, there is no way to change the kind of picture cards your using so it can get old to look at once you have played the game several times.

Clearly, this Game Pack is for the budget conscious Pocket PC user, and the quality of the six included games ranges from average to mediocre. If you're a heavy puzzle game player, you're probably better off buying another, more fully-featured, game bundle. If, however, you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to spend much, is fairly easy to keep entertained and only plays game on a casual basis, this game pack is worth a look. ScaryBear Software’s Gamepack 1 is sold for only $4.95 and is available for all major Pocket PC's. The games can be installed in either the main RAM, or on a storage card.
 

Pros:

• Very cheap, less than $5.

• The 6 games are very easy to play, no need to read instructions/manuals.

Cons:

• Very simplistic/basic graphics.

• Some of the games have very short replay value.

• No high score/best time tracking table.

• No sound effects.

Overall Score: 5/10

Many thanks to ScaryBear Software for providing us with our review copy.

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