Don't Hold the Fun, Hold the Line

Since the advent of open source, free swap java game applications, we have seen a tremendous number of new games that can be played live on the Internet or downloaded to a cell phone or PDA. Not all these are great innovations however, since the technology is outpacing the minds of many self proclaimed game designers. Yet "Hold the Line" is the kind of non-pretentious, semi-serious game that has just the right balance of challenges and programming intricacies.

Hold the Line reminds me of a traditional double circuit racing game in which the subroutines allow you to control several variables seamlessly. You have a dynamic motion graphic set that really should be standard for all games today, even those given away for free. (Just because a game is free, does not mean it should be worthless.) The sound escapes most of the common pitfalls by modulating in tone depending on how far down the track you have gotten. At any rate, as a free mobile game, you are not going to have great sound anyway, so who cares.

The game is kept simple for a reason with arrow keys and space bar being your controls. Yes, you can change this, but what would be the point?

The playing experience is rich and it certainly stands up to a game that you can come back to without getting bored. My only beef is that it does seem to take a long time to load, which you can avoid by downloading instead of playing live.

Doom Will Keep You Glued to Your Phone

I remember playing "Doom" on my computer years ago. My husband and I were addicted to this game. We would play together. I was responsible for shooting, and he would move the Marine from place to place. At the time, which was over a dozen years ago, "Doom" was the most sophisticated game of its time. We were newly married and we liked playing games together. This was perfect. We would spend hours, because it took hours to complete a level and continue. Each level became more challenging as the monsters were more powerful. We had to struggle to find more "health" to regenerate and find more weapons to stock our arsenal. Also, each level had secret passageways and rooms where special armor or sophisticated weaponry was hidden.

Flash forward to 2008, and I am slowly catching up to the technology of the 2000s. I have a mobile phone with some games, but I was never interested in playing them.Well imagine my surprise when I saw that "Doom" can be downloaded to your mobile phone. It takes a lot of memory to have it on your phone, but it's well worth it. If you only have room for one mobile game, let it be "Doom." I promise you won't regret it. There are nine levels with intense action. You use the "number key" and the "star key" to move sideways. Lots of "bad guys" and interesting weapons to annihilate them all. It's a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it. I loved playing with my husband, but now I can play on my own if I'm bored!

Racing by the Beach

I admit I'm not the most technologically savvy person. I don't have an iPod or Blackberry, but I do rely on my cell phone. I had no idea there were extra features offered on every cell phone. In fact, it was my son who told me that I have "Games." Huh??? Why would I want games on my mobile phone? I have a cell phone to make phone calls, not to play games. Well it turns out that it's a very good thing. My generation grew up on Asteroids, Space Invaders and Pac Man. To play a game like that on one's cell phone was unbelievable to me. We had these bulky machines with game cartridges. Today you can go to a mobile games website and download hundreds of fun games to your phone. My son was actually patient enough to teach me how to do this. I'm sure the majority of today's generation master this before pre school! So let me tell you about my first download. It was "Beach Rally, " a car race along the beach which is a lot of fun. I like games involving the race against the clock or an opponent. It's very simply to play. You use the number 5 key to accelerate, number 4 to turn left and number 6 to right. Number 8 is for braking, but I doubt anyone uses it. You're supposed to be racing, not stopping. Anyway, I discovered these mobile phone games are a wonderful feature. I had the misfortune of spending my day waiting in various lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles recently. To stop from going insane, I played "Beach Rally" most of the day. I knocked my son off the highest score list! Not too bad for a 40 plus woman who grew up in the Stone Ages of video games, don't you think?

Quad Race

What is a quad? Better question. What does a quad have to do with a cell phone or PDA? Finally, what do these questions have to do with you?

Well, now that you asked, there are some important answers. A "quad" refers to a vehicle that is like a motorcycle with four wheels. Unlike a car, it is completely open. Yet with four extra wide tires, the quad can race up and down hills on all sorts of terrain. Sand, gravel, dirt - -all of these are what a quad is built for.

So what do these vehicle have to do with a cell phone? The answer is that you can now play quad race on your cell phone or PDA. You use the arrow keys to control a video representation of a quad around an interesting course filled with jumps and other obstacles. As you travel around, you can earn "turbo boosts" by touching stars that appear all over the course. Usually, you have to do something interesting like jump (space bar) for a star. The more you touch, the more turbo boosts you will have. You will need these for the really long jumps that occur more and more often the more you play.

So just download the game onto your mobile device and you are ready to play anytime and anywhere. The best thing is when you use a mobile device, no one can really see what you are doing. So even during those boring board meetings, just pretend that you are ay the beach racing a four-wheeled monster instead of looking at sales graphs and shipping costs. Go home and try and better your scores on your home computer. Since the game is online, it is always available whenever you want to play. Otherwise, just download it.

Uphill Rush

Uphill Rush is a good find. It is a free mobile game that is fun and challenging. In a world where most free games are worth what you pay for them, it is refreshing to play a game like this which you could easily see actually buying.

It is a motorcycle simulation game. You can play in two different modes. the first mode is time trail. You play against the clock and try and better your fastest score down a course. The second mode is a race against computer controlled motorcycles. Either way, the game is a hoot with multiple challenging levels.

The course is laid out with all sorts of jumps, dips, and obstacles. You control your bike with the keypad and spacebar. Just like with a real motorcycle, for every action, you must balance it with a counteraction to stay upright. If you need to lean backwards to raise the front wheel, at some point you will have to lean forward to get that wheel back on the ground. Every action requires an equal counter-action after the obstacle is managed.

On the time trial mode, you will see a shadow bike taking against you. This shadow bike is simply a representation of your fastest time. That way you know if you are near to setting a personal record for the course. Of course, when you have a high score you can submit it and then everyone in the universe will know that when it comes to video motorcycles, you are a real champion.

The game does not get boring and you can have lots of fun for a few hours. Now that it is a mobile game, you can play it anywhere on your cell phone of your PDA. "Down" time has never been so much fun.

Ghost Ball

I will be shocked if there is anyone out there who actually enjoys this game. It's not even worth the time to download it to your mobile device. With literally millions of games and fun applications out there, there is just no reason to play Ghost Ball. Let me tell you why: You control a white ball. You move it with the pad or arrows. Meanwhile, colored balls crash into you. You need to try and avoid them. If you hit them or one of the sides, you lose. That's it. You can hit "retry" all you want, but I highly doubt you will ever last more than ten seconds. The game may pretend to be based on skill, but it is really blind lick that controls how things operate. The speed is simply too fast for anyone to be able to control. Especially if you are playing on a mobile device, you will break your thumbs before you get beyond the first level. Why anyone would design such a game is really beyond me. It is just not fun and even though it doesn't take much time to play and lose (and believe me, you will lose), it is still a waste of time that you could be using to play something actually fun. I mean, why not play an online blackjack game or anything in which you can use your brain rather than you thumb to try and win. Blackjack can be won, Ghost Ball can only be played until crying in frustration, you turn off your mobile in disgust and actually go back to work (or whatever you needed to do).

Bandit Ludo

Let's be honest. Bandit Ludo is nothing more than a video version of Parcheesi. While it may come in handy to have Parcheesi on your mobile device, is that really necessary? I mean I have never fully understood the concept of turning all board games into video games. The reason board games tend to be fun is that they are played on a board with competitors gathered around. Taking that experience and putting it on a cell phone is something else. Parcheesi and cell phones just don't seem to go together.

But enough of my rant, on to the game. The game is played on a board that looks like your standard Parcheesi board with I guess what you would call a "Mexican" look. Yes, you guessed it. Sombreros and guitars dot the background and add, well I have to be honest, absolutely nothing to the game experience.

You roll an animated die and move your pawns around the board. If you land on an enemy pawn, that pawn goes back to his start. You need to roll a "star" to move out of your home, and the first one to move all his pawns to the home territory is the winner. Now, since you re playing against the computer, this just means that if you move your pawns before the computer does you win.

There are a lot of free mobile games out there, perhaps too many. I think that Bandit Ludo may prove that point. It backs the maxim: Just because a game is fun, it may not be fun as a mobile game. Sorry, but playing Parcheesi on a cell phone? I have better games to play (see my review of Absolute Zero for something more fun).