With activities such as being a DJ and keeping pets, The Sims have had a pretty wide-ranging life on mobile, but it’s nothing compared to the PC version of The Sims – that’s involved everything from hot dates to going to university and becoming a superstar.

Things have taken a bit of a turn for the worse recently though, at least for the mobile Sims as, after a boat accident, a handful find themselves washed up on a deserted island – like better dressed, if jibberish-talking Robinson Crusoes.

For the player, the news is better as this game packs in almost as much content on mobile as the DS and PSP versions, and has a nicely paced set of goals and lots of exploring to get stuck into.

Of course, on the face of it, a deserted island might not sound like it would provide much entertainment but this one has more to it than just sand and caves. Fortunately for your starving, homeless Sim, there are fish to catch, wood to build fires with and palm fronds to build shelters from.

And while it might seem a world away from the typical consumerist Sims experience of house-building and home-making, beneath its sunny exterior, The Sims 2 Castaway is actually a very typical Sims game as your washed up Sim possesses all the usual needs as the common-or-garden variety.

So, to keep hygiene levels up you need to get him to take a shower – in this case beneath a waterfall. To keep hunger at bay you need to find your Sim food to eat by shaking trees to get fruit and spearing fish in the sea. Your Sim also needs to sleep regularly in their shelter, as well as have fun and talk to other Sims so they don’t go completely stir crazy.

Yes, you might be on an island but there are fellow shipwreckees who also need to be found. This is where the bulk of the game lies as each character holds an assortment of goals. These ‘fetch quests’ call for gathering items, such as red snapper fish or coconuts (Sims can be quite picky). Once you’ve completed them the Sims will normally give you a new item in return, so after some progression, new clothes become available as well as a dancing mini-game which ups your Sim’s fun levels.

At the start of the game, there are only four areas in the island open to explore, but unlocking an item to cut through vines provides new ones. In this way, the game slowly builds in size and difficulty and your quest becomes less linear as you explore further and find ever more useful items. And speeding up an otherwise fairly pedestrian game is the handy map screen which lets you warp between areas – sparing players long slogs from one end of the island to the other in search of driftwood.

Controlling your Sim is simple too. The numbered keys or phone joystick control an on-screen arrow and clicking on an area or object moves your Sim to it. The icon changes when something can be interacted with, although not every interaction is a good one. Accidentally highlight some quicksand, for example, and you have to say goodbye to your sinking Sim and return to your last save point.

But in conclusion, The Sims 2 Castaway is a very likeable game. Our only gripe is with its heavy reliance on gathering items. Some are only available at certain times of day and if these coincide with your Sim becoming hungry or tired you might miss the slot and be forced to wait for the next one. Slogging around looking for a single coconut tree can be a tiresome task if you can’t remember where it is and the game’s control method often feels like it would benefit from giving you direct control of your Sim to speed up the process.

These are small matters though and the rest of Castaway’s island living is near idyllic. Forget keeping pets and going bowling, it seems being involved in a tragic boat accident is far more fun if you’re a Sim.

Compatible with

S60/S60v2
Nokia 3230, 3620, 3650, 3660, 6260, 6290, 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 6680, 6681, 6682, 7610, N-gage, N70, N72, N90

(Sony Ericsson) D750, F305, K530, K550, K600, K608, K610, K618, K630, K700, K750, S302, S600, V600, V630, V640, V800, W302, W350 … W380, W395, W550, W600, W610, W660, W700, W710, W800, W810, Z550, Z555, Z558, Z610, Z710, Z800, Z1010 (Samsung) A517, A737, A746, A777, B2700, D300, D500, D510, D520, D720, D730, E200, E380, E390, E490, E530, E570, E620, E640, E720, E730, E740, E760, E770, E780, E790, E830, E860, E870, E880, J200, J400, J610, J750, J800 Luxe, L170, L310, L600, L700, L760, P200, P260, P270, S3030 Tobi, S3600, S400i, S730i, T509, T639, T739 Katalyst, U100, X700, X820, Z130, Z140, Z150, Z170, Z230, Z240, Z300, Z310, Z320i, Z370, Z500, ZV10, ZV40, ZV60 (LG) CU500, CU500V, CU515, KE260, KE500, KE590, KE770 Shine, KE820, KF310, KG320, KG330, KG800, KG810, KU250, KU311, KU380, KU385, KU730, L600v, P7200, Trax CU575, U300, U310, U8138, U8180, U8200, U8210, U8290, U8330, U8360, U8380, U880, U890 (Motorola) A630, A830, A835, A840, C975, C980, E378i, E375, E390, E398, E770, KRZR K1, MPx100, MPx200, MPx220 ,PEBL U6, RAZR V3, RAZR V3i, RIZR Z3, ROKR E1, SLVR L7, SLVR L7e, SLVR L9, V300, V303, V360, V361, V400p, V500, V501, V525, V535, V547, V555, V557, V600, V620, V635, V80, V975, V980, W510, W5, ROKR W6

http://mobimaniacs.blogspot.com/

In the game Townsmen you are given the position of mayor and it is up to you to make your small village become a city. The way to this goal leads trough clever managing of your work force, finances and of natural resources. With your finances and with resources you will build a lumberjack’s house for example. Assign people from living quarters (workforce) to work there and you will soon get some wood . The surplus of wood you can sell on the marketplace and from the acquired finances hire another workforce or build another house.

This is the basic principle but of course the game is far more complex. When you have well economized and money and resources are plenty can upgrade your buildings (e.g. the fisherman’s hut can later be upgraded to a port or the blacksmith’s hut can later become a factory).

Life would be easy if you without the power of nature; your settlement is not safe from disasters. It can happen that burglars steal resources and money or fire or a tornado destroy or downgrade buildings.

In our country there exists an expression “German graphics”. This means a graphics made into the smallest detail. This expression suits for the graphics of Townsmen – although you are looking at the same screen for the whole game, you will see many details like working people, flowing water or smoke from some buildings. Of course builds also change their appearance when you upgrade them. All in all the graphics is just great and very cute.
I also have to praise the music. On my Nokia 7210 there plays a nice melody; if you are heading into trouble (low finances or a lack of resources) the music will change and you will immediately know there is something messing up. The polyphonic sound on a Nokia Series 60 device is just average. It is a bit too loud but anyway sounds birds of sheep live up the game.

Exclamation marks above buildings show you that an action is currently going on inside, whereas the color (Green, Yellow or Red) show you whether the action is positive or not. Buildings need resources to maintain them – if you don’t have enough a red exclamation mark will appear. There is also a menu where you can see how many resources you need to run your village. At the market you can of course buy resources (for a high price) if you are really in trouble.

Control is very easy. Each building has a key number; by pressing it you can enter the building an see how many people are working there, how many resources are needed to run the certain building and how many resources are loading there. Help in the form of so called ‘Diary movies’ will teach and show you information about the system of game.

Townsmen is a very well done build up strategy game. The motivation of it is very good and several gamers will instantly become addictive. When I reached the day 1000 (which took me more than one week) the game became a bit monotonous because my village was running very good and the game was not that challenging anymore. The only thing which keeps me playing now is to keep my city as many days as possible and upgrade all buildings. As far as I can expect this will take me two more weeks. The complex system is a real challenge for the strategists. For all gamers who liked the classic ‘Settlers’ by Bluebyte this game is a must, for all the others it is ‘just’ very good entertainment.

Click to Download From Rapidshare

Traditionally in mobile, it’s been Gameloft that’s hoovered up the big movie licences. However, EA Mobile isn’t resting on its laurels, having announced details of its Asterix: The Official Mobile Game of the Movie title.

It’s based on the upcoming live-action Asterix flick which stars Gerard Depardieu (yes, he does play Obelix). The mobile game is a platform adventure, which sees Asterix and Obelix heading to the Olympic Games – in Athens not Beijing – trying to win the hand of Princess Irina for their mate Lovestorix.

DS and PSP games based on the movie are also being released, although Atari is publishing those.

Of course, this being the Olympics, you’ll also get to compete in events like the long jump, running, disk, football and chariot racing, and we’re hoping there’ll be some magic potion to help out. And, as you’d expect, particular care has been paid to the visual.

Click to Download From Rapidshare

Old games become classics when it’s proved they can stand the test of time. No matter how advanced technology gets, they get passed down subsequent generations, being educational yet fun to play, requiring nothing more than a pencil and a piece of paper.

One such is Hangman. It’s simple and yet offers almost infinite possibilities of play. Everyone knows how to play it but just in case you were brought up in a cave by wolves…

One player thinks up a word and draws a line of blanks, one for each letter, and a scaffold for the noose. The other player attempts to guess the word by suggesting letters in turn.

If these letters are in the word, they’re filled in on the blanks. If not, the other player starts drawing the ‘hangman’, starting with his head then his body followed by his limbs (six lines in all). If the word hasn’t been guessed before all his arms and legs are drawn, the ‘man’ is hanged. It’s all rather gruesome really.

Click to Download From Rapidshare

Let us start by saying mobile phones don’t need any more match-’em-up puzzle games. There are already more of them than anyone could play in a lifetime and many are very good. The genre has arguably already reached its zenith.

Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way, allow us to swerve wildly onto a different track altogether and contradict ourselves by saying mobiles need more match-’em-up puzzle games that are as good as Slide N’ Loop.

With a name like Slide N’ Loop, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this game is some sort of Line Rider clone, but it isn’t. It’s a match-’em puzzle game and despite its flaws is probably one of the best and most original that we’ve played this year.

So what makes it special? The game consists of a grid filled with different icons, and a main character called Zia that can move around the edges of the grid. The objective is to match three or more of the same icon in a row in order to make them disappear. You do this by positioning Zia with the thumbstick (or the ‘2′, ‘6′, ‘4′ and ‘8′ keys, respectively) next to the row – either vertical or horizontal – that you want to move, and finally pressing ‘5′ to move it one place away from you. The catch is that if your action doesn’t result in a match, you have a heart deducted. And you only have three to lose.

As you progress (which happens every time you match a certain quota of icons per level), various power-ups and hindrances are introduced to the mix. For example, Zia can collect a paddle that enables you to whack a row so that it cycles until you tell it to stop, making it possible to match icons that are separated by more than one block. Certain matched combinations also cause the controls to momentarily be reversed or limit Zia’s ability to move quickly around the grid.

Sporadically throughout the levels, enemies are introduced to play. These also try to match icons in the grid, thereby adding a frenetic pace to the proceedings, requiring you to execute the potential groups of three you are eyeing quickly – certainly before your opponent either gets there first or scuppers your plan by rearranging the grid with a move of their own.

It is when this aspect is in play that the game really shines. It has moments where you are clinging to an advantage by the skin of your teeth, not unlike Bomberman, coupled with the methodical satisfaction of a more traditional match-’em-up game such as Chuzzle. Unfortunately, this aspect is also one of the game’s biggest missed opportunities.

A Bluetooth multiplayer option would really have come into its own here and although playing against the AI is fun, swearing blue murder at your phone doesn’t carry with it the same sense of closure as doing the same to a human opponent.

That’s not to say this isn’t a reasonably full package. Completing the Adventure mode unlocks two other game types, Chromos and Survival, which does help to pad out the relatively slim 16 available levels.

There are other problems. The presentation, though great in-game, is buggy in the front-end and certain menu options occasionally disappear and become hard to navigate. Even so, that hardly matters when the core mechanic here is everything that match-’em-up puzzles have long since ceased to be: it is imaginative, it is original and it is addictive. Highly recommended.

Click to Download From Rapidshare

FMX III Hardcore offers the most sophisticated and thrilling game play experience seen from the franchise to date. Players must be prepared for some serious crashes in order to become the most hardcore Freestyle Motocross rider. Players begin by honing their skills in the LA backstreets before heading for the bright lights of Vegas to become a Motocross star, and finally pulling off the craziest stunts to hype the crowd at a killer Rock Concert.

The series is known and respected for the cutting edge physics engine in each game, which has progressed with every title. The game features include turning your bike 180 degrees to ride the tracks in reverse and doing insane 360 air tricks. Amazing rag doll physics allow players to be thrown from the bike and have the most extreme crashes ever seen on mobile. Bonus levels include the insane Kamikaze, a death defying Big Jump and a variety of awesome tricks to pull off including Superman, Cordova and Tsunami.

Download

3250 176×208 S60v3

Motorcycle racing hasn’t necessarily exploded in America, but it is certainly gaining in popularity. THQ Wireless has released a handful of MotoGP racers for mobile, culminating in this year’s fourth edition. Developer Rockpool has done a solid job recreating the excitement of the sport while maintaining the slightly casual angle of mobile. Think Hang-On with a little bit more realism.

MotoGP 4 uses a handful of licensed riders and real world tracks, such as Le Mans and Laguna Seca. The tracks feature all the same hairpins and dead-heat straight-aways of their asphalt counterparts. These things may not necessarily impress a player not into the motorsport, but the level of detail is great for the hardcore.

Rockpool has included a quick race mode just to get an idea of the road ahead. I suggest you start there so you can get the hang of the mechanics — driving a bike in MotoGP is not like racing a car in, say, Fast and the Furious. Correction is the key to success. You don’t just throw the bike into a turn and then let go. You must press the opposite way when coming out of the turn, putting your rider back on balance. It’s a good feature that keeps you on your toes. The relatively decent controls work well for cornering. I preferred to use 1 and 3 to corner with auto-acceleration when ramping up for bigger challenges.

Once you have the hang of the correction, dive into the career mode. You can create a rider, name him, and then dole out stat points in categories like top speed, acceleration, and cornering. Winning races gives you extra points. (First place, for example, grants you seven stat points.) In your career, you attack each track, racing against the real-deal riders. You can run a heat just to check the track out, then go into the actual race for points.

The AI is pretty solid. The other riders aren’t merciless, but they will capitalize on your mistakes (especially if you corner too hard) and cut you off if given half a chance. Also affecting the race is weather. You will race during broad daylight, wicked rain, and other conditions. Rain really affects corning, so make sure you try out a rain-slick course in the quick race mode before racing for position.

As you progress deeper into the circuit, MotoGP 4 gets hard — and to the point that only perfectionists will stick around. That point is many races on the horizon, but still, I suspect casual gamers will have likely steered away from this one the moment they heard it was about motorcycle racing.

MotoGP 4 will certainly satisfy hardcore fans of the sport. The controls demand attention, but as soon as you get the hang of correcting your turns, you’ll be set to place well for the first few races of your career. When MotoGP 4 decided to turn up the juice, though, it offers a great deal of challenge. Casual games should stay away, but fans will find a lot to like in MotoGP 4.

Compatible with

Screen resolution

Description by the publisher/developer:

Blades and Magic is the world?s first 3D MMORPG for mobile devices. In a huge authentic fantasy world players have to choose their favourite character and fight against various NPCs like orcs, demons etc. or other players from all over the world. While they travel across the land and battle their way up as reckless warriors or mighty magicians, they earn experience and money to improve their skills and weapons

Download

http://mobimaniacs.blogspot.com/

Baseball is one of those sports that just seems a bit, well, dull. Americans might be turned off from our brand of football by the potential of bore draws, but that doesn’t even compare to a sport where most swings of the bat don’t even connect with the ball.

Tribal Baseball dispenses with all that potential tedium, and simply offers up masses of pure unadulterated fun. There are no tactical bunts or long dull pitching battles to worry yourself over here. It’s simply a case of slogging every single ball as far as possible, and seeing the scoreboard tick over at a ridiculous rate.

Based in the fictional Tribe City, your simple task is to beat all the other rival tribes during a simple game of baseball so as to take over the city. Not quite running for mayor, but a hell of a lot more fun.