Interesting.

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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Id love it if Cloanto ported PPaint to the AmigaAnywhere platform. I do a lot of freehand illustration and the colour depth of the IPaq would be suited to lazy days on the boat in the middle of the lake.

I personally think it would be a killer app.

For a PDA ... Certainly.

Hasn't photogenics been coded for pda's as well ?

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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the problems miffy is mentioning havent been seen or heard of here , but then again i dont use the exact same hw as him but i belived this was one of the GEM's within amigaDE .

-edit (gems withing amigade , i meant .. beeing able to run on any hw without getting problems like miffy mentioned , or did u refer to a new update of amigaDE maybe?.)

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See my blog and collection website! . https://www.blog.amigaguru.com

I could quite happily film it if you want. Also AmigaAnywhere crashed on my IPAQ earlier on. I suspect the problem may be PocketPC or the IPAQ itself.

Who knows.

If anyone from either of the development groups responsible for the games wants my help providing debug information that is no problem.

Just my 2 cents on these games... Unfortunately I can't see that the pack is anything to get excited about, even pocket-gaming-wise. See here for some of the current crop of PocketPC games:

3D racing:

http://www.pocketpclife.co.uk/featureddetails.asp?article=216

Strategy:

http://www.pocketpclife.co.uk/featureddetails.asp?article=240

2D soccer:

http://www.pocketpcminds.com/reviews/fifa2002.php

3D shooter:

http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/games/interstellar_flames.htm

etc.

Planet Zed was nice two years ago, the others are okay as such, but compared to what PocketPC has to offer these days (or even a year and a half ago), this pack is simply quite mediocre.

AmigaDE has to come up with far more impressive support to count for something in the mobile games arena. With companies like Nokia lining up to compete in the arena with N-Gage and the likes (quite nice Tomb Raider on N-Gage), one really has to have something really cool to get noticed. Not to mention if one wants to re-connect the word Amiga with any kind of excellence, instead of the currently present mediocrity.

Whatever happened to Payback on intent anyway, it showed some real nice promise.

I think AmigaInc needs to change their strategy for the DE. The main problem right now is that there are few developing products for it and there's not going to be much more under the current scheme. Amigans tend to be too negative against it to develop for it.

What they need to do in my opinion is to present the DE environment and AIncs tools like Ami2d/3d etc to software houses currently developing software for mobile devices Outside the amiga sphere. And show what benefit the Intent based environment would be for them. And adopt a distribution that suits each case rather than just force the SDA/AmigaAnywhere scheme on them.

/Björn

@JTSiren

I am looking to see where I got "excited" myself.

You should also take a look at the two games I highlighted, one was a 3d driving game and the other a strategy game.

Their problem is as Orgin sayes, getting developers back on board - PayBack would have made a nice flagship product.

The PDA games market ( not the mobile phone games market which is just starting to converge on fidelity ) is just starting to get interesting with original games coming out.

One last question, have you actually bought the download pack and played it on your PocketPC?

Oh and that TombRaider game on N-Gage sucks, sorry - IMHO that is

@Miffy

Perhaps I wasn't clear: I didn't comment on your review as much as I commented on the games themselves (having played them over the years at Amiga shows, for reviews etc.). I tried to make this clear with my "Just my 2 cents..." beginning, but obviously I should have tried harder.

I commented on the target of the review, not the review itself. So, sorry about any misundestanding there.

Hello,

I think the best thing that can happen to the DE is
that it runs on OS4.x. Then the developpers can
play and test it on there AmigaOne's and i think
that that would be a fresh start for all the older
Amiga software and games. It is not because it
is old that it is past, you could do just a minimum
off change to it and it would be accepted again.

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A1G3-SE + OS4.1 u1 iso (x2)

Quote:

One last question, have you actually bought the download pack and played it on your PocketPC?

No, I have not. I have played some other games on PocketPC though, so I know what the machines are capable of.

I have, however, played all of these games with the possible exception of the worm game (I'm not sure about that) already back in 2001 when they were a part of the AmigaDE Player pack and the Party Pack and possibly some other material that has been on display at various shows and user group meetings. The games are mostly really old now.

I even reviewed some of them for our Amiga user club magazine and probably game them better reviews than what they deserved. Oh well, reality has bitten back. The PocketPC has some really nice games these days, and had already back then...

I'm not saying these games are lowsy, I'm just saying they are mediocre compared to the current pocket gaming state of the art. IMHO.

@jtsiren

Seems I am destined to be misunderstood too What I meant was if you look at the ratings in the review, the ratings reflect on the games as being actually pretty average ( although the two puzzle games were amazingly addictive ).

The PDA curve has moved on, and Amiga Inc, when they get moolah, should be pushing for Payback, PhotoGenics and other products on there.

Although wasnt there some bust up between the guy who did Photogenics and Almathera?

Anyway, given that ( and Im sure you know what I mean ) a good 80% of the downloadable PDA games out there are total dross for the PocketPC, I dont think it fares badly.

That was indeed my point throughout - that Amiga Inc had a point with DE, if they had executed better on the plan, they might actually be one of the better brands on there. If they had increased momentum in 2001/2002 on this instead of just going into some kind of time warp then they would be much better of.

They have a point, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Quote:

They have a point, and I was pleasantly surprised.

I agree to an extent - in my opinion the AmigaDE plan showed some genuine promise when it was first laid out in front of us in 2000. Since then, that promise has all but evaporated in my eyes. Since then Java has caught on as the portable mobile gaming platform of choice (about 100 million phones running it and counting), native PocketPC and Symbian games are far ahead of anything AmigaDE has ever had to offer, and so on.

Closer scrutiny of the AmigaDE plan also, with the benefit of hindsight, has showed a number of flaws in both the plan and, obviously, its execution. I'm sure Amiga Inc. too are painfully aware of these, but that doesn't change my opinion that there is painfully little to get excited about in AmigaDE. In my opinion, without the name not many of us probably would be paying any attention anymore. I know I wouldn't.

Mind you, I'm not of the rather "popular" opinion that Amiga Inc. "haven't coded anything". I'm quite confident they have plenty to show behind closed doors, some stuff more close to being finished and some only in initial planning stages. We have only seen small glimpses of their own developments, I'm sure. I don't know, but this is what I gather from publicly available information.

However, that in no way changes the current market realities and gives no reason to believe in the "promise" until more is revelead and deemed to be worth success (i.e. something really technically compelling and excellent), and more important, succesful (i.e. something that can hold its own on the markets).

I have replaced the screenshots with other ones for this review.

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IMO Amiga Inc gets a little too much criticism within the community for the fact that the AmigaDE market hasn't come to a breakthrough (yet).

However Amiga Inc did close deals with various high profile companies like Sendo, Nokia and Sharp. That these companies cancelled their projects due to market conditions or legal conflicts with 3rd parties isn't really Amiga's fault, but of course does directly hurt the company.

IMO much can simply be attributed to bad luck.

Quote:

The PDA curve has moved on, and Amiga Inc, when they get moolah, should be pushing for Payback, PhotoGenics and other products on there.

It wouldnt make much business sense for Paul Nolan - its already out for PocketPC - http://www.idruna.com/products_pocketpc.html

Unless of course AmigaAnywhere were to appear on a much broader selection of hardware...

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Thanks for the link :D

Quote:

IMO Amiga Inc gets a little too much criticism within the community for the fact that the AmigaDE market hasn't come to a breakthrough (yet).

Personally, my own criticism of Amiga Inc. mainly lays elsewhere, but that would be off-topic.

As for AmigaDE, the main criticism I can think of has been the sheer lack of technically compelling, released technology. The promise was monumental, but nothing really excellent or ground-breaking has been released to the public. There is very little reason to feel why this technology would be better than, say, Java or other alternatives. In fact, there is a lot of solid reasons to prefer the alternatives that are currently out there - not just market-reasons, but technological reasons too.

Where is the technological excellence in AmigaDE that the name Amiga used to be synonymous with?

It would be one thing if the AmigaDE we can touch and see would be this ground-breaking, earth-moving, ahead-of-its-time piece of software that has just had a rouch-start on the market, but from where I stand, it looks mainly like a mediocre re-release of TAO's technology, which too has been lacking in many regards, coupled with a failed market launch.

We all love the classic Amiga, not because it was a marketing phenomenom, but because it was an excellent piece of engineering. Where is that excellence in AmigaDE? I just don't see it. That is my main concern with regards to that technology.

That, in my opinion, is the huge leap Amiga Inc. has to take to really restore the Amiga name to its former glory. It has to be excellent technology, not just succesful marketing. Preferably both, of course.

@ jtsiren

Quote:

the sheer lack of technically compelling, released technology.

I agree that from an Amigan point of view the AmigaDE hasn't yet demonstrated its potential and value. However I don't think that the technical part is lacking, but rather the lack of unique content and market presence.

Underneath the hood it's all very advanced and excellent, however the goal is to make everything as invisible to the user as possible. For this I believe they did a good job on the Pocket PC Packs.

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That, in my opinion, is the huge leap Amiga Inc. has to take to really restore the Amiga name to its former glory.

I believe we will only have a shot through solid and powerful partnerships. Hopefully someday a company like IBM will see good potentials for AmigaOS and the AmigaDE. IBM is spending so much cash on Linux, if only a small portion of this would end up in the Amiga market it would open endless possibilities for AmigaDE/AmigaOS development.

reviews are helfpul, a review of the Entertainment pack was relevant and timely in July of last year...

the ultimate review of a product, is the one the market passes....and that judgement of the Entertainment Pack describes it as a complete failure.

You know when techtv reviewed this last year, the games were mediocre then, not nearly as good as those from ZIOSoft, Hexacto and Ionside.....

I know those names are not familiar, but those are the companies that are Amiga's actual competitors...not Genesi.

I'm not sure ZIOSoft, Hexacto, or Ionside, are doing much better than Amiga, nor can they really claim to have changed the world...but then again that wasn't their goal, and they didn't pay millions for a name that was going to set higher expectations.

just for kicks I looked at the old companies...looks like Hexacto is now owned by JAMDAT Mobile.

JAMDAT looks like they are developing quite the library of quality games.

The other two, not sure what happened to them, their websites are down.