At Last, Peter's Gambox Classics for the Palm!

Peter of PDAmill has just released his gamebox classic for the Palm OS. These games have been around since early PPC days - actually, since early pc days (in some form or shape).

When they were floating around the www as freeware, I was so impressed that I wrote a feature at the Gadgeteer and called it The Programs, Plans and Philosophy of Peter. PDAmill is now living up to its name by releasing programs for the Palm and Smartphone as well as PPC.

So what's Gamebox classic? Let me put it this way... whenever I have one of those rare spare moments on the road, the game that I almost always turn to is Gamebox classic! For the answer to this question, let's look at the program. Gamebox classic consist of 6 games - every one of these games is carefully selected for their suitability for PDA gaming as well as their value of enduring interest. Playing it again for this review reminded me again how much fun playing good games can be. No wonder I keep coming back for more!

First there's Aqua Blocks aka Tetris - everybody's favorite indulgence. There are probably more handheld Tetris games on the market than any other game in history. Peter's Tetris plays as good as it looks. And it looks really great. Got me hooked on it for hours - music, sound, bubbles and all.

Aqua Blocks Plus is more of Dr.Mario than Tetris with more coloured blocks (3 colours must match) providing more challenge than the normal run-of-the-mill stuff. I didn't think that this would be much fun, but after taking it through its paces, I became more and more addicted to it, and kept going back for 'just one more bash'.

Here's a worthly challenge to Slurp and in some ways, I prefer the straightforward match to Slurp's sticky glue. This is currently my favorite game of the series - Jewel Master. Very well crafted and more addictive than crack. This game alone is worth the price of the entire pack.

Another game that I enjoy very much is Cannons. It is one of my first computer games on my early OSI Superboard, and after all these years it is still a lot of fun. This time, you get rockets, markers, sound and the entire fireworks. The graphics are very detailed, but the computer opponent is either too clever or too dumb. Iis better to find someone to play with.

Fireball aka Breakout is a good blast to unwind or destress. There are many good arkanoid-type games for the Palm, and here's a fun brick breaker quickie that will get you hooked for hours. I especially liked the fact that whatever power-up you get, it is clearly announced onscreen. Also you get to choose between easy, normal and hard games.

Snake reminds me of my Apple ][ days when Snake Byte burned many of my weekends in blissful distraction. The new enhanced graphics are very nice and kind of challenging. Call me old fashioned, but I rather like the plain blocky snake to the more realistic looking one.

Pros:
Games of enduring interest
Well crafted; beautiful graphics, music and sound
Good retro game play
Nice GUI; easy to get in and out
Cheap and good.