Chopper rescue, E200, 8 way joystick etc

[Guest kevlar]

Has anyone played chopper rescue on their E200 yet? . I'd like to buy the game, Aim seem to make the best games on smartphone, but obviously the 4 way joystck thing can ruin the party a bit. I've had an email conversation with Aim, I don't think they'll mind me sharing their response, if they do I'll delete it.

1) Does chopper rescue have any issues with e200, for example choppy sound? ( like some of your older titles )

2) Does the game require 8 way control ?( as you've no daubt found out the e200 can't do diagonals )

3) are you any closer to releasing fixed versions of the games which have problems on the e200?

Reply;

I wanted to say "You can always try the Chopper demo", but it's not been released yet. It will be released very soon.

The diagonal issue: the game is perfectly playable without 8-way movement. It's nicer, but not at all necessary to control the chopper well.

The choppy sound issue: some of our games have/had choppy sound on 2003 OS. Older games are being fixed and newer should not have the problem. Chopper had this problem as well, but an updated version (v1.01) will be online today. It should work smoothly, also on 2003 OS.

Older games are being worked on right now. Some are already fixed and in the process of being signed and upload (like ChiX, QubiX). I'm told that only G-Pod and Mr Dollar are not fixed yet.

Hope this helps.

Q.Thanks for the info. Any ETA on the demo?

Reply;

Probably next week, but don't shoot me if it isn't! :-)

Q.One more question, from a developers point of view, what do you think of the E200 only having a 4 way joystick? I would imagine you are as amazed as everyone else that they could make such a mistake ( intentional or not, it is a huge mistake ) , and does it make you reconsider wether to release games on the platform?

Reply;

I personally think it should be an 8-way joystick. They always make the same mistakes again. Just like with the old Ipaqs that couldn't handle 2 keys pressed at once. For games that is really bad... But they never design those devices with games in mind, it seems. A real shame if you ask me.

As a game deigner you have to work around those shortcomings most of the time.

BTW, I'm informed that the sound issue of Chopper has been fixed and uploaded already.

So there you go, nothing too contraversial, I was hoping he would say they seriously think twice about releasing games for e200 because of the joystick, but he didn't. Maybe if developers made enough fuss future revisions of E200 may have a real joystick. Then again, maybe not.

Note that Aim are working to fix the sound issues with their games on E200, which is obviously not their fault, I hope other developers are doing the same ( Digital Concepts?)

So, has anyone played Chopper Rescue yet on E200?

Kevlar

[Guest amo]

Have some people lost the point that this isnt an N Gage? Its a business handset aimed at that market. It isnt designed to play Doom and the likes but it is a bonus that it can be modded to do so. In the same sence that N Gage games can be ran on certain other none gaming phones. This is hardly a design flaw but not many other joystick orientated handsets are 8(9) directional.

[Guest kevlar]

The E200 is marketed as a full on multimedia device. That's mp3's, movies, photo's, games. It comes with games. It is bought by people who want a bit of everything. It's not just a phone. If I wanted just a phone I'd have stayed with my 8210. It's a convergence device.

I've bought chopper rescue now, and it doesn't suffer with the 4 way stick due to good design. This isn't always possible though.

Good work Aim!

Kevlar

[Guest jonnyb]

The E200 is marketed as a full on multimedia device. That's mp3's, movies, photo's, games. It comes with games. It is bought by people who want a bit of everything. It's not just a phone. If I wanted just a phone I'd have stayed with my 8210. It's a convergence device.

I've bought chopper rescue now, and it doesn't suffer with the 4 way stick due to good design. This isn't always possible though.

Good work Aim!

Kevlar

I have just brought this game for my E200, but am experiancing choppy (excuse the pun) sound issues, do/did you have this problem? Did the version with the sound fix get released?

Cheers

Jonnyb

[Guest kevlar]

' fixed ' versions of chopper rescue, oddysey & done in 50 seconds have been uploaded to Handango, however, they all still have the sound issue on my E200. I have been in touch with AIM, they said the fixed versions work fine on their E200, but their E200 is a developer version, so that may be the difference.

Please contact Aim at [email protected] and explain your sound issue, maybe then they will look further into fixing their games.

Kevlar

[Guest jonnyb]

I mailed Aim, this was the reply (Note. Nice to see a company that responds and quickly.)

hi Jon,

sorry to hear you're experiencing this problem, indeed sound performance is

verry poor on that device, Orange development UK is working hard to get a

fix soon for us as they're aware of this problem. They've selected Chopper

rescue as a test case to get it working. I'm awaiting a new version any day

now that will fix this issue, if available you can simply redownloaded.

best regards

Gert

AIM Productions

So hopefully a fix will be out soon...

[Guest kevlar]

Good news indeed, didn't really want to shelve half my spv games collection. It is strange how it only affects certain games/developers though.

Kevlar

[Guest midnight]

errr, sound performance isnt great on that device????? that doesnt sound right, how come we can get sound working just fine in our games (in fact, our games have an increased framerate and sound is identical to the spv/e100 etc) :lol:

[Guest AIM-Gert]

Hi Midnight,

don't want to go in discussion here but indeed framerate is better on the E200 and about sound, you can produce sound in many ways on that device, not sure what system you're using but we're not the only one experiencing this problem. just to give you an idea, detection if the sound buffer is empty, that's where the bottleneck is