File this review well and truly under 'Really? This app is still going?' - ChessGenius has been around the Symbian world for many years, we even looked at it in 2006 briefly, on S60 3rd Edition. Wow. Seven years ago. Making it all the more remarkable that ChessGenius has not only survived well into the era of nHD screens and Symbian^3, it's fully compatible with the latest Belle FP2 phones and had even had updates in the fairly recent past. And, with that seven year gap in mind, here's a 2013 review of ChessGenius on the Nokia 808, powered by the fastest processor in the Symbian world. Taking on the game's chess engine under these circumstances was more than a little daunting...
Everybody loves a good mash up scenario. Take Nokia's classic 'Snake' game from the earliest mono-screened feature phones. Take a modern multi-level, multi-scenario game framework. Mash the two together with lashings of timers, powerups, customisation options, cut scenes, high score tables and help pop-ups. The end result is Snake Deluxe 2, a major Symbian title that has been around for ages but which we haven't covered for at least five years, and certainly not in this latest touchscreen, nHD resolution, Belle FP2-compatibility-fixed version, updated recently, here tested on the Nokia E7.
If FixTheNet's screens (below) look familiar, that's because the game is a port of QtNetWalk, itself a version of the NetWalk arcade puzzler 'for system administrators' (available in numerous forms, including here for playing in a desktop browser). Think Pipemania but for geeks. And the result is a mind mangling success, now brought to Symbian for the first time, with level after level in which your task is to rotate ethernet junctions and terminals in order to 'light up' every screen. OK, ok, so noone in this scenario has heard of Wi-fi, but go with the concept for the game itself is not only tremendous fun but also completely free 'for a limited time' - so best grab it now, just in case!
For all touchscreen Symbian-powered phones, Genius Button Football offers a taste of 'Subuteo', i.e. table top flick football - it's well implemented, surprisingly addictive once you get the hang of it, and with half times of only a minute or so, makes for a quick and satisfying casual game.
If Greek legend is your taste, then the official Symbian game for the movie Wrath of the Titans is something to take a look at. That is, if you like the idea of romping around ancient Greece slashing your way through hordes of monsters and hybrid beasts. If you're wondering whether you'll find an enchanting Andromeda at the end of it all, there's only one way to find out!
Are you in the mood for some good old fashioned block dropping puzzle action? If so then we have a review for you. DownFall is a retro-looking Columns clone that adds a few novel twists to the tried and tested genre. On first impressions DownFall appears to be just another Columns clone, in some ways it is, in some ways it is more limited, and in other ways it is a lot more.
The last time I formally reviewed a Zingmagic Backgammon game was five years ago, amazingly, an eternity in the mobile world. Since then we've had much higher resolution screens, touch interfaces, faster processors, and so on. The core game hasn't changed, of course, this being based on a board game that dates back thousands of years. Meaning that you probably already know how to play this - though how well you know is something that Backgammon Pro V aims to find out.
Word games never get old. Over the years there have been plenty variations on Scrabble and word search games. After looking for something new, I came across Word on Word, it's a dated title, but brings a new way to apply both planning and vocabulary. Giving you a loose literary equivalent of Columns or Bejeweled, could this keep your mental dictionary engaged and enthralled? Read on to find out.
On the face of it, Pool Rebel should be just about the most mature pool game on Symbian - it's certainly the title with the longest heritage, starting life back in the days of Windows Mobile (most recently in 2008). However, though I was impressed by the options all round and by the physics, Pool Rebel just isn't ported as well as it could be to Symbian, with too much wasted space on screen and with on-screen action that's, at times, eye-strainingly small.
I know what you're thinking: we've reviewed this before, back in the mists of time (2007), when QVGA was still a novelty and nHD was merely a gleam in OPK's eye. Yes, Micropool has been around the Symbian world forever, but it's still the game I install first on every single new smartphone and I still play it for 15 minutes a day. Every day. Making (gulp) 27,000 minutes of pool time since I first started playing the game. Oops.
