Sexy poker series – Gameloft
I’ve already written an article about casino games – Midnight Casino. You can read it there as well: I sincerely believe that, although poker has been always thought to be a game of luck, it is actually a game based on observing the opponent and calculating your real chances of success. As James Bond used to say… “I never played my cards. I play with my opponents cards”; or something along these lines.
When I was in high-school we’d play strip poker with the cheerleader. Unfortunately I was among those who always lost. And maybe that’s the reason why I’m so excited about Gameloft Sexy poker series – I get to win at strip poker, and see hand-drawn sexy cuties..
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Something’s cookin…
Update, January 19 2007 - Here it is: The new and improved MobiCritic! Spread the word, it’s probably the best design I ever made 
Stay tuned on mobicritic.com for a big surprise.
We are currently undergoing a Major restructuring. A cool new design, plenty of new sections, with MANY MORE game reviews for java phones, handhelds, smartphones and many others, plus mobile gaming gossip, news, editor’s columns, and blog.
Really, now. It’s going to be great. MobiCritic will become your online zine of choice for mobile gaming news, reviews and user guide. Stay tuned. Only a couple of days to go!
Yahoo Go 2.0 Mobile
One of the mobile apps I’m waiting for most lately is, without any doubt, Yahoo Go 2.0.
What is it? Basically it’s a mobile midlet that combines, in a bundle, the most important Yahoo applications: Yahoo! search, maps, email, messenger, local search, local events (movies) news (including sports, finance, entertainment, and weather), and Flickr. All these goodies packed into a mobile app optimized for the small screen.
Definitely the kind of innovative app that brings bad news to other mobile competitors. There’s email integration (battling with Gmail Mobile that we featured earlier), yahoo maps – going head-to-head with Google mobile maps or even Mobile GMaps, and off course there’s the cool Flickr integration(that makes it extremely easy to upload photos and browse your Flickr library) which kicks the some already established competitors such as Shozu right in the ankles.
To get a better idea of how it all looks and works, check out the flash demo.
The downsides? Off course there are many:
- first of all, very few supported mobile sets : the Windows Mobile platform (where Yahoo Go mobile appeared in the first place), also Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung. Therefore, as a proud Sony-Ericsson owner, I wasn’t able yet to test this interesting looking app…
- secondly(and I’m stating the obvious), all of these apps seem to be a bit hungry on your GPRS. Flickr, Maps, News, Messenger, even sponsored searches, they all end up downloading quite a bit, which makes Yahoo Go useful only if you have a good data plan. While this might be the case in US or UK, it certainly isn’t in France or some other European countries, where you end up paying about 1 euro/3megs. Might not seem much at first, but it adds up once you start playing with your Flickr account or messenger list.
The upsides? This seems to be one of the most complete and entertaining mobile apps I’ve seen so far. I’m looking forward for it to be available on SE, so that I give it a test run. In the meantime, looking at the official website and the demos, I’m quite excited: it seems to be the mobile app you’ve never noticed missing, but after you’ve seen it makes you wonder how you could have lived without. Besides, who knows, the mobile data plans are bound to get lower in the future and eventually move to unlimited mobile internet. And when this happens, Yahoo Go will probably be there to stay.
Read some more on lifehacker
Brain Challenge
Ladies and gentlemen, here we start 2007 with another puzzle game: Brain Challenge from Gameloft. Another? Yes, naturally. I believe most mobile games belong to this category, and it will be so until mobile devices with hardware accelerated video display won’t be considered a rarity.
Here we are talking about puzzles. Real ones. My piece of advice: if you don’t like IQ tests or other mind-challenging activities then this is not a game for you. But if you do.. then you are in for a treat!
What is this all about? Gameloft’s Brain Challenge is a large collection of… let’s call them stages although tests would be a good word as well, since that’s what this game’s stages actually are. The tests belong to four categories, and there is no need for a description for them, ’cause the names are self explanatory:
We have logic, math, memory and visual texts. I’ll let you the pleasure to discover the three tests in each category, but I have to say that even if they are not a lot (4 times 3 is 12, right?), the 100 timed levels of every stage will keep you coming for more. You have the option to train your abilities in various difficulty levels (difficulty meaning that you begin playing from a higher level, nothing out of ordinary).
Why do I think this game belongs here(in MobiCritic’s weekly recommendations)? It’s the “Daily brain tests” option that convinced me. This is another name for a campaign mode. You’ll be receiving a single test in every category and whenever you continue (the next day, for instance) the game will resume from the last level played, of course.
I was convinced by looking at a work buddy of mine, who borrows my phone to play one stage every day and plays it until we split up to go home. After all, that’s the purpose of this mobile game: to kill a few minutes until the tube arrives.
My buddy completed about 90% of the game. Can you beat this? 
Weblinks: here, here or the official website
Go ahead and discuss this game over on its mobicritic forum thread
Call of Duty 2
If you haven’t heard of the game Call of Duty then either you don’t like to play a lot or you’re not a first person shooter-type. Briefly, this is a game based on World War 2, a subject that’s been tackled by (too) many games.
But let’s get to our game – and I mean here the mobile version.
This is a bird’s eye view with very some isometric claims 
: You’ll play the characters of the PC version (I won’t spoil you the pleasure of discovering them). You’ll be fighting during the WW2 years, starting with 1942, on every front. There is plenty of variety, that’s for sure.
The environment won’t be boring you, although you won’t have many opportunities for sightseeing: the Germans and the various objectives are sure to give you a hard time. A lot of objectives changes and various surprises such as bombardments and losing some of your buddies in the line of action will be sure to keep you busy.
I like the implementation of the various action and the strategy and reflexes you’ll have to use if you want to have a good chance of survival. You won’t shoot the enemy as soon as you see him, I can guarantee you that.
You’ll try to hide first (in a rabbit hole if it were possible ), and then you’ll have to think of attack strategies such as flanking or sniping the enemy position. I must say that the sniper rifle is my favorite: the krauts won’t know what hit them if you’ll use the weapon wisely. A shot equals one kill if you play your cards right. Nice shot, Sarge!
So what are you waiting for? The allies are outnumbered, but your courage will surely help. Fight or die for Mother Russia!
Sounds good, right? Thought so:)
Read some more on the web, over here .
Christmas/Midnight Pool – Gameloft
I should begin this review by apologizing for its delay, since the holidays have already passed and this game would have suited the holiday season best.
Why the double name? If you’ve already played Midnight Pool then you should know that Xmas Pool is nothing else but the same game, only with winter season looks: all the menus and characters design seem to be waiting for Santa Still, maybe it’s not too late to make yourself a mobile game gift: if you are good at playing pool and you can beat all of the opponents, then the virtual money involved in the game is bound to give you some fun. Too bad this virtual money isn’t real…
What do we have here? The usual campaign – tournament, a quick game option, a Challenges option where you have to score trick shots in order to complete the challenges. The Challenges option proves the great physics model inside the game: you are able to hit the ball using plenty of effects, English, rotations, etc. If you know some things about pool you’ll be using them from time to time, the special effects make the salt and pepper to the game.
The versus mode will enable you to beat (or not) any of your friends, which adds a lot of fun. Offering both the UK and US pool/billiards rules, this is a must have game for many mobile gamers. It is a good genre game, and as hard as I seek I don’t seem to find anything bad about it. Let’s have a ball! 
Read more here, here and here. (ps. there’s also a free download link somewhere around, so read carefully)
Billy the Kid Wanted!
I was browsing my phone games folder the other day looking for cool games that deserve being featured on our weekly selection when I stumbled upon Global Fun’s “Billy the Kid Wanted!“.
I started playing it. Hmm… made in 2005. I was circumspect, thinking that it’s an old game I’d probably delete after 5 minutes or so. Then it hit me. At first the music – different than anything I’ve encountered so far – a friend says it’s the soundtrack from “The good the bad and the ugly”. Still, soundtrack or not, it creates a good atmosphere, catching you and making you curious: how will the game be like? The western style is a fresh breeze, it feels good and is different than most of the games around.
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Mobile GMaps
Featured regularly on the front page of the java.com portal, Mobile GMap was the first application of its kind, combining the coolness factor of Google Maps with the ubiquity and portability of your java-enabled mobile phone.
Although in the meantime Google has created its own version of a mobile Google maps application, Cristian Streng (a recent friend of mine) was nonetheless the first who put the globe at your fingertips. The official website, MGMaps.com lets you download freely this magnificent piece of software, and incorporates a forum with tips, tricks and bug reports as well. So.. what does this app have so special? Why is it cooler than Google’s recent equivalent?
Rainbow Six Vegas
If you’re the gamer type who once in a while enjoys a little shooter on your PC then you’ve certainly heard of Rainbow Six. This well-known Ubisoft series adds up another title – Rainbow Six Vegas. The PC version? I don’t know, we’ll wait and see. But I have to mention the mobile version(See here the official website). Why? Because it’s pretty good IMHO and has a thing or two to offer. Hold tight for this review, ’cause it’s a preview as well: – we are among the first mobile gaming website to make this(though IGN was there first, and Gameloft presents it as well). Yes, you guessed, the game is brand new, it came out just in time for Christmas, and our review comes along with insider infos.
In case you haven’t played any of the games in the series, or the words “tactical 3D shooter” don’t impress you much then you have to know this is about a special forces squad (yes, you get to control several characters at the same time – so no more frustration when losing your main character and have to restart the game). It doesn’t mean though that you’ll go through the stage firing at everything that moves. You could use this tactic to finish a stage, maybe, but it surely won’t help you much as you progress through the game.
And here is a thing that feels like a breath of fresh air: in this game the word “tactical” has a real meaning; how does tactics fit in here? You have several choices, and you can play each of them, according to the circumstances.
Ok, ok, let’s go back a little. As the title suggests, the action is in Las Vegas, where the owner of a big casino and his daughter are kidnapped. So the need to deploy a special unit rises. Your every move is watched by the media, so when all your team is down at least you’ll see this on TV as well .
The fight will be mostly indoors, but this means you’ll have several ways to surprise the terrorists (a flash bang to neutralize them for a while, a grenade to silence them for good). A cool gadget is the special camera which allows you to see behind the closed doors so you can plan your next move. The tactics part has no similarity to chess . Sometimes, terrorists are likely to kill a hostage, so you’ll have to stab them silently with the knife – trust me, it’s pretty cool. In some later stages the pace gets so alert you won’t even be able to enjoy the view – which looks great by the way, with lots of details – including terrorists behind hidden walls . Bombs will detonate if you waste time – this adds up to the fun, you’ll have a great feeling about yourself once all the bombs will be disarmed and the terrorists annihilated.
The thing I like most is the sniper mode in several stages. Here you have a scope and you have to kill terrorists in order to rescue hostages. And I have to mention here that it is very well made, in terms of graphics and gameplay. Nothing compares with a good old sniped headshot (Counterstrike anyone ?)
Even if it has only a few hours of gameplay, the adrenaline it offers and the sniper mode which gets unlocked in the menu after the first time it’s played will makes up for it. So, did you put it on your whish list?
Midnight casino
Do you like casinos? Do you like games involving not only money but also more luck than knowledge?
Then Midnight Casino is the game for you. Unfortunately for we money-hungry people, there’s no real money involved, so there is no risk – and no gains neither.
There are lots of video poker games for mobile, and plenty of blackjack games as well. Probably some roulette games too. But I don’t know how many of them bind them all in the same package, and in a very good way above all.
What does the game have to offer? There’s the usual quick game, where you select one of the three games mentioned above and start playing, practicing or trying your various strategies. You’ll find a stats table where you’ll see how (un)lucky you were during play, as well as plenty of statistics on the games already played.
You can also find a “Help” section – which is sure to eliminate any doubts about the games, covering just about everything and introducing any newbie in the magic world of casino life.
But here’s what I like most: the “Casino Mode” – it is self explanatory – where you enter a virtual casino starting with only $200 and trying to get to the top. It won’t be easy though: together with the normal games, there are different modes, such as:
- Tournaments – play a fee and beat other 2 computer opponents
- Ironman – think you are tough? Start with some money and try to keep them if you can
- Hot streak – feeling lucky? Just loose a hand and the game is lost.
If you have enough luck and money to prove it, then you can thing about playing to a higher level(you take the elevator, that is). But you have to challenge a duel (this is a tournament actually, but the higher you get the more games it involves) if you want the chance to use the elevator and play the other four levels. If you loose any of them, you’re out (not only of money, that is ).
You’ll also discover more little goodies around here: a decent soundtrack, plenty of video poker modes and a black jack playing strategy that will make you want more. Careful, though, although a good training for the real-life casinos, this game comes with absolutely no guarantee: you may become an ace at Midnight Casino and still lose your shirt off in the real thing. If you’re into the casino games, then this is a must have for the mobile addicted. And if you don’t trust us, then trust the other mobile game reviewers: mobilegamefaqs – gold award, or pocketgamer
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