Anthelion Review by Sponge
PDAMill is widely known for consistently releasing high-quality games at a fair price. Whether it is the Gamebox series, their lesser-known productivity apps, or the awesome Snails, there are pretty much no tarnishes on their record. This is why people were quite excited when Anthelion was first announced back in August: high quality 3D graphics with very high resolution textures, and knowing PDAMill's past, gameplay to match. More excitingly were the release of 2 public betas, since the release date has been pushed back a couple of times, so many of you have already had a hands on experience with Anthelion. However, today, I'm quite honoured to be allowed to review the final version of Anthelion, and believe me, it's no letdown.
Graphics
Anthelion is powered by a pretty powerful 3D engine, and it shows. The graphics are beautifully done, with the models being pretty poly intensive for PocketPC standards, and the texture resolution that, dare I say, manage to challenge some of the earliest 3DFX games. This means that you can actually see what objects are, as opposed to huge honking pixels, which are landmarks of 3D games in the past. All of this sounds good, however if the framerate doesn't match, it'll ruin the entire game. Luckily, the game gets around 15 FPS with full detail, and over 20 by simply disabling dynamic lights with my H3955. On the faster devices, you should be able to pump up the details all the way and have over 30 FPS. (all screenshots in this review are taken at full quality).
The models themselves fit the theme of the game, and are modeled quite well. The engine trails on other ships are pretty cool, and make tracking the enemy a lot easier in some conditions. Collision detection is also solid, and seems to be a bit lenient with other ships, as ramming another ship will pretty much do you in. Weapon effects are bright and obvious, some even taking advantage of the trail system, so that enemy weapons can be seen, and told apart from quite a large distance. This becomes important later on, as you have to last a pretty long time with whatever you start with.
Anthelion isn't just a pretty 3D engine though, the UI artwork, and the various art assets throughout the game are of just as high quality. Character portraits are thoughtfully planned, and show, well, character, alleviating the "generic male 1" and "generic female character" syndrome seen in many other games. Its graphic style is largely unique, and shows a lot of care was put into the 2D parts of the game. The HUD gives you the impression that you're really in the ship, with your crossbars blocking your vision; a pretty immersive feature that Anthelion has over a lot of space shooters.
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Sound
Anyone who has read my reviews in the past has noticed that I really don't like the sound or music in many games at all. They're usually of differing quality, or there's jut not a lot of them. Luckily Anthelion steps over both of these holes, and delivers with professional music done by Jaybot, and all sorts of sound effects. There are about 30 sounds and 4 music tracks built into the game, however they're so expertly mixed by the engine that it doesn't sound as repetitive as one would think.
Additionally, the samples are original; you won't find any recycled samples that have been overused to the point of annoyance here. The different types of missiles sound different enough to distinguish in the heat of battle, and the lasers have this certain thud to them that sound like they pack quite a punch as opposed to the stereotypical laser zap. I've even been able to listen the game with headphones, and not become sick of it within minutes, an accomplishment for the PocketPC gaming community indeed. However, before you try this, keep in mind that the sound quality is at the lowest level by default. There's little difference if you're using the built in speaker of the PocketPC, but just unacceptable with headphones. The only thing that I could possibly suggest is voice acting, however this will cause the game to bloat up quickly.
The music also fits the game quite well. The PocketPC has never exactly been known as a bass-thumping machine, however the music still does a good job of keeping the militaristic theme of the game's story. There's also some ingame music, in which the lack of was always another sticking point for me. Neither tracks are small little 30-second loops either, they're full-length songs in .xm format. This means that some of the samples might not sound great, but the quality to size tradeoff is near perfect, as the game is smaller than a lot of the big name titles out today. All of this is only noticeable with headphones, when using the built in speakers, there's very little to complain about.
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Gameplay Anthelion has kept me up a few nights playing through the various betas and release candidates, and is quite easily on its way of ruining my sleep pattern. Needless to say, the game ends up being very fun after the rather monotonous first mission, which rivals many games in the Crate Review System. Anthelion has a mere 35 seconds from start to first vision of a crate. If you haven't guessed it yet, the first mission has you collecting crates. The game calls it loot, however they're not going to trick me. Just plain ol' crates. This mission is useful if you've never really played any 3D games before, or get disorientated easily, but for most veteran gamers, it's a real bore. Luckily the game picks up right away in the second mission which is focused pretty much on combat.
While the preferred method of control is definitely using pen-look, there is a D-Pad control scheme that's as successful as your D-Pad is. iPaq users, I'd recommend that the pen be used, as Compaq has put in a "feature" that will pop up your calibrate screen if you hold down the action and far left button at the same time. Needless to say, the first time this came up, I thought it was a clever ruse by the Federation to defeat me mentally, and then take over my house, but I soon realized it was just a calibration screen. Oh well. Luckily, the game supports external controllers, so you can even use your various keyboards and the lucky few with gamepads if you are so inclined.
The story is also quite developed for a PocketPC game; with a rather elaborate plot set up. Characters are interesting, and the lame "protect some guy you don't care about" missions are at a minimum. One of the parts of the story that caught my eye were the e-mails. A late addition to Anthelion, it really adds a lot to the game, and the personal interaction with the characters. There's even shorthand in use, and the occasional typo. It gives the game a very personalized feeling, and makes everything so much more realistic. Without ruining too much, you're a space pirate (yarr) doing various missions for your boss, some of them going against the Anthelion Federation. This is the gist of it, the game does a lot better explaining it than I ever will.
The combat system is pretty well realized in Anthelion. The controls take a hang to get used to tracking enemies and other targets with, but it's much like playing a first person shooter - the longer you play, the better your accuracy is. Enemy AI is intelligent, and will swerve and dodge around in order to avoid incoming fire. You won't be bogged down with excessive simulation, in order to keep a fast pace in general. This leads to some pretty cool fights, either fighting or observing, as enemy ships will dodge to avoid collisions, and your allies aren't as dumb as bricks. Anthelion makes use of it's third dimension quite well to say the least.
Luckily, the game is also pretty bug free. I haven't had any of my teammates go psycho and run right into the middle of gunfire. I've also been unable to notice any oddities or crashes so far either.
In terms of replayability, Anthelion is a winner in this category. 16 single player missions with 5 different skill levels. Playing on the default skill, it'll take a good few hours to beat all the missions in total. (which funnily enough, rivals Max Payne 2 in length) As if this isn't enough, all the files are stored right in a plain zip file, allowing easy modding. A mission editor is supposedly planned, so hopefully the community will open up and release new missions for this great game.
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Video
I have prepared a video of one of the missions, 2:15 in length. It is a 3.5mb download and requires divx to playback.
Get the video here
Conclusion
Anthelion, much like PDAMill's previous game Snails, is sure to be a hit. Finding fault in this game is pretty tough, unless you're adamantly opposed to action games. Everything comes together nearly perfectly, and ranks up there with the best out there. It's right up there with past greats like Snails and RocketElite, and is well deserving of it. I give Anthelion a perfect 10 out of 10.
Anthelion should be available soon for all ARM devices, requires 5MB of storage space, and somewhere in the range of 6MB of program memory. It'll cost $19.90, and it's quite deserving of more to be honest.
| Pros |
Cons |
- Best 3D engine to date
- Involved story while managing to keep humour
- Fun gameplay
- Sounds and music are superbly done
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- Pirates and crates give me the willies
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