With so many free entertainment titles available for Visors it's hard to imagine spending this much money on a collection of simple games. That said, there are a few gems in the bunch that will make the Pocket Express Entertainment Pack a welcome addition to your Springboard module collection. The biggest draw here is Tetris Classic, which plays surprisingly well on the Visor. The falling shapes are easily positioned and rotated using the buttons on the bottom of the device, and we were racking up high scores in no time. The other featured game in this pack, Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, is nowhere near as fun. Maneuvering the impossibly tiny man around the screen is tedious, and you have to advance through several levels before things get interesting at all.
We were much more impressed with the PocketChess, PokerDice, and blackjack games. PocketChess plays a mean game of chess on the higher difficulty settings, and the touch screen interface works flawlessly, but be prepared to wait a long time for the computer opponent to make its moves. PokerDice is a surprisingly addictive game of chance and choices, and blackjack is a great way to while away the hours on a boring flight. On top of all this, Pocket Express threw in a copy of smallWare's Solitaire Free, which includes three solitaire variants including the ever-popular Klondike.
With this much variety, boredom simply isn't an option, but the Springboard format is a mixed blessing. On the plus side, it offers a convenient way to store several games that would take up more than 500 KB of memory on your Visor if they were installed via a HotSync--a fact that users of the standard Visor with its 2 MB of memory will appreciate. On the other hand, the games are permanently stored on the card, meaning that if new versions come out there's no way to upgrade the version you already have without installing the software directly on your Visor. If you don't care about upgrading or just want to get a good helping of guaranteed fun for a reasonable price, this is an overall great collection of games with universal appeal. --T. Byrl Baker
Pros:
- Comes with a great version of Tetris
- Frees memory on your Visor, since the games stay on the Springboard module
Cons: - Lode Runner is a little weak
- Can't upgrade the installed games with newer versions