Military Madness (Nectaris) Mobile Review

[Blaine]

I had a pleasent surprise while browsing the Strategy game section - it's our good friend Nectaris!



In case you're new to the land of gamesx (and gamesx related sites), Nectaris - or as it's called stateside, Military Madness - is thought rather highly of by many members of this site. It's a turn based, hex map, strategy game with an ever so slight sci-fi twist. Think of the great granddad of Advance Wars and you're getting close.

If you're really interested in learning more about the history of the game, go for it, but I'm just going to focus on this incarnation of the title.

I use a Motorola e815, which is in the same family as the ubiquitous Razor - although my phone eschews asthetic slim-i-tude for the wonderful ability to not drop calls and suck (In case you didn't know this as well, the Razor is junk... they were going to stop making it before it became absurdly popular.). The Verizon website has a list of cellphones this title will run on, so odds are if you have a Verizon phone, you can play it.

A quick $5 added to my monthly bill and I was presented with the delightful Hudsonsoft bee. I love that bee.

For a brief moment, I felt slightly less ripped off by US cellphone companies... since our Asian, and European, freinds have been enjoying such quality games for years.

The graphics are very similar to the original PC Engine version:




It's also very reminicent of the Windows port of the game.

The view is zoomed in quite a bit, a very good decision, since it is a turn based game the pan and scan camera action isn't a big deal. However, I do see how it might be a little harder for newcomers who might lose track of a unit far off the screen.

Battles aren't animated, explosions are still present as well as the end of round stat screen.

In Nectaris tradition, all the classic maps are present and accounted for. The only tweak I wasn't expecting is the removal of the password feature. So you can't just jump to ICARUS from the word go. You have to work your way through it.

Controls aren't really an issue, again turn based, but for what it's worth the 1 button interface works really well.

The music is classic Nectaris, although it does have a very clear start and stop to the musical loop that I didn't think was impossible to fix.

Unlike some of the other ports I've bought for my cellphone (like Taiko Drum Master), Nectaris is just like playing on  your home console.

I've never purchased any of the higher end "Vcast" games, since most of them require airtime to play - which I think is stupid on principle, so I can't do much comparison to other Verizon games. But all Hudson had to do was NOT screw up the port - they just had to do their damnedest to not make the game suck - and they'd produce one of the top titles available. I think they did just that.

So while it might not be as impressive to show your friends as Orcs and Elves or some of the 3D games - It also costs about half of what you'd spend on some of those 'higher end' titles.

When the chips are down, you're on "purse watch" and your girlfriend is on a shopping spree, you've never had a better friend than Military Madness.

[NFG]

Very nice, thanks for the review.

I had this game for my phone in Japan, and I found it tended to bog down, with very slow UI response, on larger maps.  Ever notice that on yours?

[Blaine]

So far, I haven't really noticed. There's a fractional pause when you scroll the screen, but it seems to be present on all maps.

Odds are it's the same basic game, but they may have made some adjustments in localization (and phone technology might be a little better).

[NFG]

Reviving a hugely old thread...

I can't find this game to download or purchase for my phone, and I really want it.  It's one of the few I'd actually consider purchasing, if only I could get it somewhere!

I still have the archived files for my Japanese phone, but since I've let the phone number lapse I can no longer use them, even on the same phone, and of course the .jar.huf files won't install on my current phone.

<sigh>

I bought the game once and can't play it anymore, I want to buy it again and cannot.  How annoying to want to spend money, and be denied!