Argentum (Ag). It's more than a game. It's more than an RTS game. It's more than a Pocket PC game. It is, I would argue, the first commercial grade entertainment title for the Pocket PC. Now, before you get you knickers in a bunch over that statement, allow me to explain how, like all the commercial titles for the PC, Argentum fits the bill. Let's look at the lifecycle of Ag to-date:

THE HYPE: Oh, and there was plenty of it. There's been talk of Ag for over a year. There have been claims of greatness, revolutionary graphics and superb AI. All the makings of a super-hype engine were in place from day one.

INTERNET BUZZ (Part I): Following the hype, there is always the keyboard-warrior-flame-o-rama on the internet. Every great game has it, in fact the more anticipated the title, the more bad things people say.

PRODUCTION DELAYS: Anyone who has ever been involved in the development cycle knows it can't be avoided, and the pitfalls of early announcement just serve to promote awareness of delays. This is not unexpected. Pick a title and you will see delays; Quake, Sim City 2000, Unreal, Mech Warrior 2, et al.

INTERNET BUZZ (Part II): Delay the release of your game, and you are guaranteed the wrath of forum-users and chatters. I've done it, you've done it. From threats to boycott the game to general flaming, it's gonna happen.

THE RELEASE: Then, there is the day of the release. We all run out to get it, cutting class or calling in sick. We install it, play it, and God willing, we love it. All is forgiven.

Of course, we all know that the lifecycle of production does not mean anything about the quality of a game. Graphics, sound, music, and game play are all integral parts of the equation. Its not too difficult to judge 'good' art and audio, but there is that extra thing, that attention to detail and final polish that adds life to a title, and makes us all want to go out and spend our hard earned money on it.

That's Argentum. No matter what you expected, good or ill, you WILL be impressed. No matter how long you waited, it was worth it. I am playing Ag on an operating system (PPC2002) that didn't even exist the first time I heard of Argentum back in 2001, but it doesn't matter. I didn't even have high hopes, but I was blown away. Everything about this game SCREAMS high quality, commercial grade, PC game-period.

This is one area where Argentum diverges, for the better, from the world of PC games. This isn't some PC to Pocket PC concept-port, this is a game designed from the ground up to be played in the palm of your hand.

PPC's don't have keyboards, at least not out of the box. This may seem a statement of the obvious, but it does put a gamer in an odd position, since most modern games have so many keyboard shortcuts. For RTS gamers, assigning groups is a major advantage in strategy, and AG does a great job at providing a simple and easily accessible method for setting and selecting groups.

Finally, there is the boss-key. This is something often left out of modern PC games, but in the PPC world it is near required to be able to minimize a game. Again, Argentum comes through, providing a hibernate option. Saving and loading games is easy enough, and Ag even has thumbnails on saved games to make life a bit easier.

The terrain in Argentum is as detailed as it is varied. From lava to snow, there is no shortage of unique maps. The detail in the terrain adds to the quality of the game in a very big way.

The units are pretty detailed, though small. I can't complain too much considering the small screen it is played on, and they are certainly detailed enough to be able to recognize the differences between them at a glance. Shadows add to the quality of some units, while little things, like jets turning on and off during movement really show off the quality of the game.

Buildings are well done in Argentum. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are on par with the best isometric view PC games in the genre.

Now comes the good part. Sure the units and buildings are pretty. But when the action heats up, the graphics do too. The explosions are spectacular (especially when you wipe out a building), and the shots and rockets are pretty cool looking.

In general, the interface, menus and other miscellaneous graphics are polished. The main menu has fade in graphics and animations. It may seem like a small thing, but it just shows the attention to detail that marks a great game.

The sound effects are pretty good, the music is too, or at least that is what I thought. Then, due to pressure, I decided to plug in my headphones because the noise was annoying everyone around me. If you have headphones or speakers to plug into your PPC, do it before you play. You will be pleasantly surprised to find that the quality of the audio was not sacrificed for the platform. The explosions are great, and the sounds of fire coming from your units are impressive. Notably present are the screams of soldiers getting smoked on the battlefield. This is a big thing for me, I remember laughing to myself when I first played C&C and heard a machine gunner screaming when he got whacked. Maybe it's just me... As a final note on the subject, I thought it was a nice little feature that the buildings make noise when you click on them, again, its all in the details.

Ah, the music. Well, it's no Snails, but its good. The quality is as good as the effects, but it does get repetitive. There are very few games that I play with the music turned on. I usually turn it off without even giving it a listen. Argentum is no exception. I left it on for about 5 minutes, and then shut it off, never to hear it again.

The game itself will seem familiar to RTS fans. You, as commander, must deploy troops, build buildings, mine resources and research new technology. All to eventually claim victory in an ongoing war. Resource management comes in the form of Argentum, the required ingredient in building new stuff. ITBA's are used to mine Argentum, but serve the dual purpose of being used to deploy new buildings. The method of deploying new buildings may seem like a small matter, but so many games get it wrong. Argentum does not. The game lets you put a building wherever you can get an ITBA to go, not limiting you to placing building within a certain radius of your base.

Single player in an RTS, on the PC anyway, is a thing of the past. But, on the PPC, the technology is just not there yet, so we all have to deal with it. Argentum follows the genre line in this regard, providing the player with expected mission types. Obviously, there are the typical 'destroy the enemy base' missions. Beyond this, there are also 'defend the base' missions and 'mercenary' missions (where you start with a few units and wait for reinforcements).

Also, in following with modern RTS games, Ag has mid-mission changes in orders. Level 5 is a great example of this; you start off thinking it will be a simple destroy the enemy scenario, only to be quickly overrun and told that you need to defend your base for 5 minutes while you wait to be evacuated.

The enemy AI is pretty good in Argentum. There is nothing worse than an RTS title with an enemy that is predictable, especially when it is obviously passive or aggressive. The enemies in AG tend more toward aggressive, and will attack, often, without provocation. They do tend to have a common staging area, but will adapt to a situation where their staging area is overrun. The bad guys do tend to use overwhelming force to attack; so simple base defences are not always sufficient. Argentum challenges the player and requires more than a simple attrition based mentality to win.

The path finding can be weak at times. Some units have a difficult time moving around other units, and from time to time, units will move to unusual ways to engage the enemy. Argentum has a unique feature called 'trajectories' available. This feature will show a constantly updating line to show the path the unit will follow to reach its destination. However, even this feature does not make up for what can be a more than annoying problem.

There are quite a few unit types in Argentum, leading to what I call the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" affect. The best RTS games have units that compliment each other. For instance, a tank is great to destroy a turret, but a bunch of soldiers with machine guns can take out a tank because the tank has such a long time between shots. Ag provides ground and air units, rocket and gun units, and heavy and light vehicles. This variety guarantees the player a chance to use real strategy to win or lose the game.

There are so many things about Argentum to like, that it is difficult to complain at all. Yeah, the music was less than spectacular, but it was ok, and I could switch it off. Sure, there were times I wanted to scream because an ITBA got stuck trying to bring Argentum back to my base, or because a tank got left behind, but I can't say it never happened in any other game. The thing is, after playing for so many hours that my eyes wouldn't focus on anything more than a foot away, I didn't notice any shortcomings. The raw playability of the game kept me riveted. The graphics and sound convinced me to plug in the speakers from my desktop, and the number of missions and difficulty of the game kept me playing for hours.

Good games come and go, great games set the bar for future titles in their genre. In the end, I think we will see that Argentum sets a new bar for RTS titles on the Pocket PC.