PocketMatrix

Well, someone had to do it and since no one has given the specifics as to why DoomPDA may or may not suck, I took it on myself to chase the story. And what a sorry story it is!

Let's start on a positive note: it has a real purdy box; it almost leads you to believe you're going to get a real professional product. But it's a misleading box. On the front it says Pocket PC Devices and a big DOOM title; on the back, in teeny-tiny print, it says ARM processors only. WTF! I can't use my overclocked Casio 125! Okay, so I've got an Ipaq 36xx, but it's got that button problem we all know about and a sucky layout for Doom. Next in the misinformation department: The back of the box says 8mb storage memory required; the also-purdy insert card says 10mb storage required; when you install, the program says the correct 14mb required! Also, the insert card says you can select your installation directory and using the default Main Memory is recommended. Oh yeah! 14mb of my 32mb just for Doom? I think not! So I select the Storage Card and installation completes apparently perfectly.

Nooooooo Wayyyy. There is an empty DoomPDa directory on the storage card. DoomPDA has merrily gone and installed itself where it wanted to all along- in main memory! Being an ornery bastard, I try to transfer everything to the storage card with appropriate short-cuts. Doesn't work. Apparently, they have hard-coded into Doom.exe the destination of Doom1.wad as /Program Files/DoomPDA and nothing will change that! Interestingly, when you try to do something DoomPDA doesn't like, you get a 'Windoom Fatal Error', which gives you an idea what they used as source code.

Now I decide to read the pdf file enclosed on the DoomPDA cdrom. Not so fast Dave, it's corrupted- can't be read by Adobe Reader 3,4, or 5!

Okay, well at least I can sit down and play some Doom. Not for long! It all works as it was meant to, but IMHO that's pretty limited. There appears to be no way to assign buttons. Strafing is only available by touching double-arrow icons with your stylus- that doesn't work at all at higher difficulty levels; you've just got to be able to assign a strafe button. There's no Run button or option. You can call up the keyboard and press Shift to run, but the keyboard blocks the virtual keys and if you get rid of the keyboard, running turns off! By the way, there is no ability to run custom Wads; this is vanilla Doom1. On top of all this, the Ipaq just sucks as a Doom PDa anyway. I quit!

So what have we here: all of the above vs. Jimmy Doom which can be used on mips (the Casio E125 and EM500 make better Doom PDAs); has a button for strafe (in Jimmy's first version); allows placement on the storage card (and runs just fine their even with the relatively slow Casio E-115); plays Doom 1&2 and custom Wads; and is free. I can only conjecture what Rob was creating, but I bet it was better than this DoomPDa um-er....port.

But all is not lost! I get a tremendous idea. I burn a copy of Jimmy Doom onto a CD-R and place it in the purdy box- I didn't blow $20 after all!

ROB YOU'VE GOT TO HELP US!!!!

What i find even funnier is that on the official site ([url]DoomPDA.com[/url]), the game hasn't actually been released yet. They state that its "Almost ready to go!" and also mention specific features for the downloadable version. It would appear that they released an unfinished version, just for the sakes of releasing it in retail stores and making money quicker. That seems pretty stupid, especially considering that very few PPC games are available in retail stores, and this just serves as a bad example of the quality of PPC games to the first-time buyer.

Never mind, i know for a FACT that better things are coming to PPC...

LOL! It won't even install to a storage card? What's the point? Most people don't have 14 TOTAL MB's free, let alone 14 MB's JUST for STORAGE of a SINGLE game!

Let's not forget that Jimmy's Doom supports Final Doom wads TNT and Plutonia I think it is called, and Ultimate Doom which includes the fourth episode. The new collection of Doom that includes all of the above plus Doom2 goes for $20. The cost of DoomPDA. What is wrong with this picture? Spend $20 bucks on DoomPDA for a piece of junk program that is incomplete I guess according to their website or buy the collection of Doom (120+ levels I would guesstimate) and play them on Jimmy Doom. Also I did have some luck playing Doom2 custom wads on my iPAQ. I know people have had problems playing custom wads but I must be lucky because I have some that will work with Doom2. I know I have a lot of doom1 wads that won't work though. Good review. Sorry you had to go through all of that trouble though to warn the rest of us of how bad it is. I didn't think it was going to be that pathetic!!! What a loser company.

Holy Cow. That is so pitiful its almost like they created a list of "top 100 things you can do to mess up a game", and then included every single one into their port.

So id Software never bothered to check this out before it hit retail? Gee, sounds to me like a free-for-all if they don't care enough about this classic.

ARM only? that had to be a typo. Of course the only PPCs sold in stores now are ARM, but alot of us still shop there and have Mips/SH3. The excuse that it REQUIRES ARM, and only runs in portrait mode is.....?

[url]DoomPDA.com[/url] Although i wish you good luck in finding any support information. It only gives a minor bit of general information on DoomPDA, and even that relates to the forthcoming version that's "about to be released". In fact, seeing as they're both entirely different games, you'd probably find better support information on DoomPDA on [url]RocketElite.com[/url]!!

Thanks, but I've known about the DoomPDA website since it came out almost 3 months ago. They invite you to send an email for info, but they never respond. But I guess there's a lot of homework in sixth grade - just isn't time to get to those damn emails.