Robot Alliance
Galaxy on Fire
Heli Strike
Anyone who is both a fan of mobile gaming and a longterm follower of the gaming world in general must have been struck a little by a sense of deja vu over the past couple of years. Almost exactly a decade after console gaming went through the 3D revolution, we began to see a few 3D titles trickle through the release schedules and onto our mobiles. However, things have only got really interesting fairly recently.
The first 3D games generally fell into two camps, the 'tech demo' or the '3D dealbreaker'. The tech demos were those where a game had been shoehorned into a 3D experiment. A good example of this type is Rollerbot, a game released in late 2004. Whilst it boasted full three dimensional environments and free movement, it was never going to sell by the barrel. The 3D dealbreaker is the opposite, where an existing 2D game has been butchered in order to make it into a 3D one. If you've played a disappointing 3D game in the past couple of years, it was probably one of these.
It is a good job that Fishlabs came along in 2005 to try and raise the bar otherwise we might have forever been mired in useless 3D ports rather than the top quality titles that can be found such as Glu's Project Gotham 3D and Gameloft's Brothers in Arms. However, whilst Fishlabs may lack these ultra high-end licenses that are guaranteed to have oodles of copies flying off virtual shelves, they are still coming up with the goods today. Before we look into their current catalogue, though, maybe we should have a little stroll down memory lane and look at their past two years.
Burning Tires
Blades and Magic
Moving on Up
You’re probably wondering right now what has caused this little article if we’re only going to mildly criticize Fishlab’s games. Most long-term mobile gamers will probably already know the answer, but for the uninitiated it can be summed up in three little words: Galaxy on Fire.
This game managed a feat that has only been completed sucessfully on the PC, a much more likely platform. That is, Galaxy of Fire managed to create a whole galaxy of planets to visit, where the player was free to trade, fight or just cruise to their heart's content. An Elite impersonater to a certain extent, the game proves the true scope of the Abyss engine, and indeed the thing it does best: the wildly ambitious.
Thankfully, around this time Fishlabs also got into the groove with more standard mobile 3D fare. Probably still the best futuristic Wipeout-style racer available, Planet Riders is a hyper-shiny slick game and Heli Strike features the solidity of the traditional arcade shooter wrapped around a gorgeous 3D play world.
Of course, after the huge critical acclaim that Galaxy on Fire received, Fishlabs would have been foolish not to follow up on the victory. Thankfully, Deep was recently released. Instead of flying about in space, you find youself scooting about the bottom of the ocean, but this game still features a gargantuan, cohesive gameworld. It even manages to plug-in the gaps in the presentation that, whilst they weren't noticeable first time around, makes the interface of Galaxy on Fire look a little like a top-notch fan project by comparison. Other than basic trade, you also get to fish all the weird sorts of creatures that roam about the darkest deeps.
Asphalt 3 3D
4 Wheel Xtreme
Way back in February 2005, we got our first glimpses into Fishlabs' intentions. A couple of months later, the Abyss engine was announced, which is the little work of genius behind all of the Lab's full 3D games.
Admittedly, the first wave of games certainly had its share of faults. Robot Alliance was a great first-person shooter hiding behind a barricade of tricky controls and Motoraver's controls were even worse. The game somehow made driving a car about as comfortable as giving birth, and Cloud Commander was flat out not that great. However, while these games are easy to criticise, they are positively drenched in passion and conviction.
Why Sink into the Abyss?
Okay, so far we've looked a little at some of the Abyss engine's star contenders, but there are a few more reasons why this little bit of technology is a little bit special. The main one is its sheer compatibility. You could easily make the mistake of thinking that many of the Fishlabs titles were symbian games, yet they all work perfectly on the majority of current J2ME (Java enabled phones). Part of this is down to sheer hard work on Fishlabs' part. Unlike most developers who use dozens and dozens of game versions for different handsets, the Fishlabs games only require a handful of versions for compatibility across over a hundred handsets.
This in itself it pretty extraordinary, but having personally played hundreds of games over the past few years, I feel I can say that Fishlabs games outperform the majority of comparably splangly-looking 3D titles on lower end handsets. That's not to say that if your handset still tells war stories on the weekends it won't chug along like the ancient phone it is, but for anyone with a K700 or above, you can look forward to highly impressive framerates.
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