this case, I can’t say that I put Argentum away.

Argentum was released on May 6, it sounded to me as

one of those boring intergalactic mission games that

were merely a copy of Star Trek. I haven’t

had good experiences with Pocket PC games in the past

because they just didn’t catch my attention with graphics

I decided to do a review of Argentum. Not just for

the hell of it, but I actually wanted to give the

game a chance, and surprised I was. Ionside Interactive

must have some topnotch programmers working behind

the desk, because this sure isn’t bad for a first

slogan of Argentum is, "This is War", which

to me seems to be Ionside’s call to other software

companies looking to compete with them.

   It’s not often that you come

across an action game that has smooth frame rates,

and Argentum certainly exhibits this (almost always,

What can I say about the graphics? The different army

men have meticulous detail as far as my own two eyes

tell me. Each man has his own shadow, which adds to

The landscape, which ranges from lava covered mountains

to dirt trails to snow covered lands, is smooth and

textured, although sometimes it may become strenuous

on the eyes when trying to convey whether you are

entering a dip or an elevation. This problem only

occurs in the levels with darker terrain and if the

gamma is low (see screen shots below to see what I

mean). Another positive aspect of the terrain is that

it is non-continuous, so you can always expect something

new as you move along the map (by map I mean the area

Among the most astonishing graphical aspects of this

game are the explosions. They are exceedingly detailed

with red and yellow highlights, instead of just a

short yellow blast found on other action games for

the Pocket PC. Simultaneously, the smoke is just as

real as the explosions are, with towers of black and

gray. Supposedly Argentum automatically turns off

smoke and the number of explosions if resources are

low on your Pocket PC to enhance performance, but

unfortunately this didn’t seem to of help when the

game started skipping during some intense scenes,

The sounds were also very impressive. Via the options

menu on the main screen, the user can turn on or off

sounds and music. The music is appropriate – and kind

of gets you into a "oh yeah…I’m bad"

mood. The sounds, which include explosions, gunfire,

movement, and even speech, are accurate and go along

well with what is happening on the screen. Each different

kind of army man has a different voice, and will say

something basic when you command it to move or attack

The AI (Artificial Intelligence) in Argentum makes

the game even more interactive and real. The enemies

carry a mind of their own, and will destroy your men

if you haven’t premeditated the appropriate tactics.

When sending your soldiers to a certain area on the

map, Argentum chooses the best trajectory, even if

it means going around several turns and moving around

Lastly, I would like to recognize the different navigational

modes in the game. You can navigate the map in three

ways: The multi-directional pad on your Pocket PC,

the tabs on each side and corner of the screen, or

by taping the map in an area you would like to view.

   The program setup was easy and

just took a few clicks. You run the installation program,

it copies some files to a directory on your desktop

system, and then starts up the Add/Remove Programs

applet in ActiveSync. You can save Argentum to main

memory or to a storage card, but your best bet for

performance is to save it to main memory. There are

no other files that go along with Argentum on your

Pocket PC, just the game. If you’re looking for some

help on how to play the game, you’ll have to make

do with the four tutorials found when you go to start

    The purpose of Argentum

is to gather the element Argentum, an element that

is vital for the GEA’s economy (needed to build objects

and train soldiers), and is claimed to be sentient

by the Ni’rikei. The opening statement of the game

After the introduction (which you can turn off in

the options menu, see the options section below for

more on that), you are presented with this screen.

As I will mention later, there are six different slots

of saving space, so you will be presented with a screen

is one of the tutorials I spoke of. It shows you how

After you click past the above tutorials, you’ll find

yourself with the mission objectives. I personally

look past this and await the action of the level,

although I am sure many people would prefer to follow

along in the plot. So as you can see, you, the player

of Argentum, are named Steele. If you read the rest

of the objectives, you probably have a question mark

above your head. Not to worry though, I’ll explain

After you hit "Deploy" on the previous screen,

you will see this loading bar. This will happen each

time you go to play or load a level, and takes a few

After the level is finished loading, you are presented

with this interface. Since there are many different

features and options, I went ahead and numbered each

The

icon represents the amount of Argentum that you have

left. Argentum is needed to build facilities (including

power plants, training facilities, radar centers,

etc.), and the only way to get Argentum is to mine

The

icon represents the amount of power that you have

left. Power is made by generators (which also require

Argentum), and without power, your satellites can’t

operate, and you cannot build any new facilities or

and 4. The

bar is for grouping your soldiers into squads or groups.

When playing Argentum, you will be dealing with sometimes

dozens of men, some are marine specialists, other

are tanks, etc. To group your soldiers, highlight

the men you want to be in one group (by clicking and

dragging the stylus), and press 3, then one of the

This is your map that you will use to navigate the

level: .

As you can see, there are a series of green dots.

The larger ones indicate structures such as satellites

and command centers, while the smaller ones show the

position of any of your soldiers. If any of your structures

are destroyed or your men are killed, these green

dots turn red. This map will go out of signal if you

a) lose power b) do not have a satellite or c) have

The level can also be navigated with this map by clicking

and dragging the yellow box, or by clicking anywhere

on the map. As you move through the level, more of

it gets "exposed", so the level will seem

tiny at first, but as your men move along, it will

This area will display information about your

soldiers, including their status (idle, moving, locked

on enemy or attacking), amount of energy, speed, and

building capacities. Again, more on all of this to

is self explanatory. Click here to enter the in-game

menu, which I will explain further in the "Options"

Click

that we have established the functions of each item

OK. This is how the game starts out. The four little

grayish-white things that you see are called ITBA’s,

as you can see from the information box in the lower

right portion of the screen. This box also displays,

as mentioned above, the soldier’s energy, status and

speed, and because ITBA’s are the only soldiers who

can mine Argentum, also displayed is how much it has

mined. ITBA’s are also the only soldiers that can

build structures. As you can see from the image, this

ITBA can only build two structures, Barracks and Power

Plants. Later in the game you’ll be able to build

several more structures. In order to view information

about a specific structure, single tap on the structure’s

icon and you’ll see something similar to the image

on the above right. As you can see, the Barracks require

800 Argentum and will consume 50 power, so if you

are short of either, the game will let you know with

The only way you can create ITBA’s is through the

command center, which is the blue thing you see above.

Single tapping on it will display information about

the command center, seen above. To build an ITBA,

double tap on the little picture of it, and your command

center will begin to build it. The above right picture

is illustrating two things. First, you see that when

multiple ITBA’s are being built (and this goes for

training facilities that pump out soldiers), they

are placed in the "Building" tray in the

bottom right corner. The white bar under the first

one shows the progress of the ITBA being built, which

takes a few seconds. The second is that I have established

a rally point by single tapping the command center,

then double tapping a part of the terrain. A rally

point is where the freshly produced ITBA’s will congregate

There are a few things I would like to call attention

to here. First, you notice a green bar above the barracks.

This line can be found over ANY structure or soldier,

including those of your enemies, and indicates how

much energy is left in that particular item. Energy

is lowered when the structure or soldier is attacked,

so usually when you approach an enemy, the bar will

drop until the item explodes. Secondly, you notice

that we have no power. Why do we have no power? Well,

take a look at the power indicator in the upper right

corner. We need a power plant! Select one of your

ITBA’s and double tap on the power plant icon. And

lastly, we have no signal on our map. Why do we have

no signal? We need a radar! But wait, some simple

scrolling around the map (using the directional pad,

yellow square on map, or tapping the edge of the screen)

reveals that we do indeed have a radar, it’s just

not working. So build that power plant, or even a

There. We built a few power plants and have the radar

back up and running. But what’s this? We are out of

Argentum? Where is the Argentum? Good question. The

only way to find Argentum is to have someone explore

the map. It actually took me a while to find out where

the Argentum reserves were, (they are found in different

locations on each level). To have your ITBA’s move,

tap and slide your stylus to select the ones you want

to use. Then, double tap the area on the map where

you want your soldier, or in this case, ITBA to go.

As the ITBA moves along the terrain, more area will

*Note that when you select an ITBA or soldier, you

can have them do one of two things: 1. Move to the

location on the level where you double tapped 2. Attack

an enemy by tapping the enemy. This works great, especially

Ah, here is the Argentum. To have your ITBA’s mine

the Argentum, select your ITBA, then double tap the

pile of Argentum (above left). After that, just leave

it alone (above right), and it will continually mine

the Argentum, bringing it back to your command center

automatically. It may be smart to have several ITBA’s

doing this so that you have an adequate supply of

Later in the game, you have more weapons available

to you. What you’re seeing right now are my preparations

for a strike against the enemy, who is located somewhere

in the north west. The selected item, the ground factory

(on the left), is similar to the Barracks in that

it "trains", or produces soldiers. The things

found in the top of the above (left) screenshot are

Laser Turrets, which are stationary fighters. I have

placed several here, as well as around my command

center (above right), to protect my base from enemy

intrusions, which you will experience. As you

can also see, I have three power plants here, as well

as three in other places. *Notice the red triangle

with the exclamation point in it, found on the bottom

of the screen. Double tapping this will blow up that

you progress through the game, your weapon choices

    Argentum is significantly

lacking in the help area. The four tutorials that

you are presented with on mission one are not sufficient

to satisfy. This game has many options and different

functions, which is great, but there should be some

decent tutorials to explain how to carry out your

    The game gives you a good

As you can see, you can adjust a few graphical aspects

of the game, although I would leave all graphic effects

on, since they add a lot to the game. You can also

adjust gamma, in case you are playing in non-optimal

lighting conditions, which is a unique feature of

The sound and music can be turned off. I prefer to

You can select for Argentum NOT to show the intro,

which is a time saver, because the intro is a little

lengthy. And if you don’t feel like double tapping

the map to command your units to move or attack, select

Argentum really excels in its in-game option menu.

When you save a game, you can save it in one of six

slots (above right), each of which is accompanied

Another nice feature found in the in-game options

menu is hibernate, which lets Argentum shut down,

but reopen just where you left off, avoiding having

    Versions for MIPS and

ARM processors are available, and Argentum supports

Pocket PC 2000 and 2002. I couldn’t find any system

requirements on the Argentum website, but I would

recommend having a good amount of program memory free

when using this unless you want a strobe effect during

    Where to start? Although

the positives of this game seem to almost outweigh

the negative, I am still left with a sense of dissatisfaction.

Starting with sound, I am very pleased with the array

of sounds and their accuracy, but the quality is shabby.

Even with headphones, the sounds and music sound like

a bad recording, or an mp3 encoded in a low bitrate,

Several times during my game play on my iPAQ 3650,

I experience some freezes, some hesitations, and many

choppy movements of the landscape when I scrolled

around. What were the reasons for this? I’m not entirely

sure, since I had my program memory high and no other

applications open. Perhaps it was because I like to

use many soldiers to take out the enemy. Even during

some action scenes where my soldiers were fighting

the enemy, the game became choppy, which makes me

wonder, "Where is the ‘automatic performance

I would like to see some more tutorials in Argentum.

The four that you are presented with when you start

mission one are not adequate, especially if you don’t

have time to experiment with the game and would just

like to play the damn thing. Perhaps Ionside could

enclose an html file explaining what each graphic

Well, now that I have the major issues aside, let’s

tone it down a bit to a few little things that I think

could be improved upon. First off, although the amount

of people you can assign to a group is unlimited,

you are only able to view the first fourteen in your

information box, so if you have 20 soldiers in a group,

forget about seeing the last six. (Perhaps a scrolling

If you assign a destination to a group of soldiers

and something is impeding their passage (such as other

soldiers or structures), you have to move them one

by one and regroup them. The AI fails here… why

not just go around the obstacle? Well, every soldier

in that group is trying to move around the obstacle,

The terrain can also tend to be a bit confusing in

some places, as I mentioned in an above section. Depending

on the lighting conditions, you can’t exactly tell

if your entering a precipice (of which your soldiers

cannot enter), or an elevation, but perhaps this is

    Argentum, as stated above,

is available for both MIPS and ARM processors. The

cost is $20.00 and can be purchased at Monkeystone

Games. Want to try before you buy? Download the

Argentum

   Well, if you read my introduction,

you know that I have high standards when it comes

to games. My attention is quickly lost from cheesy

games that have nothing to show for themselves. I

can’t say that I had that experience with Argentum.

Although I wish I hadn’t spent a good forty minutes

learning the game, I am glad I did, because it made

me truly appreciate the months of programming and

design that were invested in this game. My advice

to you is to just play the game, and you’ll pick it

I had a lot to say in the "Bugs and Wishes"

section, which is because I am critical, as you know

by now. I believe that this game is revolutionary

in the AI it brings to the Pocket PC, as well as the

smooth landscapes and motivating storyline that makes

you want to keep fighting the Ni’rikei. Every game

has room for improvement, especially if it is the

first from a new company in this vast market of Pocket

PC games. I’ll be honest…if this is the first

game that Ionside has ever produced, I CAN’T WAIT