There’s life after the PSP, especially when you need to leave it at home for discreet reasons (e.g. girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s cease-and desist order, battery ran out, cat/dog/hamster ate the UMD, and so on).

A Java-enabled mobile phone is all you need, and then some good MIDP games your phone can support. From the vaults of Ozura, I managed to trawl four such games that will fill up your time while your better half is shopping for clothes/gadgets.

 

Siege Craft
Command the battalions and lay siege on the opposing forces! Siege Craft pits the player against the AI in a strategy game that requires good precision instinct. Each side of the battlefield consists of a fortress; the objective of the game is to be the first to bring down the enemy fortress’s gateway to win.

 

Your fortress is made up of three sections; starting from the bottom you have a group of foot-soldiers, a cache of archers, and the Big Gun – the mother of all cannons – at your command.

 

Before each battle starts, you get to pick a section to upgrade. Selecting the cannon or the archers will upgrade their

firepower; selecting the soldiers will increase the strength of their melee attack.

While your archers and soldiers are set to automatically attack your rival, you are given the privilege to fire at will with the cannon. You’ve got to aim the cannon with a couple of running meters; the first one lets you set the cannon’s angle and the next one selects the amount of force needed to fire. Compared to Worms, Siege Craft’s gameplay is a little easier when it comes to landing hits. Remember to take notice of the wind direction at all times to see sparks fly on your target!


Journey To Olympus
“Adonis’ journey through the scorching sun and blistering cold nights finally ends as he catches a ray of light from a cave, at the highest peak of Mount Olympus. As he prepares to meet his future trainer, Argos, a series of howls from the cave causes him to dash forward to the rescue. He finds himself shocked & speechless to find that Argos is actually… a canine!

As surprised as he his, Adonis is determined to train under Argos, no matter how weird it may seem.”

The intro above serves as the game’s basis in Journey To Olympus. There are many instances of comical relief, such as the 100-yard dash is ‘encouraged’ by Argos when it chases poor Adonis to the finish line.

Basically, the game comprises of Olympic events, including pole-vaulting and distance-jumping. There is also a “boost” bonus in each event, allowing Adonis to perform extraordinary feats he normally couldn’t, but this requires you to build up the power meter as you get Adonis moving according to the key prompts displayed onscreen.
Journey To Olympus is a fun game for those sit-and-wait times, especially at the ladies’ shoe outlets.


Come On Baby
Tired of those boring Tamagochi wannabe games where all you see is just a blob of, err, something? Come On Baby might just be the saving grace for this genre, though this might attract more male gamers than female ones…

You’re to assist babelicious babysitter Tiffany in handling and caring for babies in a nursery. Each numeric button corresponds to certain actions, such as preparing the milk bottle, diaper changing, and keeping the baby happy with toys.

At certain intervals, bonus items will pop out suddenly. During this time, you better grab ‘em quick because they’d disappear as quickly as they appear on screen. These items help Tiffany boost her health bar, allowing you more time to grab higher scores.

As you progress, things will get much faster and you’ll end up in hairy situations; e.g. when you were supposed to prepare the milk bottle, you might just end up pressing another action because of the pace that the game is moving at in the advanced levels.

Nevertheless, Come On Baby is a game for those who wanna try out its Tamagochi-like gameplay quality… minus the embarrassment of being caught playing one.

R.A.T.S.
R.A.T.S. is an acronym that stands for “Rodent Assault Tactical Squad”, and you are the rodents in R.A.T.S. whose mission is to infiltrate a restaurant filled with succulent food and grab as many as you can… with the chef and his rolling pin literally on your tail!

The game’s quite like a simplified version of Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution with its combo-stringing, only that you won’t get arrows and music beats to match-and-press the keys.

All you need to do to play is to press ‘5’ when the onscreen prompt tells you to do so. This will make your mouse jump. Pressing it too early or too late will result in your mouse stumbling and the chef gaining up a notch behind it. The best thing to do is to wait for the right moment to press the button, and if you get to string “Perfect” combos, you can be sure your mouse will be safe.

Mission-based games have requirements, such as “Last for 60 seconds”, which you will need to keep your mouse out of under the chef’s rolling pin for a minute. Complete that stage with the said requirement and you’ll get to advance to the next.

Things will start to increase speed in higher levels, so timing and practicing that jump to perfection is the key to outwitting the chef. Good luck, R.A.T.S. agent!