Aminoid X

Reviewed on: 20/08/04
Reviewed with: Nokia 7650
Developed by Microjocs

Hypothetically speaking, what would happen if you crossed Moon Patrol with Metroid?
The result would most likely be a futuristic vehicle armed with hi-tech weapons that can maneuver on an alien planet and eventually climb walls. But there wouldn't be a need for such machine unless there was some reason, would there?

In Microjocs' game, Aiminoid X, there definitely is a major reason: The year is 3902. In times of war a team is sent to a planet known as "Aminoid X" to render the enemy defence system useless. However the mission is sabotaged and the crew members fall into the enemy's hands. The humans send a spaceship which launches a state of the art armed military vehicle, the HX300, on the planet which should get to the prisoners and bring them to the teleport so they can be sent back to the mother ship. And guess who gets to pilot that vehicle... right - it's you!

When the game starts you find yourself in the HX300 descending towards Aminoid X on asteroids. You must make your way down to the planet by hopping from one asteroid to another. In the beginning your vehicle can do only the basic stuff like maneuver left and right and fire it's primary gun which is a machine gun, but later in the game you will be able to add different types guns, one more powerful than the other. Each one is unique: - Magma: a series of orange magma balls. These look like the projectiles from the machine gun but are bigger and more effective.
- Plasma: these look very much like the magma balls but have blue color to them. they split on collision in several directions making them even more effective. The coolest gadget you can get however is a metal sphere that will hover next to you and shoot as you do. Not only can you change your current gun but you can change its too. As opposed to you it doesn't lose it's current gun when you pick up a new one, but instead ads it next to it's arsenal thus getting even more powerful. The available expansions for the metal sphere are
- Missile: shoots off auto-aiming missiles
- Blue magma: directs a blast wave in all four directions
- Purple sphere: three purple balls rotating in circle that act sort as shield
- Mini gun: sprays projectiles all over the place

Collecting more of the current gun will make the projectile size bigger. You can switch the current gun of the metal sphere with the numpad. You can navigate either with the directional key or with the numpad. You can also do short jumps which will help you overcome pits and get on platforms. One very important upgrade that you will find in the game is an upgrade gives your vechacle the ability to climb walls, craw upside-down on ceilings and stick to platforms.

The enemy is aware of your arrival and it will use everything it has to stop you from accomplishing your mission. You will face creeping robots, automatic guns mounted on walls spraying bullets, flying missiles and tactically deployed mines. But if you thought that once you pass them you're done, you're wrong as three massive end-level bosses will make your mission anything else but a walk in the park! But I don't want to spoil the fun and will leave this for you to find out on your own.
After you pass the first level you get limited lives. Lose them and you have to start the game from the beginning. You can regain back energy by picking up medi-kits. Eventually you will find an extra life to pick up. When you finally reach the prisoners you have to pick them up and bring them to the teleport.
Once you finish the task, you head back to the mother ship, but beware - someone is awaiting you...

The game draws your attention from the start on.
It has probably one of the best looking menus for a J2ME game. You can clearly see that the programmers have put in that extra effort. The menu has a rather futuristic graphical design with some animation, which makes you retain the game feeling, as opposed to other games that just rely on the phone's standard text menus, which one should wonder why they still use them in games. The navigation is very intuitive and the menu is very responsive.
The graphics use wisely chosen colors and the tiles have fine details. The gradient backgrounds and the parallax effect also add up to the game feeling.
You will however get somewhat disappointed from the sound. There aren't many sound effects and they are only simple tone sounds. It's typical for J2ME games that the sounds get the least attention because it takes up precious space which can be used for other things and to make porting easier but given the fact that there's is only Series 60 version of the game, they should have sacrificed few more kilobytes for sampled sounds. After all the file size isn't that huge for an S60 game. Kudos for the intro music though.

Nevertheless the game speed is smooth and the game itself is responsive. However what makes this game stand out from the others is it's original gameplay and level design. The levels look carefully designed and tuned. There's nice variations of game elements so it doesn't get boring.
The end-level bosses are great addition. They are tough to fight and very tricky. The final boss is pretty colossal and will really make you sweat.

To sum things up:
Pros:
- original gameplay
- catchy graphics and menu
- end-level bosses

Cons:
- very little sound effects, sound is limited to beeps and bops
- the only supported platform is the Nokia Series 60

The bottom line is - this is very good title which definitely won't let you disappointed. It guarantees for several hours long gameplay. Even if you're not fan of the genre, you might want to give it a try.