Pocket Express Entertainment Pack Springboard Module

by Pocket Express

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000050G08
• Item model number: 3
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 18, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

With so many free entertainment titles available for Visors it's hard to imagine spending this much money on a collection of simple games. That said, there are a few gems in the bunch that will make the Pocket Express Entertainment Pack a welcome addition to your Springboard module collection.

The biggest draw here is Tetris Classic, which plays surprisingly well on the Visor. The falling shapes are easily positioned and rotated using the buttons on the bottom of the device, and we were racking up high scores in no time. The other featured game in this pack, Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, is nowhere near as fun. Maneuvering the impossibly tiny man around the screen is tedious, and you have to advance through several levels before things get interesting at all.

We were much more impressed with the PocketChess, PokerDice, and blackjack games. PocketChess plays a mean game of chess on the higher difficulty settings, and the touch screen interface works flawlessly, but be prepared to wait a long time for the computer opponent to make its moves. PokerDice is a surprisingly addictive game of chance and choices, and blackjack is a great way to while away the hours on a boring flight. On top of all this, Pocket Express threw in a copy of smallWare's Solitaire Free, which includes three solitaire variants including the ever-popular Klondike.

With this much variety, boredom simply isn't an option, but the Springboard format is a mixed blessing. On the plus side, it offers a convenient way to store several games that would take up more than 500 KB of memory on your Visor if they were installed via a HotSync--a fact that users of the standard Visor with its 2 MB of memory will appreciate. On the other hand, the games are permanently stored on the card, meaning that if new versions come out there's no way to upgrade the version you already have without installing the software directly on your Visor. If you don't care about upgrading or just want to get a good helping of guaranteed fun for a reasonable price, this is an overall great collection of games with universal appeal. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Comes with a great version of Tetris
• Frees memory on your Visor, since the games stay on the Springboard module

Cons:

• Lode Runner is a little weak
• Can't upgrade the installed games with newer versions

Product Description

Item number 27581-45, Grading is cover/record: EX using Goldmine standards. 198?,UK,green flexidisc Please see seller profile for abbreviation descriptions.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Tetris and a good clutch of other games, February 22, 2001

By 

Alan Williams (Milwaukee, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pocket Express Entertainment Pack Springboard Module (Office Product)

I like playing games on my Handspring, but I don't like the space many of them eat up. Enter pocketExpress with a good collection of games that take up *no memory* and are quite fun.

Ok, so they take up a *tiny* bit of memory for saved prefrences and such, but much *much* less than if you were to load all of these games (or even *one* of these games) into your PDA.

The Tetris game is perfect. Solitare has a good interface and is clean. Load Runner brought back memories of my first Mac!

Poker Dice and BlackJack are well done versions of classics games as well.

Installing them is a snap. Pop the module in and there they are. Take the module out, and they are gone. Simple.

This "Game Boy" concept should be exploited by more companies. I have seen a few other game modules, but nice bundles like this are pretty cool. I could easily see an Arcade bundle, a Casino bundule, a Word Games bundle, etc.

A nice little companion to your Visor.

(This is also an *excellent* solution for those who bought a 2mb Visor!)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great way to spend some time, February 3, 2001

By 

Alex Putnam (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pocket Express Entertainment Pack Springboard Module (Office Product)

If you are willing to spend the money, this is a great module! The games themselves appear through a select screen when you put the module in, and the launcher and the other programs appear. When you are done, it only saves your settings and last games played, (and in the case of Lode Runner, extra level sets.) So at most, it leaves 10k on your Visor. If you were to buy any one of the programs seperately (except for 2, which are free) it would cost $15. Installing all of these programs instead of buying the Springboard would take at least 750k. Not so good if you have a Graphite 2mb. Visor/Visor solo. Lode Runner is my favorite, and includes a level editor. It's great for those long road trips.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tetris was the only good game..., May 3, 2001

By 

B. Hoeflng "rambopreacher" (Norwalk, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pocket Express Entertainment Pack Springboard Module (Office Product)

All the games can be found elsewhere on teh internet as shareware, and freely downloadable. The cartridge is read only and therefore you can't "upgrade" the older versions of the games with newer ones.

For the price, I had assumed that the versions of hte programs I was getting were the full blown packages that cna be purchased online. Except for Tetris, I was dissapointed.