War in the Pocket

I've just wasted quite a bit of time (and cellphone battery charge) playing a nice Java game called Ancient Empires on my phone. The game's a fantasy themed turn-based strategy war game, with you commanding knights, archers, mages and supernatural units against the armies of your evil arch-enemy and brother. The graphics and gameplay bring to mind gameboy titles like Advance Wars, with split screen animations showing the armies (well, groups of up to five units) attacking and/or getting eliminated. There's a nice amount of depth in the game, with various terrain having an effect on your units' movement and combat strength, and the ability to manufacture new units with gold you collect from occupied towns being a vital part of winning in prolonged campaigns.
Another fun little game I've downloaded and installed in my phone is DOAX. Yep, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball! Okay, it's the mini-pocket version, 2-D and with itsy-bitsy SD sprites instead of sexy 3-D DOA girls, but what can you expect? At least the volleyball gameplay's actually fun, and there are several DOAX artworks thrown in to give it all a nice mood. The game's supposedly by Tecmo, but that can't be... can it?

It's really amazing to see how far games in mobile phones has come from simple Snake and Alien Scum. Who knows what may be possible in a year or two? Mobile Tekken? Cellphone Final Fantasy? It's exciting to imagine what.

Had a lot of fun, but I'd better take care not to get too addicted... I might end up eating up all my battery power... and time... taking on the portable forces of evil.