Gizmondo: Hands-on verdict

April 4th, 2005, 14:19 Posted By: wraggster

Finally, after months of waiting and attending lavish, celeb-packed launch parties for a machine we only half believed existed, we've finally got Gizmondo in our hands.

So, what can you expect to glean from the handheld should you find yourself in the rare position of being able to find one for sale? What do you get for your £229?

The machine itself is surprisingly small. We were expecting a much bigger, heftier unit, but this is unexpectedly diminutive and fits snugly between your palms. It's much nicer to hold than DS, for instance.

It's quite sturdy too. Before leaving us with the gadget, the Gizmondo PR gent showcased this by bashing it hard against our desk. This is not something we've had the confidence to try since, but you'd feel safe carrying this about, which is more than can be said for the delicate-feeling PSP.

The other noticeable exterior feature is its camera. So, when you tire of playing games you can entertain yourself by taking low-quality pictures of your surroundings with its a 0.3 megapixel camera.

We're told the camera will one day affect gameplay, where looking around in first-person shooters or steering a car is achieved by tilting the device, although none of the games we tested featured this ability.

Which brings us conveniently to Gizmondo's main reason for existing - the games.

We tested a mixture of early and full versions of the Gizmondo line-up and, based on this, it's clear Gizmondo has a long way to go before it can be considered a device capable of challenging PSP or DS.

The first game we booted up was Colors. According to the Gizmondo team, Colors is the handheld's killer app, its triple-A title, its Halo. This is apparently the game everyone will want. So, what better way to begin our evaluation?

Ultimately, it reminds us of GTA San Andreas but without anything to do or anywhere to go. It's quite rubbish.

On the demo version we played, you start the game in the middle of the street, with a couple of guns.

Walking forwards reveals a man who we can only presume is a pimp, as he immediately launched into tedious and obvious banter about prostitutes before setting us up for our 'mission'.

We then wondered the baron cityscape, noticing the flat, box-like cars that not only look the same but are devoid of wheels. We then shot someone. It took a clip and a half before they fell over, and not once did the character attempt to run away.

A high point was when we encountered the big, grey wall that signifies both the end of the world and the moment when the programmers gave up and went to the pub. And let's not forget the subway with the massive step at the bottom that you can't climb back out of...

Reeling from the experience of playing Colors, we bravely moved on to the Fathammer classics collection, containing Angelfish, Super Drop Mania and Stunt Car Extreme.

Angelfish is a 2D top-down shooting game, which, while being simple and much like games from the mid '80s that have since been bettered, pleased us by working correctly as a game should, unlike 'killer app' Colors.

Super Drop Mania is probably the game we've played most in our time with Gizmondo, thanks to it being genuinely addictive. You're tasked with grouping coloured blocks before making them vanish by way of special flashing blocks of the same colour. Simple, fun and quite polished too.

Unfortunately the quality soon dropped again with Stunt Car Extreme. This is a simple racing game requiring the player to do laps while, every so often, steering into and over ramps of varying heights and styles. It's a bit shoddy and looks like one of the first 3D games to ever be invented.

Next up was a 45% complete version of Richard Burns Rally. While it's far too early to judge the game at this stage, it's hard to see it being good. This is going up against Ridge Racer for PSP, yet looks like a budget PC racing game running in software mode.

Becoming visibly drained from this Gizmondo ordeal, we played puzzle-racer Trailblazer. This game is not so much about the skill of negotiating the track, as it is patiently failing at the game's levels over and over again until you've formed a mental map of its obstacles, which becomes really tiresome.

Finally, we had a Sega Classics pack, featuring versions of Altered Beast, Super Shinobi, Sonic, Outrun and Golden Axe, which were all made by real game developers and all worked just the same as they ever have, making them by far the best games on Gizmondo.

In all honesty the disappointing truth is that, currently, Gizmondo is definitely not worth the cash. It can play movies (which is does OK, although PSP's screen does this much better) and music, and has GPS functionality that no one in this office managed to get working - but all the extras don't save it.

It needs games. Decent games that rival those found on other systems. Not games that you can't quit out of without taking the battery out of the machine, or that don't allow you to adjust the volume in-game.

It's all such a shame; such a waste. We don't want to write Gizmondo off completely - we'd like to see the good ideas come to fruition. But from what we've seen thus far we are massively underwhelmed. Its games are a mess - limited in scope and imagination and delivering virtually no modern-day appeal.

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