Fifa Football 2005

EA Sports and Digital Bridges have teamed up to bring FIFA 2005 to mobile gamers everywhere and as if there's not enough football around us all the time now we can play it on the move. I'm a huge footie fan and I've often bought FIFA games for consoles so I was intrigued to see what they could do with it on a small screen with far less buttons to use comfortably.
There are plenty of options on this game. you get to choose whether you want to play in a Friendly, a tournament, Training or a Shoot Out. I opted for training at first to get to grips with the keys and I found
them ok but not great. At times it can be rather cumbersome trying to reach the right button however there's very little they could do to overcome this as there are so many variants in the main FIFA game that narrowing it down at all must have been difficult enough. Basically you can control your player with the usual directional buttons (2 for up, 8 for down etc etc) or dependent on mobile phone you will be able to use
your directional pad. The problem really comes in with having to shoot and pass which obviously is an essential aspect of any football game!
It takes a little while to get used to the keys and also to how much you should hold down the power bar etc when shooting but with time and practice this does get easier.Within the other options there is plenty to keep the gamer interested. In Tournament mode you can choose your starting line up (with all real players names included), state your formation and strategy and basically do most of the things you can in the bigger version of this game. There are a wealth of teams to choose from for both yourself and your opposition and in Friendlies you can enjoy getting to grips with how to best kick your opponents ass in the tournament. In the shooting section you can play penalties against the AI and this again is good practice although to be fair at times its a little hit and miss whether the keeper will save them.
Overall this is a brilliant title for any football fan but it does take a little bit of time to master. It is a pretty good attempt at bringing FIFA 2005 to mobile gaming and most football fans are going to enjoy it. Don't go expecting it to be a replacement for FIFA on other platforms, it isn't but it definitely is a fine game to play on the move.

2 Fast 2 Furious

So you love cars, you love talking about cars, you love movies about cars, especially if they’re modded to the hilt and go faster than is sensible, well ok then, you already know what 2 Fast 2 Furious is all about. You guide a funky looking car to victory and in doing so win cash. With this cash you can add to your car, vamp it up so it’s a little bit better than your enemies and then hopefully kick their butts with it at the next race. The graphics are sharp and the car detailing is very well done, the backgrounds look a little like a mobile version of Outrun and the most irritating part of the game is the screeching that the cars make as they go flying around corners. A nice little addition to this game is that you can post your scores to the network and therefore share your moments of glory or shame with others who have the game. It’s a good touch for a mobile game and truly makes it feel interactive. The controls are fairly easy to use and provided you don’t go crashing into anything you can make good progress in this game. If you like racing and want to have it on the go this is certainly worth a look.

Android First Example: Hello World

Android First Example: Hello World
G.Morreale

Introduction:

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.
More details link: http://code.google.com/intl/it/android/documentation.html

The Android SDK contains API necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.
In this article I point out the steps for making the hello world example and running it in the emulator.

The Steps:

In order to write the example follow these steps

* The Android SDK


o Download the sdk (select your developing platform) http://code.google.com/intl/it/android/download_list.html

o Extract it into your hard drive directory


* Java Code


o Make a new java project
o set in the project class path android.jar (you can find it in sdk zip file)
o make a new java class into Hello.java
o copy this source code in Hello.java:


//package name must be composed of at least two java identifiers
package my.android;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class Hello extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
//Make a new text view passing Activity object
TextView tv = new TextView(this);
//Set a text into view
tv.setText("Hello World");
//set the view into activity view container
setContentView(tv);
}
}


o compile Hello.java code


* Build and install The apps


o In tools sdk directory you can find activitycreator.bat, launch it by passing the complete package name and class name:

activitycreator -o c:\android my.android.Hello


o The script prepare the android application putting it into c:\android directory


o Now you need ant tools in order to build the android application

Download it from: http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi


o Go in c:\android directory
o Launch: "ant -f build.xml" command

(note: if you go in "Unable to locate tools.jar" error you must set correctly jdk classpath.)

you'll be left with a file named Hello-debug.apk under the 'bin' directory

o Go again in tools sdk directory.

Now you can use adb command in order to install the apk file into android emulator


o First launch the emulator (if you don't adb command fails)

(note: in order to launch emulator you must execute the emulator.exe command in sdk tools directory.)


o Then launch the follow command: adb install c:\android\bin\hello-debug.apk


* Run The example


o Close the emulator
o Re-launch the emulator


o Click on the arrow in the bottom of the screen so you open the application list, now you can