Before the takeover of smartphones, touch screens and micro-transactions, I bought my first mobile phone. With a number pad! At a time when I spent all my money on a Playstation 3, this mobile phone had to pull double duty as my sole portable gaming device. I started this review to talk about a few of my favourite JAVA games but I ended up going deep down the JAVA rabbit-hole to find a few classics that were essentially lost with Android and iOS takeover.
If you have an old mobile phone, this may be the perfect way to start using that device again. Let’s see how small some of our favorite gaming franchises got.
The library of JAVA games is incredibly extensive. Because mobile devices have always been so varied, I was limited to games that were playable on my device. There’s a lot of JAVA 3D titles designed to look like console graphics. but I decided not to cover any of them here.
Worms
For anyone wanting to dive into JAVA games themselves, I still recommend checking out some of the Worms games. Familiar mechanics that work well scaled down and you’ll know exactly what to expect. As you branch away from the main series, you’ll discover games like Worms Golf and even Worms Forts 3D. When you start exploring the broader JAVA library, it becomes really easy to appreciate the consistent style and quality of the Worms games and each one has been a miniature blast to play with plenty of replay value.
Call of Duty
What franchise was massive and current in 2007? Call of Duty. And it got its own series of JAVA Games. Very much like its console counterparts, they were mostly generic shooters done well. In the case of JAVA, we got an overhead, run-and-gun style game. The games themselves are fine but it did leave me questioning “why?”
A lot of JAVA games were likely developed to help promote triple-A console releases or movies.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons: Minutes to Meltdown is a very impressive looking game. Combining an isometric view with a bright, distinctive animation style. This game was incredibly smooth and I was surprised by how addictive it was. Running around the Simpsons house and Springfield left me with a really good feeling. There’s a lot of references and in-jokes around the cartoon series. Up until the final stage in the Nuclear Power Plant, I really enjoyed the experience. The final stage felt very plain and labyrinth-like. Compared to the bright and colourful Springfield, it was underwhelming.
The biggest problem with the game is actually highlighted by the title, Minutes to Meltdown. You need to finish the game within a set time limit (30 minutes), which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But after finishing it within 15 – 20 minutes, you probably won’t be coming back. TechCrunch reports this game was available for between $6.99 – $7.49, in a time with STEAM sales and .99c apps it seems insane (and it really wasn’t great value then either). But JAVA was considered the budget alternative beside the portable systems, like the PSP and DS.
If you’re keen for a decent exploration of Springfield, especially one from 1997, Check out the PC and Macintosh game Virtual Springfield.
Resident Evil
In the video, I spend a lot of time on the horror-franchises; Resident Evil, Silent Hill and House of the Dead. Truthfully, I was blown away by how much attention they received in JAVA, especially when it came to Resident Evil.
Resident Evil Genesis
I was initially writing a very quick review where I could check out a few JAVA titles but games like Resident Evil Genesis and Uprising were crafted with a lot of care and attention to detail… And started to go against everything I assumed about JAVA Mobile games. Genesis takes the plot of the first Resident Evil title whereas Uprising follows Resident Evil 2, each game was totally rebuilt with the limitations of JAVA in mind. Even though they lose some of the horror, the survival and adventure aspect is still deeply embedded and it’s still amazing how long and story driven they could make a JAVA title. Quirky puzzles, monstrous bosses and a race to unravel the depth of Umbrella’s corruption.
Resident Evil Uprising
I also wanted to check out Resident Evil Confidential Mission. There were 4 of them released on JAVA and took the isometric views from Resident Evil Genesis and Uprising to form a turn-based strategy game based off the characters, events and enemies from the RE universe. It works for the platform. Even though moving one small square at a time is tedious, the room maps were small and it was easy to get sucked into the adventure. The style worked really well on the small screen where you don’t always have the chance to act quickly.
House of the Dead
Searching some of my favourite Sega franchises for JAVA, House of the Dead was no surprise. The franchise has seen its fair share of spin-offs, like Zombie Revenge, Typing of the Dead and Pinball of the Dead. I was curious how they’d handle their classic zombie shooting game on JAVA. Sega managed to stay true to the arcade nature of the franchise with a run-and-gun game. Your job is to focus on shooting the zombies and monsters. The character moves himself forward through an amazing miniature recreation of Curien Mansion as you pick up new weapons and upgrades. They even managed to cram in the bosses and enemies seen in the first House of the Dead game.
As mentioned, I don’t use my smartphone for gaming. Operating System’s like Android have emulators available, as well as entire libraries of Sega and Nintendo classics, but without physical buttons and lasting battery life, they’re not ideal for gaming. Moving into the more recent games available on both the iOS and Android phones, they’re smooth, console-quality and flashy but they’re usually burdened with advertising or they have been perfectly refined to be addictive. I am not excited by the way mobile gaming has evolved, but looking at JAVA titles, I’m surprised by how similar it’s always been.
Worms Forts 3D
If you wanted to start looking into JAVA yourself, unfortunately, your modern phone probably won’t support it. A lot of the footage was captured using an emulator called Kemulator and there’s some pretty extensive JAVA libraries out there… But be aware, JAVA files can be potentially dangerous and it’s been incredibly hard getting information on how reliable some of the websites, JAVA files and games were.