If I see one more freaking card game for Windows CE, I am afraid I might go postal! While I am the first to admit that I have spent countless mind-numbing hours playing solitaire and that card games are a natural fit for stylus based operating systems, I need more. As a hardcore gamer, I crave-better yet, demand-action, adventure, and entertainment on my Windows CE device. I expect the same level of complexity, full environments, and performance as I see on my desktop computer. And, what's more, I expect it to fit in just a few megabytes of disk space. Sound like an impossible task? Well, I'm proud to say that it can be achieved. A few enterprising gaming companies have released some incredible games for Windows CE and deserve a standing ovation for their troubles.

For children of all ages
First and foremost, welcome Hasbro! In what is, by far, the most advanced and perfectly suited commercial line of products to reach our fortunate platform, Hasbro Interactive has ported their line of popular home games to Windows CE. Now you can enjoy Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, and Slingo wherever you may be, and whenever you desire a challenging and fun diversion to bring back your childhood.

Monopoly is my favorite of all of the Hasbro games. This classic property trading game benefits from Windows CE's graphic interface by even making the "begin game" menu look as if you've just opened the box and could begin pulling out the pieces. And speaking of pieces, players can select which playing piece should represent them. The top hat, thimble, and racecar are among the ten pieces you can assign to human and computer players. Audible feedback, such as the race car's horn or the dog's bark, lets you know whose turn it is while rolling dice; a cash register's "cha-ching" sounds make the game routines entertaining as well.

While Monopoly is intuitive to play, Hasbro's Scrabble offers a slightly more complex and quizzical interface (And yes, I'm trying to use bigger words because they're worth more points). You can do entertaining functions, such as shuffling your tiles to suit your mind set, or using the Scrabble Dictionary to check whether "google" really is a word. The game will tell you what each word is worth before you play it and even offers hints if you get stuck. My only complaint about this game (besides the difficult to use menu system) is that it does not cover your letters when you pass the device to the other player, providing the opportunity to see another player's tiles.

Trivial Pursuit is another natural for the handheld device. At installation, you have the opportunity to load up to eleven question databases that contain 2,000 questions and answers, which are as up-to-date as how many homeruns Sammy Sosa hit in the 1998 season. Plus the game gives you the capability to download even more, if Hasbro chooses to make them available. This electronic version also offers a new iteration of the game called "Point Pursuit," in which the objective of this "one man against the clock" game is to obtain the most points while trying to answer 20 questions, then betting it all on a final Wild Card question.

And finally, Slingo, Hasbro's odd coupling of slot machines and bingo, offers a quick and enjoyable game of number matching for tic-tac-toe style point earnings. Offering five different game styles including classic, mixed matrix, duel, giant, and super squares slingo, with separate high score boards for each, will keep Slingo players entertained for countless hours.

Monopoly, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit support up to four human players, while Slingo offers entertainment for up to two people. And, if you prefer artificial intelligence challenges, Monopoly and Scrabble allow you to play against computer players. Each game takes approximately 1MB of storage space, but varies depending on whether you install color or black and white versions. The bad news for our color Palmsize PC users is that color versions of Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit are not yet available for the PPC platform. However, Scrabble and Slingo have PPC color support, despite the fact that the box does not mention it. Hasbro Interactive has also announced plans to bring Risk, Battleship, Boggle, Yahtzee, and Parker Brothers Classic card games to the CE platform as well.

-Dan Hanttula

Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and Slingo
US$30 (each)
Hasbro Interactive