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New Games From Handmark
December 16, 2004
Full Hand Casino
Full Hand Casino serves up a lot of fun for the gambler on your list, with Blackjack, a Slot Machine, and Video Poker. You start the game by creating a profile, selecting a character portrait and entering your name. The graphics are nice but not outstanding; there is no fullscreen support in this version. The games themselves play very well, and there are nice touches, such as an automatic count in Blackjack. You can bet anywhere from $1 to $1000, but be careful— if you lose all of your “money” you’ll have to start over. There’s only one $50 credit available; after that you’ll have to start a new profile. Full Hand Casino is available now for all Palm OS devices.
PocketGoddess Rating for Full Hand Casino: 
Lemonade Tycoon
This is a great game for anyone interested in simulations— Lemonade Tycoon puts you in the main role as a small business owner. Buy supplies, choose your location, purchase advertising, purchase equipment, and perfect your lemonade recipe in a quest to make lots of virtual money. You’ll get daily weather reports that help you set the pricing for your fresh beverage— if it’s hot, you can get away with chargin quite a premium and demand will still be high. If it’s cold, you’ll have to lower the price substantially or your customers will complain and stop buying your lemonade. I’ll freely admit to wasting hours playing this game, testing recipes, seeing what I can do to attract more customers and make more money. Lemonade Tycoon is not the fanciest game graphically speaking, but the visuals are entirely appropriate and sometimes quite entertaining. Get Lemonade Tycoon if you’ve ever fantasized about being a small business owner, or for older kids/teens who need a little help understanding the value of a dollar. Lemonade Tycoon is available for Palm OS devices for $14.99 and for Pocket PC handhelds for $19.99.
PocketGoddess Rating for Lemonade Tycoon: 
The Emperor’s Mahjong
Mahjong is one of my favorite games, because it combines strategy and quick thinking and doesn’t devolve into a mindless “button masher” at any time. There are several different incarnations on handheld platforms, some better than others. This one is better in some ways than several I’ve played, except for one noticeable problem— the graphics are rather sub-par, and I felt after playing for about 20 minutes that my eyes were slowly being pulled out of my head. They’re just a bit blurry on my Tapwave Zodiac, though on a low-res device I think the graphics would be more acceptable. One help is the nice blinking effect when you select a tile, enabling you to clearly see what you’ve selected so you can then choose your match. And if you’re not quite sure whether or not a tile is available, tap on it anyway. If you were wrong and it isn’t free, it won’t blink, making things a little easier to control. The bottom of the screen shows the time elapsed (or serves as a timer at some points), the percentage of the game completed, and a help menu.
What I do like about this incarnation of Mahjong, The Emperor’s Mahjong from Jamdat Mobile, is that they’be added some fun extras that really take the game beyond the basics. The game is based on profiles, meaning that you can let your kids or spouse play the game and not lose any of your settings. Once you start a profile you can play one or two player games, or you can try the Emperor’s Challenge, which is a series of tests. The first is to remove 100 tiles within three minutes, and if you’re successful you get a portion of a word puzzle. And the time you play, as well as your win/loss percentages and rank are all tracked within your profile. It’s a nice touch that really adds to the game. You can get a copy from the Handmark web site for Palm OS or Pocket PC handhelds for $14.99.
PocketGoddess Rating for The Emperor’s Mahjong: 
Meriam-Webster Crossword Challenge
This is a good one for people who like word puzzles. I wasn’t quite sure how good a crossword puzzle could be in a handheld format, but I was pleasantly surprised. There are three levels of difficulty, Easy/Medium/Hard, and once you start a new puzzle you can just tap on a series of blanks to get the clue. Entering your answer is as simple as using the Graffiti area on your device; the game automatically advances to the next square as you fill in each one. And playing the electronic version of a crossword puzzle gives you a built-in ability to cheat— the game will fill in up to five different squares for you. If you don’t need to actually cheat, but need a little help now and then, you can choose to check up to ten of your answers to find out whether or not they’re right. There’s even a built-in eraser, which is far superior to the problem you’ll face when filling in a traditional newspaper crossword puzzle with a pen! If you give up, you can even see the solution and see exactly which words you filled in correctly, thanks to the color coding on the screen. Hundreds of puzzles are included for plenty of word game challenges. You can get it for $14.99 for Palm OS devices.
PocketGoddess Rating for Meriam-Webster Crossword Challenge:
Tennis Addict
I haven’t played a lot of sports games on my Tapwave Zodiac, but one that I’ll probably be playing a bit more is Tennis Addict— that name is right on the money! Choose from four different player profiles that have different strengths and skills relating to stamina, speed, forehand precision, forehand strength, backhand precision, and backhand strength and start either an exhibition game or an entire tournament. The controls are simple and intuitive; just tap on the area your player needs to go in order to hit the ball back to the opponent. You’ll have to wait a bit to anticipate where the ball will go, but don’t wait too long or your player won’t possibly be able to make it there in time. The graphics are pretty good, not great, on my Tapwave Zodiac, but the gameplay is addicting enough that I don’t really mind. Palm OS and Pocket PC versions are available for $14.99 each at the Handmark online store.
PocketGoddess Rating for Tennis Addict:
