Blackberry Smartphone Video Games
Free Mobile Entertainment from Research in Motion's Handheld Devices
Research In Motion's Blackberry smartphones have become ubiquitous devices among business professionals. Unlike other mobile devices, the Blackberry provides instant access to incoming e-mail through "push" technology.
To some, just is just a glorified pager. But there's more to the device: there are video games.
Included with every Blackberry is Brickbreaker, a casual game where the scroll wheel moves a paddle along the bottom of the screen to bounce a black ball off bricks. The object is to destroy the bricks to move on to the next level.
Each level brings more bricks though some useful power ups, like the ability to shoot lasers or missiles from the paddle.
And developers have created more, including some free offerings.
Classic Arcade Games on the Blackberry
There's a wide variety of games available for the Blackberry, but the most common seem to be ports of classic arcade games: Pac-Man, Space Invader, and several variations of Tetris.
Adding to the variety are some stranger offerings, like a Blackberry version of the Legend of Zelda and a somewhat buggy Nintendo Entertainment System emulator, which tricks the Blackberry into thinking it's an NES.
These can all be found on Blackberry forum Pinstack's download section.
Dope Wars
Also available on Pinstack is Dope Wars, another casual game originally created for the Palm Pilot.
Dope Wars is appropriate from the business crowd since the object is the make as much money as possible by buying low and selling high.
It's highly inappropriate though, since the product being pushed is illegal narcotics.
Still, with a very basic text interface, someone would have to be looking directly over your shoulder to know what kind of virtual transactions were really going on.
Perhaps Dope Wars is the real reason they call it a Crackberry.
BPlay Download Portal
Although there's a decent selection of free Blackberry games available, there's even for those willing to shell out a few bucks.
Mobile entertainment company Magmic Games runs Bplay - a download portal for Blackberry multimedia which has more than 800,000 subscribers.
They offer even more variety from additional classic arcade games like Frogger, to board games, card games, platform games and even a Blackberry port of Call of Duty.
And of course, Sudoku.
Most of the downloads cost between $7.99 and $8.99.
Making Blackberry Addiction Even Worse
RIM's mobile gadget is so addictive that it's earned the title of Crackberry. And that addiction stems mostly from e-mail usage.
Fill up the Blackberry with a dozen or so games and it's probably even more dangerous than before.
