The RMS Titanic is possibly the most famous ocean cruiser in history, not for what it did, but for what it failed to do. This unsinkable ship struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, filling with water and sinking before ever reaching America.

On 10 April 1912, the Titanic commenced her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York, with 2,227 passengers and crew aboard. At 11:40 p.m. on the night of 14 April, traveling at a speed of 20.5 knots, she struck an iceberg on her starboard bow. At 2:20 a.m. she sank, approximately 13.5 miles east-southeast of the position from which her distress call was transmitted. Lost at sea were 1,522 people, including passengers and crew. The 705 survivors, afloat in the ship’s twenty lifeboats, were rescued within hours by the Cunard Liner, Carpathia.

The wreck of the Titanic was located by a French and American team on 1 September 1985 in 12,500 feet (3,810 m) of water about 350 miles (531 km) southeast of Newfoundland, Canada. A 1986 expedition documented the shipwreck more thoroughly.

– The Smithsonian

Since that time, the Titanic has become a vast graveyard,filled with relics, stories, and treasures. This is where we join the story. On Wednesday, September 19, Astraware Software, along with Big Fish Games, will bring you a new game for your Pocket PC, Hidden Expedition: Titanic, which is based upon the Big Fish PC game of the same name.

The Titanic is now submerged miles below the surface of the Atlantic. Inside it are dozens of buried treasures and relics. As the dive team member, you must complete various diving missions, explore the various rooms contained in the decayed ship, and return to the surface with the treasures you have been assigned to find. Sounds easy enough. Let’s take a closer look.

Installation and Registration: Installation occurs by the usual means. Simply download the desktop installer (careful, at 26 MB, it is no small file). Once you have downloaded the file to your desktop, install it via ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center (or the Palm OS equivalent) and you are on your way. Feel free to check out Titanic for a total of ten games. Any more than that and you will have to purchase the game to unlock all of the mysteries of the Titanic.

Overview and Gameplay:The unsinkable Titanic has sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic. With it, hundreds, and even thousands, of relics and treasures have been lost forever. Of course, this gave rise to a whole new industry: pillaging the Titanic and claiming its treasure as your own.

You are a member of a dive team seeking to unearth the hidden treasures buried deep within the Titanic. Each level begins with a map of the ship, highlighting the rooms you must search during that dive. In the earlier levels, you will search only two rooms per dive. In later levels, however, you will be required to search three or more rooms. As you search, make sure to watch your oxygen levels. You will only have a limited amount of oxygen for each dive, and when it is gone…its gone. Run out of oxygen and you will be forced to start that dive again.

When you enter a room, you will find it overflowing with treasures and relics of items from a time gone by. At the bottom of the screen is a list of the treasures you must find. Each time you find a treasure on your list, a floater will be attached to it, which will carry it back to the surface. Of course, there are many more items in the room than are on your list, so make sure to watch your list carefully. As you progress to the higher levels, your the items will become more difficult to find.

One nice feature I found, was that the list changes with each attempt on a room. Although the items in the room will not move, you may be seeking a different list of items after a failed attempt, which means you cannot just memorize the list and try again.

Once you have found all of the items in each room on your dive, you will be required to complete a bonus room in order to progress to the next level. Make sure you leave enough oxygen so you don’t run out before completing the bonus puzzle.

Special Objects: There are two special objects which can help you as you progress through the game. First, on each dive, you will find up to five gems in each room. Any gems you find are yours to keep, and will significantly increase your score. Additionally, in many dives, you may also find a hidden oxygen tank. Locate the oxygen tank and you will gain an additional three minutes of oxygen to help you find the treasure and complete the dive.

Hints and Penalties: One strategy in this game might be just tapping all over the screen until you stumble upon a correct answer. Sure, this might work, but it also will not come without a penalty. Each incorrect screen tap will result in a loss of seven seconds worth of oxygen. So be careful, while a few wrong guesses might not seem to hurt that much, too many erroneous attempts could result in a significant loss of oxygen, which you will almost certainly need later on in the dive.

Of course, in addition to making mistakes as you go along, you may also just find yourself at a complete loss. There is always that last item, which remains completely hidden, despite all of your best efforts. For these occurrences, there is the hint button. Tap the hint button and one of your remaining items will be revealed to you. Again, however, this does not come without a penalty. Each time you request a hint, you will lose 90 seconds of oxygen. This can be a pretty hefty hit on your oxygen tanks. Then again, if you would otherwise have spent five minutes hunting for that last item or items, then this could very well be worth the cost.

Graphics: In a game like this, the graphics are extremely important. As the objects get smaller and better hidden in the rooms, the most intricate detail can be critical to your ability to succeed in the game. If the graphics are poorly drawn, you would be unable to locate and identify the hidden items. In other words, the game would be virtually unplayable. Thankfully, the graphics in Titanic were exceptional. Once you had located an item, it was easy to identify it from the list. Of course, as the levels progressed, locating the items became significantly more difficult.

Because of the significant detail involved in locating, for example, a thimble in a cluttered ballroom, this game really does much better with a VGA screen. Although I was able to play and enjoy it on my Mogul with a QVGA, screen, the graphics would be significantly richer; and gameplay significantly more enjoyable on a VGA screen

Saving: Frequent readers know that a good save option is one of the most important features for me in any game. Titanic has one of the easiest save features I have seen. Simply stop playing and exit the game. The next time you start, you will be given the choice of resuming the game or starting a new one. If you quit in the middle of a dive, then selecting resume will place you exactly where you left off. If you were in between dives, or if you ran out of oxygen in the middle of a dive to end your game, then you will start at the beginning of that dive. You can have up to six games ongoing at one time by creating six different users in the game. To switch between saved games, just select change user.

Conclusion: My only real complaint about this game is that it is the latest in a growing line of overly addictive programs from Astraware. If you look at the last couple of games they have published: Titanic, Solitaire, Tradewinds 2, and Hammer Heads, all I can say is that it is really causing significant problems with the battery on my device…not to mention my social life. So, Astraware, my wife and family implore you to please consider publishing a boring game with terrible graphics for a change (just this once). A game which would not be completely engrossing from the first second I start playing, so I can stop hunting for imaginary treasure and get back to playing imaginary Power Rangers with my boys. For those of you with considerably more free time than I do, however, you will definitely want to check out Titanic. Just be forewarned that you might quickly find yourself canceling actual social engagements to continue exploring the depths of the Titanic on your device.

Vital Stats

Name: Hidden Expedition: Titanic

Developer: Astraware

Where to Purchase: Astraware

Test Platform: Windows Mobile 6

Also Available: Windows Mobile 5, Palm OS

Technorati Tags: astraware, big fish games, titanic, windows mobile, palm os, just another mobile monday, jamm

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