Alpha Wing 3D takes off on advanced BREW MSM chipset

We don't like to dwell on the technical details here at Pocket Gamer. Perhaps that's why we can't work our video, let alone our Freeview digibox thingie, and instead spend our evenings sipping Chablis and watching gently flickering cine movies.

So we don't bang on much about J2ME and BREW. From HAL in 2001 to Star Wars T.I.E Fighters, acronyms are rarely harbingers of joy, and that's true of those mobile phone programming methods too.

You see Alpha Wing, a long-running mobile space shooter from Glu Mobile, has just gone 3D for its third installment. And as you can see from the screens, it all looks very snazzy – the previous versions have been a delight gameplay wise too.

A cause for celebration, then? Not yet, if you're based here in Europe, as Alpha Wing 3D will only work on BREW handsets, which are not yet available from European operators.

Here we tend to have Java handsets, which use the latest version of the Java programming technology, J2ME.

Java is an open standard, which means – theoretically – games written for J2ME should work on any Java-equipped phone. But most mobile gamers know that isn't the case: there's just too much variation in the different handsets, which means numerous versions of the game need to be made and delivered specifically for different phones.

In contrast, BREW is owned by one company, Qualcomm – sort of like Microsoft's Windows to Java's Linux. The advantage is Qualcomm designs the chips mobile operators put in their BREW handsets. It's what's known as a 'native platform'.

This means BREW games often run better, since BREW game programmers know exactly what the chip can do, and the code can run directly on those chips, rather than running on top of the hardware as with Java. Also, there's more compatibility between BREW handsets.

Needless to say (unless we've been even more confusing than we fear) BREW games don't work on J2ME handsets, and vice versa. So games publishers have to deliberately decide to spend time and money rewriting their games for the alternative platform, reducing the chances they'll do so.

As for any European version of Alpha Wing 3D, it would be most likely to be created for Symbian phones. Watch this space.

And incidentally, if you do think you've seen Alpha Wing 3D in Europe, that was yet another version, a 'pseudo 3D' one made for the snazzier J2ME phones. The backgrounds appeared to be 3D, but the game itself was still a 2D shooter, if that makes sense.

Here endeth Friday's science lesson. Next week: Latin and double maths.