WapReview

ArchBattle has released a mobile web client for their massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The game, which has been around for several years and seems quite popular is entirely browser based. It's ad-supported and is free to play. Their is a paid "supporter" option at $3.95/month that lets you customize your avatar but doesn't confer any competitive advantages in the game world.

To succeed in ArchBattle you need to manage your empire's resources of gold, workers and soldiers wisely to ward off attackers and increase your strength, wealth and population. Once you have a big enough army you can go on the offense and attack other empires to quickly increase your wealth and strength. You can also join guilds to share resources and interact with other users through the forums and ShoutBox.

The mobile version of ArchBattle packages all the features of the desktop one into a compact package. Everything you need to play is available in the mobile edition including registration and online help.

The appearance and responsive game play of mobile ArchBattle is impressive and shows how far mobile browser based games have come from the days of hangman wWAP games. Playing ArchBattle does not require a particularly sophisticated handset either. The game uses JavaScript but is playable without it. Page sizes are under 50 KB, which even many feature phone browsers should be able to handle. Everything works and looks good in the early version of the Nokia WebKit based browser on my Nokia N95. ArchBattle is also usable with Opera Mini 4.2 or 5, although horizontal scrolling is necessary with screen sizes less than 320px wide with the Opera browsers.