Shine Runner

[Batman8]

Has anyone tried this new game called "Shine Runners" on your Bionic? It's from Vector Unit, the same folks that brought us Riptide GP. The game won't boot up on the Bionic AT ALL!! From screen shots the game looks pretty good but I can't believe that the Bionic can't run it. It doesn't even show up in the Android Market on my phone which usually means that it's not compatible. Even with Chainfire3DPro it won't launch and this is NOT even a Tegra 2 exclusive!

So the magic question now is "Can anyone even get it to run at all on a Bionic?" I'd really like to play it, and I hate having this "beast" of a phone as it's called in many cases (1Ghz, dual-core, 4G LTE, etc.) but can't play simple games that show the requirements as just Android OS 2.2 when we all know that the Bionic is running a higher version than that...WTF!!!!!!!!!

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Batman8]

Nevermind...I just heard back from Vector Unit stating that they found a bug in their Bionic version of the game that they just can't figure out yet...but they are working on it. I thought Vector Unit was actually smart enough not to be "stumped" by the Bionic after seeing games from them like Riptide GP.

 

[Dave12308]

They aren't really "stumped" by the Bionic so much as they haven't been able to figure out what the issue is. Riptide GP doesn't work on the Bionic either, and I have been in contact with the devs about it. They said they will look into it more very shortly, but have been busy working on things (Shine Runner, for example).

We do have to remember that most dev teams don't own every device that exists, so it's often through the feedback of the users that problems are fixed. For my part, I sent a detailed specs list for the Bionic. From talking with one of Vector Unit's people, i've learned that the issue is that the device manufacturers tend to implement OpenGL ES in non-standard ways in their GPU drivers, and in each case Vector Unit must code a workaround. It would be nice if manufacturers would stop doing this, as it defeats the purpose of using a standard API such as OpenGL ES to begin with, and adds to the dreaded "fragmentation" that affects the Android platform.

 

[beerme]

You're not missing out on too much. The game looks impressive and plays smoothly, but it's seriously lacking in content. You get six stages that look very similar and you don't race against anybody. You can't even lose. Between races you buy items low and after races sell them high. You do this for 10 races and that's it. Basically, you try for a high score, but it doesn't really have anything to do with skill as much as it's luck in what items you buy. And again, it gets repetitive quickly.

You can see what I mean here:

[video=youtube;cHVU3ZVcIyg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cHVU3ZVcIyg[/video]

 

[Batman8]

Thanks so much for the reply guys (and especially for the video)...you have actually made me feel a lot better about the fact that my Bionic can't run this title. That, along with the fact that I was able to at least install it on my old Droid-X (Thank God I keep my old phones), and I agree with you 100%. The game looks good but is very simple and repetitive. It just frustrated me when I think about how powerful and advanced our phone is and then see it as the ONLY phone that can't complete simple tasks that other phones can doesn't sit well with me!

I am still going nuts over the fact that my DX is holding 100's more applications and games than my Bionic due to the internal 8GB SDcard partition for storing game data folders (when of course my DX uses an entire 32GB SDcard to hold all of it's game data so it obviously can hold 4 times more info). I'm sick of the "out of space" error I see all the time on my Bionic but NEVER saw on my DX.

I am hopeful that the OTA software update from Motorola will solve the SDcard space problem by at least fixing the "Storage Location being set to SDcard" option in the Bionic's settings and I hope that most, if not all basic Android apps will run in the furture on the Bionic without major difficulties like this one with Shine Runner. I must say, that even with these issues however, I DO still love my Bionic.

 

[Dave12308]

I am sort of tired of hearing people complain about the storage layout of the Bionic without understanding the reasoning behind it.

The storage is layed out like it is to make the Bionic ICS-ready. It is the same layout used by Honeycomb, and it is not the phone's fault that it doesn't play nice with Gingerbread.

If it were not done this way, all of your storage would need to be re-partitioned when ICS releases, meaning that anything you failed to back up would be lost.

The issue in my eyes is that Moto should have disabled installation to SD card until such time as ICS is out.

 

[Batman8]

You're probably right Dave12308, I have heard the same thing from someone saying that the storage structure in the Bionic is that way in order to be ICS compliant, which is fine for the future but in the mean time all I know is that I have to SERIOUSLY pick and choose what 200 or so apps/games fits on my Bionic whereas I have over 835 apps/games on my DX!

Regardless to the reason, it surely does NOT make me feel like this phone is an upgrade when running into space limitations that my previous smart phones (plural) did not have a problem with. I agree that Moto should have disabled the "installation to SD" option until it actually worked properly. At this point I can't freakin wait for ICS so I can finally put back all the huge Gameloft games and other apps that I used to carry on my other Android phones!!

Thanks again for your insight. You make a good point Dave, and I hope this is just an ICS problem that will soon be resolved. Other than my last issue that I've been discussing with Motorola level 3 Tech Support about my mp3 files not playing at all from any of my previous 75 or so playlists, this is a really sweet device that I will enjoy even more when everything is working properly. 4G-LTE for example is outstanding when it's working!