Over on All About N-Gage, there's a special editorial on how N-Gage could potentially become a very large gaming platform indeed but not while it's left out of compatible phones' firmware. How many people will actually bother installing the N-Gage app if it doesn't come built into the phone?
The developer site Forum Nokia has published the official detailed technical specifications for the recently-announced Nokia 5320 XpressMusic smartphone. It's a Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP2 device with a QVGA screen, 369mhz processor and a rather generous 85MB of free RAM. As mentioned before, the main standout features are dedicated music and gaming keys, 24 hours music playback, N-Gage compatibility, a dedicated audio chip and a low launch price (220 euros plus taxes).
Now that all the beta-testing games have been re-released, we can look forward to completely new titles on the N-Gage platform. But which one are you most looking forward to? Click here to let us know in our latest survey...
Tetris from Electronic Arts and Block Breaker Deluxe from Gameloft are now available to download via the N-Gage client showroom. The name Tetris will be familiar to most game players, but you can still check out the specifics in our review of the N-Gage implementation of the game. We're not sure the masses will be rushing to download this one, especially with the likes of S-Tris available for free. Block Breaker Deluxe might be a better bet - it is a Breakout clone which was the first new N-Gage game we reviewed.
Returning to an old theme but with fresh eyes, Ewan approves of the new strategies for marketing N-Gage, worries a little over the FIFA 08 giveaway and then suggests a different N-Gage giveaway of his own.
Opening at 1800 GMT (so 7pm UK Summer time, 11am US West Coast) is the first official System Rush tournament. Organised by the N-Gage Arena Team, there are Arena Points (NGP) on offer. Register online in the first 15 mintues, and make sure to bring up the chat room at the top of the N-Gage forums as you race each other. Good luck!
Yes, it's that time in the month. PDA Essentials magazine is out, issue 74, this time with a two page feature on N-Gage, a two-page tutorial on location tagging your photos on the N95, plus a review of the Sony Ericsson W960i as part of an iPhone killers group test. Good reading, as usual!
Over on our sister site All About N-Gage, Ewan has reviewed FIFA 08, pronouncing it great for both novices and footie fanatics, praising the crisp graphics and training touches in particular. The only downside was thought to be the lack of multi-player options. (Tzer2 adds: Most of Europe can still get FIFA08 for N-Gage absolutely free from Nokia's N-Gage Play website.)
Nokia just announced a new S60 music and gaming focussed smartphone, the 5320 XpressMusic. There's a new 'Say and Play' feature (voice-controlled music playback), up to 24 hours of playback time (almost double that of the N95 8GB), a dedicated audio playback chip and USB2 transfer speeds for loading music on in the first place. Some thoughts, PR details and images below.
AAS Insight 21 (aka AAS podcast 70) sees Rafe and Ewan chatting at length about Nokia's Q1 results, Orange Partner Camp (Rafe was there) and the rise and rise of N-Gage, looking at FIFA 08 and Space Impact: Kappa Base. Ewan apparently reckons Rafe 'waffles' a bit in this podcast. I call it 'informed expert analysis', but then I know which side my bread's buttered on... Oh, and here's the RSS feed for you to subscribe for the future.
These N-Gage promotions seem to be appearing thick and fast! This one is very simple and easy to enter though: just play any Gameloft N-Gage game (Asphalt 3, Brain Challenge, Block Breaker Deluxe) on your N-Gage phone (currently N81, N82, N95 and variants) and upload at least one score to the Arena before the 18th of May 2008. Everyone who does this is automatically entered into a draw for a range of prizes.
Nokia are giving away FIFA08 for N-Gage-compatible phones absolutely free to a limited number of people in Europe (we don't know the exact figure but it's in the thousands at least). It's on a first-come-first-served basis, so the quicker you act the more likely you are to get the game free. The most reliable way of getting the game free is to install the FIFA08 demo directly on your phone in the N-Gage application, then go to the special N-Gage Play site (play.n-gage.com) on your computer's browser to get the activation link sent to your N-Gage phone as a text message. When the message arrives, just click on its link to activate the game. UPDATE: If you couldn't get it activated on the mobile site, try again through the PC site! (via Symbian Web Blog)
The official N-Gage blog has reported that Space Impact: Kappa Base is now available in final version from the onboard N-Gage client. Go play! See also All About N-Gage's review. (Tzer2 adds: If you're having trouble getting SI:KB to appear in your phone's showroom, click here to see how to fix this problem.)
The official N-Gage blog has announced that third party publisher Gameloft will be answering your questions at a future event. You can submit the questions by posting in the reply section of this N-Gage blog post. Questions can cover anything, including their current games and future plans for supporting N-Gage, or you can ask about other mobile platforms as well.
System Rush is still just about the most impressive game you can run up on your N-Gage-compatible smartphone. But has it evolved much from what was effectively a 3D demo on Nseries handsets for the last two years? How does it stand up as a game? Pretty well, as it turns out. Read more in Ewan's rather positive review of System Rush Evolution.