Thanks to Darla for spotting that Nokia have released their traditional free Christmas game for the N-Gage. And for all Series 60 smartphones, with a snowball-throwing Santa-meets-space invaders arcader. Put up with the cheesy music and N-Gage adverts and you've got a nice, free game to while away a Christmas afternoon.
Telcogames have been slowly making moves into the Symbian market, but that's about to change with their accquisition of Magic Productions. Magic, the company behind ports of Qwak and Another World, are strong in the 16-bit conversion market. These titles, which have great name recognition in carrier portals, are in the market now, with the recently launched Cannon Fodder and Nebulus following that tradition.
New over on 3-Lib is a big update to my media gallery archive for anyone needing high-res photos of Symbian-powered mobile devices, especially in lifestyle situations. Many recent devices are now covered, as well as long-lost images from Psion days.
The N-Gage Arena sometimes has some massive holes in its gameplay - David Galbraith looks at one of the latest titles, 'One', and wonders why some things don't add up.
Now up to v1.15, Domi Hugo's essential Series 60 file manager continues to blaze a trail for freeware applications. Changes in this version include better cursor control, more error checking for free RAM, progress bars and improvements to the hex editor. Download available at www.gosymbian.com.
Only launched a couple of days ago, Steve snatched the review copy of Virtual Pool Mobile out of Ewan's jet-lagged hands and has been up all night trying to beat the pool hall bosses. Here's the full review. Summary: great physics, this is as real as it gets, though more work is needed on the sound effects.
OK, so it's in an unofficial Nokia blog, but it's still good to see freeware applications get more exposure. See Tommi's blog for a really good plug for Series 60 freeware and a list of starting points.
While off exploring the Brave New World himself, Ewan's had time to fire in this enthusiastic review of Settlers of Catan, an N-Gage conversion of a cult strategy board game. Summary: steep learning curve, but totally worth it.
Nokia has now shipped Asphalt: Urban GT 2, the sequel to the fantasy racing game, and Pathway to Glory Ikusa Islands, both on the N-Gage platform. Fans of Asphalt can also try before they buy, with a free downloadable demo available from the N-Gage Arena. PtG Ikusa Islands also has it's own new dedicated section on the Pathway to Glory mini-site.
Steve's been getting so confused by the sheer number of Series 60 smartphones (especially with all the new Nokia announcements) that he's made a handy all-on-one-page comparison chart over on his 3-Lib site. As usual comments and suggestions are welcome.
Interesting reading in this story on Yahoo. Summary: Nokia are both disappointed by N-Gage sales so far (but what do they expect with such old OS and S60 versions, plus competition from other handheld gaming devices) and upbeat about plans to expand the 'platform' (i.e. the games) to other smartphones.
Perception is everything when looking at the relations between companies. Ed Colligan (Palm, inc) is putting more distance between Palm and Symbian - after all, he sees Nokia as 'owning' Symbian, and the American carriers all wanted Microsoft enterprise devices. And Symbian's thoughts? "Microsoft is more of a distraction factor," said David Wood, Symbian executive VP of research - naturally, as Symbian are pushing into the mid-range now (report from Datamonitor).
Macromedia have made the runtime available for FlashLite on both Series 60 and UIQ available to anyone who wants it - just nip over to their website, pop in your IMEI and away you go. If you're looking for applciations that use it, then Macromedia's FlashLite Exchange is a good a place as any to start looking (Update: It appears the free promotion is now over. Pity).
So are the problems facing the Mobile Games Industry (see Mobhappy) simply down to not treating mobiles games as seperate from console games? Tom Hume thinks so, and addresses the original points over at his blog: "Mobile device will always be an inferior game platform. Sorry, I don't buy that; or has my chess-set been obsoleted by my Gamecube because it's only got a resolution of 8 x 8?"
