The Games Kitchen is a new mobile games channel: think of it as a cross between Yahoo!, Amazon and Xbox Live. Is there scope for a place where people can not only get games, but also talk about them, watch their high-scores and generally take part in a community? Well, this company thinks so, and this is the something which has been strangely lacking from games for mobile phones (aprt from Nokia's N-Gage Arena). The site will be available for use via the desktop and via the mobile.
Okay, maybe a bit of an over-simplification, but Scott Miller has one of the most devastating critiques of Nokia's Management and the effect the N-Gage could have on the Finnish Mobile Phone Company. Grab a coffee, get reading, and see if you agree with him.
This Russian article has John Romero (he made Doom, y'know) discussing the N-Gage 2, and how all the design problems of the current N-Gage have been fragged. Nokia's comment: "It is too early now to say something about any exact plans." Thanks Finland, couldn't you at least connfirm backwards compatibilty so current users know that their investment in the platform will still be supported?
Nokia and Hudsonsoft announce that the Arcade Classic "Bomberman" is N-Gage bound in Q2 2004. It's heavily pushing Bluetooth Multiplayer, although the threat of Unique 3D Worlds might worry the purists.
It's crystal ball time! Christopher Rydberg tests his investigative skills to try and track down as many 'in development' games for the N-Gage as possible. Let's look at the 28 games that N-Gage users can expect to see this year.
Brian Faber is hard at work on his Neo Geo Pocket Colour emulator for the N-Gage and Series 60 devices. To help him on his way, he's released a 'Teaser' Build to garner stats from users on frame rates, speed, and compatibilty over the entire Series 60 range. It's locked to one Public Domain Rom at the moment, and you can grab the build from the N-Pop Symbian Diary.
He didn't mistake him for the UK Comedian Tony Hawk, but Ewan's taken a close look at Tony Hawk Pro Skater on the N-Gage - hit the board and read the review.
SmartMovie is a video player for your mobile device, with counterpart PC converter utility. With the converter, you may prepare any video clip for playback on your mobile device.SmartMovie features the xvid codec and subtitles!
Nokia have announced the forthcoming availability of Crash Nitro Kart from Vivendi Universal. The game is a cartoon style 3D kart racing game. You can shadow race in the N-Gage arena or play four player over bluetooth.
Nokia and Sega have announced two new titles for the N-Gage. Virtua Cop is a mulitplayer first person shooter (your job is to bring down an evil crime syndicate). Alien Front has you take command of futuristic tanks to defend the earth from aliens. Alien Front has a Bluetooth death-match mode and supports N-Gage Arena.
New writer Chris Rydberg takes a look at the N-Gage in 2003, from announcement to the Christmas sales, and everything in between. Does the N-Gage's checkered past equal a short-lived or non-existent future?
The N-Gage is being dropped from 450 of the GameStop stores in the USA according to this Games Industry article. Although GameStop is not compeletely getting rid of the N-gage the device has largely been considered a failure and this has lead to speculation that Nokia will unveil an N-Gage 2 at the E3 show in May. Perhaps this is also the reason why the N-Gage is being sold off cheap in the UK?
Ewan Spence has updated Same Game, the simple to pick up puzzle game. Now with added Menus and Coloured balls (thanks to the updated OPL runtime. Go download it now.
Jim goes hunting for an N-Gage, and finds them hard to track down. Is this because the new lower UK pricing has hit the sweet spot for consumers? We think it might just be so, and you can follow Jim's trail here.
