Ride across the river with All About N-Gage's Ewan Spence as he takes a far away look at Gameloft's latest trick Brothers In Arms. The review starts with a very direct editorial about the idiocy of having a demo that lasts 20 seconds, though the full game is much longer of course and apparently it's great fun. Is it money for nothing, or is the game too strong?
Nokia's Mobile Games Innovation Challenge is a contest to find the best new concepts for mobile gaming on either N-Gage, Symbian or Java. It's open to all professional game development companies, even the smallest ones, and the top three ideas will receive prize money to develop their ideas. Nokia doesn't want any actual code, they just want a text outline of an innovative unpublished game idea and optionally some mockup screenshots and/or video too. The contest closes on the 20th of August.
The World War Two action game Brothers In Arms is now available from the N-Gage application's Showroom section. If you're having trouble seeing it, select Options and then Update Now, which should make it appear in the Latest Games section. If you still can't see it, exit N-Gage, open the phone web browser, select Options, then Clear Privacy Data, then Clear Cache, close the browser, start N-Gage up and click on the Available Games section of the Showroom. (Thanks to ccraig for tipping us off about the release)
If you've purchased the rather good Pro Series Golf, you may feel a bit confused by the controls as they're not really explained within the game itself. The method for choosing a club for example is far from obvious. However, help is at hand from two sources: the game's producer has posted a general how-to on the official PSG forum, and N-Gage Arena member ShadowSpawn has done a more extensive illustrated tutorial concentrating on swings and putts. Fore!
Astraware keep turning out superbly polished S60 games - and Big Box of Blox is no exception. Ewan's been playing it and in his review points out a few aspects (difficulty, blox detail and orientation handling) that, while not showstoppers, stop the game achieving true greatness.
The 3D simulator Midnight Pool is now available in the N-Gage application's showroom. If you can't see it, click on the headline for instructions on how to make it appear. You can see some screenshots and the official trailer on AAN's Midnight Pool game page.
Surely one of the most popular game genres in the mobile world is that of solitaire collections - Astraware Solitaire is the very latest and looks to be comprehensive and slick. Ewan's been reviewing the S60 3rd Edition version, but it looks exactly the same under UIQ 3 for all those of you with compatible phones, and I've included try/buy links for both platforms.
Rafe and Ewan are joined this week by Ricky Cadden as they take on the week's news and hot topics (recorded before Monday's announcements, but don't let that put you off) in Insight 29, a.k.a. AAS podcast 80. They cover the 'Evening with S60' in Boston, the LG KT610 clamshell, iGoogle and the new Google Reader for S60, Cloud Computing and Social Services, plus more N-Gage musings. Oh and they covered some new update from an American manufacturer in Cupertino...
Chinese Checkers? Rafe and I threw up our hands in horror: sounds complicated, we thought. Let Ewan review it! It turns out that the game itself isn't difficult and, moreover, is superbly implemented, with an intuitive and colourful interface. Here's the full review of Five Deers' Chinese Checkers, which gets a solid thumbs up on all fronts.
The simulation game Sims 2: Pets has now gone live on N-Gage, you can download it directly to your phone from the N-Gage application's showroom. Naturally we'll be bringing you a review in due course. Now, where did we put that dog lead?
Over on All About N-Gage, we've just published a special in-depth article looking at the pros and cons of touchscreen phone gaming, and we ponder whether Nokia should start making touch-based N-Gage games. Is touchscreen gaming the mainstream future or just a niche market? And does it matter either way?
Although Hidden Expedition: Titanic didn't make Ewan's 'must buy' list, it certainly proves a well presented, well programmed interesting diversion, up to Astraware's high standards for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 games. Here's the full review.
Over on All About N-Gage, we've just published a guide to S60 3rd Edition games, or "unofficial N-Gage games" as we like to call them. If you're new to S60 gaming, you might want to check out this article which goes through what S60 games are, where you can get them, how you install them and which games you should download or buy. It's written with owners of N-Gage-compatible phones in mind, but the article could equally apply to almost all S60 3rd Edition devices.
Gaming was also fairly high on the agenda at the S60 Summit. Ewan was in the room and taking copious notes - here's his report on Nokia's strategies and expectations for N-Gage for the next few years.
E90 owner Attila Katona has a problem. Since upgrading to the E90, he's found that most native S60 games don't make good use of the device's huge screen. With that in mind, here's a record of his mission to seek out games, from any source, that do use the E90's display more effectively.