Gameloft's soccer simulator Real Football 2009 has been released on the N-Gage platform. Just go to the application's Showroom tab, select "Options" and then "Update Now", and it's also available in the "All Games" section. As always, a list of current and upcoming N-Gage compatible phones can be found on the AAN FAQ page.
If you go to the official N-Gage Need For Speed website and click on the "Competition" pack of cards near the bottom left corner of the site, you should receive instructions on how to claim a free activation code for Mile High Pinball, Reset Generation or Pro Series Golf. This contest opened unofficially earlier in the week and some people had trouble getting their code to work, but hopefully they've fixed things now that the compo page has officially opened. Incidentally, if your activation code begins with the number 0 (zero), make sure you enter 0 (zero) and not the letter O.
The latest time waster from developer powerhouse Herocraft is an amazing logic game and a memory training tool in one. Read on for an extract from the press release and a video.
If you go to the official Need For Speed Undercover N-Gage site, you'll see a competition section labelled "coming soon". Try clicking on the words "coming soon", and you'll see a contest which tells you how to get free activation codes for Pro Series Golf, Mile High Pinball or Reset Generation. According to the n-gage.com NFSU game page, the code you require is NE3D 4 5P33D, though the prank form says NE3D 4 S433D. (via mavilacivert on the Arena forums) (UPDATE: It appears that the competition has been taken down as the "coming soon" link no longer works. We suspect they activated the link too early, as a lot of people couldn't get the codes to work.)
In a GDC-inspired AAS podcast special, Ewan sits down with Jakko Kaidesoja (Nokia's VP of Games, Services and Software) to discuss the current status of the N-Gage ecosystem. It's a wide-ranging discussion and there's a LOT of meat in here, despite it only clocking in at 16 minutes - a must-listen for anyone remotely interested in N-Gage.
With GDC in full swing now, it's topical for top S60 lady Rita El Khoury to run down, in detail, her top 15 games for S60 3rd Edition. There's a nice mix of free and commercial games here, genuinely something for everyone. Enjoy.
Astraware is selling Astraware Boardgames and Astraware Solitaire at the reduced price of $5 each until the end of this month. The games are available for Symbian S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3, and can be purchased at the reduced price from astraware.com: click here for their S60v3 section, and click here for their UIQ3 section. (Astraware's parent company Handmark is also having a sale until the 29th of March, with a "buy one, get one free" offer using the discount code "DEMAND".)
Long-time readers may remember we gave Lonely Cat Games' card game Mau Mau quite a positive review, and for those who don't know it's basically Uno played with normal cards. Well, it now appears that the game is available free of charge from LCG's website for all S60 editions and UIQ2 as well. Just download the file from the download page, then head on over to the free unlock code page and use your phone's IMEI. (UPDATE: Apparently there's the old annoying "expired certificate" problem with this file, but you should be able to get round this by altering your phone's date settings to March 2008 instead of March 2009. You can then alter the dates back to normal after installation.)
The San Francisco GDC conference is starting on monday and All About N-Gage's Ewan Spence will be reporting live from the event (there have been some interesting rumours regarding N-Gage news). To follow AAN's GDC coverage, you can visit our website of course, but we also have various other online presences such as our Twitter channel and our RSS news feed. And if we have any interesting vids to show you they should end up on our YouTube channel. Also see Ewan's personal Twitter feed.
After almost eighteen months of silence, a Nokia forum moderator has finally made an official statement about the status of N-Gage on the N73, N93 and N93i. In short, N-Gage will NOT be coming to those phones. As many predicted, the relatively older OS versions and less powerful hardware on those models apparently weren't up to the job of handling next gen N-Gage games. The low sales of the N93/N93i wouldn't have helped either. Our editorial thoughts on this issue are below. (Click here to see which phones ARE getting N-Gage.)
EA's racing game Need For Speed: Undercover is out now on the N-Gage platform. You can find it in your phone's N-Gage app: to see it go to the showroom tab, select Options, then Update Now. (For a list of compatible phones and other info, see the All About N-Gage FAQ.)
Gameloft's action adventure Prince Of Persia is now available on the N-Gage platform. Go to your phone's N-Gage application's showroom tab, select "Options" and then "Update Now" to see it. For more info about the N-Gage platform including a list of compatible devices, see All About N-Gage's FAQ section.
Tzer2 brings us the latest All About N-Gage review - Monopoly: Here & Now - The World Edition, the board classic, brought to life here by Electronic Arts. It seems as though it ticks most of the boxes in terms of gameplay and graphics, and makes a good multiplayer party game through TV Out. But Tzer2 picks it up on having no online multiplayer mode (though you can hand the phone round a group), and no tutorial for those not already au fait with the rules of Monopoly.
The upcoming Ovi Store application is due to replace Nokia's existing Download!, MOSH and Software Market services, and there has been speculation about what else it might absorb. However, Nokia has now gone on record to say the N-Gage application will be kept as a separate service, at least for the moment, though they also said that their medium term goal is to "converge everything into a single distribution channel".
It's Brain Training - for S60, with SPB kindly porting their own take on the genre from their Windows Mobile version. The result is something that's clearly not optimised for non-touch S60 phones, but despite this Ewan found the SPB Brain Evolution games challenging and the overall package good value. Will it actually help your brain to evolve? I suspect not, but it sure looks like a good way to keep your grey matter on an even keel while waiting in queues...