After much delay, the most anticipated third party N-Gage game Worms World Party is out now on the N-Gage platform. The centrepiece of WWP is of course its online multiplayer mode for up to four players, and it becomes the first third party game to offer such a mode on N-Gage. To download WWP, go to your phone's N-Gage application, go to the Showroom tab, select "Options" and then "Update Now", or alternatively you can find it in the "All Games" section. The official trailer is below, you can see screenshots on AAN's WWP game page, and you can see a list of N-Gage-compatible phones on the AAN FAQ page.
It's another weak Gameloft mobile game conversion for N-Gage, I'm afraid, with Real Football 2009 not even making the 50% score mark. Ewan reckons that despite some nice graphics here and there, it falls down on default control keys, on gameplay, on sound effects and on responsiveness. Still, I guess you can always try the demo for yourself? Comments welcome!
In All About Symbian Insight 63 (AAS Podcast 120) we briefly cover the N-Gage news out of GDC (1 million profiles, accelerometer Bounce and device support). Steve and Rafe mull over the importance of the underlying changes in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, before chatting about the importance of homescreens, with reference to TouchWiz on the Omnia HD. You can listen to AAS Insight 64 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
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.
It might be a long running series, but is Need for Speed's first appearance on the N-Gage worth the wait? Ewan doesn't think so, remarking that the controls are sluggish, the graphics barely adequate and a sense of fast racing realism non-existent. Despite these flaws, he still feels that there's a good game buried without, waiting to get out. Here's the Need for Speed review, but comments welcome if you've bought it or tried it.
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.)
In All About N-Gage's latest review, Tzer2 gives Gameloft's Prince Of Persia the once over. The graphics look amazing but we're concerned about the spoon-fed gameplay, poor collision detection on the bonus levels, and the lack of multiplayer or even proper N-Gage Arena integration.
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.)
