Here on our Ovi Gaming site, Ewan takes a look at the latest incarnation of Zingmagic's Enigma, for S60 5th Edition smartphones, straight from the Ovi Store. You'll know the game as 'Mastermind', no doubt, from the board game, but this phone version adds significant extra layers of difficulty. Forget 'Brain Training', just play this each morning and you're good to go!
Released for free yesterday (in theory, for a limited period, though as you'll see from the review, it wouldn't work that well as a commercial title anyway), Ovi Maps Racing is a Maps-derived top-down racing game from Nokia. Ewan's been giving it the review once-over here on Ovi Gaming and, while, generally impressed by the title, feels it's let down by the lack of an integrated track sharing system and by the ultimately limited gameplay.
Ovi Maps Racing is now available in the Ovi Store and, for a limited time, it is available for free. The game, which is available for Nokia's S60 5th Edition (Symbian^1) phones, is a top down style racer. The aim is to set the fastest possible lap times. There's a number of built in tracks with global leader boards, but the standout feature of the game is the ability to create your own tracks based on your current location. Using Ovi Maps (Navteq) mapping data you can create, and then race on, a track based on the map of your home town. Read on for more details.
Ewan takes another trip down memory lane here on our Ovi Gaming site with a review of Time Riders 2, a Java vertical shoot 'em up from the Nokia Ovi Store that (somewhat surprisingly) impresses hugely, being responsive and pretty. Oh, yes, and cheap, at a true pocket money price. Hit!
There's a certain swashbuckling look to this game, from Electronic Arts. With a chisel-jawed hero and the 'exciting adventure' font on display (plus the all important sequel number), this has all the hallmarks and subtle signals of a Hollywood blockbuster from the 1950s. Which, of course, is an age ago in the motion picture, and is the perfect metaphor for Jewel Quest 3, finds Ewan Spence.
Well known, cross-platform, games developer Polarbit has, for a limited time only, made four of its games titles available on Ovi Store for free. (previously £3). Raging Thunder, a car racing game, is available for both some S60 3rd Edition (E72) and S60 5th Edition (5800, N97 etc.) devices. Wave Blazer (power boat racing), Armageddon Squadron (arcade flight sim / shooter) and ToonWarz (3D first person Shooter) are available for S60 5th Edition only.
You may remember that the Nokia E90 shipped with a widescreen, hardware-accelerated 3D driving game, Global Race: Raging Thunder? Somewhat wasted on the 'business' device, many people quickly realised that it also worked after a fashion on the also-accelerated N95. However, the game ran like a turkey on other phones without the vital graphics chip. Until now. Raging Thunder has been reworked by Polarbit and optimised for modern single chip ARM designs - with a few caveats, as you'll see in my review over in our Ovi Gaming sister site.
Last week at CES Nokia showed of Ovi Racing, but they also showed off another game: Bounce Boing Battle. The game has pong-inspired gameplay, with two players bouncing a ball between themselves. However rather than moving a paddle, the player must draw a line for the ball to bounce off. The game, which includes two player support (presumably over Bluetooth), will be available, for free, from Ovi Store in due course. Read on for more.
At CES, the huge Las Vegas event happening this week, Nokia has a big stand and you can see some of the setup behind it in a video, embedded below. In addition to the Climate Mission game (see previous news item), Nokia has announced (but not made available yet) Ovi Maps Racing, another homegrown title, integrating the real world streets around your position (or another destination of your choice) with a virtual racetrack - so, effectively, you can race around your own local roads. I've also embedded the trailer for Ovi Maps Racing below, for your interest.
Over on our Ovi Gaming site, Ewan's burnt off a few Christmas mince pies in Microrace, which takes a traditional, top down view of the arcade karting genre - he thinks that's just enough for a great game, but is Microrace a touch too small? Here's the review - can the game break free from being a 'proof of concept'?
There are only a handful of point and click adventures on the S60 5th Edition smartphones - Zeus Quest from Crazysoft makes a welcome addition to the genre, with you taking on the role of the ancient god Zeus as he returns to Earth to try and save the planet from its current drifting state into disaster. Ewan has a crack at Zeus Quest and reports back.
It's time to get into the festive spirit, or at least Offscreen Technologies think so, as Ewan hits the Ovi Store and some mulled wine. He's been taking a quick look at their Snow Globe and Christmas Tree novelties - the second is of particular interest as it's a way to get to some free applications.
Blocks and grids align for classic gameplay with classy UI and presentation, in BlockGo and BlockGo Lite, reviewed here by the master of mobile puzzles, Mr Ewan Spence. If you can put up with a rather high dose of 'Cute' then you're going to love this S60 5th Edition game, fresh from the Nokia Ovi Store.
When is a game not a game? When it's more an online proof of concept, as Ewan found out in his review of Smart Trivia from the Ovi Store, with barebones interface and enforced cellular connection. At least the questions themselves are OK, plus there is multi-player action. Can Smart Trivia go for gold or will it fail the starter for ten?
An arcade game – and and ol' fashioned up-the-screen 2D shoot-em-up at that. On a touch screen. Surely this is as big a folly as “Can you fly the Spruce Goose across the Atlantic?” So onto Skyforce Reloaded, the almost franchise-like arcade game that's on every mobile platform, and which now makes its way to S60 5th Editon. But how does it work on devices like the 5800, which have no physical keys? Find out in Ewan's review.