Global Race game for E90 also works fine on N95, N93 and N93i
Published by krisse at 14:19 UTC, July 30th 2007
The Nokia E90's free 3D driving game Global Race: Raging Thunder is rather splendid and makes use of the E90's 3D acceleration hardware. But as many blogs (including iGadget and Symbian Freak) have recently pointed out, the game also works near-perfectly on any S60 3rd Edition phone with a 3D chip, which currently means the N95, N93 and N93i. You can download Global Race completely free from Nokia's E90 software support page.
The game works in both vertical and horizontal modes, although if you use the horizontal mode on the N95 or N93/N93i you will have trouble playing the game. The speedometer is designed for the E90's wider screen, and on a narrower 320x240 format it blocks out the action. 240x320 works perfectly however, and it was probably designed with the E90's external screen in mind so that people could play the game with the E90 closed as well as open.
According to the developers' website, an official release of the game across all S60 3rd Editions will take place later this year, although of course the graphics probably won't be as smooth on phones that don't have the 3D acceleration hardware.
You can see the official E90 Global Race trailer here. There's also an unofficial video review of the game in action on an E90 here.
There's a video of Global Race on the N95 on the Unofficial Nokia Gaming Blog.
Categories: Software
Platforms: Series 60, N-Gage, S60 3rd Edition
News Discussion
ChaosFire
Wirelessly posted (Sony Ericsson M600i: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.8462/20; U; en))
I tried it on my e70,.
Unfortunately the phone needs a 3d chip to run.Otherwise you'l be be playing a snail game!(Not a racing game).
This and some other games like the system rush evolution preinstalled in the n95 and some n93's.
Hopefully in the coming years nokia will fit more phones with the accelerator chip.. And not just the expensive 'ultra'-high end phones.
Moreover that the next-generation of mobile gaming will require,the 3d chip, more and more to bring rich-amazing games close to that of the standalone video or handheld game consoles.
krisse
"I tried it on my e70,. Unfortunately the phone needs a 3d chip to run."
Yes, I did try to warn you! But thanks for trying, I tried System Rush Evolution on my E61 when it first became available on the Nokia Site. It did load, but the game was unplayably slow.
"Hopefully in the coming years nokia will fit more phones with the accelerator chip.. And not just the expensive 'ultra'-high end phones."
It will definitely get cheaper, other advanced features like HSDPA are already available in the cheapest models like the 6120 and no doubt the 3D chip will gradually spread throughout the S60 range.
Apparently the same chip also carries the TV Out ability, which is useful to anyone who wants to use their phone on a large screen, and not just for gaming.
"Moreover that the next-generation of mobile gaming will require,the 3d chip, more and more to bring rich-amazing games close to that of the standalone video or handheld game consoles."
Nokia have said the games won't all need the 3D chip, but some of them will. Presumably as ownership of models with 3D chips rises, more and more of the games will require 3D acceleration.
Alternatively, they could do what the PC gaming world did and provide two versions of games: one with toned down graphics for cheaper models, and one with enhanced graphics for models with the chip.
avithe1
Global Race is just like Raging Thunder which I played all the time on the 6630. I think Raging Thunder was much better than this one , the cars were better with all that shadows etc.., the championship mode was gr8. Don't know why they've still not ported the game on 3rd ed.
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/revie...g_Thunder1.phpkrisse
"Global Race is just like Raging Thunder ... Don't know why they've still not ported the game on 3rd ed."
This game is actually called Global Race: Raging Thunder, so it may be intended as some sort of sequel to the original Raging Thunder.
"I think Raging Thunder was much better than this one , the cars were better with all that shadows"
IMHO the graphics on this are much better than on previous smartphone driving games thanks to it using the 3D chip. The frame rate is absolutely wonderful, very smooth indeed.
However, I agree that Global Race could do with better lighting, everything is so bright and clean. They ought to take a leaf out of Asphalt's or Glimmerati's book, they looked a bit more moody.
Sergey Zak
This game is playable but the physics engine is childish, which is quite surprising considering the tagret auditory of E90 users. I tried the game on N95 and it's OK. If you're as interested in racing sims as me, please check out a much better racing game titled PGR (Project Gotham Racing)! It has reaaly good simulation and does not feel like a 16-bit era arcade.
www.projectgothamracing3.com
Nice try though!
krisse
"This game is playable but the physics engine is childish, which is quite surprising considering the tagret auditory of E90 users."
I think it's best to think of this as an arcade racer rather than a driving simulator. As you say, anyone who expects a proper simulation will be very disappointed, and E90 does seem to be a strange model to put this game on, something like the N95 would have been much more appropriate.
But to be fair to the developers, I don't think the physics engine is even meant to be realistic, it's just meant to be fun, like Asphalt on the original N-Gage or the Burnout series on home consoles. You crash... it doesn't matter that much, it just stops you for a few seconds, you're still in the race. It's very "player friendly" because it doesn't punish you too much for isolated mistakes.
If the main cars were more cartoonish, like they are in Mario Kart, it would be obvious what the intentions of the game are.
Vlasov
I have e51 without a chip and this game works perfectly on it!
Ayush Sharma
i've got raging thunder on nokia 5800 it plays amazingly with the motion sensor, you tilt the phone to run the car its really fun but my problem is that it has only 3cars and a few tracks is there any way to download more??
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