All About Symbian - N-Gage News

Review: Pro Series Golf a must-buy, despite flaws

Reckoning that Pro Series Golf is everything my own Fairway could have become, and more, after extensive gameplay I pronounce myself a fan. From the great 3D modelling to the genuinely exciting online multiplayer mode, Pro Series Golf is arguably the best N-Gage game yet. Yes, it has its flaws and glitches, as detailed in the review, but there are no showstoppers.

"The developers have done a stunning job in optimising their 3D code, with hole flybys and ball animations appearing surprisingly fluid and with only the occasional stutter and the rapidly warming device alerting you to the fact that the phone's processor is working flat out to generate your virtual golfing world. (In fact, playing an hour of Pro Series Golf is enough to get through half a full charge on an N95 8GB - but seeing as I've just explained why the battery is being hammered so much, I think this is acceptable.)"

Read on

Having trouble controlling Pro Series Golf? Here are a couple of tutorials...

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!

Telenor goes Ovi

Telenor and Nokia today announced a cooperation on mobile services using the Ovi service platform. Specific Nokia devices will be customised with services such as Nokia Maps, N-Gage, Telenor Music Store and Mobile TV with more to come in the future. Ovi services will be launched in the second half of 2008 and will be offered to Telenor customers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Hungary.

The Telenor follows on from similar announcements from Vodafone, Telefonica, TIM, Orange and T-Mobile. It is interesting to see that 10 months on from the birth of Ovi that initial operator resistance to Ovi has largely crumbled away, much as we expected. Nokia is placing itself in a very strong position to deliver its Ovi service platform to a larger number of users. Its agreement with operators should give it a significant strategic advantage over it rivals.

Here's an extract from the press release:

"Our ambition is to be a leading operator providing new and user-friendly services accessible on mobile devices. The agreement with Nokia is the beginning of an exciting collaboration where we will extensively deploy the capabilities of our high-speed third generation mobile network," said Morten Karlsen Soerby, Executive Vice President and Head of Telenor Nordic.

"We are pleased to announce this cooperation with Telenor and strongly believe that it will lead the way in the Scandinavian market in integrating devices and services together. Openness is at the core of the Ovi environment and we are constantly looking for new ways to offer consumers a great variety of experiences that they can choose from according to their own preferences," said Timo Ihamuotila, Executive Vice President of Sales, Nokia.

Pro Series Golf gets underway

Pro Series Golf, one of the most eagerly awaited N-Gage titles, is now available. If you can't see it in your N-Gage client, then 'View available games' and look down the bottom of the list. Screenshots and first impressions are below. It's 21MB and takes 5 minutes to install(!), by the way - I'll have a full review up before the weekend.

Initial impressions are good, although it'll take a while to master the controls and really push the game. You'll get a flavour from these screens - it's midnight now and I'll doutbless be playing this much of tomorrow.... 8-)

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 2 July 2008

Disappointing games: N-Gage no different

The current run of poor N-gage games is to be expected, argues Ewan. Every games platform has this problem, it's just a question of maturity and of time. The launch titles for N-Gage classic were worse and even those for the bestselling Sony PSP were comparable. What do you think of N-Gage so far and do you agree with Ewan? Comments welcome.

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Midnight Pool proves a wasted opportunity

If you've tried out the new Midnight Pool game on N-Gage, you may have spotted that, four hours after the game being released, I'd completed it and was sitting atop the N-Gage Arena rankings. Which really isn't a boast, since Midnight Pool is simply far too easy. I explain why, with copious screenshots and comments on interface (good) and performance (bad) in my in review of Midnight Pool over on All About N-Gage.

Midnight Pool now available on N-Gage

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.

1. If you can't see Midnight Pool on the list of latest games, try clicking "Options" and then "Update Now".

2. If you still can't see Midnight Pool, try clicking on "Available Games" and scroll right to the bottom of the list.

3. If you can't see Midnight Pool on "Available Games" either, exit the N-Gage app, open the web browser, select "Options", then "Clear Privacy Data", then "Clear Cache", then exit the web browser and launch the N-Gage app. Midnight Pool should then appear on the "Available Games" list.

Insight 30 - E71, E66, Z10 and more...

As Ewan puts it, it's another madcap show - All About Symbian Insight number 30 right here, in which we talk about Missing Sync for Symbian, the launch of the Nokia E71 and E66, plus first thoughts on the Motorola MOTO Z10. Note that this show was recorded last Thursday and so predates Tuesday's Symbian announcements - we'll bring you audio content to do with this very shortly.

Sims 2: Pets house-trained in (sadly) a couple of hours

The steady flow of N-Gage games titles continues, but the latest, The Sims 2: Pets, is distinctly underwhelming, with Tzer2 on our sister All About N-Gage site awarding it only 55%, declaring it to be almost devoid of gameplay and saying that it can be effectively finished in a few hours. Here's looking ahead to Pro Series Golf... (Update: We've now added a 7 minute gameplay video at the beginning of the review.)

Sims 2 Pets now available on the N-Gage platform

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?

Will The N-Gage Platform Get An FP2 Client In Time For Christmas?

Over at All About N-Gage, we're wondering when the Next Generation Gaming Platform is going to fully launch? With the initial roll-out of S60 v3 Feature Pack 2 phones not shipping with the N-Gage Client, phones aiming for a large user base, including the currently available N78 and impending N96 and Nokia 5320, and no sign of a compatible N-Gage client, the question is whether these devices will have the client in firmware before 2009. (Update: the official N-Gage blog has just announced the first FP1 phones with embedded N-Gage apps have begun to ship, starting with the N81. No word on FP2 yet.)

Most famous is the N96, which combines the dual slider of the N95 with the stylings of the N81, and has dedicated gaming buttons that slide out from under the screen. Even more significant is possibly the 5320 XpressMusic, which also has dedicated gaming buttons but more importantly will be the lowest-priced N-Gage-compatible phone so far, and the best contender for driving N-Gage gaming into the mass market.

No one knows exactly when these devices will be released, but Nokia has stated they'll be available some time in the third calendar quarter, which ends in September. In other words, even if these phones are released right at the end of September, Nokia only has about two weeks left to get the FP2 version of the N-Gage application ready if it wants to embed it in these phones. Embedding therefore seems unlikely to happen with these phones either.

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Well, the obvious answer is to pour as many resources as possible into getting the FP2 version of the N-Gage application ready, not just for current N78 owners to download but mainly so that the 5320 and N96 can be sold with N-Gage out of the box before Christmas. This ought to take priority over absolutely everything else in N-Gage, because the entire N-Gage project depends on being embedded in phones so that it can build a healthy userbase of millions.

Read the full article over on All About N-Gage.

This week's N-Gage news roundup

Well, we haven't seen the hoped-for releases of Sims 2 or Pro Series Golf, but there have been one or two N-Gage-related developments this week. Click on the news headline to see a complete rundown.

- The upcoming N-Gage adventure game Dirk Dagger has had a web-based demo published which you can play through your PC browser.

- N-Gage's official YouTube channel has published lots of new trailers for upcoming games.

- AAN's survey this week asks which devices you play games on apart from your phone.

- All About N-Gage has taken an in-depth look at the advantages and disadvantages of touchscreen phone games, and considered whether N-Gage should become touch-based.

- AAN has also published a complete guide to "unofficial N-Gage games", probably known more familiarly to AAS readers as S60 3rd Edition games.

- A free theme based on the Snakes Subsonic N-Gage game has been released by Nokia. There are also Bounce and Pro Series Golf themes floating around MOSH if you care to look for them.

...and that's it for another week, happy N-Gaging, and hopefully we'll see several new games over the next seven days.

A theme per game - not a bad idea

As part of the promotion for the game, Nokia's N-Gage team has designed a dedicated theme for Snakes Subsonic for any S60 3rd Edition device, to remind you of the game. What a good idea - maybe they'll do one for every other N-Gage game? Mine's the Pro Golf one in the corner...

Should Nokia introduce touchscreen-based N-Gage games?

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?

Intriguing, isn't it? Read our article to find out what the diagram means...

Symbian S60 3rd Edition gaming explained

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.

Screenshots from Atlantis Redux and Micropool for S60 3rd Edition