4 posts tagged “game”

It's looks like first access is nearly over and Nokia is planning to open N-gage 2.0 for all us N-series fans. Why, how, where did I get this info? From my trusty N95 of course. Where else.

I had the N-gage first access installed on my N95, my curiosity is indomitable and I just needed to have that peek at what's coming. Initially it worked for a while until Nokia started checking on device types and the showroom with the First Access Games became empty and void on my N95 classic. Still I managed to buy System Rush Evolution before they closed it ;-). It runs without problems and multiplayer worked too even after the close down! Compared to the SRE demo on the N95 the hardware graphics are missing. But this could be because the N81 lacks the hardware 3D graphics that the N95 has.

And today the showroom is packed again with all the First Access Games the N81 users have access to. Clearly N-Gage 2.0 is preparing for allowing access by the other N-series types. It won't be long until there is a formal announcement is made and the N-Gage application becomes available for all the N-Gage compatible phones.

N-Gage 2.0 looks great, well designed and user friendly, with all the functions needed for social gaming and multi-player ranking  but one. Which one thing you ask? Ahhh, there is nothing better than to hear your friends scream their frustration when you push their digital Ferrari off the road into a ravine. Thus where is my voice-link in the multi-player games? Really text messaging is nice, but not during gaming ;-) It is really hazardous to your health points.

Have a look what is coming your way 'real soon now'. AAS has a review here.

Yeah, finally some action on the n-gage front. All About Symbian and Symbian-Freak reported that N-gage First Access is here for the Nokia N81. The download app checks the device type, so no joy for most of us. Yet finally things are on the move again. Check Nokia's N-Gage site yourself and see the proof.

Also Worms World Party is announced for N-Gage 2.0. One of the best multiplayer games available. Nothing better than stomp your friends worms with a stone donkey, super banana bombs or see a ming vase blow up in his face ;-)

A java version was already available for the N95 and its bretheren. It ran however somewhat unstable on my N95. A native solution would be great. Even better if the game is not tied to my phone but to a n-gage account. I could take it with me to my next Nokia smart phone ;-). Which is a very subtle way of Vendorlocking me!

The N-Gage website has some interesting information. The following devices will be N-Gage compatible: Nokia N73, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia N93, Nokia N93i, Nokia N95, and the Nokia N95 8GB. Nokia will continue to announce N-Gage compatibility with a wide range of S60 Nokia devices on an ongoing basis. There are some interesting games announced.

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Global Race has a free playable demo game for the Nokia E90, they have nice widescreen images of their game here. It happens to run on other phones too! I checked it out on the N95. We don't have the wide screen view but we do have the 3D graphics controller and support for the needed OpenGL ES. Yahoo! (No ad intended).
 

The gameplay is smooth and solid on the N95. Car control is very nice but not too easy. Using the powerups and powerdowns are very important in this respect. Sound and music levels are freely configurable. Lacking is the possibility to change the game play to landscape. I hope this will be updated for the official release for the N95 and other N-series phones.

Screenshot0010

The free version has 5 tracks and 3 cars and
can store 3 profiles, each for a different user.
There are two game modes: single player, multi-player. There is also something called Global Race.

The single player mode has 3 gametypes: Arcade, Championship and Time attack. The types are self-explainable for anyone who ever played a race game. 

The multiplayer mode allows the player to host or join a game over bluetooth. I could not test this. I lack friends with  N95's :-(

Global Race allows for the upload of your high scores and your ranking. It also allows for the download of the nighttime versions of the daytime tracks.

The game can be freely downloaded from the Nokia website here. There is no reason why it should not work on the N93(i) too. Share and enjoy!