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You bought an N-Gage, didn't you?
TheSonicRetard
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Registered User regular
Even today, the N-Gage is largely nothing more than a running joke, but unlike other failed systems like the Atari Jaguar or the 3DO, nobody has begun to examine the system and library from a critical standpoint. We all know the story behind the N-gage: hyper expensive for a handheld at launch, abysmal commercial failure (selling less than 800 units in Europe during launch weekend), side-talking, all that jazz. For most people, their entire perspective and opinion on the N-Gage was formed and cemented in the 48 hours which surrounded its launch. And that's certainly understandable.
But what about the 2 years that followed? Nobody seems to discuss those years. There is indeed good reason why people don't revisit the N-Gage today - unlike virtually every other gaming device since and before, the N-Gage requires a sim card to operate. The sim card doesn't need to be active - I use a disabled t-mobile sim card to power my n-gage, for example - it just needs to be present. That tiny barrier to entry has proven insurmountable to the limited number of people interested in giving the n-gage a try.
I got my N-gage in the waning days of the system. I walked into EB games one day and saw the entire stock of n-gage stuff being liquidated, and after dropping about $100, I walked out of the store with a QD and virtually every game released for the N-Gage. It largely has sat unused since I got it - I didn't get a sim card for my n-gage to even be able to turn it on until months after I had bought it - but I have toyed around with it a bit.
I have spoken to a few people who used the n-gage as their primary phone during the years it lived. Consensus seems to be the the original model was as big of a joke as expected, while the QD was a significant improvement, obviously. The impression I've gotten is that, as a phone that plays games (as opposed to a game machine that's also a phone), the n-gage was pretty cool back in 2003. It was essentially one of the first smart phones on the market. It's feature set seems pretty fleshed out - mp3 playback (on the original), radio embedded (on the original), bluetooth, support for various video codecs, built-in web browser, support for a large number of apps. I never actually had phone service with my N-Gage, so I can't comment on how useful it was to have all this crap built-in back in 2003, but considering how I use my current phone, I'd imagine it was pretty awesome back then.
The ergonomics of the unit itself is interesting. I've never held a taco n-gage, but people have told me that it feels just as bad as it looks. The taco n-gage looked remarkably cheap - like a product that was outdated upon arrival. The QD isn't bad, however. It's tiny - the thing reminds me of a slightly larger Gameboy micro, but the buttons and d-pad feel solid. You'd think playing on a phone pad would be annoying, and to a degree it is. Buttons on the n-gage don't have the normal depression range that buttons on a normal controller have - they don't really depress, but rather they click, exactly like a phone's number pad. However, despite the difference, you adapt to the buttons on the n-gage quickly. The thing has no shortage of buttons, and in some games that works very well. King of Fighters Ex, for example, feels pretty damn awesome on the N-gage given that you have a full neo-geo controller setup, with customizable shortcut buttons surrounding the normal buttons. The 5 and 7 buttons on the phone are raised and rounded, as they're the main buttons used in most games.
Again, I never had actual phone service with my N-Gage, so I never got to try out the N-Gage Arena stuff. N-Gage Arena was the N-Gage's answer to xbox live. It didn't allow for simultaneous play (it's a phone network, after all - you have to use bluetooth for that), it did allow for leader boards in virtually every game, along with the ability to save and upload ghost data for people to race against in several games. Additionally, a few of the turn-based RPGs on the N-Gage, namely pocket kingdom and pathway to glory, supposedly allowd true online play via N-Gage arena because the games are asynchronous.
During the time the n-gage was kicking, my primary handheld was a GP32 and I loved the absolute shit out of it because of its vibrant homebrew community. I never quite got as big into n-gage homebrew, but given that it runs Symbian, I know there is a sizable community out there. I know several apps - like movie players, games, music apps, AIM, etc - exist for the n-gage. But, again, I've never tried them.
I said earlier that I have virtually every N-Gage game released, including those that compromise the final year of the N-Gage's life. While the N-Gage's launch was basically still-born - the top game was Tony Hawk, and a litany of sub-par and dated PSX and GBA ports accompanying it - by the final year of the N-Gage, the library had become somewhat respectable. Rifts is probably the best game on the system. It's an SRPG, similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. Screenshots make the graphics look plain, but they're extremely impressive for the hardware. The entire background is 3D and can be rotated. It's undoubtedly the deepest game on the system:
Pocket Kingdom is probably the most underrated game on the system. It has the most "street-cred" of any N-gage game, being that it's one of the few games that people have heard of. still the name Pocket Kingdom doesn't do the game justice - it should have been called Dragon Force 3, or Dragon Force N-Gage, or something like that. Because that's exactly what it is - a spiritual sequel to the Sega Saturn classic, Dragon Force. The games play identically, which, of course, makes Pocket Kingdom one of the best mobile games of all tiem.
Probably the highest profile N-gage game is Pathway to Glory. It's basically an action RTS, sort of like World in Conflict or Cannon Fodder. It's extremely fun and it was also the first game Nokia ever produced and published as a first party title.
Those are the 3 best games on the system. There are others worth playing, like a pretty good port of Splinter Cell: Chaos theory, and some good Gameboy Advance ports, like Sonic N (if you have a QD) or King of Fighters EX. Tony Hawk is the best of the launch games, and Colin McCray 2005 is about as fun as Sega Rally on the Saturn (despite the N-Gage getting a literal port of Sega Rally that sucked). The only other game really worth discussing is the one that came built into the n-gage for free:
Snakes 3D is one of the best retro-remakes ever, right up there with Pacman CE and Tempest 2000.
Anybody else have any experience with the N-Gage other than laughing at it?
TheSonicRetard on
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It should be noted that, upon the release of the N-gage QD, N-Gage games stopped being classified as stictly N-gage games, and started being called Series-60 games. meaning that any nokia series 60 phone could run those games. Not many people know that.
Following the death of the N-Gage QD, the N-Gage brand was adapted to be a sort of catch-all term for Nokia's downloadable apps and games (sort of like itunes to the iphone). The N-Gage line officially was discontinued in 2011, however, when the N-Gage 2.0 service was shut down.
Second, launch with better games. Tony Hawk is surprisingly fun, even today, but Tomb Raider and Pandemonium were both miserable ports, with no music, long load times, and extremely dated gameplay. And those were the huge marquee games. I get the intent - it was meant to be a "look! PSX running on a phone!" moment, but the games chosen were miserable and incomplete. Those games were meant to evoke visions of the highly successful PSX, but instead it just reminded gamers of how far 3D gaming had come since then.
Third, the thing should have been marketed as a phone that plays games from the beginning. It's absolutely not a gameboy advance killer. As a handheld, $299 is ridiculous. but as a phone, it's not that bad. The slight perspective shift makes a world of difference. It's basically a series 60 phone, turned into a handheld machine. As a phone, subsidized at $299 isn't that bad, and more in-line with its contemporaries. By the time the QD launched, that turned into $99, which was a great price point.
Fourth, n-gage should have been a service, not a product. Only 1 n-gage device doomed the format. It should have been a spec - you could have n-gage compliant phones. This would have reduced the total cost of entry greatly as handsets competed against each other. Nokia could have had the flagship N-Gage, but all Nokia phones should have received the service in some capacity.
Finally, the screen orientation is always a problem. It's much less of a problem on the QD, where it's a larger screen and fatter, which makes letterboxed games not feel like they're the size of a stamp (thus making stuff like Sonic N playable), but it's never as good as a landscape screen.
These 5 points would have done wonders for the N-Gage's viability. I don't think it would have ever been a smash hit, but the N-Gage line might still have been around today.
I thought it had a pretty cool logo - it was an EMT heartbeat monitor that beat like 3 times before turning into the word N-Gage. But the marketing for the product was abysmal. It was confrontational and faux-extreme. It called gameboy owners - realistically the majority of their target market - wimps and children, and told them that if they wanted to be cool they had to look and act like this:
Simply terrible. The N-Gage had an uphill battle from the get go, but Nokia did it absolutely no favors.
Horrible.
But classic.
Tony Hawk would be the only original game really worth playing. The button layout works very well for Tony Hawk. The only big downside is the d-pad; tony hawk was really works better with an analog stick. but that's not really a fault of the game. As far as looks and sound and gameplay goes, tony hawk was a standout.
Later games were all much better, however. The 3 I listed in the OP are miles better N-Gage games than Tony Hawk. As in, they work better as handheld portable games. Pocket Kingdom in particular is great on the N-Gage. The Dragon Force SRPG gameplay translates very well to a handheld.
EDIT: It's also worth noting that Tony Hawk wasn't a launch game. It came like a week or two after the N-Gage was released. It's also the only PSX port of the original bunch with music. I'd say the delay was to actually finish the game, because it's also the only one that runs at a solid 30 FPS with no dips. Tomb Raider and Pandemonium both have low, fluttery frame rates and silence when playing. They feel like uncompleted games.
later N-gage games didn't have these problems. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, for example, has music and solid graphics and everything.
I just went on youtube to try and find some clips to show, or googled for reviews to link to and found nothing. I can find a couple of ads from launch, and a few middling reviews from the first few weeks of its life, but it seems once IGN moved the system from the front page, virtually every outlet dropped the N-Gage. And there was still about 2 years worth of games that came out following. This really is an under-discussed system.
There we go.
I really wonder if there would have been any way for a gaming phone to succeed. Sony Ericcson came out with the Xperia Play, which by most accounts was a pretty good phone and, at least in the US, reasonably priced, though it was an absolute sales bomb.
Of course Sony botched the rollout of PlayStation Suite something fierce. And we now live in a world where every phone is technically a gaming phone, whereas the N-Gage had the field more or less to itself.
Hargaad plays League on an N-Gage (we're pretty sure)
I'd say, given the Nelsen statistics for the iphone, iOS is just that. I think the general thinking today is that you don't need separate subclasses of cell phone - a gaming phone, a work phone, a media phone - but rather one phone that can do it all. Sort of like computers in the 80's and early 90's, when the gaming computer and the work computer merged into what we call today a multimedia PC.
To be clear in this topic, I think the N-Gage was pretty visionary and ahead of its time, but extremely flawed in execution and perception. Essentially a good idea performed as horribly as possible. It may be revisionist history on my part, but it feels like the n-gage actually killed Nokia. They were the biggest force in cell phones prior, and now they're virtually nothing. A lot of that has to do with emerging competition like android and iOS, but the n-gage fiasco couldn't have helped.
I beg your pardon? I'm not sure what League is?
League of Legends, comrade dog.
Can... can you really play that via an N-Gage?
It uses mouse controls, so, sure!
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I can't tell if you guys are making a joke or not, but the N-gage doesn't have a touch screen or mouse emulation or anything. And it's the OLD mobile web... think back to 2003. Hence why I was genuinely curious if LoL worked with the Ngage. I'm guessing it doesn't.
Games that very few people are likely to have played on platforms that nobody bothered with are like a lost history.
The kind of thing that would be awesome to do just to say you did it!
It didn't work that well.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
I've heard that the game isn't that great, though. I personally don't have it, nor do I really like the elder scrolls, so I have no personal opinion on the matter. But from the few outlets I've seen report on it, it sounded like they didn't enjoy it that much.
Keep in mind that I readily admit all the flaws the N-Gage had, especially the original model, but I think the biggest flaw had to be the marketing. Calling Gameboy owners babies, the above douche-bag ad, shit like this... they basically went with the trashiest marketing campaign they could. They were the spikeTV of video game devices. A product like the QD probably could have withstood such abysmal marketing to some degree, but the original taco-model n-gage had so much going against it that it needed all the help it could get.
I firmly believe that marketing buried this system before it even launched.
Once Playstation Suite launches, shouldn't the Xperia Play get more official games?
It is ridiculous, though. The Xperia Play is, what, 2 years old now? And it's marquee app - the Playstation Suite - the app the phone was built for - still isn't out. Why do companies launch hardware before the software is ready? I'm reminded of the dummy internet holder icon that was on the 3DS for months.
At our managers conferences this is exactly how Nokia tried to get us interested in the damn thing too. "Oh hey guys, I'm going to stand uncomfortably close to you in this almost-non-existent-outfit and talk to you about N-Gage, it's totally awesome right??" Of course, they also gave us all free systems.
Our stores had an awful lot of used N-Gages on launch day...
Edit: so yea, I didn't buy one. I did own one, and I remember Pathway to Glory quite fondly, and that Tomb Raider was terrible. I never got to play Rifts, though... it's high up there with Faselei on my "dammit I wish I played that RPG" list.
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I did buy a virtual boy though. *hangs head in shame*
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
x-play reviewed some n-gage games i think, i remember them mocking them mercilessly
I believe John Romero was actually involved in some capacity, no joke.
Come on TSR, do you really think anyone was dumb enough to buy an N-Gage? Like you said, the shitty marketing alone was enough to keep anyone from wanting to purchase it, plus the lack of many games worth buying and you've got yourself a system nobody owns.
I got my Virtual Boy under basically the exact same conditions I got my N-Gage - when it was being liquidated with the entire library.
Yes? It got better later on in its life, and it still functioned as a phone. I've run into people who had the n-gage as their primary phone for a while. And there are people like me, who dive into basically everything out of curiosity. I don't really think it's that outlandish to expect at least a few people on a big site like this played the n-gage to some extended capacity.
EDIT: Not to mention that, unlike pretty much any other mainstream console or handheld out there, the N-Gage is universally mocked. It's fun to talk about such a funny piece of gaming history, IMO.
But, yeah, I never had one nor had any desire to own one. I guess it didn't help that I was still very much against the idea of owning a cellphone back then.
Also, that Red Faction commercial is...odd.
My Backloggery
That's all I can think of when I think about NGage. Something they did with a bad Patrick Stewart impersonator shouting "N Gage!" over and over
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That site is a national treasure.
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I played an RDP bloodbowl on my galaxy s2. It was terrible.
That is now officially the worst impersonation of anyone that I have ever seen to date. Holy cow.
"Don't forget to make it an extra point to state who you're impersonating, otherwise people might forget with how terrible it is!"
I admit, I was the perfect customer for an Xperia Play. My contract was up, I was looking for a new phone, and I'm a lifetime gamer who never quite cared for touchscreen games a la iPhone and wanted a d-pad and buttons.
But man did Sony fuck that one up. First, they didn't even launch the system in the U.S. until months after the international release. Second, they restricted it to one carrier. Third, the screen was exceptionally dim for a phone, let alone a phone that was supposed to also be a gaming device. Fourth, the hardware was middle-range and certainly not worth the price of admission. Fifth, they still haven't released the Playstation Suite!
Sony, you are so stupid sometimes it hurts.
If it helps, it's supposed to be terrible. Hence the half put on bald cap.
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Huh, maybe I just don't remember a time when G4 was un-ironically funny.