First Thoughts On N-Gage

Updated: I just found out that this is my 100th post!, Congrats to me

No words could describe my feeling the day I knew N-Gage would be released, for the N81 users, I felt lucky that I had an N81 8GB, courtesy of WOM World, and I immediately e-mailed them, asking for extension of the trial period, 5 minutes later, N-Gage gets cracked, Many thanks to P@sco for doing so, and the first access N-Gage works on almost any device.

Having an 8GB MicroSD, The installation of N-Gage, and it’s gigantic demos weren’t nervous-breaking when it comes to having free memory, but for a lot of users this will be/form an issue, And 2 hours after playing with N-Gage, I was disappointed, I liked it, but the WOW factor didn’t reach my head, Until just yesterday, after playing a couple of multiplayer N-Gage Games, When I discovered that N-Gage is one of the best pieces of software/services Nokia has ever offered.

The first thing that I like about N-Gage, is the easy complications-free interface that lets me reach the thing i need in less than 10 seconds of searching, The N-Gage application is divided into Tabs:

1. Home: Has a shortcut of the latest game you played, your overall progress, Online stats of friends, a featured game and messages.
2. My Games: Has shortcut to all installed N-Gage Games, The best thing is that you can delete any game through this tab by hitting options> delete game, without having to go all the way to the application manager.
3. My Profile: has your overall progress of N-gage; the points you own, your reputation and your N-Gage point level.
4. My Friends: see your friends stats, and chat with online friends.
5. Showroom: Access to more game downloads online.

Though every Nokia beta release is accounted with lots of bugs, so far I haven’t seen one in the current release of N-Gage, and the application never turned nuts and stop responding, It’s a very stable release, and mostly the official N-Gage application will have no modifications.

Moving on to Games, the graphics quality of the current betas are magnificent, Though I read online that because the N81 and the N73 has no Graphics Accelerator, Current games won’t make use of the ultimate capabilities of your other N-Gage equipped phone, But still the great 3D Performance keeps me from getting disappointed, My current favourites are: System Rush, and Creatures Of The Deep.
The pricing of Games is very cheap, considering it’s 3D Quality, Games range from 5-10$, and buying them is no problema, Just pop in your credit card no, it’s expiry date, and that’s it!!

I seem to have a problem with the official landscape mode of the N-Gage, 270º, but I found out that all Games have the option of flipping the Landscape mode back to 90º, so no more problems with that.

Finally, N-Gage arena, it’s great, powerful, and really entertaining, but needs a couple of new features, I Thought that I should have an online friend to play in the multiplayer mode, but in fact, N-Gage seem to be matching random users together, and letting them play against each other, it’s fun to see myself playing against a total stranger,But there’s a certain issue that didn’t make sense to me, Correct me if I’m wrong but the arena doesn’t have the option of at least inviting an online friend to play against you, I don’t get it, why isn’t that included?!!

Final words, N-Gage rocks, it’s pros really cover up it’s cons, and I can’t wait for the final release to start purchasing games, safely, giving the fact that the current release isn’t supported, so I’ve got a fear of losing the game license.