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AAS Competion: Win a Nokia N96 and Million Dollar Poker
We've teamed up with Nokia N-Gage to give away a Nokia N96, a license for the N-Gage game Million Dollar Poker and a few Nokia goodies. All you need to do is answer a simple question and give us your name and contact details. Million Dollar Poker is the most recently released N-Gage game.
The N-Gage Games Lost To History, Waiting To Be Ported
Almost sixty official games graced the original N-Gage platform, so why aren't Nokia taking the proven hits from that era and bringing them back to the front? Here on Ovi Gaming, Ewan looks back and chooses five that are ripe for re-invention. Why not take a trip down memory lane with him and then ask Nokia very, very nicely...?
Spore Origins fails to evolve on N-Gage
"Oh dear. Spore as a gaming brand is close to a legend. Created by Will Wright, and released last year to great critical acclaim, you'd think that popping the genetic engineering life-sim onto a mobile would be a sure-fire hit. Err, no." And so begins Ewan's review of this latest N-Gage title here on Ovi Gaming. Spore Origins includes all the elements needed but fails miserably in its basic gameplay and interface.
79 games added to Ovi Store in latest update
Ovi Store has been updated again, and it seems the latest content push has added about 79 new titles to Ovi as well as more apps and other content. The list of new games is below, and you can see these for yourself by going to store.ovi.com and selecting the "Any Phone" option, then "Games", then "Newest - Oldest" from the drop down menu. By our reckoning Ovi Store has around 350+ different titles now available, with lots more still waiting to be added for various technical reasons. Note that not every game works on every phone, so if you select a particular model on Ovi Store you probably won't see every game on offer. As always, you can find out more about Ovi Store on our Unofficial FAQ page.
The Sims 3 hits Ovi Gaming
One of the seemingly vast number of Java game titles that have been put up by Nokia in their Ovi Store, The Sims 3 doesn't seem too bad - it's playable and well thought out, once you look past the lowest-common-denominator interface. Here's Ewan's Sims 3 review, right here on Ovi Gaming (used to be All About N-Gage).
Reset Generation now available for Windows, Macintosh and CentOS Linux
Nokia's exclusive strategy game Reset Generation was originally made available as a free online game for Windows PCs at resetgeneration.com, and the site has now been revamped to also be compatible with computers running Macintosh OS X and CentOS Linux. If you have a computer running any of these operating systems, all you have to do is visit the site to play the game, it's the full version including four-way online multiplayer and it's totally free. If you also want Reset Generation on your phone, it can be purchased through the N-Gage application. (via The Official N-Gage Blog)
Ovi Store app available to download from Ovi Store mobile website
Ovi Store can be accessed from almost any Nokia phone by just going to store.ovi.com on the phone's web browser, but certain phones also have an Ovi Store application available which lets you use Ovi Store much more easily. Some people have managed to find the Ovi Store application available through the Download! icon, but it now appears that you can also download the app directly from the store.ovi.com website. The availability of the app seems to currently vary depending on which model you have and which country you live in, and the easiest way to find out if you can get it is to visit the Ovi Store mobile site and see if the link appears for you. See the screens below for details.
Uno a runaway hit on the phone
Over on sister site All About NGage OviGaming, Ewan's been putting a new implementation of the card game classic Uno through its paces. And, barring a token multiplayer mode and all-or-nothing sound, the developers seem to have knocked this one out of the park. And done it in Java, no less. Now all you've got to do is master the rules...
What Every Good Game Developer Should Know
Although specifically for the iPhone, Slide To Play have put together a Top Ten Things Developers For Mobile Games Need To Do and it's an article I want to send to everyone who makes a game on Symbian OS, including a number of N-Gage partners. On reflection, these are all pretty obvious, but the number of games that miss out these for no discernible reason could easily fill an online app store.
AAS Podcast #121: Nokia at the Game Developers Conference
In a GDC-inspired AAS podcast special, Ewan sits down with Jakko Kaidesoja (Nokia's VP of Games, Services and Software) to discuss the current status of the N-Gage ecosystem. It's a wide-ranging discussion and there's a LOT of meat in here, despite it only clocking in at 16 minutes - a must-listen for anyone remotely interested in N-Gage.
