Posted December 31, 1969 by Tim Bradshaw

This year is the Mobile Gaming year. If you didn't know already, we've got the Nintendo DS already out, the PlayStation Portable coming out this month, and then the all-new Gizmondo in April, while at the same time, all of the mobile (cell phone) companies are putting out hot titles that could never be played before. Now consider the Nokia N-Gage...the bridge between the mobile gaming world and the handheld console.

Up until the N-Gage QD's release last year (with an improved design and functionality), the N-Gage was just "that other thing" that barely anyone wanted to spend their money on. Let's face it, they didn't have enough games and the quality of the games that were out weren't worth buying an N-Gage to play--especially with the Nintendo GameBoy Advance SP to compete with. But now with an attractive game deck with nice controls, and being able to purchase the N-Gage for almost nothing when you decide to get a new cell phone and make it an N-Gage, Nokia has decided to make its focus on better quality games.

A company based in Finland, Nokia seems to always be ahead of the curve. That's not always a good thing...they've got great ideas but the consumers just aren't ready for it. However, I think the rest of the market is finally catching up to their pace, while at the same time they're slowing down just enough. Of course, none of us want to see another Dreamcast incident.

N-Gage's most important feature that separates it from the rest of the handheld devices is that it has multiplayer capability across the entire world. You can play against anyone that has an N-Gage--all you need is a cell phone service provider and you're set! There are over 300,000 players on Arena, N-Gage's premiere multiplayer community (similar to Xbox Live). Arena is based on Sega.com technology, which Nokia acquired a few years ago.

With long-distance multiplayer ability, N-Gage goes beyond the capabilities of the PSP (with a range of about 120 feet) and the Nintendo DS. So you ask yourself, what makes the N-Gage better than a regular cell phone that you can install games on? Especially with all the new mobile games coming out that are just getting more and more advanced, it seems like it would be better to just stick with a cell phone. Believe it or not, N-Gage's graphics processor is equivalent to that of the Nintendo DS.

So what does the N-Gage have planned? One of the games I got to play was Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which will be available for the N-Gage at the end of this month. The game looks great on Nokia's latest game deck in a fully 3D-environment (for the first time on N-Gage). Multiplayer capabilities include up to four payers on Arena.

Other games include Rifts, Roots, Snakes, System Rush, and more, with late-Spring/Summer releases. Some of these games will be downloadable for free from Nokia as long as you have an N-Gage to play them on, or you can even transfer them to your friend's N-Gage.

I think Nokia is headed in the right direction with the N-Gage. Nokia has a new engine being developed for even better games that we'll start seeing by the end of the year, and GamePlasma has just recently decided to start covering the N-Gage with news, previews, screenshots, reviews, and more, so keep checking back with us as we continue to uncover the turn-around of the Nokia N-Gage. And yes, the N-Gage people know how to throw down.