Nokia N-Gage Gray Console

Brace yourself people, the review may be a rocky ride for N-Gage fans. When reading this expect to tumble down a mountain of criticism, but also catch air off kicker ramps of positivity (Sorry, been playing Tony Hawk Under Ground 2 a bit just then) In other, more simple words, the N-Gage, as a gaming console isn't quite what most was hoping for, but perhaps it's not quite the devil device that some have made it out to be. Lets take a ride.

Starting out with aesthesis, there's no denying that this is a larger than average piece of equipment. Whether you like the look is up to you, but the good news is that it sits comfortably in the hand, is fairly light, and features an impressively responsive D-Pad. Nokia have made some serious errors in design though. For starters, making the screen vertical rather than horizontal is a strange decision that defies the conventions of videogaming. Outside puzzle games and arcade ports, this could definitely be detrimental to gameplay. Compared to the GBA, the screen is quite small too. Then again, at least it's nice and sharp, with good contrast and color representation.

The lack of shoulder buttons is also a missed opportunity, leaving you fumbling for buttons on the number pad in some games. Also odd is the placement of the phone speaker and receiver on the side of the unit, forcing you to hold it side on when making a call. This, unfortunately, results in looking like a dick. In fact, whenever I answer my N-Gage the people around me generally start laughing. Not a good sign at all.

Perhaps the most criminal design decision of all, however, is to force you to turn off the phone, take off the back of the unit and remove the battery in order to switch games. You then have to put the battery back, replace the back cover, boot the phone up (which is considerably longer than for most – a good thirty seconds) and go into the game. Now compare that to the GBA or DS, where it takes a few seconds to swap games. Not only does it waste almost two minutes of precious game time, but juggling batteries and flash cards on public transport (where most people play their Portable consoles) would be a nightmare.

Also, for a device designed largely for playing games, it seems quite baffling to me that the N-Gage doesn't come with any games installed. Now I'm not asking for anything too elaborate here – just some small games to give us a feel for the unit before we shell out money for better games. Every mobile phone in the history of man comes with at least one crappy game installed, yet the first phone designed primarily for playing games doesn't.

Since my brother bought the N-Gage, I thought I better buy the first game, and at the store I went to there was a really poor choice of games. I ended up choosing Sonic N, and since we bought Tomb Raider and have played Pandemonium. It's very clear that in comparison to all other mobile phones, the N-Gage is way ahead in terms of gaming. Both Pandemonium and Tomb Raider demonstrate competent 3D, and Sonic N shows that the system can move at a pretty decent rate in 2D too. In all, the N-Gage games that I've played remind me of the first generation PSone titles…and not only because half of the games are just that.

Whether you want to play these games is another matter altogether. Pandemonium was always a poor man's Klonoa and really should be left where it belongs – in the bargain bin. Tomb Raider's a little more debatable. It actually looks quite faithful to the PlayStation original, but the frame rate and convoluted controls don't help matters much. Sonic runs pretty well, but pales in comparison to the Sonic games on the GBA.

It's strange that Nokia have focused so heavily on pushing 3D gaming on their system, because until the hardware is powerful enough to do it properly, the games will always compare crap to other gaming platforms. Nintendo's portable system is proof that people are still happy to play quality 2D games, with some 3D on the side.

In the realm of general functionality, there are a number of things that the N-Gage has going for it. For starters the range of ring tones that come with the phone are excellent. There are stacks of them, and the sound quality is quite decent. Also positive on the audio front is the included FM Radio tuner, the reception is excellent and the software is very user friendly, allowing you to auto tune, then name and save your favorite stations. For some strange reason, however, you can only activate the radio when the headphones are plugged in…even though from there you can switch to the external speaker.

The N-Gage also lets you transfer mp3s from your PC to the unit. The only problem here is that there's almost no free memory. Thus, in order to record from the radio or transfer music from your PC, you'll need to purchase spare MMC, which is yet another thing to juggle in and out if you intend on playing games. For the price, the phone really should come with a 16MB flash card.

In the end, N-Gage is stuck in no-man's land really. I can't really recommend it as a Mobile phone or a gaming device. I would say you're better off buying a GBA and a different mobile. There are much better, and a much wider range of games for the GBA, and a lot of other phones look cooler, and are small than the bulky N-Gage. The future looks bleak.

Catchya