N-Gage

[NeoZeedeater]

The N-Gage is a system I couldn't justify buying for full price but, at the end of 2005, I bought a big pile of $2 clearance games at EB. I got a QD system a while later.

I think of the N-Gage as kind of the 3DO of portables. It was an expensive attempt at a multimedia game system with some awkward early polygon games. Like the 3DO, it doesn't have the greatest rep but there are still some quality games on it. Some games I enjoyed -

Glimmerati
A neat overhead racing game with a campy rich and famous theme.


Requiem of Hell
A Diablo-ish ARPG.


Pathway to Glory


Pocket Kingdom
A Sega strategy game similar to Dragon Force.


Puyo Pop
Similar to MD Puyo but with better music.


And some of the multi-format games are worth checking out: Rayman 3, Tomb Raider, Pandemonium, Splinter Cell: TSA, Sonic N.

I still want to try System Rush, a racing game with TRON-inspired visuals.

Your thoughts on the system?

[QuickSciFi]

Nicely done. I didn't know there was an RPG for it. I might just check it out, as long as the games are in hard copy format.

[TheSonicRetard]

I had an identical experience to yours (I actually purchased every game my EB Games had for sale) and my opinion is identical. The system caught flak for a pretty poor design and an outrageous price, but the games themselves weren't too bad. Pocket Kingdom and Pathways to Glory are the best games on the system. It's very far from the worst handheld ever produced.

EDIT: It's a shame virtua cop never came out. All the pre-release screens looked great.

[runback22]

Tomb raider was a spot on port of the pax version

[Moirai]

Whats up with the aspect ratio this thing's screen has? Thats a really strange design choice.

[TheSonicRetard]

Whats up with the aspect ratio this thing's screen has? Thats a really strange design choice.

The thing runs symbian OS. It was the OS that a ton of nokia phones ran. It apparently only ran in that resolution, being that the operating system was designed for flip top cell phones primarily, so they slapped a cell phone screen on the thing.

[Moirai]

The thing runs symbian OS. It was the OS that a ton of nokia phones ran. It apparently only ran in that resolution, being that the operating system was designed for flip top cell phones primarily, so they slapped a cell phone screen on the thing.

They probably should have made a custom OS specifically for the Ngage!

[MrMatthews]

Tanegashima and I knew a guy once who loved the N-Gage. Best handheld ever, in his opinion. At least until the iPhone came out...

[TheSonicRetard]

They probably should have made a custom OS specifically for the Ngage!

I would say that, in relation to what cell phones are today, the ngage was pretty ahead of its time. It had a ridiculous design, though.

EDIT: One feature of the ngage is absolutely loved at the time was its ability to play realmedia files. As I mentioned in that other thread, I had a huge collection of real media content, and being able to put it on my ngage and watch it on the go was pretty awesome back in 2004.

[Waterfaller]

I know there's a port of Falcom's Xanadu Next for the N-Gage. I really wish that were brought to consoles instead *grumble*

[Phantar]

It wasn't a bad system per say. It's just that it failed in being both a mobile phone and a handheld gaming system. The manner of changing game modules in the first iteration (by removing the battery first) was too cumbersome, and if you wanted to use it as a phone you had to hold it sideways, which just looked ridiculous and didn't work all that well. They fixed it in later iterations, but once the damage was done, the system was already showered in ridicule and couldn't be saved anymore.

In conclusion: Good Concept, Bad Execution.

[Kamahl]

In conclusion: Good Concept, Bad Execution.

Pretty much, it could have actually been really popular if the first iteration wasn't so bad.

[Tanegashima]

Tanegashima and I knew a guy once who loved the N-Gage. Best handheld ever, in his opinion. At least until the iPhone came out...

Hahahah!!

I'd totally forgotten about that!

Thanks for reminding me, that was a laugh...hahaha but because he was better than all of us, he was right so I suggest you buy one.