Nokia N-Gage - Beta Version (First Access) - Video & Review

What is First Access? Has N-Gage launched yet?

Nokia's new N-Gage gaming platform is now in a public beta test called "First Access", which is open to anyone with a Nokia N81 or N81 8GB smartphone. Because it's a beta test, not all features are available and it only has a limited selection of games. Click here to find out more about taking part in First Access.

According to Nokia, the full version of the N-Gage platform should launch in a few weeks time.


The Unofficial Nokia Gaming Blog reviews N-Gage First Access

Before you read this review, you might want to watch the video above so you can see what I'm talking about.

First of all, as stated above, this is just a beta test version of N-Gage, so there's no point expecting it to be fully working in every department because the point of a Beta test is to get rid of bugs. Having said that, here are some things that were great and not so great about the N-Gage platform as it is right now.

First, the stuff that's great:

+ The application is clear and generally very easy to navigate, it can be done entirely through the direction pad.
+ Buying games is wonderfully simple, you can pay through your phone bill with a single click and the game downloads and installs completely automatically. This is much much simpler than buying Java or S60 games, and there's a constant temptation to buy more games because it's so easy to do.
+ The games themselves are very cheap, about 7 to 10 euros each, which is far cheaper than portable console games, especially in Europe where PSP and DS games cost about 20 to 50 euros each.
+ There's a single login for online gaming and community features in all N-Gage titles. Online gameplay includes not just multiplayer but also an Xbox-style achievements system.
+ All the games can be rotated to absolutely any screen orientation, so you can play in vertical or horizontal mode, and you can choose which side of the screen you want the gaming buttons.
+ You can leave games and come back to them whenever you like, and the N-Gage application automatically has your last played game as the main icon on its starting page, so you can restart the game with a single click. This makes all of the games suitable for longer sessions or short bursts of gameplay, which is essential on phone games as you often play them in unexpected moments of boredom.
+ You can write and read user reviews of all the games.
+ All the games have free downloadable demos.

And this is the stuff that wasn't so great:

- Launching a game makes the N-Gage application behave in a very confused manner, it suddenly changes the screen orientation and flickers quite a lot as if it's about to crash. It didn't ever actually crash, but this flickering looks very unprofessional and a bit worrying, hopefully Nokia will cure this problem on the release version of the application.
- Using the phone's wi-fi connection as a default access point caused the app to crash when I tried to buy games. Selecting the phone network instead allowed the purchase to happen. This seems like a fairly straightforward bug though rather than any kind of design flaw.
- The game showroom listed games I'd already bought, when really it ought to hide any games you have (and the app does know which games you have because it displays them on a separate page).
- The user reviews for games almost all talked about the demo and not the game itself. There ought to be a filter to only allow owners of a particular games to leave a reviews of it.
- While the rest of the application was fairly fast and slick, the showroom (where you buy games) was pretty slow to appear on the screen.
- Some of the demos were ludicrously limited, for example the Block Breaker Deluxe demo gave just 30 seconds of gameplay on one level which isn't anywhere near enough to judge the entire game.


Overall

On the whole, the new N-Gage app is very interesting and promising, it could herald a real revolution in the way people buy and play games on the move. Its greatest strength is in just how easy it is to purchase an N-Gage game: you just click, wait a minute or two, and it's all installed, with the cost automatically included in your normal phone bill (you can use a credit card instead if you prefer though). There's no fiddling about with numbers or codes or anything like that, the process is entirely seamless.

There are still some problems to solve on the app before it can be released, especially the wi-fi purchasing bug and the awful flickering when launching a game, but in general this is a well-designed and intuitive way to try, buy and play phone games. Hopefully the release version should be out soon, as this is something everyone who has a compatible phone should try.


Will N-Gage First Access work on my phone?

The official First Access version of the N-Gage application is only currently available for the Nokia N81 and N81 8GB. There's an unofficial hacked version of the app which works on certain other phones, but it's not official so you can't expect it to work properly.

The release version of the N-Gage application will work on a much wider range of phones, but the release version isn't available yet.


Where to get N-Gage First Access

You can get the First Access beta version of the N-Gage application from the official N-Gage site. Click here to get started.