N-Gage released: Not-Impressed

In what seems like one of their most anti-climate high-profile launches, Nokia has finally released the much anticipated and delayed N-Gage platform. Stranger still is the fact that there wasn’t any announcement.  After downloading the pretty large 6Mb+ (for phone installation files at least) I was pretty much ready to be wowed, but in the end I ended up not impressed. Here are the reasons why, going from bad to even worse.

1)First of all, when installing the N-Gage app it replaces the demo app, but instead of putting the replacement at the exact same spot at the top level of the menu (Root Folder) It chooses to place it in the Application folder. Why? Who would ever consider putting such an important app in the top level of the Menu, that would be crazy, wouldn’t it? I decided not to worry much about this, and moved the icons to the Menu’s top level where it should be.

2)I must admit however that the amount of functionality and interface look pretty nice, but the app itself opens up at a snail’s pace and again moving through the different tabs it feels unresponsive. Opening trial games like System Rush Evolution or Asphalt you are confronted with an upside down screen orientation. You’ll have to go all the way into the options to flip the screen. I remember that I could just flip the N95 8GB and revealing the media keys would automatically reorient the screen, why doesn’t this do it?

3)But the thing that got me the most was playing the actual Trial version of System Rush Evolution on the final N-Gage app. Remember the Demo System Rush Evolution that came with the N95 or even the N93? Remember how amazing those graphics looked? Personally I was a bit surprised at how noticeable the difference in graphics was when I compared the Demo version against the one that comes with the final N-Gage. The newer one, which I’ll suppose doesn’t use hardware acceleration and effects supported in hardware looks pixilated, less detailed and many light effects seen on the demo version just aren’t there anymore. This little YouTube video shows exactly what I mean, see the difference?

I do remember that Nokia had decided to take a software approach when it comes to N-Gage graphics, the reason given was to support a higher amount of mobile devices. Why not make specially made versions that specifically make use of the available horsepower?

Knowing Nokia they could easily fix the problems I described in point 1 and 2, but not having 3D accelerated graphics to me means not having getting the graphic detail that I was originally promised with the orginal SRE Demo and for this reason Nokia should seriously reconsider the move of abandoning 3D accelerated graphics in N-Gage.