Unleash The Force At Your Local Nokia Store (USA Only)

Monday 29th September (also known as Tomorrow) sparks the outage of Xbox live for 1 day, nothing serious its just some casual maintance (or maybe adding the new update for the new "Xbox Live Experience) however - Nokia (aka N-Gage Team) have decided to spark up some interest while xbox live is out, espically in America.

On monday if you head down to your main Nokia flagship store (in New York / Chicago ive been told) their will be a special event where you will recieve a FREE Game code for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the latest game to appear upon the N-Gage platform, not only this you will be able to play with other N-Gage users and other N-Gage Staff members (probably not the main moderators or forums admins but you never know).

But it gets better!, if you plan to buy an N-Series device from the store, you would get an additional 15% Discount - however its only effective on this 1 DAY, so if you live in america and want a free game and a cool new phone, you best start heading to new york or chicago.

Since i live in the UK i can not take part in this offer (unless i catch a plane to america) but then again i already have my favourite N81 8GB, so no problem - i just wish nokia would do some nice things like that over in the UK aswell.

The List of the BEST Upcoming N-Gage Games

After the sucessful release of "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" more "main-stream" developers such as EA, Capcom and Konami are bringing their games our way and heres a small list of the "triple A" titles we could expect to the see within the next couple of months.

The games on this "small" list are only the Triple A titles that we can expect within the next 8 months or so, their still may be a fair few N-Gage games that are coming out - such as Crash Bandicoot, but no details (other than a name) is given, and no there is no order to these games so this is not a ranking system or anything.




Spore Orgins:


EA Have recently released SPORE on the PC, and at same time released Spore: Creatures on the Nintendo DS, both have proven to be popular games (kids and adults alike) and now Spore is heading to the N-Gage platform (picture above), nothing much is known about this title except its going to be similar to the previous DS and PC releases and its going to be released at the same time on N-Gage, General Mobile and Iphone. Hopefully the N-Gage will have the same standard as the Iphone.

Resident Evil: Degreneration:


Resident Evil: Degeneration will be CAPCOM's debut onto the N-Gage 2.0, their 1st N-Gage debut was CATAN , which was an interesting game - but wasn't that popular with alot of n-gage players, however this new Resident Evil game will be based upon the upcoming CGI movie (which is based off the Resident Evil Video Games), nothing is known on how the game will play, however it will be coming to the N-Gage Platform sometime next year.

Metal Gear Solid:


Metal Gear Solid will be KONAMI's BIG Debut onto the N-Gage platform and judging from the early pictures, the game is looking amazing. Information is still tight about this game, however judging from the pictures its going to use graphics similar to the PS1 Version of MGS, but will still feature all the new techniques from the latest metal gear solid games, so im guessing its going to play similar (if not easier) to the metal gear solid: portable ops games on the PSP.

Crash Bandicoot:


Crash Bandicoot for the N-Gage was announced quite awhile back, however nothing (apart from a name) has been announced, some say the CNK (Crash Nitro Kart) will make a return, as a more updated port has arrived on the iphone (which is different from the original CNK on PS1 and N-Gage). Personally id like to see a new platform game, but im guessing this "mobile" crash game will appear when the new console version is released later in the year.

One: Whos Next?


One: Who's Next has now be re-titled (and re-listed) as ONE or ONE (Next-Gen), either way its N-Gage 2.0 most anticipated title and is being looked after, the game was supposed to be released last month, however it failed to pass a "technical test", and in doing so the game was delayed, since then the game has been sent back and re-coded, aswell as re-checked twice and yet the game still hasn't arrived, some people might see this as a bad thing, however i think its great because at least Digital Legends (developer of the game) are taking pride in their game and making sure its released in great shape - as we dont like games that are half finished or full of bugs (Brothers In Arms Anyone?) - either way ONE is a fighting game with a difference, it has crisp 3D Graphics (espically for a mobile game), customisable characters and a great story - just like star wars this will easily become game of the week for a long time.

There is still a few games that i did not add to this list, however those games are "Dark Night" and "Speed Racer" two titles that were going to be released by Glu mobile, however a complication occured and no-one knows (well some-one might) if they will get released onto N-Gage, as they were originally going to come out when the films hit the cinemas (still time for the DVD-Release though). Either way this lists shows the best titles that will be hitting the n-gage platform (hopefully) within the next year, or even within the next few months - so as they say - things can only get better!

To stay up to date on whats out - visit the official N-Gage website, or browse the showroom on your N-Gage application.

PS3's Play TV Arrives In UK!

Yesterday saw the release of another cool Playstation 3 Accessory, the PLAY TV box, basically this little box turns your PS3 into a Digital TV Recorder.

With This box you will be able to watch over 40 Free-to-air (aka Freeview / Digital) TV Channels aswell as over 30 Digital (DAB) Radio stations, not only that by using your PS3's Hard Drive you can record programs and watch them later.

The Play TV Box works the same way as a Sky+ Box would (or a Freeview Recorder box), as it has its own EPG (Electrionic Programming Guide) telling you whats coming on for the next 7 days, you can also 1 record 1 program while watching another channel (as it has DVB-T (Twin Tuner) Technology) - however the BEST feature of all is that you using "Remote Play" you can stream live TV (or recorded programs) to your PSP via your wireless network, so basically you can watch TV anywhere in your house.

The only downside to PLAY TV is the fact that it uses the PS3's Hard drive to record programs onto, so if you have a 40GB PS3 your only going to have around 30GB (about 30 hours worth of recording) and thats if you havent downloaded any demos / additional content - however if you want more space you could just buy a new hard drive for your PS3, PS3's accept standard PC Hard drive and all the instructions you need (to do it yourself) are in your PS3 Manual, and whats best is that buying a new HDD and Play-TV is alot cheaper than buying a stand-alone Freeview Recorder, as twin tuner recorders are still around £200.

Play TV is now availble in the UK and costs around £69.99, however online retailers may be selling it cheaper, Currys (aswell as PC World) are selling it for £59.99.

Xbox 360 Price Drops Again in Europe!

2 Months ago the 60GB Xbox 360 repleaced the 20GB Xbox 360 and now microsoft and keen to win the console war by lowering the prices of their HD-Gaming machines down again.

The current prices of the Xbox 360 consoles (which from tomorrow (Friday 19th September) will be the previous prices) are:

* £159.99 - Xbox 360 Arcade (256mb MS)
* £199.99 - Xbox 360 Pro (60GB HDD)
* £259.99 - Xbox 360 Elite (120GB HDD)

However as i mentioned from tomorrow onwards the prices of these consoles will fall yet again and now the Xbox 360 Pro (60GB) will rival the cost price of the Nintendo Wii.

The New prices (UK-Wise) for the 360 consoles are:

* £129.99 - Xbox 360 Arcade (256mb MS)
* £169.99 - Xbox 360 Pro (60GB HDD)
* £229.99 - Xbox 360 Elite (120GB HDD)

So to put it blunt if your wanting to play some HD Games, and play some of the best games around such as GTA IV, Gears Of War 2 and Halo 3 - then now is the best time to buy an Xbox 360, or if you want to you could spend a little bit more money and get a Nintendo Wii - either way now is the best time to buy an Xbox 360.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Now Available On N-Gage!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is finally here and for once it arrived at same time as the other platforms.

The UK Release date for Force Unleashed (on All other platforms) is Friday 19th September, however because N-Gage is based in America it follows the American release dates, so in sense UK N-Gagers get to play the little brother before playing the bigger one.

Force Unleashed is a 16mb download but 22mb once installed and costs £8 for the full game, a week trial for £4.50 & 1 day trial at £1.50 are also included, but the main question is - what is the game like and is it any good?

Well the answer to that is the game is pritty good, has nice music, some good comic style FMV's and nice graphics and whats better is that it plays like a proper game rather than something thrown together and you instantly feel inside of the star wars universe.

Playing the game is fairly easy aswell, as your character is mainly stood still (was in the trial anyway) and you just have to detory upcoming enemies which can be stormtroopers, droids, soldiers - anything really and attacking is all done by using your phones keypad (or if you like the d-pad). Basically icons appear above the enemies head and you would copy this icon to do an attack, to defend from shots you would press the 1, 3, 7 or 9 keys depending on which direction the shot is being fired - time it right the shot will be deflected and your will kill your opponent, so its pritty easy and pritty fun.

To Sum up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (N-Gage) is a great addition to the N-Gage collection and brings a great star wars feel to the palm of your hand without the loss of anything, and whats better is that is identical to the other formats of the game, except it has less graphics - so its nice to see that the game all follow the same plot and bosses, unlike other mobile spin offs.

The Game is currently out now in the n-gage mobile showroom (via the n-gage application on your phone) - for the PC Download you will have to wait for a few days. Enjoy, and May the force be with you!

Pokemon Platinum Arrives In Japan!

Pokemon Diamond & Peral may still be popular ovr here in the UK, however across a few hundred miles of water are friends in Japan are playing the latest collection to the Pokemon universe, Pokemon Platinum.

To Put it blunt Pokemon Platinum is similar to Pokemon Yellow (Gameboy), Pokemon Crystal (Gameboy Colour) and Pokemon Emerald (Gameboy Advance) as the game will be exactly same as the previous games (in this case Diamond & Peral) except will feature all pokemon from both Diamond & Peral games aswell as some additional pokemon and not only that any bugs in the previous pokemon game would have been fixed).

Apart from a few bug fixes and some additional pokemon the game itself is identical to the Diamond & Peral Pokemon games, which isnt exactly a bad thing, but it aint worth spending another £30 for the same game, however i would still be tempted to as i am a pokemon fan.

Pokemon Platinum has recently been released over in Japan and costs around £28 however no Europe / US release date has been announced, but if it were to come out over in the UK it would take around a year (as they would need to translate if from japanese to english), either way it is definately a game to look out for if your a Nintendo DS Owner.

IGN's Top 5 N-Gage Games

The people over at the Austrialian IGN website have compiled together a list of TOP 5 N-Gage Games that they believe are the best games currently out for the platform and the game hitting the No.1 spot is obviously RESET GENERATION.

IGN Agree that RG (Reset Generation) is, to put it simple, an awesome game, however look deeper (espically for dedicated N-Gagers) you will find a few bugs in the game, So much for Scott Foe Sayings its "Perfect", however it is a great game. Other games in the list include Dirk Dagger and Pro Series Of Golf.

IGN also give detailed descriptions and information regarding each game (i.e. the good bits etc), however i disagree that Tetris and World Series Of Poker are in the Top 5, espically when System Rush Evolution is a such a great game (offline and online).

To See the IGN List click here, but make sure you've got your reading glasses on, because theirs a fair amount of reading involved.