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Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

N-Gage Opts To Give Away Lara, Not Bury Her 84

Posted by simoniker from the the-bard-would-be-proud dept.
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release announcing Nokia has teamed up with Eidos to give away over 70,000 copies of the N-Gage version of Tomb Raider at this year's Sugar Bowl college football game. An Eidos spokesperson oddly opines: "Lara [Croft] has always been the number one video game heroine, and it's appropriate for her to be present at this year's Sugar Bowl where the national champion will be crowned", and insider suggestions that Nokia are pulling an Atari of sorts, in the face of allegedly limited demand for the N-Gage 'game deck' are, of course, fatuous. Meanwhile, GameSpy weighs in with some reasons to like the N-Gage, still suggesting: "Nokia's game deck has a lot going for it, and is in many ways superior to the system that has dominated the portable gaming market for over a decade: Nintendo's Game Boy (now Game Boy Advance)." Update: 01/02 16:46 GMT by S : According to a L.A Times/TribNet article, Tomb Raider on N-Gage sold around 3,000 copies in October, the last stats available to the reporter.
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N-Gage Opts To Give Away Lara, Not Bury Her More

N-Gage Opts To Give Away Lara, Not Bury Her

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  • Kind of a dumb name. (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:08AM (#7859094)
    They must be running out of good names for these products. When I first heard of N-Gage, I dismissed it as mispelling of something to do with N-guage model railroading [japanz.org.nz]. Now I know it is some sort of "cute" variation of the word Engage by way of "N'Sync".

    It's not quite as bad, however, as that new line of digital cameras called "Dimage". It makes you think of a combination of "Dim" and "Damage", neither of which sounds particularly good for a digital camera.
    • It might be underrated....but off topic? The N-gage is the subject.
    • It's not quite as bad, however, as that new line of digital cameras called "Dimage". It makes you think of a combination of "Dim" and "Damage", neither of which sounds particularly good for a digital camera.

      To me Dimage sounded like a combination of dim and image. Definately a bad combination for a camera.

  • N-Gage... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordYUK ( 552359 ) <jeffwright821@@@gmail...com> on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:11AM (#7859103)
    I've been to EB games on no less than 10 occasions and tried to play the demo system that they have out(and not the same EB everytime either). Not once have I ever gotten a game to work on the damn thing. Its either stuck in some sort of limbo, or in some weird mode, or just plain off.

    Now, the GB SP that they display ALWAYS works, and requires no real thought to demo for 20 seconds.

    I dont want a handheld that has to be babysat to work. Chances are, if I'm on my GB, I am out and about, and catching 5 minutes of Mario or Pokemon or something. I dont want 3 of those minutes fumbling with the system trying to get it to work.

    Thats what I have a PC gaming rig for... :)

    • Re:N-Gage... (Score:3, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      the demo systems use different version of the os apparently(customised so that the users can't fuck it up, while it seems that it has enough quirks to fuck up by itself.). so the demo systems make a crappy job of demoing the system.. which is a shame.

      series60 is a great phone-pda-mix-platform, and n-gage is the cheapest series60 phone(with the best placed controls for gaming) and it also has more ram than 3650/3660 making using opera on it more comfortable(3650 doesn't have enough mem to really browse wit
    • Same experience here-- I've never managed to try out an N-Gage because I've never found a functional demo unit EVER. They're always crashed, totally unresponsive.

  • always (Score:5, Funny)

    by LittleBigLui ( 304739 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:15AM (#7859111) Homepage Journal
    Lara [Croft] has
    always been the number one video game heroine, ...


    So those of us who can't choose between creationism and darwinism now have another choice: The universe was created in 1996.
    • in my opinion, that's beside the point- how dare they dismiss as second string jill of the jungle or the giana sisters? i'll play their games over the latest lara shovelware from eidos anyday.
    • I say Samus Aran, the Metroid main character, is the coolest girl (or possibly girl-or-guy) heroine...
      • Definately. I mean... put Samus in a fight with Lara Croft... seriously...

        Yeah, I think we know who comes out on top. And it aint the busty bitch, it's the _armored_ bitch.
    • Nonono, the choice is, "The universe was *never* created."
  • It sounds like they are giving away just the game itself. Who's going to end up playing it? What's everyone going to do, go out and buy the N-Gage hardware to play the game? It's a pretty inexpensive proposition for Nokia. The software and the memory chip is cheap.

  • Some Reasons to Like the N-Gage (Score:5, Funny)

    by StingRayGun ( 611541 ) * <ryanrray&gmail,com> on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:32AM (#7859161)
    Some Reasons to Like the N-Gage

    1.) It looks like a taco when using it in Cell Phone mode.

    2.) You have to take out the batt. to replace games.

    3.) Nokia paid us tons of Euros to write this article!*

    Hey, there worth so much right now compared to our measly dollar, why not!

    • Re:Some Reasons to Like the N-Gage (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      3.) Nokia paid us tons of Euros to write this article!

      You probably said that as a joke... but I'm looking at www.gamespy.com right now and all I see is a huge black Nokia interstital, then half thier homepage (above the fold) taken up with n-gage branding.

      • Yeah. Remember when Ronald McDonald shitted on IGN (to quote Penny Arcade) a while back? Nokia did that with Gamespy, it looks like.

        Getting back to the article defending it- it doesn't matter how many good things there are about the N-Gage if there aren't any good games for it. If Nokia can get some decent games for the damn thing, people might stop making fun of it.

  • Number one video game heroine? I think not! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gabraham ( 723236 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:36AM (#7859173)
    "Lara [Croft] has always been the number one video game heroine, and it's appropriate for her to be present at this year's Sugar Bowl where the national champion will be crowned"

    I beg to differ: Samus (of the Metroid game series) has been around a lot longer than this goofball of a videogame heroine.

    • Yeah, but it's hard to masturbate when the object of your affection is covered by so much body armor. I think we're all aware of the fact that "number one video game heroine" is industry code for "number one character video game geeks imagine while jerking it".

      I guess that the reason people forget about Samus is that the Metroid games were for consoles, hence no, "Nude 'Troid" mods for Metroid.

      Of course, someone will prove me wrong and post a link to a modded Metroid where Samus is naked...
      • "I guess that the reason people forget about Samus is that the Metroid games were for consoles, hence no, "Nude 'Troid" mods for Metroid"

        Actually, if you finished the original game fast enough Samus strips down to her bikini and you can play the game that way.

        If I remember correctly, this code will show her this way:

        justin bailey
        ------ ------

      • Samus Aran (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Scrameustache ( 459504 )
        Yeah, but it's hard to masturbate when the object of your affection is covered by so much body armor.

        Kinky!
        But seriously, in the original 8bit game, if you finished it 3 times (keeping the same password legacy) you got to see her without her armor (green hair, brown bathingsuit...she keeps the gun arm), and then you get to play with her like that.

        And in the SuperNes version, if you got a good time/gatherhunt rating, she took off (well, it just waved away) the armor and now wore a sexy black underware-swi
        • But seriously, in the original 8bit game, if you finished it 3 times (keeping the same password legacy) you got to see her without her armor (green hair, brown bathingsuit...she keeps the gun arm), and then you get to play with her like that.

          That was just based on time. Beat the game fast enough and you get the ending with Samus in a one piece swimsuit. Then start a new game and you'll play as Samus in the swimsuit. Beat the game again, and you see Samus in a bikini. The bikini ending may be time dependen

    • Re:Number one video game heroine? I think not! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mmm coffee ( 679570 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @09:42AM (#7859365) Journal

      Agreed. I don't understand why Croft is held up as a great heroine in gaming when there are so many better female characters out there.

      Aran definitely takes the #1 spot. I remember spending countless hours getting lost in Metroid, and when I finally beat it my big bad bounty hunter turned out to be a woman! And this was back in the early days of the NES, which says a lot. Throughout the sequels you wern't thinking "mmm girly", but enjoyed the character as someone who could tear through a room full of enemies in no time flat. Samus isn't a fuck toy, she's a character you respect. (Besides, who would want to screw her? She'll screw you back, and I don't want to know what her screw attack could do to my apartment.)

      Another personal favorite is Rydia from Final Fantasy IV. For those who haven't played the game - In the beginning your main character unknowingly kills her single mother and ends up taking her with him on his journey to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world. During the game she grows up and shows an incredible amount of passion and empathy as you watch your party members die off one after another. ("Stop it! I've had enough! They're all dead! Dead! And here we stand bickering amongst ourselves?! Are their deaths for nothing?") She's a very powerful character that makes you fall in love with her emotionally. Plus she has the most powerful black and summon magic in the game, so she is far from a helpless little creature. She can deal out damage with the big boys. ;)

      Terra and Celes from FF6 (especially Celes)... Chun-Li from Street Fighter II, Sonya from Mortal Kombat... The list goes on and on of heroines that get your respect as characters who are more than pixels with tits.

      But hey, Laura Croft has breasts the size of watermelons so of course she's going to be the one that everybody talks about.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Number one video game heroine? I think not! (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "As for Seamus Aran, the fact that she was almost never shown without her suit means that a lot of people don't see her as an heroine."

        As, at the time, many people felt about Joan of Arc.

  • Pity on poor Nokia? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by antin ( 185674 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:55AM (#7859224)
    Is it just me, or does it seem that the big review sites (IGN, Gamespy and Gamespot) are beginning to pity Nokia just a little and are trying to say something or anything nice about the piece of junk?

    I remember IGN slammed the N-Gage after it was shown at E3, and wrote many articles about how badly designed it was, and how useless it was etc... and then a few months later they suddenly wrote an article in its defence, saying that "they aren't sure why everyone is giving it such a hard time" (forgetting that they gave it a harder time than anyone else).

    Now Gamespy is doing the same thing. Having said nothing nice about the system prior to release, or at release - they have suddenly written an article in its defence. And look at what they wrote - they say nothing about it having a good design (because it doesn't); or about it having good games (because they suck); or about being able to play it for longer than 2 hours (you cannot); or any of the other things that make a decent system.

    I just find it amusing that having witnessed how badly it flopped (as it deserved to) Gamespy and co are trying to soften its fall.

    • Hmmm, I think pity has little to do with the seemingly changed attitude at GameSpy and the like. Even to a casual observer, Nokia is spending a lot of money advertising on TV and all over the web, including on GameSpy. I'd like to think that advertising dollars don't affect editorial content, but that just isn't true most of the time.

      It'll be interesting to see if Nokia stays in the market and eventually improves the N-Gage. I can forgive a bunch of crappy first generation games, but you gotta get the con

    • Re:Pity on poor Nokia? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <mrpuffypants@gm a i l . c om> on Friday January 02, 2004 @10:04AM (#7859469)
      Take one look at the sites for IGN and gamespy and you'll see exactly why they are being nice to the N-Gage now: ADVERTISING!!!

      Nokia's been running ads for the N-Gage pretty heavily on all the major gaming outlets and the money people probably whispered in some editor's ear that pissing off the people that pay for ads is a bad idea. Also, every single 'big' game site launched a N-Gage area on their respective sites. That doesn't just happen for every flash in the pan system or we'd be browsing the Gamespy Phantom section right next to the Xbox reviews. Nokia either twisted some arms or stuffed some wallets to get stuff like that done on a brand-new system that wasn't guaranteed to be huge (like the Xbox launch)

      I've begun to rely on what Gabe and Tycho and Penny Arcade say about games. Every single recommendation they've made has been correct (KOTOR and Prince of Persia come to mind). Also, back at E3 they trashed the shitty N-Gage and have been doing so ever since for a good reason: The Nokia N-Gage sucks shit!
      • To be fair to Gamespy (hard, I know, but bear with me), I've read all their N-Gage articles and, while they might indeed be written to complement/encourage advertising, they haven't gone over the edge in recommending the product. While it might seem kind of sad being satisfied with only faint praise for an system almost universally considered bad, I think it's the best we're going to get when content providers have to pay money (in bandwidth) every time someone comes to their site.
    • ..actually the whole series60 system is very easy to bash without using it for few weeks and the n-gage even easier system to bash without ever learning to use it. because the series60 system needs you to learn how to use it to take full advantage of it(like any ui&os), it takes time for your thought patterns to change that instead of firing 20 sms's you might just as well check on irc if you're buddies are online, or that while on the bus you might just as well check slashdots articles instead of just
      • The N-Gage might well be a great phone/PDA. Unfortunetly, it's being marketed as a gaming system. And you know what? It fails as a gaming system. Tiny screen, crappy buttons, demo units that crash more often than my old Win98 box with serious hardware issues, and an incredible lack of good games.

        Meanwhile, my GBA has good controls, a nice, large screen (admittedly a bit dark, but it's not unviewable as many people claim), and a good library of games. And it costs less. Nintendo has the monopoly on portable
    • Gamespot hasn't done this.. Please don't put them in the same sentence as Gamespy and IGN.. ever. Unless that sentence is "Gamespot is in a league way way way way above Gamespy and IGN." :P
    • It's probably a coincidence that when i hit gamespy.com right after reading your post, i see a big ad for the ngage on their front page?
      Yes, it's most probably their good heart that make them pity the ngage. It's just funny they didnt have one when they bashed it.
    • 3 words: They've been bought.

      Never trust reviews from a site that sells ads for the products that they review.

  • Enough Bashing Already (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shagoth ( 100818 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @09:44AM (#7859370) Homepage
    Ok, I admit it, I own an N-Gage (though I admitted it in another thread already). Sure, it's not the perfect game platform nor a perfect phone. As game platform it's overpriced but for a super featured phone it's cheap. Getting a carrier unlocked GSM phone with the Nokia series 60 platform, full-on GPRS support, bluetooth and expandable memory is going to cost a whole lot more than the $299 retail on the N-Gage. At $199 with 3 games as it's currently priced at Gamestop the damned thing is a bargain even if you never open the games. Oh, did it get mentioned that the device is also an MP3 and AAC player. For those who care it's got an FM radio. More importantly it's got a speakerphone that works pretty well. It's also got support for all the whizzy midi and mp3 ringers you might care to load on it and a color screen for your favorite graphics.

    I'll grant that the taco like shape is weird, but it makes the phone wide enough that it can be held between ear and shoulder while fumbling for the headset. I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I think that the N-Gage is one of the most misunderstood products in recent memory, both by consumers and by the manufacturer's marketing department.

    The N-Gage is by no means a perfect device but for a fusion device with a few compromises it's not half bad.
    • in the form factor of the Siemens S60. You know, where the keyguard slides off to one side and becomes two handed, with the screen in the middle. If they took that design, and made it so that it functioned primarily as a phone in the "compact" mode, and as the gaming system, webbrowser/email tool in the "open" mode, that would prompt me to go get one.
    • Well, sure. As a phone it works. As a game system its a joke. And Nokia is trying to sell a game system, not a phone.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 02, 2004 @09:52AM (#7859401)
    Gamestop announces a sudden influx of 69,975 used copies of Tomb Raider for the N-Gage being traded in at their stores across the country.
  • What the N-Gage is good at is being the first of do everything devices.

    Unfortunately it's too early for this to be done properly with a phone. The zodiac [zodiacgamer.com] does a better job without the phone features. It marries, a PDA and a game console fairly well.

    In a few years, if they can continue to shrink the size of components we'll see a successful N-Gage 2.

    With only 2 hours of battery life for a game, it's not exactly something you'll want to be playing on train rides to work if you need the battery for the rest

  • It's the monthly fee dammit! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mean_Nishka ( 543399 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @10:36AM (#7859697) Homepage Journal
    With the handheld game market being mostly kids, I am not surprised N-Gage has failed. Who wants to pay a monthly fee for a game machine? Sure you get phone service with it, but it's priced well beyond most mobile phones a parent would purchase for a kid. Not to mention the fact that the kids who do have phones are typically under contract and in 'family share' plans that don't easily allow for cutting a phone loose.

    To make matters even more difficult for success: There is no CDMA version available!! Say what you want about CDMA but the two largest carriers with the most customers (Sprint and Verizon) use it. Nokia immediately severed millions of customers because the system won't work on the biggest networks.

    • * Nokia are a European company
      * Europe uses GSM _exclusively_
      * The EU has a larger population than the USA and much higher cellphone coverage
      * Over here we have 'pay as you go' plans - no monthly fees, just pay for the calls. Sure, the call charges are higher, but it's definitely better for light users and very easy for parents to control what their kids can spend. We also don't have to pay to receive calls.

      IMO it's a silly idea because it's a ropey form factor for a console and has a significantly higher

  • True 3D graphics (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chrismcdirty ( 677039 )
    Gamespy mentions one reason to like the system is true 3D graphics, while the Gameboy only does isometric.

    1. Doesn't the Gameboy have some very primitive true 3D shooters, like Ecks vs. Sever and some other FPS? And Iridion 3D?

    2. Who wants true 3D when it is sub-Playstation/N64 quality? Wooo! I can play the original Star Fox in all it's non-textured, 20-polygon glory! [not to say Star Fox wasn't a great game, but the graphics were bad]

    And for those of you tired of advertisers stuffing money in pockets fo
    • Even if the graphics were sharp, the plain fact is that it's hard to really "see" the 3D depth in such a tiny screen.

      You're just given such a small viewport that you can't pick out things in the scene that you could on a much larger screen.

      I think the idea of 3D gaming on a 2-4" screen should really be abandoned. 2D gaming, however, thrives there. Who wants to play a rough approximation of 3D gaming instead of a great 2D game? More visual complexity requires better viewing, and 3D is visual complexity t

    • Neither GameBoy Advance nor the N-Gage have hardware accelerated 3D graphics. 3D effects in games for both systems use software emulation. GBA developers use proprietary 3D software emulation while N-Gage developers use emulation provided by Fathammer. The Sony PSP will have true hardware accelerated 3D graphics at least as good as PlayStation and the Zodiac has 3D hardware acceleration NOW.
  • ... that they have sold only 1000 of those things...
  • Nokia is just marketing the game, that's all. Each player in the Nokia Sugar Bowl is also receiving an N-Gage as part of their gift bag [go.com].

    The author of that article, Darren Rovell, was doing a sports business segment on ESPNews talking about how he thought that the N-Gage was the best gift to get out of all the bowl games. He also speaks nicely of it in that article as well. He's their business guy and he didn't seem to have a damn clue about just how bad the device was or how poorly it was selling.

  • As an N-Gage owner... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Friday January 02, 2004 @07:54PM (#7864185) Homepage Journal
    ...anyone who doesn't own one can leave their negative comments at home. It's a superb phone and a pretty decent portable platform for game emulation. I bought a web browser for mine a couple of days back, I've got an ssh client for server maintenance on the fly and this afternoon at around 3-ish I'll be watching the Paris-Dakar rally on it. Other highlights include an Ogg Vorbis player that I use to listen to Retro Gaming Radio and to fit all this on the phone, along with commercial, shareware and freeware games and old-school demos, it even supports an application packer, currently scoring me an extra 20-something MB of space between the 4MB built-in and the 128MB MMC card.

    The only thing it needs desperately is a Bluetooth keyboard.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Someone decided to take E-Trade up on their question "Well, we just wasted two million dollars...what are you doing with your money?" Apparently trying to convince 70000 drunk jocks to use one of those "De-jit-tal di-vices"....
  • Has the NGage sold anywhere near that many systems? I thought there were only about 5,000 on its launch. Of course, I didn't RTFA
  • I've got both and NGage and Tomb Raider....and tomb raider sucks just like I remembered it did many many years ago when it was first released. I don't think it's the NGage that is causing the game to suck....I'm pretty sure it's just the game.
  • Or does it seem like the N-gage is some mythological electronic item that everyone is talking / bitching about, but no one has it, or its not available in a store to demo? With all of the press i'd like to try it out, but I never see it anywhere working.
  • Did anyone here go to the Sugar Bowl? Reactions? Were the bins filled with Tomb Raider on the way out? Anyone?

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