• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

You bought an N-Gage, didn't you?

Hasney

Member
So to 17 year old me we had a phone that had MP3 ringtones which I wanted for years, as well as portable 3D Tony Hawk and a Sonic port, holy shit I wanted one. Then I saw it, £50 months after release in CEX. It was mine.

Sure, it wasn't as good as I wanted, but I actually really liked it. Ended up getting a fairly big MMC and backing up all the games I bought rather than switch them out, so it worked well. Lasted me a good couple of years until I sandboarded in Peru forgetting it was in my pocket... Even then I started looking to see how much a QD would set me back. But alas, it was time to move on to the Nokia N91 since that beast had a 4GB hard drive in it for music. In a phone!!
 
It was my first phone...ever.

Had some fun with some games, but that was it, having calls was weird and people would look at you as if you were retarded and didnt know how to use a phone.
 
I never had one, but the cute girl at the N-Gage booth at E3 (2005?) got my friend and I to stop and play for a while. I was actually impressed at how well it worked, and how good it looked. I was totally expecting the controls to react...well, as if you were using phone buttons to control them.

I walked away fully intending to never buy one, but I also resolved not to laugh too hard at its funeral.

edit: holy crap, I was NOT aware of the "side talking" meme. Do yourself a favor and google it.
 

pikablu

Member
I want to get one of these but have never come across one in the wild. I remember one of my friends had the original model I believe. He loved thps on it.
 
I bought both around 2007 when they were super cheap on eBay. Worth it for Rifts alone, one of my favorite portable RPG experiences of all time.
 

Flipyap

Member
Also, I really loved the game cases n-gage games came in. They were little mini DVD cases, and when you opened them up, they had a plastic card carrier that could hold 4 N-Gage games that could be popped out and slipped into your wallet. It meant that, even if you only had 1 game, you could store 4 n-gage cards safely.
Wow, that's weird. Those were in every game case?
That's kind of cool, but really wasteful. Did they expect people to buy three times as many used, caseless copies of their games?

Pr8Ud7W.jpg
bzxS43i.jpg
 

Hasney

Member
Amazingly, it wasn't even the ugliest phone I owned. That would have to go to the 5510, bought because it was the first phone to play music with a whopping 128mb of on-board storage.

 

ash_ag

Member
I can't believe we're 3 pages in an no one mentioned Flo yet.

DE3hdez.jpg


The game itself was pretty bad, but man. That chatbot was surreal for my 13-year-old self.

aHx9sQi.jpg
 

takoyaki

Member
It had portable 3D versions of Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider, of course I bought one. Never used it as a phone and removing the battery to switch out cards was incredibly stupid, but I actually had fun playing some of the games from the OP.
 
I have to admit....I really did buy one of these back in the day. Always wanted the QD, but never did upgrade.

Maybe I'll add that to my collection one day....
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Wow, that's weird. Those were in every game case?
That's kind of cool, but really wasteful. Did they expect people to buy three times as many used, caseless copies of their games?

Pr8Ud7W.jpg
bzxS43i.jpg

You could use normal mmcs for storage. So, if you bought a dd only game, or downloaded a java game, or whatever, you could use a single case to store your stuff.

I keep snake 3d in my case for sonic n, as an example.
 

bender

What time is it?
I bought one for like $10 last summer when I found out there was an elder scrolls game released for it. It was....not great lol

After falling in love with Morrowind, I always wanted to try the N-Gage version.
 
Wow, that's weird. Those were in every game case?
That's kind of cool, but really wasteful. Did they expect people to buy three times as many used, caseless copies of their games?

Pr8Ud7W.jpg
bzxS43i.jpg

I bet it was meant to carry standard memory cards too. I remember a lot of CF, MMC and SD protective cases bundled with, well, everything until mid-2000s.
 
No I was waiting for the N-Cage. It's where you pick up your phone and Nicolas Cage says one of the many insane random quotes of each of his phones.
 

Aesnath

Member
I had the QD version. I liked it so much actually as I could do a lot with it and it played its games really well. Being Symbian OS meant that there was no shortage of apps for it at the time as well.

My only real complaint was that the rubber band around it keeps peeling off slowly and I had to replace it more than once.

Also, Ashen deserve a mention:

CEhnndi.jpg


96ubL16.jpg

I had that one too. It looked so cool...but it was kinda boring overall.
 

Meier

Member
There was an Iraq war/video game crossover Photoshop thread waaay back in the day. I'm by no means talented and think I was using something even less impressive than Photoshop (some sort of freeware). I remember doing this one (amazing that 20megsfree still works/exists):

The N-Gage preparing to be buried by the GameBoys.

Some others:

http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-BF1942.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-Blinx.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-Link.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-SaddamAlice.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-Samus.jpg

Sidetalking will always be a favorite.
 

Yokai

Member
Nope, never had it.

I do really wish that we had the wonderswan in the states though. Its success in japan and a good library of games makes me confused on why it was never brought over to the states.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
I had that one too. It looked so cool...but it was kinda boring overall.

It played well at least. It was a cool proof of concept for a portable fps at the time.

I would have loved to try it in multiplayer. I never knew anyone else with an ngage tho.
 
Nokia%20N-Gage%20The%20Elder%20Scrolls%20Travels%20Shadowkey%20Front%20Cover.jpg


I bought an N-Gage for Shadowkey...but turns out my N-Gage didn't work and I havn't bothered replacing it yet. Shadowkey just sits on my shelf mocking me :C
 
I had both versions. It was a good phone and had some good games. I was able to watch videos and listen to music. I gave it all away to a couple of GAFers three years ago.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Really? I find the Swan Crystal very comfortable to hold, thin and light.
"d-pad" sucks for everything that require diagonal input though.

It's the buttons being in the bottom corner, it cramps my hands when I play for too long.

Which is a shame, because the system has a lot of games I actually like. One of my favorites is the Dragonball card game.
 

Thoraxes

Member
OP you forgot the Tony Hawk game! Was actually a good poet imo.

I wish I could find my Ngage though. Haven't seen it since I left college. Probably in storage bins with the rest of my stuff.

I really liked mine.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
OP you forgot the Tony Hawk game!

I mentioned it in the OP, actually. But I was trying to highlight year 3 games.

Tony Hawk is incredible on the N-Gage, though, you are right. Such a great port. It plays well and keeps everything intact. It was the sole silver lining of the entire first year lineup, IMO.
 

Thoraxes

Member
I mentioned it in the OP, actually. But I was trying to highlight year 3 games.

Tony Hawk is incredible on the N-Gage, though, you are right. Such a great port. It plays well and keeps everything intact. It was the sole silver lining of the entire first year lineup, IMO.
Ahh. I'm on mobile so I probably glanced over it.
 

Rich!

Member
The rich kid down our road got one and the rest of us all laughed at him and carried on playing Pokemon on our Game Boys.
 
Does anyone know anything about softmodding the N-Gage? I've got the second model and I tracked down a MMC card that's quite big for MMC standards and loaded it up with games. I can't get games to load, aside from the Alien Front proto. I get some kind of error (it's been a year since I've tried, so I don't remember) I was hoping someone like the OP may be able to help
 

cakely

Member
Great thread. :)

I didn't buy one, and in fact I mocked it mercilessly on the gaming forum I was posting on at the time.

Also, there was this lovely quote:

Ilkka Raiskinen said:
GameBoy is for 10-year-olds. If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a GameBoy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space.

He's talking about the Gameboy Advance, where I was playing Advance Wars and various other absolute classics.

But, the joke was on him. It turned out that no one wanted a $300 taco that required battery removal to change games.
 

Nevadatan

Member
i always wanted one of these, i remember the ads, the tomb raider one specially.
but then the PSP came out and welp i was sold for it.
 

tensuke

Member
There was an Iraq war/video game crossover Photoshop thread waaay back in the day. I'm by no means talented and think I was using something even less impressive than Photoshop (some sort of freeware). I remember doing this one (amazing that 20megsfree still works/exists):

The N-Gage preparing to be buried by the GameBoys.

Some others:

http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-BF1942.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-Blinx.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-Link.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-SaddamAlice.jpg
http://meier.20megsfree.com/cgi-bin/i/Iraq-Samus.jpg

Sidetalking will always be a favorite.
Need imgur mirrors, stat!
Nope, but I bought the Game.com

game_com.jpg
That Batman game was the shit though. Or maybe it was shit. I don't remember.
 
I wanted one but I was too young to have a cell phone, My cousin had one and I remember playing Tomb Raider on it, I remember it looked way better than any game my Gameboy played at the time, I never bought one though.
 
Top Bottom