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[nintendork666]

No, but I bought a Game Gear once.

 

[SiegRein of Takamagahara]

Why do I want one of these now?

Smashing. I blame you kreuj.

 

[norm9]

My friend had the N-gage and he showed me tecmo bowl on it. Made me want one.

 

[Sintoid]

Here I am, bought a NGage QD and loved it but not for gaming, Fifa and MotoGP were ugly. Actually I loved how it was my first phone with actual apps, pdf reader, call blacklist and answering machine, emulators and much more. too bad for the small screen.

I still have it and sometimes I take it out of the box

 

[ash_ag]

The legacy of N-Gage did live on through the N-Gage-as-a-platform, bringing hits like Metal Gear Solid (Mobile) to the table (!)

My ex-girlfiend had an N-Gage so I played though Pathway to Glory about 4 years ago. It was hard. Very hard.

N-Gage 2.0 was truly ahead of each time. Game Center and Google Play Games released years later (2010 and 2013) and they still haven't reached it in certain aspects uniformity-wise.

It also had some very decent games, like Metal Gear Solid Mobile and Metal Gear Acid Mobile. Granted, the latter (and its sequel) were demakes of the PSP games, but the former was an original Metal Gear entry. It surpasses even Snake's Revenge and Ghost Babel in terms of rarity and obscurity.

 

[666]

I remember being so excited when this came out at the prospect of being able to play online anywhere, even though I don't think it offered this ever.

 

[soxinthebox]

N-Gage 2.0 was truly ahead of each time. Game Center and Google Play Games released years later (2010 and 2013) and they still haven't reached it in certain aspects uniformity-wise.

It also had some very decent games, like Metal Gear Solid Mobile and Metal Gear Acid Mobile. Granted, the latter (and its sequel) were demakes of the PSP games, but the former was an original Metal Gear entry. It surpasses even Snake's Revenge and Ghost Babel in terms of rarity and obscurity.

It's biggest issue from memory was that it was like an hour long start to end.

 

[Sunnington]

It doesn't look like it would be fun to text on.

 

[Lazaro]

I had an N-Gage QD. Back in high school people thought it was a cool concept (everyone else had a Motorola Razr at the time) playing 3D Games like Tony Hawk blew their minds.

It's funny. After experiencing the product some of my classmates would come up to me saying "it's cool and all, but I just want a good looking phone that makes call and texts and nothing else."

Then the iPhone came out. ;p

 

[Meaty]

I never heard of this, and now im sad it flopped.


It appears to me that trying to do decent hardware in the handheld market only makes you flop.



This is such a shame, I just wish the people who did this didnt comit the mistakes they did, maybe nintendo would be forced to actually do some good specs on their handhelds if they had good competition

 

[Werewolf Jones]

I wanted one hardcore back in the day upon release but no one ever seemed to own it, only one person I know had it and he really didn't seem to care for it at all he actually never took it outside and used it as a phone.

 

[ExigentContact]

I had an N-Gage, a QD, and a Gizmondo. I had a weird obsession with obscure handhelds as an adolescent. I enjoyed The Elder Scrolls: Shadowkey for the N-Gage despite its glaring problems, and the platforms in general despite their glaring problems.

The Gizmondo was my emulator machine for a long time and when a bunch of its games were leaked by former devs I wound up getting a respectable library from it. Some of them were very incomplete (Johnny Whatever was just a demo, and Furious Phil was an alpha tech demo) but I think that wound up influencing my fascination with older/incomplete versions of games.

 

[Oyashrio-Sama]

I never thought I would say this ever but...

I think I might buy a N-Gage.

 

[Newline]

I did and I loved it. Pandemonium was the bomb. I had a first gen though and the only thing that frustrated me was having to turn it off and take out the battery to change a game. Oh and the vertical screen.

 

[mr_toa]

No, but was quite tempted once back in the day ... novelty and all that!

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I never did get one. All my attention back then was on the neo geo pocket colour.

Man, that was a legit handheld.

I'd love an N-Gage, but reliability is apparently very spotty and it's prone to failure.

 

[Krejlooc]

I had an N-Gage, a QD, and a Gizmondo. I had a weird obsession with obscure handhelds as an adolescent. I enjoyed The Elder Scrolls: Shadowkey for the N-Gage despite its glaring problems, and the platforms in general despite their glaring problems.

The Gizmondo was my emulator machine for a long time and when a bunch of its games were leaked by former devs I wound up getting a respectable library from it. Some of them were very incomplete (Johnny Whatever was just a demo, and Furious Phil was an alpha tech demo) but I think that wound up influencing my fascination with older/incomplete versions of games.

I had all these systems back in the day, too. I got really big into the mobile homebrew scene for a while. the gp32 is still my favorite handheld of all time. that was an era of high experimentation, it was lot of fun to be around those little dev communities.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

I remember when the QD launched, it looked like Nokia were finally getting it. It was an improvement upon the original in every way. In theory it was a much more desirable product than the first version, but six months later the DS and PSP dropped and it was forgotten, even though it had some features that were more advanced than either of them.

Nokia is a strange company. I really appreciate the care and focus they put into many of their products over the years, but passing on Android might as well have killed the company. It's sad because to this day there are still some useful features I had on my old 6085 flipper that are difficult to replicate with modern smartphones..

 

[Theonik]

This is obligatory:
http://www.sidetalkin.com/

Edit:

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?

I think the expectations might have been that people don't keep their cases. I mean most people I know never kept their cases for cart games so I guess they thought people would like to have theses mini-cassette wallets instead.

 

[Kudo]

I bought two (green and gray) and still have them somewhere, I remember playing The Elders Scrolls with friends and it was lots of fun! It had online multiplayer co-op up to 4 players in the huge world.
Certainly wasn't a graphical showpiece and lots of issues so it reviewed badly but I only have good memories of it.

 

[lebowski4ever]

i remember actually selling a system to a customer and my boss mentioning i would get 18 quid for selling one..

 

[Comfort Jones]

I was a child when this thing came out and I was definitely curious about it due to how ahead of its time some of its ideas were.

Weird to think how normal smartphones are to people now.

 

[Grannd]

I bought mine together with my brother like a year after launch for 150 euro, for that price you got a real smart phone (symbian), with bluetooth connectivity and two free games.

We both got Fifa for it and played head-to-head through bluetooth a lot.

I also remember buying a 128MB memory card (MMC) for 100 euro. Having to turn off the system and removing the battery to change a game was a real pain in the ass.
I just bought the memory card and pirated all the games, they were really easy to find on the internet and weren't that big so you could hold like 6 games at the same time on your memory card. I think piracy has also hurt the system quite a bit, everyone who got this device was more or less a hardcore gamer, the target group for this thing was thesame group who wouldn't have any trouble finding and installing new games on a memory card instead of buying them.
It was pretty much the only way to get games for it anyway, no game stores in Holland sold the games.

I also used it a lot for MP3's and even movies/tv shows.

Another friend of me and my brother's also had one, we played a lot of multiplayer Snakes through it.

The only thing that differientates it from a smartphone from today is that there was no camera or wifi (although wifi was hardly common back then). It had an app store for games, downloadable apps/games.

 

[PillarEN]

No, but I bought a Game Gear once.

Me too. It was actually pretty cool at the time cause of the color picture. Games that were ports of console games didn't run as nicely but as a child that didn't bother me at the time.

Never saw an N-Gage in the wild. Not even at a bazar.

 

[Ban Puncher]

My parents asked me to buy my younger brother his first mobile phone.

I intentionally bought the N-Gage just so he would throw a shit fit.


Totally worth it.

 

[pinkurocket]

I remember hanging out in the local game shop once and a kid was super excited to walk it with his mom to buy an N-Gage QD. I was like ... oop.
But you know, since the original N-Gage it has always intrigued me. Such an interesting device and at the time it was really trying something different and progressive. The QD design is so charming as well, I like it. And the name 'N-Gage' is awesome.

Also taco phone is a nice meme.

 

[Noisepurge]

both Pathway to Glory games were really good and i'm still hoping for an Android port

They play like the classic Commandoes or Jagged Alliance games, not like Call of Duty as described in the OP.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Still have mine actually...

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

My parents asked me to buy my younger brother his first mobile phone.

I intentionally bought the N-Gage just so he would throw a shit fit.


Totally worth it.

you're a bad brother

Man Puncher
Brother Abuser

 

[Noisepurge]

i think it's safe to say N-Gage is the worst handheld of all time.

oh hell no, Gizmondo and Game.com or something are way worse

 

[Porcile]

When it came out I remember a few British multiformat magazines, GamesMaster being one if I remember, believing it would topple Nintendo's monopoly on the market. Pretty much just added up to a Nintendo is for kiddies, phones are for cool people so it's going to be better argument.

 

[Bradach]

i tried one once in a phone shop. Tomb raider i believe.

It made me get a little bit sick in my mouth

 

[KORNdoggy]

i didn't, but i admit i wanted one when i saw splinter cell.

 

[ExigentContact]

I had all these systems back in the day, too. I got really big into the mobile homebrew scene for a while. the gp32 is still my favorite handheld of all time. that was an era of high experimentation, it was lot of fun to be around those little dev communities.

Yeah, it was a good time for handheld gaming, I think. I miss not just the homebrew scene being lively on smaller platforms like the GP32 and Tapwave Zodiac (two systems I wanted but never got) but also having this big arena of potential hardware upstarts to come into the more mainstream market. I guess the dominance of the DS and PSP nixed those possibilities, but I was hopeful then.

Really sad to see how handheld gaming is now, by comparison.

EDIT:

oh hell no, Gizmondo and Game.com or something are way worse

As someone who's had both an N-Gage and a Gizmondo, I'd say the N-Gage is worse. Especially the first iteration of the system. Both are also somewhat underrated, though.

There's no excusing the Game.com though, as curious as I am to own one.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I knew a guy in high school who bought an ngage

He thought he was the coolest

To be fair he was kind of cool

 

[FunkyDealer]

I didn't have an N-gage, but in its ahes birthed the software based N-gage 2.0 platform on Nokias Symbian devices. And I consider that the golden-age of mobile games. Relatively high budget 3D games without IAP. It was awesome!

 

[visiblemode]

To me, it was always a measure of John Romero's fall from grace that at one point he moved onto Ngage game development. Oh John Romero...

 

[zorlaczerohero]

Damn, I did have one. I played Fifa on it. End of story.

 

[mrklaw]

still have one, but its a proto so I can't sell it.

 

[Dezeer]

My brother had the original N-Gage and I had QD, and I think it was fantastic gaming device. We both had Pathway to glory and remember playing against each other in multiplayer with bluetooth and over internet. I also had the Sims game and think that it was good game for a mobile game.

The performance wasn't really that great, I remember that Colin McRae Rally had PR spin about how it managed to get up to 30fps at times. And having played CMR it really was a good rally game with proper challenge, game mechanics and physics.

I think the multiplayer capability was ahead of its time, I think most games had multiplayer through bluetooth. Some games had 'realtime' multiplayer through the Arena service, like pathway to glory. I remember news stories how Redlynx, the developer, tested the multiplayer by playing the game in moving trains. And the multiplayer really worked, even with the low bitrate high latency GSM/GPRS network.

Some games had scorelist multiplayer in the Arena, like CMR. You selected an opponents time to beat and got certain amount of points if you beat that time in that stage, or lost points if you were slower, and that allowed to challenge higher point opponents and times. My brother had a really fierce back and forth battle with some swedish player in the finnish rally stages.

Some turn-based games even had hotseat multiplayer.


Later in time after the device and service was dead I realized how easily you could pirate games to it.

I really wanted to play Pocket kingdom, but it had god awful menu transitions that took forever to go through their animation, and half the game was going from one menu to another.

 

[Kalavaras]

I never understood the taco phone thing. Me and my friend had N-Gages and we used it like any other normal phone. While I quickly realized it wasn't the awesome handheld gaming system I'd dreamed of it was still a fun phone to mess with. When my phone broke a few years back I took my N-Gage and it worked just like back in the day and felt good.

 

[webrunner]

i got an ngage for free (with pocket kingdom) as part of a pocket kingdom beta advertising promotion thing.

 

[kraspkibble]

nope but i sure as hell wanted one.

 

[Bioshocker]

I did buy it, actually. Wearing a headset I never had to use the phone "taco style".

At the time, years before the first Iphone, N-Gage wasn't as horrible as many of us remember it. The design was flawed, obviously, and it was never a good gaming device. I used it a lot to listen to mp3's, listen to the radio, and it was very comfortable to write text messages with.

I only owned two games for it. Sonic N was a pretty poor Sonic game while Tomb Raider was cool. I was impressed with how it looked on that tiny screen.

 

[sephiroth7x]

Aww man my mate had the original one and I was so jealous.

Then when I could afford it I bought the newer slim one. Was such an awesome little phone... I actually loved mine. Haha... (Maybe the only person who did) but I ended up in a row with my girlfriend at the time and smashed it onto the floor after I hung up on her...

Then... I instantly regretted it...

 

[soxinthebox]

I didn't have an N-gage, but in its ahes birthed the software based N-gage 2.0 platform on Nokias Symbian devices. And I consider that the golden-age of mobile games. Relatively high budget 3D games without IAP. It was awesome!

The achievement system was legit (plus the N95 I was using was a wicked phone).

Kind of bums me out that iPhones/Androids have homogenised mobile phones nowadays. Things used to change so much phone to phone...

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I got one for free. Or was it two of them? Can't remember.....

 

[MemoryHumanity]

I had one and I loved it. Way ahead of its time.

 

[MightyKAC]

Fuck yeah I bought one!!!

That bad boy was a 50 dollar cell phone in the early 2000's if I turned in 3 games at Gamestop.

How the hell could I turn down a 50 dollar cell phone that could emulate a ton of cool shit and play it almost flawlessly with it's d-pad???

And to top it all off it had bluetooth so I never needed to do the side talking thing if I didn't want to.

Hell, I still have that thing somewhere in my storage I think......

 

[sith ewok]

I was a Gamestop manager through its lifetime. I received no less than five free n-gage systems. Nokia was pushing it on us so hard...