My Christmas Wish: The Nokia N-Gage
When I was a kid, I asked for a gaming console for Christmas. Little did I know that I would get something even better—the Nokia N-Gage. This revolutionary device was a phone and a gaming console in one. It was powerful enough to run 3D games of a PlayStation-like caliber and I was instantly hooked.
The Nokia N-Gage: More Than Just a Gimmick Phone
The Nokia N-Gage was a phone that had to be held in a horizontal manner in order to double as a console. Its vertical screen was a bit awkward to use, but it didn’t get in the way of enjoying proper games. What’s more, the device was comfy to hold, possibly because it was so heavily inspired by the GameBoy Advance. It also had interchangeable panels and a user interface that allowed users to change its accent colors and rearrange the menu contents.
The infamous N-Gage meme about the phone having to be held sideways to talk through it was a total myth. The speaker was loud enough to be heard from the slightly off-center position that it held. However, one major pitfall of the N-Gage’s design was that the game slot was located in a spot that required users to power off and disassemble the phone in order to access it. This was changed with the N-Gage QD, the second and final version of the Nokia gaming phone, which had the game slot located on the phone’s exterior.
The Best Part of Flo Boarding: Unlocking New Snowboard Designs
The Nokia N-Gage came with one pre-packed game, Flo Boarding, which was about snowboarding. Even though I was disappointed to get this game, I became a king at it after weeks of practice. It was very difficult to get into, but it also inspired me to try snowboarding in real life. A cool side-feature of Flo Boarding was a basic AI of a girl that you could chat with.
The Nokia N-Gage also came with a CD that had a desktop companion app and a dedicated game store. Unfortunately, it took a company of four to figure out what Nokia wanted us to do with the CD, but we never managed to get it to work.
However, the N-Gage could run Java games that I could buy off different catalogs. Some of the best games I played on the N-Gage were God of War: Betrayal, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, and Demon Hunter. Real N-Gage games were also available, but they were incredibly overpriced.
Overall, the Nokia N-Gage was a revolutionary device that brought in the futuristic gamer aesthetic of the early 2000s. Even though it had some design flaws, it was a powerful device that allowed me to play some great games.
