This was such a great handheld console. The only flaw is the screen is too small

Who else had one of these? I got it as a gift and it had some alright maze game as well as Snake, but I think that was it. Never ever found any more games for it, not that I really looked that hard.

i'm only aware of them from ashens' review.

Come to think of it, I'd probably put money on the idea that more people remember the N-Gage because of that bit more than anything else. And it's just a throw-away gag in a poorly drawn, early-2000s Newgrounds flash about modern video games being shit. That's the pinnacle of the N-Gage's notoriety.

I was a little kid back then, my older friend had one, and he let me play Tomb Raider and The Sims in it. That shit blew my mind.

it was great until it exploded.
We used to call them N-Grenades in the industry.

...

REEEEEEEEE STOP SHILLIN E CELBS WE ONLY TALK ABOUT CROWBCAT HERE REEEEEEE

*most consumers didn't see a need to combine a handheld and a cell phone into one at the time

...

why not?

I had an N-Gage QD (the model without taco-ear). It was a neat thing to have before the advent of smartphones. Was cool showing friends Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider on a phone. But back then people wanted a phone from a phone first and for that they got something more usable. And, before long, we had 3D mobile gaming with the DS and PSP.

It was meh at games and as a phone was a little weird. So it failed in both places.

Aren't the games just java?

Should I buy an N-Gage and unironically use it as a phone?

Do it and be the envy of all the hipsters

only if you're planning to time travel back to 2003 where it was essentially the proto iphone
otherwise just get it for the handful of decent-to-good exclusives it has

you mean sidetalkin'?
i just checked and for some fucking reason the guy who owns sidetalking dot com is still paying for posting a decade later.

absolutely. other than that rifts rpg it didn't have any particularly interesting exclusives (i mean it had versions just for the n-gage of shit, but they were mostly weird ass ports made to work with the vertical screen)

Ngage was the best console I ever had. Or whatever ngage version I had. QT or something
You fags probably never used it. And it was made before every phone required 4core cpu to render interface without lags.

in Australia cell towers dont support it anymore
so we can only use modern phones here

Don't know. I've looked for one, and all I've found has been a great big nothing.

I remember that Apple CEO kike laughing at Nokia and the N-Gage for being a clunky piece of shit.

I had a friend who had one it was silly watching him take phone calls on a taco.

...

you will never know how wrong you are emulator never ever

your friend was too stupid to use the bluetooth which was at the time a rare and cutting edge feature for a cellphone to have, but at least you got to laugh at him looking like a retard

Pretty sure they aren't. I think they are some symbian abomination.

No. The original one had a bug that would result in turning it into a brick if you installed too many apps in it. You essentially bootlooped it, and unlike CURRENT YEAR phones, you need a flashing device that is expensive as hell and no one seems to carry anymore to fix it. I have a dead one here.

The second version, the QT, fixed that, but had other problems, the most egregious one in my opinion being the mono sound instead of stereo, as well as not being as comfy as the original tacophone.

The games were great for its age, but nowadays, you would get eye cancer from that small as fuck screen that somehow people thought would be a good idea to have in portrait format for gaming.

You want a cheap gaming phone? Get an Xperia Play.

Just speculating but it might be that since they committed to SymbianOS they didn't have a solution to get all the S60 apps to work in a landscape orientation. Of course I don't know why they couldn't just have made it so you hold the phone vertically for regular S60 apps and then turn it on its side for playing games.

not that it matters but the 2nd one was actually called the QD not QT, named from some latin phrase or some such bullshit.

Since it doesn't deserve its own thread pic related is a game that was exclusive to web browsers and the short-lived N-Gage 2.0 platform that only existed on 2007-era Nokia phones. I never got to play it but it was apparently well-received by then ten or so people that did play it. As far as I know you can't play it at all anymore except if you happen to have one of said circa 2007 Nokia phones and already have it downloaded. Same dev as Pathway to Glory that I mentioned above, also responsible for all those Trials motorcycle games that rip off Happy Wheels.

Nowadays Reset Generation would get crucified by SJWs for being too problematic so it's little wonder that nobody bothers reviving it. emulator/browser version revival never ever

trailer with a blurb from Yahtzee, by that time already an eceleb

Yeah, I had it was not mine, but whatever Nokia N-GAGE QD. So you dont need to do that. The only real problem is poor quality of rubber band around phone. It died after only 10 years of usage.

Yes, you are correct. I have the fucking thing and forgot how it's spelled.

Oh, I loved Reset Generation! I played it a lot and still have it installed in my old N95. You can still find cracked versions by the group BiNPDA (bless theeir souls) around the net. That game always had a very heavy population of players, to the point where I never had difficulty in finding matches. This is likely due to the fact that it had crossplay wioth the browser version (which was free) as well as from piracy, which was widespread on the plataform and you could play your pirated games online without any risk of a ban. They even released a real time Age of Empires for it, as well as a Metal Gear Solid and some other games.

That is one game I would love to see ressurected, and I think it would be a hit in the current mobile plataforms since online gaming is much more common and hardware agnostic nowadays. If you released this on the Play Store and allowed free play with ads with a limited selection of heroes, alongside the ability of purchasing new heroes (or the full game) for those who wish to stay for the long run, as long as everything was balanced, I think it could be a great success for a simple to program game like this one. They could even strip the single player to not even bother with an AI.

The Ngage 2.0 online plataform was a pretty good one, and had a nice adoption rate since Nokia was still in a sales boom back then. There a couple of good games for the plataform, but ultimately they failed to deliver the quality they promised with their early showcases because of some stupid decision to lock down the use of the GPU on the plataform. Their SDK didn't have the ability to use that extra power (or to fully use it, something like that, it's been a while) and they would always say "don't worry, it's coming, we'll implement it" but ultimateluy never did. This made it so many of the games we got on the plataform were simply Symbian S60v3 games sold through the Ngage ecosphere, lacking hardware acceleration to really make them. That, and holding their SDK for ransom was not a very smart move, especially when Apple entered the scene.

Here's a video showing the difference between the hardware accelerated version of a racing game that was shown as a plataform demo for Ngage 2.0 vs the actual subpar release. Ubisoft would be proud of such levels of downgrade:

youtube.com/watch?v=xAYKbl3EKBI

those demo graphics do indeed look nicer, but to be fair they also seem to be running sub-20fps whereas the released version appears to be running a stable 30fps or somewhere in that neighborhood.

Wait you mean I might actually be able to play it? Assuming of course I can get my hands on one of the appropriate N series phones that can run it?
WELP. Oh wait here's a mega.nz, we'll see how that pans out once I can unpack it.

Shame nobody can 'crack' the browser version, save us the trouble of needing to get a 10 year old phone to play one forgotten game, if the cracked version even works at all.

Your forgot the fucktarded aspect ratio. Who the fuck thinks a screen taller than it is wide is a good idea? It only works for vertical shmups.

Literally billions of dollars lost from one little mistake.

"Hey bro watcha doing?"
"Not much just playin my ngage"

Those games are not that hard to find, user. There were some mobile forums that I think were made by indians that I used to frequent exclusively for phone gaming piracy, but that thing is widespread enough to be in torrents somewhere. Did you check at the usual places? Also, see if UG (are they back yet?) or GGn have them. If not, check also on demonoid / piratebay etc and on emulation websites.

Your best bet are the forums, though. Try to find a big forum devoted to mobile phones or with a big mobile phone section that allows games to be shared. You will either find it there or you can request it for them. I don't remember the forum I used to mine for thats stuff and I lost my bookmarks from that time, so I can't help you much there. A good portion of those were archived in ourkut as well, since there were plenty of Nokia related communities there with a shitload of symbian, java and ngage games being shared, but Google shut that down.

Unfortunately, I checked to see if I still had my N95 folder, but the only remnant of that is TTPod, arguably the best music player for symbian properly cracked. I may have some symbian executables in the phone itself. If I find anything there, I'll post here, but since space was at a premium, I'm not sure there will be anything.

As far as acquiring phones, I recommeng you get an N95. There were 3 or 4 versions of those, the main difference being screen size between the ones with 8gb of internal memory (a lot at the time) and with SD card slot (these have a smaller screen). The resolution is the same. I think the dpad and buttons are better on the 8Gb version because they are slightly bigger, but I don't really remember.

The slide out feature of the N95 makes it an amazing portable console (at least for the time), though the media keys are kinda shitty for that. Still, I played a lot of SNES, genesis and GBA on it, as well as symbian and ngage games. Even Duke Nukem 3D and Quake 3D ran pretty damn well on it.

Here's a potato quality video I made showing some cool shit the N95 had back then (there's an audio scratchy noise every now and then that I don't know where it came from, so beware):

youtube.com/watch?v=cd4KrpO2cWQ

If you do get one, I think you have to do some procedure on the phone so that the cracked games can run, but I don't remember very well (maybe something akin to jailbreaking). Also, be sure to get the symbian program Magic Keys, because you will need it to remap 2 of the 4 media keys so that you can use them for gaming.

Alternatively, just buy an used one with Reset Generation pre-installed.

Yeah I downloaded an archive that seems to have most/all the n-gage 2.0 games in there, still need to virus scan but looks good so far, reset generation is in there with instructions I may have even downloaded it before and just never realized it. Now I just need the phone to test it with, which means I have to decide if I'm really gonna dump some cash on an outdated unsupported phone to play one or two games.

Thanks for the video, it's really thorough in showing off the phone's capabilities. It's pretty remarkable to see just how much these nokias could do, I don't even think my xperia play could do all that despite releasing 3 years after the n95.

I was considering the N97 mini, as far as I can tell it was the last phone to actually support the N-Gage 2.0 platform. N97/N97 Mini both have increased screen res over the rest of the N series, 640 x 360 compared to 320 x 240, and are the only touchscreen phones compatible with N-Gage. The Mini has more RAM and an improved keyboard over its predecessor. The only thing that concerns me is gaming controls, in the pic you can see that the D-pad on the left side of the N97 was changed into directional keys on the right side of the Mini, and the center button in the N97 D-pad was moved off to the side somewhere on the Mini. I could imagine it getting really awkward if games don't allow rebinding keys, but that Magic Keys app you mentioned might just alleviate the issue.

I vaguely remember disliking the N97 when it was announced, but I don't remember why. Check if that phone doesn't have a weaker processor to drive that higher resolution or something like that.

Also, any chance you could share that pack? I was thinking of downloading it for archival purposes. Next time an user might need it, I would be able to share.

here's the archive I got

mega.nz/#F!IpxHgJrD!Yfql49P4DuX0ENEpWDLziQ

and this is a comparison between the N97 and the Mini, it's got lots of juicy specs and details so maybe that will shed some light on if it's a weak processor or whatever else might be a problem with it

allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/N97_vs_N97_Mini-A_fresh_comparison1.php

regarding the N97 processor I just spotted this in a different review:

Thanks for the link!
I was checking GSMarena and there is no GPU listed there, while there is one listed under the N95. Also, the N95 says "dual" arm, which I'm not sure if it's a reference to some dual core thing (probably not), but anyway I think the N97mini lacks a dedicated GPU chip - maybe that's why I disliked it when I saw. Try to read some reviews about game performance of the N97mini.

Also, I'm not sure how ergonomic that dpad and buttons are for gaming. See if some reviewer mentioned anything about it.

Here we go… you're right, N97 has no dedicated GPU.

Looks like that N95 might just be the best one for games then.

As for the dpad, on the N97 Classic it looked workable, however watching someone play Quake on the Mini looked awkward as fuck, it appeared he had to take his thumb off the directional keys to fire a shot. Again, Magic Keys might've helped with that but if there's no GPU and a weak processor I don't think it matters much.

Nokia executives built themselves nice Ivory Tower. Despite how stupid it sounds, they focused too much on the engineering side of things. Steve Jobs took relatively tested and proven hardware to create iPhone that had dedicated software to run touchscreen device designed to be used by average person, not by a Nokia engineer. By that point Nokia finally admitted touchsreen is future but devided it's attention and resources between making touchscreen version of their current Symbian OS and making brand new Meego OS. However pic related argues it was downfall of many things other than Nokia as well.

Here's a list of programs and games I have on my N95 installed. Maybe you wanna track down some of those as well:

System stuff:
- Rompatcher (related to running unsigned content, I think)
- Secman (related to running unsigned content)
- Device Status
- JbakTaskman (highly recommended)
- X-plore or Y-Browser

General apps:

- Magic Keys (essential)
- Slidehelper (unlock phone on slide, might not be needed on a N97/mini)
- RotateMe (it was more reliable than relying on the phone)
- TTPod (the included music player sucks, this one is miles better)
- Profimail
- Gravity (twitter app)

And a bunch of other uninteresting shit related to pictures, recording etc

Gaming related:

- Styletap Launcher (For maximum gaming autism - it's a PDA emulator that I installed only to play an RTS called Warzone Inc)
-WiiConnect (connect a wiimote to your phone)

Emulators (versions are the ones I have installed and likely the latest ones, as I kept my phone until symbian development ceased)

- vNES ver 1.70
- vBAG (GBA) ver. 1.20
- GPFce
- UAE4All
- vSun (SNES)
- SuperGoBoy (Gameboy/Color)
- vBoy (Gameboy/Color)
- Picodrive
- AntSnes
- Snes4Sym
- ScummVM

Games - Symbian:

- Global Race
- Tomb Raider Underworld
- PandaManda (accelerometer game)
- Resco Bubbles (same as above)
- SiL ("match the object to its shadow" game)
- Knights of the Dark Edge (some Soul Calibur clone)
- Asphalt 2
- Dragonbird (shmup that looks like Skyforce)
- Ball Rush Aqua (very nice arkanoid clone)
- Tyrian
- SuperMiner
- My Little Tank
- C2Doom
- Lament Island (this one is pretty good)
- Skyforce Reloaded
- Wolf3D
- Blazar
- Pandemonium (also has Ngage 2.0 version, which is likely the same but this one seems to run better, as Ngage games have no HW acceleration due to not all N-Phones having a dedicated GPU)
- Rise of the Triad
- K-Rally (looks like death race but with better graphics, very good)
- RotateGear
- Super Methane Bros
- JFDuke3D (only this one runs well, the other engine is crap and won't run at a playable speed. You might need to deactivate the music for smooth gameplay)
- Meritous
- Moby Escape
- Airfight Heroes (russian shmup)
- Miss Driller
- Age of Magic (HoMM III ported to Symbian by some crazy huskies. Plays surprisingly well, but had some big bugs back then. Dunno if they continued development)
- HHexen

You may be able to hunt some of these down, if you want.

This guy called AnotherGuest was a prolific symbian dev when it came to porting stuff, like ScummVM. His site is still up and has some of his symbian stuff:

anotherguest.se/

This is excellent, you have my gratitude user.

Something interesting when comparing the N95 8GB with the N82 (N82 actually released a month after the N95 8GB, these are apparently the only N-Gage 2.0 phones that have a GPU), the 8GB refers to storage not memory, and the N95 8GB has no card slot for expandable storage so you are stuck with the 8GB it comes with. Whereas the N82 DOES have expandable storage, it takes up to a 16GB microsd.

And as far as memory goes, they both have the same paltry 128MB RAM.

Your post reminds me that there N95 models with 64mb and 128mb total RAM. I think the very first N95 released that was dubbed M95-1 had only 64mb of RAM. There some later models sold to the Chinese market at a reduced cost that I think also had only 64mb ram.

sage for double post, my thinking is that even with the same amount of RAM that the extra internal system storage on the N95 8GB will still equate to much better overall performance.

Now if there were some Symbian app similar to Link2SD on Android, that could link the internal system apps to the expandable sd storage, that could actually make the N82 more appealing overall, with the possible exception of those media keys on the N95 (which I assume can also be used for gaming).

you're right, gsmarena says that the original first-gen N95 only had 64mb RAM. ouch.