SymbianOne GameZone

N-Gage Arena Player of the Month -- Coming Soon! - Beginning in March, they will select one player every month, recognizing their valuable contributions to the growing community of gamers. These contributions can come in any or all of the major aspects of Arena -- content, competition, and community. For example, a player dominating every leaderboard with high scores could be recognized for their gaming excellence. Every Player of the Month will be profiled in detail on the N-Gage Arena site, and will be given a special Player of the Month trophy to feature in their Arena profile.

SEGA announces 2 news titles for N-Gage - Nokia, together with SEGA® Corporation, today announced two SEGA branded titles that will be released for the N-Gage game deck. Virtua Cop(TM) is a multiplayer first person shooting game, where mobile gamers are charged with bringing down an evil crime syndicate that is running riot in a series of locations. Players can team up via Bluetooth wireless technology to shoot their way through various levels to restore peace and order. In Alien Front(TM), you can take on the role of an army tank commander to defend the Earth against invading aliens, or switch sides and take command of a futuristic 2-leg walker, a 4-leg spider walker, or an anti-gravity hovercraft vehicle. Alien Front also has a two-player deathmatch mode via Bluetooth wireless technology and the possibility to share game statistics with the world via the N-Gage Arena.

Nokia, Ericsson, and Microsoft Smartphones and Pocket PC PDAs now enjoy Horse Racing over GPRS - Launched today by mobile entertainment provider PlayWizard Co. Ltd., the objective of this game is to pick the winners, start the race, and to collect the winnings!!!. Once players get past the speed and strength screens at the beginning of the game , the different characters are introduced at the lineup, after which the game gets off to a fast start. Designed to run on Microsoft Smartphone 2002 and 2003, Pocket PC, Windows XP, and Nokia or Sony Ericsson Java mobile phones - See www.PlayWizard.com

Nokia N-Gage Snow Tour Announced - Snow sports enthusiasts enjoying the first virgin powder on the slopes of Europe in 2004 will get the opportunity to take time out from the black runs and snow parks to test drive new titles from the Nokia N-Gage game deck. The N-Gage Snow Tour kicks off in Hermagor, Austria on February 13, 2004 and will visit more than 27 winter sport resorts in 7 European countries, letting gamers sample the latest N-Gage releases and mobile gaming at its best. See www.n-gage.com/snowtour for complete details on Feb 12

Gamestop to halt selling N-Gage - Major US retailer GameStop has announced that it is to stop selling Nokia's N-Gage game deck 450 of its stores, representing almost a third of its retail outlets, with remaining inventory being moved to other stores. They go on to suggest that this could suggest that N-Gage 2.0 will be announced at E3 (Source: gamesindustry.biz)

Product Spotlight... Kayak Interactive Live is software that delivers the complete experience of the mobile multi-player game. At the innermost layer are components that facilitate game play; they manage groups of players and players’ interactions (including in-game chatting), and ensure fair and expected game play. To create an excellent end-to-end playing experience, these components re-establish state after network disconnects, monitor usage (per user, per game), enhance and differentiate quality of service (QoS), capture results, and support suspending and resuming games.

Q&A with John Romero of Monkeystone Games - John Romero discusses using Fathammer's X-Forge engine in developing the N-Gage mobile game deck version of Red Faction for publication by THQ; it includes sample code useful for others working with the X-Forge engine. [Sourece Forum.Nokia] See also www.monkeystone.com

UK GAMES COMPANIES AT E3 - Organisers of the UK National Pavilion at E3 are looking for the best UK computer games companies to take part in the show in Los Angeles, 12-14 May 2004. The pavilion, "UK: State of Play", is a venture by Trade Partners UK and the Department of Trade and Industry in collaboration with The British Council. Download an application form from http://www.creativexport.co.uk

FasTen update - FasTen is an new exciting and addicitve strategy game for your mobile. Move your piece around the board and pick up the tokens before your opponent - however this is not as simple as it looks. Pieces may only change direction at a junction, so great skill is required to plan the shortest route around the board. Each of the 13 boards contains only 19 tokens - so there can only be one winner! Free trial available HEre

Psiloc launches Negate for Series60 - Psiloc Mobile Solutions launches commercial version of its new, addictive, logical game for Symbian smartphones.

World's first: cross-platform multi-player gaming - At a recent press event, Fathammer demonstrated multi-player gaming between the Nokia N-Gage and the Tapwave Zodiac mobile gaming devices. Participants raced against each other in Stuntcar Extreme, a fast-paced 3D driving game. X-Forge is the only cross-platform 3D game engine in the world to support this feature - More here

Mobilerad at N-Gage Arena - The tournament runs from December 11, 2003 to March 2, 2004 and consists of three rounds, lasting about 1-month each. At the end of each month, the Top Ten overall scoring leaders will win cool prizes, the rankings will be reset (Noon CMT), and a new round will begin. Players will challenge the high scores posted by competitors in Shadow Racing - beat an opponent's time and grab some points; bail and fail, and lose points. New to Shadow Racing? Check out the full details on How to Shadow Race against other players. The Mobile Raditude Tournament is open to residents of the US - Details at N-Gage Arena