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Mame on the Nokia N-Gage
wraggster writes "The Nokia N-Gage has now joined the club of consoles for whom the excellent MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator) was ported to. Staffan Ulfberg has ported EMame over to the N-Gage - the emulator supports a mass of games."
For this to be true, someone would actually have to own an NGage. Come on, nobody's that dumb.
Game... blouses.
You guys bashing the N-Gage are missing the point. I have a Nokia Series 60 3650 phone. It's based on the same Symbian OS that the N-Gage uses. I can use this on my phone. The 3650 is very widely deployed in the US and Europe. This is a great thing not just for the N-Gage folks, but regular guys like me who happen to own one of the Series 60 phones.
I can't wait to try it. My phone has a 128mb MMC that can store a ton of games. Should be a lot of fun.
Did you miss the article? Thanks to this port of MAME, there are now many good games for N-Gage! :)
Besides, what games for a dinky little screen like the N-Gage's would anyone want other than Tetris? Well, maybe Pac-Man.
I find it amusing the 'screenshots' on this project page aren't even FROM an N-Gage.
... how long it will be before Mame can emulate N-Gage Games, then it'd only be a matter of time before it could emulate itself!
You kids and your fancy game systems.
My Vectrex works perfectly fine for me.
But I would like to get one of those Nintendo things. I hear there's a game on there about some plumber that jumps on turtles and stuff to save a princess. That sounds pretty high-tech!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to playing Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Game. You suckers with your Playstations don't know what you're missing!
It is the only tax-deductible gaming system.
Seriously... in European high-tax countries this means that the state gives a discount of 40-50% on the item (plus VAT back!).
Even grown men like to play games now and then. And the N-Gage is surprisingly snappy, not like playing Java games on other GSMs, which is slow and boring.
MAME on N-Gage is a great addition, Nokia should try to license these arcade games since many of their potential clients (men aged 30+) are probably more familiar with some of them than with the "real" games actually available on the thing.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Actually it's not, I can tell you've never been near one for at least three reasons:
I have to disagree, it's still dead on arrival for one main reason: changing games.
Those three positives you mentioned (and bluetooth is a big one, in my opinion) don't outweigh the fact that to change games on an N-Gage, you have to do the following:
1) Turn the unit off (which means, turn your *phone* off).
2) Flip it over, and remove the battery cover & battery.
3) Take out the very tiny game chip, replace it with a new game.
4) Replace battery & battery cover.
5) Turn unit back on, wait for system to load, go to the right menu, and then start your game.
Compare this to a GBA, where the steps are turning it off, removing the game cart, putting in a new one, and turning it back on. Especially compare this to a GBA if you're on a train, bus, streetcar, or any other form of public transit. Try easily changing a game on the N-Gage while crammed into a seat on a subway.
This flaw in their design absolutely kills any of the positives of the system, and makes it, at least to me and many other people, D.O.A. Not to mention that I personally really don't want to turn off my phone when I swap games.
What hasn't MAME been ported to? Wouldn't it be easier to just have articles listing the rare mobile phones and cameras without MAME? I can just imagine a future article...
MAME Not Ported To Enigma Machine
mame-maimed-in-spain department 2006-01-04
In news that has shocked the MAME community, a project to port MAME to the 1940s Engima machine - used for encryption and decryption by the German forces during WW2 - was cancelled yesterday due to lack of interest.
Miguel De Mameiza said "We were halfway through the port when we just decided to stop. We already have MAME ported and running on buildings, phones, cameras, watches, books, elephants, asteroids in the deepest part of the Kepler belt. We looked at each other and said 'OK, enough is enough, let's stop there'. We unanimously agreed that MAME is pretty much everywhere it needs to be; we don't need it ported to what is essentially an advanced mechanical typewriter."
The gaming community had mixed reactions to the news. "I'm really glad they stopped" said one gamer. "MAME is everywhere. It's more pervasive than the SoFreakingBig virus." [Ed: referring to the Windows virus that crippled international commerce in 2005 when it managed to infect 140% of all Windows computers, an intrusion level that still baffles mathematicians] "Yesterday I bought a loaf of bread from the store and some bastard had ported MAME to the RFID tag. It's really weird to have your shopping basket bleeping Pacman music while you're waiting in line. And the checkout chick gave me the oddest look when I asked for my change in quarters."
But others were angry at the decision. One MAME enthusiast maliciously commented "bleep bleep bleep bwowowowow" and then disappeared in an explosion of pixels. The journalist unfortunately had no change so could not ask for clarification.
Actually, Nokia is promoting the use of MAME on its N-Gage site.
-Russ
Me