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N-Gage Opts To Give Away Lara, Not Bury Her
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release announcing Nokia has teamed up with Eidos to give away over 70,000 copies of the N-Gage version of Tomb Raider at this year's Sugar Bowl college football game. An Eidos spokesperson oddly opines: "Lara [Croft] has always been the number one video game heroine, and it's appropriate for her to be present at this year's Sugar Bowl where the national champion will be crowned", and insider suggestions that Nokia are pulling an Atari of sorts, in the face of allegedly limited demand for the N-Gage 'game deck' are, of course, fatuous. Meanwhile, GameSpy weighs in with some reasons to like the N-Gage, still suggesting: "Nokia's game deck has a lot going for it, and is in many ways superior to the system that has dominated the portable gaming market for over a decade: Nintendo's Game Boy (now Game Boy Advance)." Update: 01/02 16:46 GMT by S : According to a L.A Times/TribNet article, Tomb Raider on N-Gage sold around 3,000 copies in October, the last stats available to the reporter.
You probably said that as a joke... but I'm looking at www.gamespy.com right now and all I see is a huge black Nokia interstital, then half thier homepage (above the fold) taken up with n-gage branding.
Is it just me, or does it seem that the big review sites (IGN, Gamespy and Gamespot) are beginning to pity Nokia just a little and are trying to say something or anything nice about the piece of junk?
I remember IGN slammed the N-Gage after it was shown at E3, and wrote many articles about how badly designed it was, and how useless it was etc... and then a few months later they suddenly wrote an article in its defence, saying that "they aren't sure why everyone is giving it such a hard time" (forgetting that they gave it a harder time than anyone else).
Now Gamespy is doing the same thing. Having said nothing nice about the system prior to release, or at release - they have suddenly written an article in its defence. And look at what they wrote - they say nothing about it having a good design (because it doesn't); or about it having good games (because they suck); or about being able to play it for longer than 2 hours (you cannot); or any of the other things that make a decent system.
I just find it amusing that having witnessed how badly it flopped (as it deserved to) Gamespy and co are trying to soften its fall.
Agreed. I don't understand why Croft is held up as a great heroine in gaming when there are so many better female characters out there.
Aran definitely takes the #1 spot. I remember spending countless hours getting lost in Metroid, and when I finally beat it my big bad bounty hunter turned out to be a woman! And this was back in the early days of the NES, which says a lot. Throughout the sequels you wern't thinking "mmm girly", but enjoyed the character as someone who could tear through a room full of enemies in no time flat. Samus isn't a fuck toy, she's a character you respect. (Besides, who would want to screw her? She'll screw you back, and I don't want to know what her screw attack could do to my apartment.)
Another personal favorite is Rydia from Final Fantasy IV. For those who haven't played the game - In the beginning your main character unknowingly kills her single mother and ends up taking her with him on his journey to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world. During the game she grows up and shows an incredible amount of passion and empathy as you watch your party members die off one after another. ("Stop it! I've had enough! They're all dead! Dead! And here we stand bickering amongst ourselves?! Are their deaths for nothing?") She's a very powerful character that makes you fall in love with her emotionally. Plus she has the most powerful black and summon magic in the game, so she is far from a helpless little creature. She can deal out damage with the big boys. ;)
Terra and Celes from FF6 (especially Celes)... Chun-Li from Street Fighter II, Sonya from Mortal Kombat... The list goes on and on of heroines that get your respect as characters who are more than pixels with tits.
But hey, Laura Croft has breasts the size of watermelons so of course she's going to be the one that everybody talks about.
Ok, I admit it, I own an N-Gage (though I admitted it in another thread already). Sure, it's not the perfect game platform nor a perfect phone. As game platform it's overpriced but for a super featured phone it's cheap. Getting a carrier unlocked GSM phone with the Nokia series 60 platform, full-on GPRS support, bluetooth and expandable memory is going to cost a whole lot more than the $299 retail on the N-Gage. At $199 with 3 games as it's currently priced at Gamestop the damned thing is a bargain even if you never open the games. Oh, did it get mentioned that the device is also an MP3 and AAC player. For those who care it's got an FM radio. More importantly it's got a speakerphone that works pretty well. It's also got support for all the whizzy midi and mp3 ringers you might care to load on it and a color screen for your favorite graphics.
I'll grant that the taco like shape is weird, but it makes the phone wide enough that it can be held between ear and shoulder while fumbling for the headset. I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I think that the N-Gage is one of the most misunderstood products in recent memory, both by consumers and by the manufacturer's marketing department.
The N-Gage is by no means a perfect device but for a fusion device with a few compromises it's not half bad.
Gamespy mentions one reason to like the system is true 3D graphics, while the Gameboy only does isometric.
1. Doesn't the Gameboy have some very primitive true 3D shooters, like Ecks vs. Sever and some other FPS? And Iridion 3D?
2. Who wants true 3D when it is sub-Playstation/N64 quality? Wooo! I can play the original Star Fox in all it's non-textured, 20-polygon glory! [not to say Star Fox wasn't a great game, but the graphics were bad]
And for those of you tired of advertisers stuffing money in pockets for good reviews and editorials, check out Penny Arcade and 1UP.com's editor Ivan Sulic. Gabe and Tycho stick to their guns, and Ivan seems to stick to his, also. When he doesn't like a game, he lets everyone know, even if the game is popular and reviewed well by the sites getting advertising dollars.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Yeah, but it's hard to masturbate when the object of your affection is covered by so much body armor.
Kinky!
But seriously, in the original 8bit game, if you finished it 3 times (keeping the same password legacy) you got to see her without her armor (green hair, brown bathingsuit...she keeps the gun arm), and then you get to play with her like that.
And in the SuperNes version, if you got a good time/gatherhunt rating, she took off (well, it just waved away) the armor and now wore a sexy black underware-swimsuit thing...
But yeah, Lara was the most "jerked-to" character (not speaking from personal experience mind you : )
You can't take the sky from me...
The only thing it needs desperately is a Bluetooth keyboard.