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Something to Sidetalk About

Posted by Zonk on from the adventures-in-poor-design dept.

nigelthezebra writes "The N-Gage is at it again, what with the news that the price is being dropped and that the redesigned handheld is going to be redesigned again. In "Something to Sidetalk About," AllRPG.com's Richard Goodness recounts his experiences with the N-Gage QD. To put a long story short, it's very obvious why the system is failing. When you can't even figure out how to turn something on, you know it's time to go back to the drawing board." From the article: "I've always been a big proponent of the axiom, when in doubt, see if Mr. Casual can do it. Games ought not to need big instruction booklets. They should be simple enough to figure out by picking up and fiddling for a moment or two. Turning a system on, that goes without saying."

6 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. WTF is "softech limited"... by pudding7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...and why are they trying to install a Free Browser Plugin when I visit that site.

    and WTF is up with Allrpg.com allowing them to do so?

    1. Re:WTF is "softech limited"... by lunarscape · · Score: 3, Informative

      They don't just "allow" it. They've been doing it forever. It's their main source of advertising revenue. And this article (submitted by the author, no less) is obviously just an attempt to garner some traffic.

  2. Still no cigar by Black+Pete · · Score: 2, Informative

    As a game player, I actually prefer the old NGage (ya know the side-talking one) because it's bigger, and the buttons are larger and more accessible. With the QD, the phone is smaller, and the buttons are sorta mashed together, and sometimes feel uncomfortable to use. Look at the left/right selection keys.. they're slivers for crying out loud!

    When I first saw it, I already knew how to turn on the QD, but that was only because I used the old NGage and knew the approximate location of the power button, so that was the first place I looked. However, what surprised me was how hard it is to push and hold the button in to turn it on! The button is really stiff, and on top of that, it's covered by the rubber band that goes around the QD. Your finger knuckle usually turns white before the phone turns on.

    Speaking of stiff buttons, this is another reason why I prefer the old NGage (for playing games) - the bigger buttons push down quite easily, and have a nice "click" to it. The new buttons are a bit stiffer... you get used to it, but I still like the old layout better.

    Mind you, the old one still had stupid annoyances such as opening it up and popping out the battery to change games... plus the fact it can't go faster than 22fps... well... sucks.

    As a cellphone... the QD is better, and the fact it's running on the Symbian OS is sweet - tons of ready-to-download Symbian apps are out there!

    1. Re:Still no cigar by Black+Pete · · Score: 2, Informative

      What do you think about the screen? Is it a big problem for you that it's vertical and not horizontal like in most devices?

      It depends. For some types of games, it's horrible, and for other types of games, it's perfect.

      If you want to play a FPS (at single-digit frame rates... heh), then the screen gets in the way. It's also bad for side-scrolling action games (Sonic the Hedgehog just isn't the same...)

      However, there are games where vertical screens are great. Pinball games. Vertical scrolling shoot-em-ups. Tiger Woods golf. Even Tony Hawk is pretty damn playable. Also, remember that a lot of old arcade games used vertical screens. I'm dying to be able to put MAME on the sucker...

  3. Re:getting better at least.... by Dehumanizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    N-Gage doesn't play just N-Gage games.

    It also plays all Series 60 games, and there are thousands. See Handango, for instance.

    There are also several emulators that run on it: MAME (old 8-bit games only), NES, GameBoy, GBC, ZX Spectrum, and others I don't know about.

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    The Tlog - a technology blog
  4. Re:Problemo with the Ngage by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Informative

    you know, the main reason why the screen is that size is that it's a series60 device. it's also a reason for why it can't have been that expensive for them to develope(it's practically a 3650 with camera removed and added ram).

    from what i've seen it would have sold considerably lower if it wasn't a very cheap s60 device...

    why does s60 matter? python, c++, java... letting you port stuff like putty, emulators, web browsing, irc..

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    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.