Mobile Gaming News Roundup

Each week MobileCrunchArcade compiles the biggest news from the world of mobile gaming.

Electronic Arts will launch Need for Speed: ProStreet for the mobile phone community later this month. This high octane game will be available in Europe on October 26 and in North America on October 30. Players race 16 high performance cars at 11 famous street racing locations. Winners earn cash to upgrade their cars or save money to buy an even faster racer. The mobile version of the game will allow players to uncover rewards during game play that will help them succeed in the console version of Need for Speed: ProStreet. If the mark of a good driver is someone who can text message while driving, a good virtual driver is someone who can play the console and mobile version of Need for Speed: ProStreet at the same time without crashing.

Vivendi Games Mobile announced this week that the new quest-driven puzzle game, Slide N’ Loop, is now here to exercise bored brains. Players must help Zia find four pieces of a magic antique medallion so she can save her village. Slide N’ Loop presents players with 20 different levels of play, each stage adding new elements that are more challenging then the last. Players score points by matching three, four or five tiles of the same colored objects in a row, on no more than three consecutive moves. I think Zia could more easily save her village by rounding up a platoon of marines instead of colored objects. They wouldn’t even have to be space marines. Regular ones could do the job.

If you are a fan of the television show Heroes you will be happy to learn that Heroes: The Official Mobile Game is now ready to be downloaded onto your mobile device from Gameloft. Players take on the obstacles set before them by playing Hiro, Niki and Peter and by utilizing their unique powers. There are 11 levels in four locations taken right from the Heroes universe. Besides saving the world, players uncover hidden information about the show. I hope in the future Hiro Nakamura manipulates the space-time continuum to convince Gameloft to give the mobile version of Heroes a better title. If there is an unofficial version of the game, can’t Hiro hack into that version and erase it from the world’s phones?

I-Play announced this week that its game FIA World Rally Championship has been nominated for the 2007 International Mobile Gaming (IMGA) Excellence in 3D Award. The game features 16 official World Rally Championship locations that gamers must master in both arcade and championship modes. The IMGA Excellence in 3D Award winner will receive $5,000, software licenses from Adobe, phones from Nokia and a guaranteed contract with an operator and a publisher to market the title. I don’t know why I-Play needs another publisher to publish its game, but awards always look good in the reception room.

Taito announced that an updated version of the classic game Jungle Hunt is now available on 30 Sprint Nextel mobile phones and other select models. Jungle Hunt first debuted in 1982 at your local arcade. In the game the player has to navigate a jungle full of dangerous obstacles including crocodiles and falling rocks, all in an effort to rescue the heroine before she is eaten by cannibals. I wonder if the game can be played on a 1980’s vintage cell phone? There is nothing cooler than a giant handset with a telescoping antenna.

That is this week’s MobileCrunch Arcade game roundup. Remember, exercise those thumbs, recharge the battery and never take your eyes off the screen.