Each week MobileCrunchArcade compiles the biggest news from the world of mobile gaming.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is coming to an N-Gage near you. The game casts players as Darth Vader’s “Secret Apprentice” and takes place between the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. You will be able to harness the Force while helping Darth Vader rid the Galaxy of Jedi. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile will allow players to enter tournaments, track scores and download new content trough N-Gage Arena services. I can’t wait to beat on that green toad thing which never learned to use proper sentence structure.
We have some sage advice from Greg Ballard, Glu’s president and CEO. He is worried that too many low quality mobile games may make the handset games go the way of the old Atari. I guess an Atari was some sort of game thing from ancient times, back when cell phones were the size of your favorite basketball player’s shoe size.
“Quality is tied to quantity,” he said. “In the Atari disaster, there were too many games on the system, and the quality of those games became less and less relevant to consumers, who became so overwhelmed by choices, they eventually stopped buying. We’re getting right back to the Atari days with mobile: many different titles are seeking attention on the decks, and nothing good is going to come of that.”
I’m all for quality games but not worried about being swamped with bad games. As long as everyone who plays cell phone games reads MobileCrunch there shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Nokia is set to launch N-Gage next week. Dribs and drabs have come out about N-Gage but details are sketchy and there probably won’t be a big fanfare. It looks as though the N81 will be the first mobile phone to be fully eN-Gaged, with the N73 soon to follow.
“We’re going to have an easier roll-out with a more managed environment,” says Kaidesoja. “We are not going to do all the tricks and treats that we have said on Day One. It’s a complex service with all the billing and communities and other features, so we need
to roll it out gradually.”
Roll it anyway your want to, as long as its legal and the games are good.
Artificial Life has acquired the rights to publish a game based on Paramount Pictures’ movie, Braveheart. The game is expected to come out next year and will be an action game with real-time strategy features and enhanced 3D graphics. Wow, the game sounds better than the movie. Did you ever wonder if Mel Gibson carried such a large sword in the movie to overcompensate for certain male shortcomings?
That is this week’s MobileCrunch Arcade game roundup. Remember, exercise those thumbs, recharge the battery and never take your eyes off the screen.