Next up: Is that Warhammer Online for your mobile?

A news item caught my eye today in my news reader - apparently there's this company called Vollee that's working on some magic software that will allow you to play PC games on your mobile device.

Before you call me out on this and say "what rubbish!", I've got to say first I've tried it out and it was amazing for me to find out that it works. See the screenies below:

Naturally, this sparks some excitement especially because the company decided to go down the the route of enabling anywhere-access to your social communities / MMOs. Till now, we've had to suffer second-rate MMOs of the Chinese-export variety for the mobile, but imagine if someone could take this engine and stick Warhammer Online or World of Warcraft onto it?

Sure, PvP would suck but what about a stripped down engine that let's you do "townee" stuff like bid in auctions, hang out at the tavern, go shopping, train etc.? So your mobile device becomes a peripheral option to your main gaming platform - the PC. This gets away from the luck lustre performance of the mobile device as the main platform for the game (allowing awesome graphics, a deeper experience etc.) but still enables the usefulness of the mobile of being able to access useful game functions anywhere, anytime.

If Vollee can pull this off, I bet this would be, for many, that killer app that 3G's been waiting for.

Warhammer Online!...swag. And Nokia Touch device you've been wanting to hear about.

Guess what I got?

No, no. In case you're wondering, I've not gone and started playing Warhammer Online. Nope, I've very smartly split a collectors edition with *someone* and snagged the swag while he kept the game. I'll pat my back for executing a very smart move to cleverly avoid  getting sucked into a game I have no time for (as much as I love the background to it).

So, for those of you who've not been able to lay your hands on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) Collector's edition, you don't know what you've been missing. In my 15 years of gaming, I've not seen any game come with so much high quality swag. In fact, the last "collector's edition" I purchased (Neverwinter Nights 2) came with a softcover B5 art book and two dodgy metal rings. Some "swag".

But not WAR CE. Here's what I snagged:

That's an art book, a graphic novel and a limited edition miniature of Grumlok and Gazbag - characters in the game. Let me run thru each of them:

Artbook

I'm hugely impressed. Have not seen such a high-quality art book bundled with any game, ever. It's got a proper foreword by the art director, and designer notes. Not to mention being printed in a proper hardback format with high-quality, THICK stock paper.

Graphic Novel

Loved this bit. Great art and the stories are the perfect setup to the game by Graham McNeill. Only problem was, after reading through the comic, I felt like I did want to play the game. :/

Grumlok and Gazbag

This is my favourite piece of swag! It's a little known fact that in addition to Warhammer 40K, I've dabbled into fantasy and actually have a half-built Orc army lying around (yes, Eevon, I remember Grimgor). The miniature itself could be more dynamic rather than this pretty static pose, but nothing beats the feeling of owning a unique miniature that's available in limited quantities.

Right?

Oh, and, yeah, Nokia has just announced the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - the first Nokia phone to come with Symbian S60 Touch software. Read this and this.