ONE: A review of micro-aggression

ONE got released yesterday and I must be N-Gage's best customer. Already, I've bought (with my own money, mind you) 6 titles - Star Wars: Force Unleashed, Creatures of the Deep, FIFA 08, Dirk Dagger, Reset Generation and now, ONE - and gotten two as freebies (Asphalt 3 bundled with N96, and Space Impact via a coupon from dear, dear client.)

Let me first qualify that everything I write here is from the perspective of a consumer, not work. I really feel compelled to write because it IS such a great game and really underscores why I personally have firm belief in the platform.

ONE is basically a fighting game with more genes taken from the likes of Tekken than Streetfighter 2. Instead of outlandish superpowers and moves, you get a 3D arena that rewards the technically astute fighter. What this means is when you fight, you need to take into account positioning, reach, the speed of the blow and not just know the sequence for the best powers.

You start the game creating your fighter. Yup, that's right. You don't just pick a fighter to use, you create your own. At the beginning there's very little room for customisation but as you play through the story mode, you'll pick up additional "gear" your character can wear / accessorise.

There are three modes of play, namely - Story mode (travel from country to country fighting other people),  VS mode (pick a fighter to fight in a one off battle), Survival (fight one fighter after another until you're defeated) - and a Training mode (learn to fight). The unique thing is that as your fighter fights in any of the modes, he picks up or loses ranking points. You start with 1000 points and the title "coward" Move up to 1100 points and you'll be a "pacifist". 

Every fight is ranked, except when you turn it off in an unranked VS mode fight. This links back to NGage Arena where the highest ranked players will get their fighters listed. There are even stats broken down by country, so I'm currently the 2nd best fighter in Malaysia :) Woot!

There's currently a tournament going on to find the best fighter in the world with great prizes (Nokia N96) on offer even.

(I originally lamented the fact that there was no multiplayer, but it turns out it wasn't true.) Multiplayer comes in the form of a bluetooth connection that let's two people take turns to bash each other.

I must say I'm pretty pleased with what I got for the RM 30 I spent on ONE. I love the fighter customisation, the snazzy graphics and the online "community" feel to the game. Just one more feature (multiplayer) and it would have been a classic in my gaming. Here's hoping for a ONE 2.

Disclosure: I do consulting work for Nokia. These opinions are mine alone and do not reflect the organisations I work for / in. 

Can I has car apps?

Last week, BMW announced that it was seeking partners to develop an open-source software platform for cars. And if you think about it, it's actually quite a fascinating idea.

Press picture taken from press.bmwgroup.com. Hosted on my ShareOnOvi account.

You see, the thinking is that more and more "screens" are coming into our life. Once upon a time, 

the only "screen" you had was the Cinema. Then the TV. Then Computers. Then the mobile device. And each subsequent screen added more interactivity and communication until today, we carry our mobile devices wherever we go and easily access the internet that way.

But I digress. At least for computers and mobile devices, its quite clear that you can now install applications and customise the "screen" to do what you want. Want weather? Fine. Want games? Fine. And most of the time, depending on the "screen" your app selection will suit the use of the product.

I play plenty of games on my PC and watch movies. But on my mobile, I prefer to quickly check my email or Twitter while on the move.

This is where I get really excited about this little announcement by BMW. If all cars in the future come built in with "screens" and we're able to install custom applications onto our cars, I could see a whole new level of computing coming and the "5th screen" being the one in your car.

Of course, naturally, there's a whole load of thinking still to go. For example, would the software allow installed software to control the mechanical aspects of the car? Imagine an app called "Turbo Parking Beta 0.8" which is supposed to use sensors around your car to "auto-park" for you at 60 km/h. Imagine the first version being released and the next day's news headline is "60,000 unexplained parking accidents in the city." Whoops, the bugs got to the software.

Obviously, this is all wishful thinking, but I'm going to wish BMW all the best in its efforts here.

Talk about competitors

The cardinal rule in public relations is not to comment on your competitors, whether good or bad. If you must, at least praise them. 

So while Microsoft is going off and talking about why Vista is still a decent operating system, Apple decides to go poke fun at Microsoft's attempts by releasing two new advertisements last week.

Will this sort of "dirty" tactic drive consumers away in disgust? I guess it should, but I doubt anyone will bother. But don't worry Vista, you have my sympathy.

BRB

Sometimes, life gets in the way of blog. I'll tell you about it later.

kthxbai.

The exclamation mark!

A very basic communication lesson today, thanks to the world of technology.

I've just realised how difficult it is to figure out what the person on the other end of the SMS is trying to express with an exclamation mark (!)

! can mean you're angry. Or, it could mean you're enthusiastically agreeing with me. Or maybe you're just a very shouty person when you keep using !. I, myself, have on occasion used !.

Today's lesson is that I probably need to clarify why I used !. It's actually because I really, really agree with what you say. So from now on, instead of responding like this:

I'll respond like this:

Case closed.