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. 

Random Nokia stuff

The client's keeping me busy with work, so I might as well post these here.

Firstly, in case you haven't heard already, there's a Nokia Independent Artists Club (IAC) gig happening this Saturday. Scroll down and click on the scans of the flyer for details. Given that I'm obviously no expert in the local music scene, I'm told that the acts are actually pretty good. So do drop by and have a listen.





Secondly, the smart people over at the Nokia global marketing team have come up with a fun aside to help us spend some more time in the office. It's actually a teaser for N-Gage , Nokia's new gaming platform / service. Go check it out by clicking this link: www.get-out-and-play.com.

Oh, and... the arkanoid clone is not the teaser, it's just to help you kill time while the flash animation loads. So play a while whilst you wait.

N-Gage Screens and my catch of the day

So I spent a good chunk of my morning snapping screenshots of N-Gage games from my N95
so media could use it (disclosure: I work for Nokia. But no, no one paid me to write this). They turned out quite nice and I thought I'd stick'em up here.


This here's the 'dashboard' where at a glance, you can see yourself and a summary of all the information.


The games tab lists the games that you've downloaded and can play.


The rankings tab gives you more information about your reputation (I'm nil!), your friends and how many N-Gage points you've scored through playing offline or online. There's also a friends tab which lets you message online friends or leave them offline messages. You can also hook up with them to start multiplayer games.


Finally, the Showroom tab lets you download games (you can play the trial versions for free) and purchase them subsequently. I bought my first game (yes, bought you people), Creatures of the Deep, for US$ 7.99 which I didn't think was too bad a price. Creatures of the Deep people - fishing is fun.

Creatures of the Deep - why I like fishing.

Kel told me he thought this game was meh and no one would be patient enough to patiently sit by waiting for fish to bite. Especially not in a virtual simulator. I still wanted to try it out and after a couple of passes with the Trial version (they let you score points even with the trial version) I was hooked (no pun intended). This ain't a review, it won't be fair, but I just wanted to share a few screens.


I love the loading screens. Fun quotes appear with each screen.


The world map and the fact you can travel to different locations to fish I thought was fantastic. Being an RPG nut, I liked that you could level up and upgrade your equipment. Level 10 fisherman anyone?


Every little resort has a shop where you can upgrade your gear to catch bigger fish. That piddly beginner's rod you start with won't catch a shark.


Fishing starts with you clicking on a power button to cast your line. The further you cast, the more you'll have to reel in, but also, the better chance of a good catch whilst you're reeling in.


Once it's cast, you have to wait a bit. Urm...to be fair to Kel, this is the part that I find a bit tedious. But I'm not the patient sort anyway.


A bit of smart tapping, and soon, you get a hook! Start struggling to reel it in. Too fast and the line breaks. Too slow and the fish gets away.


Of course, once you've reeled your catch in, you're told what it is and given some experience points (to level up). In this case, my expert skill means I caught a 66.3 KG Yellowfin Tuna.


And made it to the media. :)


And I'll even sneak a screen of FIFA 08.

NGage is live. I'm going fishing.

Yeaps. That's right. Surf over to www.ngage.com to download. The official blog posting is here.

As for me? I'm going fishing. Oh, and if you fancy testing your fishing skills against mine, add me as a friend on NGage. My handle is darthpoke (don't ask why.)



Happy gaming.