With an ultra impressive booth experience at the show - a 'modern coliseum' complete with stadium seating, 360-degree video projected panels, and a World War II bunker (bit of a change from the hired Swedish beefcake guys and orange plastic of ECTS, then) - Senior Vice President of the Games Business Unit at Nokia, Ilkka Raiskinen, enthused that "Nokia's commitment to the games industry is stronger than ever". To prove it, here's the eleven new titles on show for the N-Gage QD:
Pathway to Glory - World War II real time multiplayer action strategy game, hence the bunker at the stand..
Pocket Kingdom - championed as the first massively multiplayer online mobile game; it's the usual fight for territory and build your own kingdom milarky.
Ashen - new to the N-Gage, Jacob Ward fights nasty looking aliens in a first-person shooter, with additional mobile multiplayer options such as deathmatch, mini-game modes, eight maps and two unique maps only for the multiplayer portion.
Crash Nitro Cart - again new to the N-Gage, and apparently good fun with Bluetooth for wireless multiplayer games.
The Sims Bustin' Out - the game we all know and love/hate.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - boasting exclusive original missions and modes, and with Bluetooth co-operative and adversarial multiplayer modes are available with up to eight players.
Call of Duty - another World War II game...
Bomberman - action adventure platform game, complete with battle modes for the Bluetooth multiplayer.
Operation Shadow - fight against 'extremist organisations' in Arawas. Up to four gamers can play in deathmatch mode via Bluetooth.
Requiem of Hell - single/multiplayer action game in Dragon City fighting someone called Dalu.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 - go on, be a Tiger in single or multiplayer Bluetooth golfing action.
And as if that wasn't enough, eight new titles were announced for the handheld, you lucky things:
DRIV3R - the award-winning 3d action driving game.
Civilization - for the civilised strategy gamer.
FIFA 2005 - everyone's favourite footie game with exclusive features for the N-Gage.
SSX Out of Bounds - Snowboarding fantasy with nine new tracks for the platform.
Rifts - acclaimed role-play with new storyline, co-operative multiplayer and head to head battle.
King of Fighters - the first fighting game to come to the N-Gage.
Xanadu Next - no, not Coleridge's opium addled dream poetry, but the 3D role playing action game.
Glimmerati - Glamorous driving from Nokia.
Aha, but that's not all: Yesterday Nokia announced a new agreement with Capcom to, as Director of Publishing Pasi Pölönen explained, "create innovative games that will take full advantage of the N-Gage platform", with the first new N-Gage titles from the developers expected to be announced in the next few weeks.
Will this be enough now that news of Nintendo's original DS and Sony's mighty PSP are in the public's hands? Only time will tell - but Nokia are certainly going to have to wow us further before we starting betting on their chances of success now.
More on this as we hear it. By Keri Webster
