Games on your Mobile Phone (sort of)

[Salka]

Today all fifth year Honours English students in my school went to Dublin to see a very lavish production of King Lear. The theatre itself was pretty manky looking, but inside it was nice, with tiered seats and stuff.

Once we were seated inside, the Director walked onstage to deliver the mandatory 'we'll kick you out if you make a sound' speech. He sounded pretty uptight and started on a bad note by telling us exactly what we could not do and exactly what he'd do if we did it. Since I'd already been threatened by the teachers for the past couple of English classes, I took out my Cell Phone and started downloading games.

Apparently, 02 ACTIVE have created an entirely new genre of games; For Her. When I investigated further, I discovered there is currently only one game in existence that fits into this genre; Powerpuff Girls. I decided to opt for the slightly better-sounding Black Citadel, an RPG featuring 'battles'. I waited about ten minutes for this stupid piece of shit to be sent to my phone, and it never was. It's probably still wandering around in the sky, like a lost soul, trying to find my phone. It's probably floating off the bleak West Coast of Ireland right now. An entire game, just floating along, invisible. Do you think we'll ever have Cyber Fishermen? They could take special ElectroSMS-Nets and plunder the air of vital information as it travels peacefully from phone to phone.

Before I knew it, the Director had finished talking and the play had started. Whatever he said, he must have said it good, because I didn't even hear anybody breathing in that place.

I don't know if you know this, but the Stage versions of King Lear tend to be different from the script of the play. I don't even know if that made sense, but my point is, I guess it hadn't occured to me before how backstabbing the two sisters, Goneril and Regan are.

And then, much to my horror, as I watched, Goneril kissed Edmund behind Regan's back!!! This never happened in the version we read! And if it did, I wasn't listening!

"You TRAMP!" I gasped.

It was a little louder than I had meant it to be. The actors hesitated on stage. 'You Tramp' echoed and re-echoed around the hall. It seemed as if it was never going to go away, and when it finally did, there was this silence. And then everybody burst out laughing. The people in front of me turned to look at me. The people behind me pointed. The teachers shot filthy glares down the row at me.

The good news is that as I was writing this, about ten fucking hours later, 'Black Citadel' finally downloaded. I had a go. It's shit. The entire thing is set on the world map of some primitive Final Fantasy game. You can't go in to the towns, and you can't control the battle sequences. There isn't even any music. I hate it. It's shit. The future of mobile phones may involve games, but sure as hell not THIS one. And the first message I got when I installed it? "Installed, but may run with LIMITED FUNCTIONALITY". Man, what the hell? Am I gonna have to compare the specs of CELL PHONE GAMES with my CELL PHONE now?! I just wish I could return this piece of shit and download Call of Duty instead.

Do many of you play games on your Cell Phones? And did the Ngage work on the same principal, ie you download your games on to it? I never did work out that Ngage thing, it didn't interest me a lot. I think as a casual feature, games on phones are great, but a phone that's also a handheld console is slightly retarded.

[loonyboi]

One of the nice things about my UNBELIEVABLY SEXY MOTOROLA RAZR V3 (sorry, but it costs so much, that whenever you mention it you have to yell it so you can feel cool and justify spending that much money on a freaking cell phone) is that is plays games that don't suck.

I have a ton of 'em on my phone. Most of them are from Gameloft, who makes some solid games. Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within is great, it's like a SNES-era side scroller. It's a bit on the short side, but then it's a cell phone game, so I'm not expecting 20 hours of gameplay.

Also good: Chessmaster (even if being beaten at chess by my cell phone makes me feel really, really stupid, it's still cool), PoP: The Sands of Time, Might and Magic, Block Breaker Deluxe, and of course...Bejeweled.

Oh, and Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures isn't nearly as awesome as its title suggests.

[Chris]

Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures

Bwahahahaha

[Duncan]

Oh, and Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures isn't nearly as awesome as its title suggests.

...What, seriously? There's a Harem Adventures?

[Salka]

My phone IS a Motorola V3... 02 ACTIVE only have a crappy selection of games, though

[loonyboi]

...What, seriously? There's a Harem Adventures?

http://www.gameloft.com/product.php?product=4&product_name=Prince+of+Persia+%3A+Harem+Adventures

"Have you ever entered a harem?"

Oh, and Yufster: if you've got a V3, buy games directly from Gameloft. They're SMSed to your phone.

[Salka]

Man, I'm stuck on the first level of Rayman 3. Is there something I'm missing? I can't seem to hover to the first friggin' platform...

[Duncan]

http://www.gameloft.com/product.php?product=4&product_name=Prince+of+Persia+%3A+Harem+Adventures

Holy hell. I wish Ubisoft had made that instead of Warrior Within. ...Actually, since you've played it, can I ask what this is?

Surprising reward when you deliver one of the beauties.[/Quote]

[Tanukitsune]

Most the games I have on my phone are adventure games, I might get the new X Files game I heard about...

[loonyboi]

Holy hell. I wish Ubisoft had made that instead of Warrior Within. ...Actually, since you've played it, can I ask what this is?

I haven't played enough of it to find out yet. I'm playing the other two first...I finished Warrior Within (that was GREAT), and am nearly done with Sands of Time now (that's good, but not as good).

I've played enough of Harem Adventures to know that's some major false advertising in there though.

[Salka]

I got Sands of Time. So far it's pretty neat.

It's making me think, you know... man, Phones and Games could work together in perfect harmony. When you're bored, it's just a case of logging on and downloading the latest game. Every game I've downloaded since the first one seems to arrive within three or four minutes. The cost of connecting to the internet has been about 10c, I can browse a wide selection of games online, read brief descriptions of them (I wish 02 active had screenshots though) and then download one for $4. The cost of the call and the game are both taken on my mobile phone bill (or from your Credit if you use a Credit Phone), and then you have the game. Awesome!

As well as that, a Cell Phone is something you always have with you. Or at least in Ireland and England it is... over here you get a Cell Phone when you're about 12, and you never go without one after that.

And come on; those games can't cost much to produce. They don't even need packaging. And they're fun.

Man, I'm imagining a Psychonauts game on my phone right now.

[Ryam BaCo]

my cousin owns an n-gage and played tomb raider on it...hmmmm...it pretty much sucked (probably because of the fact, that i hate tomb raider) but i was pretty fascinated by the neat graphics (in comparison to my erricson t28s with tetris and solitaire on a mini-display)

[loonyboi]

my cousin owns an n-gage and played tomb raider on it...hmmmm...it pretty much sucked (probably because of the fact, that i hate tomb raider) but i was pretty fascinated by the neat graphics (in comparison to my erricson t28s with tetris and solitaire on a mini-display)

Most N-Gage specific games suck like no tomorrow. Tomb Raider's a crappy port. The N-Gage can play lots of other cell phone games (since it's a series 60 and runs Java) so you're not stuck with just those.

But as a phone, the N-Gage is still quite weak. The QD's a big improvement, but it's still ugly as sin.

[Thrik]

The worst phone game in the history of ever is that Worms one. It's pretty much a port of Worms World Party. A port with two weapons, horrible jumping, one map, a hugely oversized scale, incredibly bad weapons physics, and a complete lack of fun in any sense of the word.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

While I was in London I went to the Shakespeare theatre and saw Richard II. When the actors were doing the bit about "throw down they gage (glove)" one of them said "Can someone lend me a gage!?" so a kid in the first row threw a baseball cap at them. To their credit, one of them picked it up and smacked the other with it in challenge.

I don't know if you know this, but the Stage versions of King Lear tend to be different from the script of the play. I don't even know if that made sense, but my point is, I guess it hadn't occured to me before how backstabbing the two sisters, Goneril and Regan are.

And then, much to my horror, as I watched, Goneril kissed Edmund behind Regan's back!!! This never happened in the version we read! And if it did, I wasn't listening!

[Chris]

While I was in London I went to the Shakespeare theatre and saw Richard II. When the actors were doing the bit about "throw down they gage (glove)" one of them said "Can someone lend me a gage!?" so a kid in the first row threw a baseball cap at them. To their credit, one of them picked it up and smacked the other with it in challenge.

That rules

[lailoken]

btw there is no "stage version" of king lear, it's always a matter of how the director interprets the original play and usually in our lame ass society that means toning down the original play to make it more accessible to the general retarded public.

[Chris]

It's worth noting (or maybe it's not worth noting, I don't know), that theatre as well as music etc. have always dealth with directors cutting parts and the like. In fact I'd suspect that such situations are probably better today than they have been at many times. These days it really seems to be a mark of pride if something is presented without removing anything. I know it's definitely true in concert music; as a music major I'm constantly learning about controversial operas and stuff which were written and premiered in 1783 but not performed fully until 1986 and that sort of thing.

[MrHoatzin]

btw there is no "stage version" of king lear, it's always a matter of how the director interprets the original play and usually in our lame ass society that means toning down the original play to make it more accessible to the general retarded public.

I saw an awesome rendition of King Lear in DC during the Shakespeare in the Park thing one year. The whole thing was set during First World War in England (judging by the costumes). The youngest daughter was played by an actress that's apparently deaf and dumb, but the King's Jester interpreted her sign language; he also rapped a couple of his lines that gave way to that easily. Oh, and the whole set was matte black, the colour of tires, and it looked like it had the texture of sandpaper. There were these amazing looking sculpural forms made of scrap iron and chicken wire all over the place -- the set changes were brought about by different light shining through these sculpures. That wavy wire basket thing thinly filled with aluminum cans spray-painted black in the middle of the light grill, for example, will act as the foliage during that scene in the forest when the light shines through it... It is amazing how much can be accomplished with well thought-out lighting.

[lailoken]

sounds awesome ("ace"? just joking) well there are really great adaptation of ole will's plays or plays in general. i really love TITUS with anthony hopkins, awesome movie! Check it out!at imdb

[Salka]

I know the Directors cut/add stuff that's not in the script... I just didn't want to launch into a discussion on how they did that in order to say that friend said 'you tramp' during a play.

I didn't know they did it with music though. That's kind of crazy. I only read the paragraph because I saw the year '1986' there. Now I am glad I did.