It took me two full version games to understand NGage.
Asphalt 4 Elite and Creatures of the Deep(COD) are keeping me busy these days. Around a month ago I switched back to my N958G. Did a firmware upgrade (v31.0.015) and this time it had the latest NGage installed with a lot of trial games. I activated COD because it's by Infinite Dreams. I've earlier played KRally like anything on my E61 and I knew the graphics on COD will be something to look forward to. COD is a fishing game, catch fish and get points (XP's). The graphics of the game are amazing, the rain, the lightning, etc... You get to fish in Costa-Rica waters and once you have enough XP's you can travel to other destinations. I played this game all the time, unlocked a few items, went to different locations and kept on fishing. What I never understood is 'When does the game end?'.
Some how I got one more activation code. This time I activated Asphalt 4 Elite. Once you have a full version of the game vertical bars show up at the right side of the game listings. The bars indicate how much more you have to play to finish the game. I was two bar's up on COD and kept fishing all the time but the bar remained on two.
Asphalt 4 Elite has a menu which shows "Pickup points". These are stages in the game where you get X Ngage points. So there is a game score, which is $'s, and then there are NGage points. So the bars that are shown alongside the games listings are actually how close are you to achieving 1000 Ngage points. COD does not have a menu to show pick up points, but if you go into the NGage application - My Profile - Click on one of the game in the list there's a tab where you will see the games pick up points.
This answers my question of knowing when does COD finish. So I don't have to just keep fishing, I actually have to finish all the tasks listed in the pickup point list. After this much of knowledge I finished Asphalt 4 Elite. COD is a big game, you have to finish tasks in 4 places and the places themselves are not small. This time the NGage online community came in handy.
Browsing through the forums I came across screenshots where tasks can be finished , actual walkthrough's of games, tips and tricks. Also interesting is that I found one of my friend on the forum and was even able to add him as a friend on the NGage application. So now we can compare our points, discuss games and even play multiplayer games (havent tried it as yet).
Although I activated the games through activation codes I recieved I surely will be buying some of them. The games are not very expensive, I believe they are around 300 Rs (see Oxicash for more details). And looking at the quality of games I've played I don't think the amount is too much. I think I will be buying Prince of Persia.
I'm really enjoying NGage and will always make sure that whatever device I carry it's NGage enabled.
I know most of the S60 users would have figured that out with some fiddling but I'm sure not all know that getting the above screen shot made me take out my phones battery.
