The classic game for mobile phones, Snakes, set a threshold for the future of mobile gaming. Its graphics were, by today’s standards, derisory, but it wrestled its way into the category of an all time classic by being a fun, simple and accessible game.
Today, Nokia has remade the classic for its handheld console, N-Gage, and it is, quoting the Daft Punk song, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger! The classic has made the jump to 3D and in its full glory. Plus, Nokia is distributing the game for free, and exclusively to the N-Gage platform. The download is merely a mega in size, and installs easily on any MMC by means of a .sis installer.
When starting the game, we are presented with the tempting option to ‘Start Game’. Once in the submenu, I was amazed to find a ‘Multiplayer’ option! But more of that later, as right now we’ll dive into Single player goodness, of which there is enough to satisfy anybody.
The Single player introduces you directly into the first level, which is where the improvements and virtues of the game can be immediately seen. The environment is in a complete three dimensions, and the camera hangs behind the new and improved Snake. This view is perfect for moving around in three dimensions, but there are four different camera positions for particular tastes, and all of them are easily manageable in game with a simple press of the 3 key, which performs the change automagically. Two of these cameras take even further advantage of the three dimensions environment, and both are closer to the ground. For retro purists, there is even the option of a bird’s eye view, which is not all that useless, as it helps in certain levels.
The level design is extraordinary, and breaks away from the traditional line of the classic Snakes. The monochrome 2D levels have given way to a more modern approach in three dimensions. The levels are flat grids filled in with tiles, which surprisingly are not always on a plane, but, depending on the level, can be curved and cylindrical, for example, which makes the game play all the more interesting! The tiles are coloured in a variety of psychedelic colours, but without exhausting the player with too many flashy hues, in a very ‘Tron’ like fashion. Snakes is one of the best games for the N-Gage platform, and it runs with absolutely no lag in frame rate (a constant 25fps), while presenting beautiful, expansive environments, which sometimes exist on both sides of the tile grid! What was the most outstanding technical feature for me though were the instantaneous load times. No, you read correctly, the load times are inexistent! This means that entering the game play is easy wherever you are, which truly brings the slogan ‘engage anyone anywhere’ to a whole new meaning, a far cry from the everlasting load screens of, say, ‘Call of Duty’.
The game play has been changed so that instead of spending as much time as possible inside a single environment, the player must progress through a series of levels by earning enough points to see it through a level. The easiest way to do this is by picking up blue diamonds which are arranged in a ‘power path’, which earns you score multipliers. These power paths snake across the levels, and often the player has to play at his finest to get through the entire power path.
The Snake has undergone improvements as well. Now it can speed up and slow down, and use a variety of power up, such as extra lives or boost. The Snake can also absorb damage from walls, albeit to sacrificing energy, and collect letter to spell NGAGE or SNAKES for extra features such as bonus levels.
A new and interesting addition is the ‘hex’ tile. Hex levels are built entirely on hexagonal tiles, which increase the difficulty significantly. The player must take advantage of the 2 key to perform sharp turns to properly navigate through these hex tiles and to be able to go through the power paths properly in order to finish the level.
The soundtrack to the game is a simple electronic track that accompanies the action brilliantly and never gets annoying. Sound effects are top of the class, with sound for different actions, such as speeding up or bumping into walls or picking up powerups.
The multiplayer is probably the more significant change in Snakes. Taking advantage of the Bluetooth capabilities of the N-Gage, you can battle with your friends, which opens up another array of features not available on single player.
First of all is, obviously, the capability to compete with another Snake on the same level. Players can cut across the paths of other Snakes, like light cycles, and can directly battle each other with power ups such as homing drones or shields. Plus, because the game is free, the Multiplayer option doesn’t require each player to have four Snake MMCs, but one player can literally Share the game to other people. This option is present on the Main Menu (‘Share Game’), and it sends the Snakes .sis installer to other players via Bluetooth so they can join in. A four-player game with only one copy of the Snakes installer can start in well under 10 minutes.
The only feature that this version of Snakes lacks is a ‘Classic’ mode where there is unlimited time. Also, it would have been interesting to include the original Snakes, and maybe even a simple level editor for multiplayer games, although this does admittedly push the limits. Apart from this, the game has all the fun you need when you’re riding the bus downtown or when you’re tired of everything and you want a deep game that’s easy to get involved with quickly.
This effort from Nokia comes at a time when the future of the platform is rather uncertain, and instead of bringing up a mediocre remix of the original, the developers at iomo came up with a singular creation which exploits the potential of the N-Gage machine in a visually compelling and attractive way. If Nokia can keep up this rhythm of good freeware games exclusive to the platform (a Snakes 2 is already in the making according to iomo), then it can become a viable option in front of graphically powerful handhelds such as the PSP, which can only offer games of greatly variable quality for over €50.
Plus, it’s for free, so why aren’t you downloading it already?
Reviewed by Eltower for The N-Gage News Network(All Rights Reserved)
