Data & Research

The best N-Gage games of 2008 revealed

So says the PocketGamer.biz N-Gage Quality Index

The best N-Gage games of 2008 revealed
It won't come as a surprise, but Nokia's Reset Generation was the most critically acclaimed N-Gage game of 2008, according to our analysis of reviews on a range of popular websites.

The game scored an impressive 9.28 out of 10 on the sites tracked in our inaugural N-Gage Quality Index, which include Pocket Gamer, All About N-Gage, N-Gager, NokNok, Handy-Player, MeriStation and Mobile Game FAQs.

In fact, Nokia takes four of the top five slots in our chart. Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep is joint second with Konami's Metal Gear Solid Mobile, both with an average score of 8.83. Fourth is ONE with 8.78, and fifth is System Rush Evolution with 8.33.

However, it's not such good news for Gameloft and EA Mobile in the lower reaches of the chart, with their respective virtual dog games turning out to be, well, dogs.

The full list is below, containing games reviewed on three or more websites. For added interest, we've included as a separate column each game's N-Gage Arena rating, which shows what actual players thought. We've scaled that up from Nokia's five-star system to a mark out of ten to aid the comparison.




































































































































































































Pos Game Publisher Revs Avg Arena Score
1 Reset Generation Nokia 5 9.28 8.00
2= Creatures Of The Deep Nokia 4 8.83 9.00
2= Metal Gear Solid Mobile Konami 4 8.83 8.00
4 ONE Nokia 5 8.78 9.00
5 System Rush Evolution Nokia 3 8.33 8.00
6 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed THQ 5 8.26 8.00
7 Space Impact Kappa Base Nokia 3 8.20 8.00
8 Pro Series Golf Nokia 4 8.15 7.00
9 Asphalt 3: Street Rules Gameloft 3 8.10 8.00
10 Bounce Boing Voyage Nokia 4 8.00 8.00
11 Resident Evil: Degeneration Capcom 4 7.80 8.00
12 Midnight Pool Gameloft 3 7.43 7.00
13 FIFA 08 EA Mobile 3 7.37 8.00
14 Cafe Solitaire Digital Chocolate 3 7.27 8.00
15 FIFA 09 EA Mobile 3 7.17 7.00
16 Block Breaker Deluxe Gameloft 4 7.15 7.00
17 Brain Challenge Gameloft 3 6.93 7.00
18 Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol Nokia 4 6.88 8.00
19 Brothers In Arms Gameloft 4 6.85 8.00
20 Boom Blox EA Mobile 4 6.45 7.00
21 Snakes Subsonic Nokia 3 5.63 6.00
22 The Sims 2 Pets EA Mobile 3 4.83 7.00
23 Dogz Gameloft 3 4.20 6.00

 

For the record, the titles that didn't make it into the chart were Mile High Pinball (7.75 from two reviews), Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D (7.50 from one review so far), Tetris (6.15 from two reviews) and World Series of Poker: Pro Challenge (5.00 from one review).

We haven't really broken the chart up by publishers as we do for the main PocketGamer.biz Quality Index, as only three have released a significant number of N-Gage titles so far.

However, if you're keen to know their results, Nokia scored an average of 8.10 from 37 reviews of its games, Gameloft scored 6.80 from 20 reviews, and EA Mobile scored 6.41 from 15 reviews.
Contributing Editor

Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)