I’ve fallen behind on Ngage, but I wanted to clue you all in on 2 cool updates with Ngage, as well as link to an interesting article.

First, Gameloft is holding a competition, with some really hot prizes at stake. The rules for entry are simple - download a Gameloft game (currently includes: Asphalt3: Street Rules, Brain Challenge, and Block Breaker Deluxe) and then upload a score to the Ngage Arena scoreboards. That’s it. Winners will be randomly chosen to get a Gameloft Prize Pack, which includes:

• N81 8GB or N95 8GB device preloaded with Gameloft N-Gage Games

• N-Gage Backpack

• Version of Brain Challenge for PC or Nintendo DS

• Block Breaker Deluxe multilcolor mood lamp

• Grey N-Gage sweatshirt

Not bad for a bit of gaming, no? The contest is running from now till May 18th, 2008, so there’s still time to log in and get your game on. More info here.

Also, Block Breaker Deluxe (obviously) and Tetris have now been added to the Ngage available games. Block Breaker Deluxe was part of the First Access program, and still has that really annoying short timed trial, but Tetris seems to offer a full level of play, and even allows you to custom map the buttons in the game (with a limit, of course). I’ve been playing a bit of the Tetris and find that it’s a really well designed version.

Third, Stuart Dredge over at PocketGamer.co.uk has a great opinion piece about the multiplayer features in the new Ngage platform. Stuart believes that it’s bad form for Nokia to only offer global leaderboards for games, as they’ll quickly be overtaken by the ‘hardcore gamers’, which doesn’t offer much incentive for us casual gamers to submit scores.

I have to agree, and would like to second Stuart’s motion that each person should be able to see the global leaderboards, but also have access to personalized leaderboards, populated only with your friends in Ngage. This really would emphasize the ‘network’ aspect, and offer some relevance to the leaderboards. It also makes it a little more rewarding for us casual gamers to post scores, since there’s a running chance we’ll be able to see our name up there.

What do you think? Would you like to see personal leaderboards, made up of just friends that you know through Ngage?

Categories: N-Gage
Tags: features, gameloft, N-Gage, tetris