Smartphone games at E3 los Angeles gaming expo

[Guest mugenakuma]

I was at the E3 for 3 days and unfortunately there were only a few smartphone games. After speaking with a few of the booth company people and looking over their company literature I began to have hope for cool smarthphone games!

Jamdat was their and they had an Mpx200 running their new port of the well know action RPG Neverwinter Nights. It is a Java based game that looked pretty cool with above average graphics and some real depth.

Gameloft was their but they didnt have anything of interest.

Tecmo, the developers of great games like Ninja Gaiden had a playable smarthphone version of thier classic game Bomber Jack. This game was AWESOME with colorful graphics, animation, and sounds. It was also very fun to play. Tecmo also had a Java based old school version of the game Ninja Gaiden but it was NOT running on the Smartphone platform. Tecmo Bowl was another Java game they had NOT on the Smartphones. These games could easily be ported to the Smartphone though.

Squaresoft, the WONDERFUL developers of games like Final Fantasy had their new cell phone shooter Braveshot, but it was NOT running on the smartphone platform. Despite this disappointment , I read the Squaresoft literature that said they were developing games for the SMARTPHONE platform!

So as you can see their are the future of Smartphone gaming is looking brighter and brighter!

[Guest KingDaddy]

Did you see Age of Empires for Smartphone? It's supposed to come out eventually.

[Guest midnight]

hmmm, this is strange, cos when i contacted Tecmo they had no intention of making games for the MS Smartphone platform... smartphone yes (they mean Nokia's etc, but not MS), and i really cant see Squaresoft making games for the MS Smartphone either (thank god, cos Brave Shot looks terrible).

As far as I'm aware also, Neverwinter Nights for MS Smartphone is NOT java (there is no java client for the mpx200), but does look pretty cool (much better than the java version thankfully).

[Guest phonesmarts]

really? hmm, i was looking foward to NG on the smartphone (the MS one)...

can we see some pics of these games? im dying to see how it looks like.

@mugenakuma: did you get to try out the Halo 2 Multi?

[Guest martin]

I did a search and found a review of Neverwinter Nights by Wireless Gaming Review but it's this bit of the review that cheered me up :)

We played betas of the game on an LG VX6000 and a Motorola MPx200 Smartphone. Both sport impressive graphics for their hardware, but it’s hard to look at anything else once you savor the Moto isometric perspective and detailed textures. If you are serious about mobile games, your next phone should run a Microsoft OS.

:lol:/

http://www.wgamer.com/gamedir/game-3470&page=PREVIEW

[Guest phonesmarts]

happy to hear someone favors MS! but, WGR didnt use the Mpx as a test...it says on the bottom that it used the VX6000 for its review phone... :)

[Guest mugenakuma]

Well Tecmo did have a playable game for the Smartphone, and I even played it.

At the Jamdat booth the MPX200 Neverwinter nights game was labeled as a Java game. Maybe it was a mistake?

Now just because the MPX200 doesnt currently have a Java client doesnt mean that some of the biggest mobile platform developers dont have them.

Personally I think Braveshot, by squaresoft, looked cool, but I havent played it so im not sure.

To be honest Neverwinter Nights wasnt that impressive looking. just decent BUT I think it will definitley have some depth making it worth playing.

[Guest midnight]

Personally I think Braveshot, by squaresoft, looked cool, but I havent played it so im not sure.

hmmm, you think....

http://www.gamespot.com/mobile/action/brav...creenindex.html

I think Eclipse proves that the MS Smartphone can do much better than that (also bare in mind, Eclipse is our first game, and Square supposedly have years of experience) :)

Neverwinter Nights for other phones is Java, but it isnt Java on the MPx200

Also, Java really aint the best platform for high quality game development, it aint nearly powerfull enough to compete with the latest games

[Guest mugenakuma]

So Midnight are you sure that Neverwinter nights is not Java on the MPX200?

I'm just curious where you got this info since the jamdat booth was displaying the mpx200 version as Java.

I think Eclipse your new shooter definitely looks better than Braveshot. I especially dig the rotation effects. Still the huge colorfol bosses of braveshot look cool and until I play the game and watch it move I wouldnt be quick to dismiss it.

[Guest midnight]

ive seen the colourfull bosses in braveshot and to be quite honest i am not impressed at all, graphics are pretty terrible (i am a gfx artist so notice these things) and there looks like theres zero animation on them, just shots spewing out almost randomly

not getting at you btw :) just that from a company like Squaresoft with millions behind then, creating some of the best games for Playstation/Playstation 2, i'd expect a little better from them

as for mpx200 version of Neverwinter Nights, theres no Java client for the MPx200, so i would say i'm pretty positive its not java, even if it was..... why???? Java, other being good from cross-compatability, is not that good

[Guest phonesmarts]

yeah, midnight's right, java isn't the best for developing games (it is really good with compatibility.)

for me, i think C++ is one of the best game making language (especially when its tagged along w/ open gl or direct x. but *maybe* mpx will have a java runtime in the future, but i doubt it. like midnight said once before, "it would be a step backwards in smartphone game dev."

maybe they werent concentrating on graphics for NWN, but on the depth of gamplay.

[Guest mugenakuma]

yea i agree that Java is DEFINITELY not the best. Im just saying what jamdat was running. I would love to see more developers take advantage of the smartphone platforms power.

I talked to a guy at Jamdat who said he is working with a really great development team that should be puttin out some killer games for the smartphone OS

[Guest midnight]

oooh, competition :)

[Guest phonesmarts]

i dont know about tons of good games for the smartphone platform though. i mean, the people who can actually code in C++ will make the games, and not many people (especially now) know how to code in C++. they (the schools) do not teach C++ anymore because of its complexity, and turned to Java because of its compatibility and ease of programming. most who learn to code in any of the C-variants must learn by someone else or by books. unless they start teaching C in school again, there wont be much of a community of games for it.

[Guest mugenakuma]

Well like I said the neverwinter nights mpx200 game i saw was supposedly Java based. The other Tecmo game I played, Bomberjack could also have been java based.

Personally I would not be surprised to see quality Java games eventually released on the Smartphone platform.

[Guest midnight]

I would, MS wanna start pushing Microsoft technologies (eg .NET), not Java. .NET will get better for game makers once Mobile DirectX is released. Again, still wont be as powerfull as C++ though.

'Quality' and 'Java' in the same sentence, is that even possible :)

[Guest mugenakuma]

I agree. Most Java games look pitiful. The ones I saw at the E3 on the various phones were so bad I couldn't even play em for more than a few seconds. :)

[Guest midnight]

dont worry, Kumite is coming along well, that will look better than your average Java game :)

[Guest mugenakuma]

Sounds good Midnight! I can't wait to play Kumite :)