Like all gaming platforms, N-Gage has seen its fair share of cancelled games over the years, both on the current Next Gen platform and also on the original generation too. In a nostalgic feature, AAN takes a look at the N-Gage games that time forgot, and ponders what might have happened if they'd been released.
Read on in the full article.
Alien Front, Taito Memories, Virtua Cop and Sega Rally were released but not exactly to the general public.
Alient Front & Taito Memories were released as BETAs (on MMC cards) in very small amounts and the boxart covers were officially made (ive seen them), however the games themselves werent released fully - only the beta code remains.
Virtua Cop and Sega Rally were released, but only in Austraila - from time to time you still see these 2 games appear on ebay (mainly eBay USA and AUS) and go for a hefty price (collectors item). Both were full 3D Games and ran at a debateable framerate, Colin McRae Rally was (in terms of framerate and graphics) better than Sega Rally, but it had Sega Rally had a nice arcade feel). Virtua Cop had choppy framerate and watered down sections - but was still reasonably enjoyable.
These 4 Games (even though not officially released) were spread onto the net via pirate sites - makes you wounder how exactly did they get the games to say they were beta codes / limited amounts.
Alien Front, Taito Memories, Virtua Cop and Sega Rally were released but not exactly to the general public.
I wouldn't call beta versions "released", "close to finished" might be a better description. 😊
The beta MMC versions of Alien Front and Taito Memories were probably for reviewers, like I said in the article there was at least one review of AF for N-Gage.
I did mention in the article that Sega Rally got a release in Asia, but Nokia was clearly trying to bury the game by not releasing elsewhere.
Regarding the quality of Sega and Taito unreleased games, these weren't 7 euro downloads but 40 - 50 euro gamecards, so the quality had to be very high to justify the price. If any of these games had received wide releases the people buying them would have probably felt very disappointed considering how much they'd paid for them.
Alpha or beta game code often leaks if a game is unreleased, there's not much incentive to keep it secret if it's never going to be in a commercial product. Also, even with released games you often get pre-release leaks from game testers, especially if the testing process involves a lot of people.
going by the screen shots and the little info you provide,its no wonder why most of them got cancelled.
There is 1 or 2 what are intriguing and i would of liked to seen them
I'm baffled why they pulled that multi player poker game in favour of GLU's awful port of WSOP.
Shadow-Born looked very interesting and i think they've missed a trick pulling it out of development with such great features ,it would of been a winner.
I know it's a RPG and many have been big failures but with it bringing something different and the amount of eventual N-gage user's surely it couldn't fail.
Maybe they bit more than they could chew and was having too many problems integrating the to do lists, calender and messaging e for all the various phones b/c of the varied ram differences in the devices etc, just a guess
forgot to mention SEGA RALLY and VIRTUA COP got released in ASIA and AUSTRAILIAN areas and had a RRP of about 25 GBP. can remember seeing it but not having the money (and got outbidded on Sega Rally ages ago on eBay AUS).
if the game ideas (for some of the new titles) had been changed it could have been an awesome game, i still think ASHEN (i know it wasnt a cancelled game) would make an awesome FPS or HD Game on PS3/360! as it had such great gameplay and story.
Midnight pool just got released to device showroom on Ngage i read in forum and found it on phone
What you think Krisse ?
Shadowkey and Rifts are the main reason why I bought a N-Gage.
Needless to say, I was quite hyped about Shadow-Born when they first showed it since it was from the Rifts developers.
Kinda sad to see that Shadow-Born died, and Shadowkey 2 (if it ever was in development).
Rifts & Shadowkey are also the two games I would like to see on the new N-Gage the most.