Gaming on the N8

One of my favourite games on the N8(one of the first phones with a graphics card, the Broadcom BCM2727 GPU) has to be Galaxy on Fire.

The first thing which impresses you on start, is that it actually asks you if you would like the audio on or off, which makes it much less intrusive than Angry Birds, where you’re sitting in this comparatively tranquil environment, and suddenly the soundtrack jumps out of nowhere and you look all around hoping no one notices it was you! Like any desktop game, you can choose to either enable the music or the sound effects.

Another impressive thing, is that this is the full game. Fishlabs mentions 20 hours game play, but I’ve been playing it for over a month now, and it shows no signs of ending, thank god!

N8 has been shortchanged by other games such as Angry Birds, where you only get certain versions like Seasons and Rio to play, and if you want the whole game, well, you’re going to have to pay for it. The only other option, is to actually buy an Android phone to get the whole game.

Being someone who started off on First Person Shooter games such as Wolfenstein, at a point where I actually thought the password was six stars. From there, it was Half Life, then Counterstrike and a little bit of Call of Duty.

The first flight simulation game I had ever played was the Aero Mission 3D fighter on the Sony Ericsson K750. Cut to Galaxy on Fire on the N8, and you have an experience worth dumping your desktop computer for.

You have multiple slots for saving the game, which you should, considering that the game only gets saved when you finish each mission, so if you start selling your cargo and then lose a mission, you’re going to have to go back and sell your cargo again, which gets to be a bit of a pain.

You get to play with different kind of ships, each ship has a different level of maneuverability, cargo hold, and different kind of weapons, which is truly amazing for a mobile game. My favourite is the Centaur ship, but you won’t reach that till you conquer quite a few planets.

Don’t forget to keep checking the Shop at each planet or space station for new toys and weapons. Try to get the Thermo weapon as soon as possible, and then follow it up with a good missile and photon combination.

Lasers get better and better, so don’t be too eager to dump them.

When you start actual game play, what will surprise you, is the absence of directional controls on the screen, like you would see on Tekkan Mobile. Galaxy on Fire gives you full accelerometer control, so you tilt the screen to move in any direction. The other option is to use the touch pad which is a pleasant experience when you want to lie down and play, say on a train or in bed.

The missile and boost controls only appear when available, where the boost control actually slowly flickers when it is almost ready, so watch for it. My favourite move, is to wait for the enemy ship to come close, and then fire a missile, since otherwise the missile just oscillates around the target ship for a long time.

The closing screen during the end of each mission, is not repetitive, it actually shows you the continuation of your last move, even if you’re shooting a missile, which looks spectacular.

Okay, now here is the special thing about gaming on the N8. Switch on the F.M. Transmitter and tune your radio on your home theatre to it. Once you’re connected, pump up the volume, and you are able to then play the game on any audio system(which has a radio), without connecting a single wire.

The experience is awesome.

Note: This post has been published in Mobigyaan .