Nokia N-Gage Event

It was certainly a pleasant surprise to receive an invitation to Nokia’s N-Gage event earlier this week. It’s something that I MUST NOT MISS. Checked my schedule just to make sure I didn’t screw up in my plans for the week. 😀 Basically it was an event to introduce Nokia’s N-Gage service.

Yes, it was the name of one of Nokia’s phone once but now it’s a gaming service / platform. GAMES! I love GAMES! Wooohoooo!

For the record : This post was written in a very casual manner (. Please pardon me for my lack of exercising grammatical or spelling accuracy.

So there I was, heading to Café Libre which was located at Taman Desa. I started my journey just about an hour before the event and WTH!?!??!?! Does this location look familiar?

Well, luckily I had anticipated that I’m very likely to face traffic jam on the route I’m taking. Note to self : LEAVE EARLIER NEXT TIME! – I was heading to a lesser known territory.

Anyway I was damn lucky to manage to make my way to the place without getting lost (yes, 1st attempt kau tim already). It was a good thingy I checked my direction based on Google’s Map service to get my bearings calibrated. I also got lucky in finding a parking spot, considering that area is probably HELL (yes, in capital letters) when it comes to parking.

The invitation stated 7.30pm, It was around 7.45pm by the time I reach there. Lucky for me, event not yet start la. No one eating yet, so ok la. At least I don’t miss out on the food. Yes, I was beginning to hear my mini school-band playing inside of me.

My hosts were really generous, Nokia and their PR partner. We were treated with buffet style dinner, not much choice but the food was certainly good. Some spicy pasta, rice, mutton curry (or was it curry mutton……. hrmm…… was it mutton? I think it was) and some papadam (Ok, I really don’t know how to spell it. Call it crunchy crackers if you want)

MMmmmMMmMmM….. Yummy…. Pictures of food? Seriously, my school-band was playing louder. I can’t be bothered with capturing food digitally. 🙂 And judging by the crowd, we’re not food stylists either. After a delightful time getting to know the people around us and finishing our meal, Mr Keith Liu – Head of Games & Communities, Go-To-Market, Services & Software for Southeast Asia Pacific – gave us an enlightening presentation on what N-Gage is and also it’s directions, goals and what’s to come. 🙂 This was then followed by a session of Q&A and also game demonstrations.

Yes, I admit – I WANT THOSE GAMES. Sure, I’m a PC gaming guy but there’s this damn addictive thing about games made for mobile phones. Not convinced? Well how about this?

As if the trailers of the game weren’t tempting enough, Keith had to show us all the upcoming games that were available to him.

And yeah, Keith showed us the games on a huge (42″?) LCD TV. Great! games galore, they looked damn addictive. Can’t wait to get my hands on those titles.

Well after that we did get to play with a bunch of N-series phone, some of the games and also the UNRELEASED – N96! Want proof?

K la k la, I know some of you “no girl, no shiok” people, there ya go. Yes, the ladies were checking busy checking out the phones – just like everyone else (Obviously!)

I was playing Asphalt 3 (the racing game in the earlier picture), and so was Suanie. I also tried Creatures Of The Deep – Keith showed me how to play this game, initially it looked damn boring but after Keith’s guidance – I’m HOOKED, just like the fish in the game. 😀 Then of course I tried FIFA 08 – great, just after a long night staying awake watching MU vs Chelsea just the night before. Playing FIFA 08 on a phone just doesn’t seem right, it wasn’t easy to navigate and it’s not going to be pretty for the thumb.

Oh, speaking of attendees – Jason a.k.a. smashpOp was there, here’s Jason playing with some game that I have no idea what title it was.

James of Friedbeef’s Tech and KY of KYspeaks were there too. If you look through the earlier pictures, you’ll see someone playing FIFA 08 – that was James. 😀 I’ll try to update this post with the complete list of attendees, so many people there la, I very hard to keep track leh. Use pen and paper? I end up looking like a reporter, not nice.

Update : The other attendees were Kimberly, Erna and David.

Well, the evening wasn’t just about gadgets, girls and games. After all, there’s many other things under the sun for us to discuss.

Yes, that’s Timothy Tiah of NuffNang over there, the guy in red. Sorry la Tim, capture you in an awkward pose. 😀

OK. End of my lengthy post, pretty much covers the event I attended. By the time I come back, so late already. Have to process the photos and write such long-winded article. 🙂