N-Gage



"Anyone, anywhere."

The N-Gage was an interesting hybrid: it was a cell phone, but its games came in cartridges like a regular handheld. This was tremendously inconvenient, you had to open the back lid and remove its battery to change games. The controls were clunky, and the screen was tiny. A second model was quickly introduced and fixed many of its issues, but it was not enough to fix its reputation. The name was later reused as a game download store for the Symbian S60 series, but that's also long gone.

While it is often mentioned in lists of "worst consoles ever", that's somewhat unfair: the N-Gage was quite ahead of its time (remember, this was long before smartphones became mainstream), and its fans swear that some of its games were actually pretty good.

A total of 63 boxed titles were released on N-Gage. It turns out that most of these games were GBA and PS1 ports, like SonicN, The Sims Bustin' Out, Virtua Tennis, or Pandemonium!, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. If it remains wise to play these games on their original supports, most of the ports in question remain convincing. Plus, some of the console's exclusives are not without interest, such as the two Pathway to Glory, High Seize, Glimmerati, or Pocket Kingdom: Own the World.