Published by Tzer2 at 11:18 GMT, December 2nd 2007
Update: Nokia have now confirmed that a video posted by Project Next is the genuine trailer for an upcoming Star Wars game for N-Gage. It's called The Force Unleashed and published by THQ Wireless. (trailer via pl_pirat on N-Gage Arena, confirmation via Ikona from the Official N-Gage Blog)
The publisher, THQ Wireless, have declared their support for the Next Gen N-Gage platform and Force Unleashed is their first announced title.
The developer named in the video, Universomo, is a Finnish mobile games studio which is part of THQ Wireless. They develop for Symbian, which is the operating system used by N-Gage games.
Espoo, Finland - Nokia, THQ Wireless, Lucasfilm, and LucasArts today revealed that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is coming to N-Gage, Nokia's next generation mobile gaming platform in 2008.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The game's expansive story is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
The mobile version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is in development by THQ's Finland-based studio, Universomo. Using Cell Weaver(TM) technology, the game lets the player harness the Force while assisting Darth Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi - and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile game provides players with unique community features, including tournaments, score uploads and downloadable content, through N-Gage Arena services.
"We're proud to be able to deliver the next chapter in the Star Wars saga on the N-Gage platform," said Gregg Sauter, Director, Publishing, Nokia. "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile game will take advantage of the N-Gage platform's robust native development environment to provide the ultimate mobile gaming experience, including powerful graphics, connectivity and community elements."
"THQ Wireless is dedicated to creating an awesome mobile Star Wars experience that delivers on the concept of unleashing the Force. The N-Gage platform makes it possible for us to release a rich mobile gaming experience to entertain as wide an audience as possible on N-Gage compatible devices," said Adam Comisky, vice president of THQ Wireless.
"The launch of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be a major entertainment event in 2008, and bringing the game to the N-Gage mobile gaming platform is a big part of that because it means that millions of people around the world will be able to access the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed world right in the palm of their hand," said Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing.
Seems to be damn real and the future official trailer at the N-Gage Showroom. The graphics is wow by the way, and may be the gameplay is great too, as it seems based on the 9 numeric buttons. N-Gage showroom is going to show this very soon, I bet.
krisse
Indeed, it does seem real.
Project Next have loads and loads of intriguing videos, but they're often very difficult to judge, some of them seem to be just rehashes of old Nokia promo videos, or else Java games. That's why AAN has avoided linking to any of them up until now.
This was the first one where it had all the elements to indicate an N-Gage title, everything seems to fit what we know already about Next Gen N-Gage.
However, as stated in the text, it's still not confirmed, so we can't bank on it appearing.
The gameplay seems to be that you dial the shape of an enemy to fight that enemy, a bit like the spell-casting system used in certain Nintendo DS RPGs. A very clever idea, and makes perfect sense on a mobile phone. Let's hope that it's well implemented and not just a novelty.
sandy_1988
The gameplay pattern that you mentioned seems nice. And I think, THQ will not fail in this regard, as they have been associated with some very good titles. The best two I remember are two Worms games - one is Worms World Party for first gen N-Gage, and Worms Forts 3D - a spectacular Java game mainly written for the SE phones. I hope they will do justice to their name and the franchise.
Regarding Project Next, they have some killer material in their hands. And their Youtube channel is really good, though contains some fakes.
@sandy_1988
what you talk about fakes? what is fake? all information have his source, what i not must talk about u... but say me what is fake for u?
krisse
pl_pirat, YOU might know what the source is, but we don't, so it's difficult for us to judge whether a video is real or fake.
I didn't say ANY video was fake, I said it was difficult to say 100% for sure if the trailer was real or fake. Until we got confirmation from Nokia, we had no way of knowing what the trailer really represented.
Some of the Project Next videos definitely aren't what they seem.
The following videos are taken from Nokia's stand at E3 2006, so they're almost two years old. But Project Next presents them as if they were modern videos:
lol... this videos (how you post here) are old videos, what we have reupload on ower new youtube channel ( http://www.youtube.com/projectnext ) because ower old channel was kicked ( http://www.youtube.com/nextgroup ). we are one of the first how have present the videos 1 and longer year ago!
they was only reupload, because the old accout was kick by youtube :((.
Just to repeat, no one has said "THIS IS A FAKE!". What they've said is that they aren't sure if something is real or not.
All About N-Gage didn't say the video was real until Nokia actually confirmed it. That didn't mean we thought it was fake, it just meant we were being cautious.
Until a publisher confirms something, there's no way to be absolutely sure if a trailer is real or not. Even if something is real, it's sometimes hard to tell which platform it's being made for, and some genuine games never get released (a lot of old gen N-Gage titles never made it out of the door).
pl_pirat
krisse, i not mean you... i mean sandy_1988 with "And their Youtube channel is really good, though contains some fakes." and i will only know what she mean with fakes :).
we know many other titles what will make/came soon for ngage too... but we not post them, because we are not sure and not have pics/trailer/infos to time.
next presentation game will came from vivendi (i think) ... i hope u accept in the future ProjectNeXt for a news Source :). THX for support :rolleyes:
krisse
Project Next is interesting and I love to see its videos, but in order to confirm a story I have to hear something directly from someone involved in making the games.
I'd definitely recommend PN as a place to pick up the latest rumours.
pl_pirat
PN? PN not work here for me (i see 1 Unread, but cant read them)... we will not talk about the future games here or projectnext, because we not sure (i have already post a secret on projectnext some days ago).
back to topic... , its nice if u can add the new trailer cut in the site post. thx
ps.if allaboutsymbian or allaboutngage are interesting for link change or other partnerships... u can everytime contact me :)
ikona
We've updated the N-Gage.com site with screen shots, an interview, and the trailer.
Brilliant. Now all we need is for N-Gage to FINALLY launch. Geez. :)
NZtechfreak
Saw a demo video for this at the Nokiaworld conference last week, looks promising indeed. I asked the NGage demo staff about NGage release date and they offered nothing beyond "it'll happen when it happens, should be December".