ECTS 2003: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater N-Gage Preview

By Tom Bramwell Published 28 August, 2003

Tom and Rob go head-to-head as miniscule skateboarders. Who was EG's THPS N-Gage daddy?

Nokia’s N-Gage stand is one of the noisiest in the room. It really is. So at about 11 this morning we decided to pop along and ask them politely to shut the hell up. When we got there however, we discovered that they were actually running a Tony Hawk N-Gage tournament, and the current leader was out in front with a paltry 40,000 points. That may sound like a lot to novices, but anybody with more than an afternoon’s experience on the regular console versions could do that in two tricks – let alone two minutes.

Flying high

'ECTS 2003: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater N-Gage' Screenshot 1

So, naturally, we decided to muscle our way in and see how we could do. After watching “Bob” and “Gary” (obviously aliases) battling it out, we introduced ourselves to the announcer and demanded the opportunity to face off against one another. After a bit of fiddling with the equipment (Rob broke his N-Gage just by looking at it), we were set up with little cameras pasting our putrid visages all over the 20-foot projection screen, along with another little feed showing the action on our handhelds.

At the announcer’s say so, we were off. Rob quickly demonstrated to the giggling crowd that he had genuinely never played Tony Hawk before in any form, whereas I set to work translating my console experience to the tiny screen.

The first thing fans of Hawk’s games will notice about N-Gage Birdman is that it runs at a slightly lesser pace than its big screen counterpart. That’s to be expected of course, but it did a good job of disrupting our carefully contemplated combos. Likewise, the controls no longer permit manualling as far as we could see (despite the Nokia representative’s uncertain “yeeeah” when we asked him about them), so we were limited to grinding various rails in the usual manner, either hitting the grind button as we reached the top of a ramp at an angle, or seeking out low walls and purpose-built rails.

A Hawk by any other name...

'ECTS 2003: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater N-Gage' Screenshot 2

Graphically Tony Hawk on the N-Gage is a far cry from its fairly poor looking (albeit highly playable) GBA adversary. Instead of an isometric wannabe, what we have is actually a fully fledged 3D version of the game, much as you get with the PS2, Xbox and GameCube. Indeed, although it was obviously cut down to size with fewer animations and less frames, visually it was very obviously Tony Hawk, with the same look and a pretty solid engine.

Although the N-Gage D-pad is fairly small, it was quite easy to direct Tony around, and on the other side of the screen the function buttons were 5 (jump) and 2 (grind) with 4, 6, and 8 for other tricks. With the buttons on an N-Gage laid out like a keyboard numpad, we had little difficulty putting them to use, and although our chubby digits occasionally strayed towards unsanctioned keys, nothing adverse happened.

However the lack of manualling took its toll, making it more or less impossible to build up huge combos in our usual manner, so this writer ended up with a rather lamentable score of just 7,500. Still, that was enough to put pay to Rob, whose pitiful 750 the announcer jokingly lambasted so half the room could hear. Still, it was his first go, and after a nasty contact lens accident last night, he can’t even see, so we’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Winner!

As we left, having completely forgotten to tell them to be quiet, I was rewarded for my endeavours with one of those open-top sunshade caps with N-Gage logos all over it. Expect to see that disappearing as a Reader Reviews prize within a few weeks, just as soon as I get bored of using it to remind Rob how it went.

All I have to do now is “forget” to meet him at the Soul Calibur II pods and my victory will be unassailable.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 9 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ssuellid #1 9 years ago

    Better than you expected then?

    I still think that the N-Gage will be more of a success than most people think.

  • cynic #2 9 years ago

    As I said, I have played it and it ain't half as bad as I was expecting going by all the bad press coverage it was recieving. It is still prohibitively expensive though, and the price point will be what makes or breaks it I think.

  • Shinji #3 9 years ago

    750? LIES! 775, and Tom cheated by using a non-broken N-Gage!

    (Bet he doesn't let me write a feature about his utter humiliation at Soul Calibur II. Assuming he turns up.)

  • st3ph3n #4 9 years ago

    Screenshots look ok. Looks like Chicago(?) and the Powerstation(?) levels from THPS1. You should manage a couple of hundred thousand on those levels assuming no manualling or reverting, otherwise its open season, especially on the competition layout style of Chicago or wherever it was.

  • lost_soul #5 9 years ago

    I think the N-gage will be a huge success and that everyone should go out and buy one :-)

  • Blerk #6 9 years ago

    Rob broke his N-Gage just by looking at it

    Kind of worrying for something that's going to be flung into the bottom of handbags, dropping out of coat pockets and sliding around the floor of the car most of it's life, non?

  • Whizzo #7 9 years ago

    I think the N-gage will be a huge success and that everyone should go out and buy one :-)

    Ignore LS, he's a company man! ;-)

    N-gage gets a big thumbs down from me, screen orientation is just wrong and the pad isn't great. If it was about 80 quid then it might succeed but at the rumoured 200+ mark no chance. The graphics aren't bad though...

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #8 9 years ago

    Rob didn't actually physically break his N-Gage - it just stopped working so he had to have it replaced.

  • Merefield #9 9 years ago

    I agree with those who hate the aspect ratio...looks like they just adopted an existing phone screen...Laaaazy!

    However, I must say the graphics look really impressive for a handheld....credit to them for that....its clearly packed with high technology...too bad the screens funny.

  • Whizzo #10 9 years ago

    Me thinks the N-gage is a product that just looks bad on paper.

    Nah it's just as bad an idea when actually playing on one...

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #11 9 years ago

    Ah, that explains it.

  • cynic #12 9 years ago

    "N-gage gets a big thumbs down from me, screen orientation is just wrong and the pad isn't great. If it was about 80 quid then it might succeed but at the rumoured 200+ mark no chance. The graphics aren't bad though... "

    Try higher than 200 squid, the rep I was talking to reckoned nearer the 300 mark, although was sure you could get much cheaper deals with a contract. But I shall say again, if you can pick this up cheap it might actually be a worthy investment. Sure it looks like its fell out the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down, but the games seem O.K.

    Most of the early reports stated the frame rate was as dodgy as a priest doing press-ups in long grass next to an all boys school, but it just wasn't the case, the games actually shifted along nicely. I'm not saying its going to revolutionise handheld gaming or anything like that, but it seems like a lot of people are bashing it for no good reason other than other people are bashing it.