ic-games Review - Ashen - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

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Ashen

Information
Reviewer: Andrew St.Denis
Developer: Torus
Publisher: N-Gage
Reviewed: Others
Genre: First Person
UK Release: 31st May 2004
Article Date: 18th Oct 2004
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price:
Price Comparison:
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Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 64%

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Pros

A steady title for the N-gage

Bluetooth multiplayer options (2-4 players)

Cons

Pick-ups could be better distinguished

Screenshots

6 of 8

First Person Shooters have been about for a while even on consoles, so people have gotten used to controlling this genre with buttons. Now we have another platform to add to the list, the Nokia N-gage has arrived and there are now more then a few games out on the market for it. One of them is Ashen, which gets you trying to playing a FPS title using a mobile phone keypad. Ashen is from Torus and is published by N-gage, exclusively for the Nokia N-gage.

The storyline is that you (Jacob Ward) have received a letter from your sister (who you’ve not seen for years) it contains various ramblings, and not what would be expected. It requests you visit her and proclaims a momentous event is about to happen. Two days later Severn River City (where your sister is) is plunged into darkness, a night of storms and un-natural occurrences drives the citizens out of town. As others flee Ward decides he has to go there to find his sister, as she might be the only person who can make sense of what is happening in the city.

Controls for this title are, going to be complicated, since the phone keypad isn’t conducive with good fps playing. Most of the controls are simple enough but for when the action starts happening things can soon get mixed up, and unless you are used to using buttons for aiming up and down, you will be struggling to get the first or indeed second shot on target. As for the rest of the movement and action buttons, these aren’t so bad; movement is of course by the cursor pad, with fire being the middle button (5) strafing are the 4 and 6 keys with looking up and down the 2 and 3 keys. You can soon see the possibilities for mistakes.

The graphics are pretty good, for a system with no 3d graphics capability, while being a 3d game. Things to have a blocky look to them, but when all is said and done the game is on a hand-held game console/mobile phone not something sat under your tv. Weapons pick-ups are difficult to pin-point, not the where-bouts as such but what they are going to be. One rather good idea is ‘Ghost Vision’ which are special glasses looking a lot like ‘low-light’, this is to allow you to see ‘invisible’ ghosts.

Sounds are obviously restricted by the platform that Ashen is on, but when you take that into consideration things sound pretty good. Not much in the way of music or anything else except the effects. These effects aren’t going to stand against any of the larger console or pc titles but for the N-gage, these work very well.

One aspect of gameplay for FPS's is multiplay, the old frag-fest. For this you will need 2 to 4 N-gages and of course the same number of copies for the game. After that it's all bluetooth which does mean you have to be fairly close together, but it still makes for fun play for a group of friends together.

Over-all Ashen isn’t a bad title for your first person shooter needs on the N-gage. If you can handle the slightly awkward key setup (there are two different key settings, but neither are that easy to grasp) you will probably like Ashen.

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