N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Hello everyone,
So last month I decided to get a new phone - either Droid (Droid 2 now) or N900. For me, games and emulators (mostly RPGs and turn based strategy) are very important on phone.
I had almost decided on the N900 (HoMM II, FreeCiv and OpenTTD ftw :)) when, lets say the comunity had a mini meltdown with many users, devs (and even Nokia) abandoning the phone and the droid started looking more attractive.
But then I saw JA2 was available on Maemo 5 and the N900 is back in contention :D.
So I made a small list available on the N900.

Great working Games -
Nethack
HoMM II
JA 2
FreeCiv
Angry Bird
OpenTTD
WC II
Quake 1,2 and 3
Hexen, Duke Nukem, Wolf
Wesnoth

Possible or Not so good working Games -
HoMM III
Dune II, C&C and Red Alert
UrQuan Masters

Great working Emulators -
DrSnes, PicoDrive
Scummvm

Possible or Not so good working Emulators -
GBA, NES
PS1, N64
MAME, DosBox

Some questions for N900 owners.
Is this list complete and correct? I have searched and gone through a lot of threads before compiling this list. But it is difficult to know if any games is available or not. Can any more good games/emus be added - especially RPG and TBS?

Are the games really playable - I mean not just working but also easy to control with N900 keyboard/touchscreen (and no external controllers like wiimote). Eg I dont think FPS like Quake or Duke could be easily played on N900. What about TBS like HoMM or JA2 or FreeCiv and platformers like Super Mario World?

Any more roguelikes on the N900 - especially DCSS tiles? With the keyboard and the decent sized screen they will be great to play.

I dont really care about Meego but hopefully Nokia will give flash 10 support fo N900.
The answers will be a lot of help to decide whether to go for N900.

Thanks in advance.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I would say you have answered most of your own questions concerning the current state of emulators and whatnot on this device.

Saying that the N64 emulator is superb for the games that do work and although things have stalled at the moment we live in hope of future updates. Things look bleak on the PSX front and GBA developement seems to have been abandoned. This is only what I have gathered from these threads though, I dare say the devs know more.

Control on the faster games (Mario etc) is horrible via the keyboard but there is a Game gripper (mine is in the post) available and the accelerometer on the N64 emu is very good.........esp on Mario kart:D

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

You might also want to add the game gripper to the list. I haven't tied one but supposedly makes games easier to play on the n900.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9D8cedGr30

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I am pretty sure DCSS is portable to Maemo 5.
All we need is somebody familiar with SDL and DEB packaging.
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/downloads

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

They could be. Devs just couldn't add accelerometer controls for aiming. I even bought a DS3 and the analogs don't work with the games! I have completed the single player of Quake 2 without cheats on N82 thanks to accelerometer controls.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Could you describe how did you have your controls mapped?

I tried playing Duke Nukem 3D on N900.
- forward/backward and strafe left/right mapped to accelerometer
- head/aiming mapped to touch screen
- fire maped to keyboard

It was playable, but playing it looked like some wild dance tilting the N900, touching its screen and pressing keys... ;)

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

why you dont use a ps3 controller?
the n64 emu runs really great with it and you even can use the joysticks thats just great.
and if your phone is overclocked many many games run pretty nice;)

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I don't find current FreeCiv SDL port playable. Interface is terrible.
I started an effort to port FreeCiv GTK+ interface with proper changes to be usable on small touch screen, but did got practically none feedback.

On the contrary, Dune 2 port is just fine. People reported finishing game with it. :)
Ur-Quan Masters is also complete and very playable. It's hard to win a battle using N900 keyboard. Some external controller is desirable.

For platformers, you should get a game-gripper. But be warned, this could wear your keyboard faster than normal usage.

Roguelikes are available. My POWDER port is very playable. It has great touch screen controls implemented.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

that is, untill you blue smoke comes out

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I don't remember it clearly but here it goes:

Walk forward/backwards and strafe mapped to D-pad, jump by clicking it

Left softkey for crouch
Right softkey for pause menu

Call key for use item
End key for drop item

7 for inventory
1 for prev item
4 for next item

Multimedia key for run

Volume rocker for next/prev weapon
Camera key (half pressed) for shoot
Gallery key for help computer

Accelerometer for aiming (turn/look up&down)
There's no keys mapped to accelerometer, it works just like a mouse.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Somehow I think one of the 1000's of overclockers on this forum would have mentioned if blue smoke came out of their phone by now. I run mine at 800MHz consistently and 950MHz for gaming and I've not had any issue after 6 months... much the same to the many people I know that overclocked (several at 1150MHz)

This is CERTAINLY the phone for you if you love retro gaming, especially RPGs. I've beaten Chrono Trigger, FF1 & 2 on SNES, Pokemon TCG on GB (lol :P), Super Mario 64 on N64 (this game is fully playable, as are plenty of other games on N64) and gotten a significant distance into FF7 on PSX emulator (before I forgot to backup the save when I deleted it :S).

Realistically if you are after a retro machine I couldn't think of anything better than an N900, TV out and a PS3 Controller (or Wiimote.. but this'll be a fair bit more to get working properly).

Finally, sooner or later when next revision of N64 emu becomes available we should also see Starcraft 64 running fine too if you need a Starcraft fix (and Stargus doesn't satisfy).

Finally 2, of the emulators, the NES one does the job fine, as does MAME and GBA (although I've only tried a couple of basic games with it).

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

For me the best combination is this:
- Strafe left/right with the accelerometer.
- Forward/backward and turn left right with cursor keys.
- Head/aiming mapped to touch screen.
- Rest of keys mapped to keyboard.

I find it very difficult while using accelerometer for forward/backwards.

Anyway I have to select "Piece of Cake" :p.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I use a wii remote with my n900 and it makes a huge difference.

Currently playing:
C64 emulator
GB & GB Advance emulators
Spectrum emulator
UrQuan Masters.

I'm also going to map the wii remote to control the media player and possibly the browser too (all you need to do is edit a text file).

If I can find a bluetooth keyboard that will connect reliably then I will be a happy bunny!

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I'm just starting to explore my N900 for gaming.

I love strategy games. What games work well on the N900?

And where can I get C&C and Red Alert from?

Cheers,
Menno

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Thanks everyone for your replies. :D
So platformers and fast games are not really playable on the keyboard. :(
Unfortunately I cannot use external controllers as I will be playing during commute.
I may get the game gripper but as smoku said I am also afraid of the extra wear and tear.

But anyways I am far more interested in RPG and TBS games.

@IzzehO - Are the other FF games playable on the emulators? And FFT and Advance Wars?

That is bad. :(
What about the other strategy games? Especially HoMM II, JA2, OpenTTD and Wesnoth.
Is the interface good?
Also did I miss any strategy games in the list?

But atleast there is POWDER :)

If N900 had DCSS - tiles, I would buy it even if nothing else worked :D

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

it might be possible to map the keys in a way that would work for platformers, i haven't found the perfect mapping yet, but it feels like i'm getting closer

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I originally found Mario very difficult to play with the keyboard, but as soon as I remapped the controls to use w, a, d, x as a D-pad it was far, far easier to play.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I play Widelands and Bos Wars while commuting. It's tons of fun. :)

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

i know every game u just wrote except the above ones, what are they ? where to get'em man ?

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

NetHack is a rogue-like game.
HoMM is Heroes of Might and Magic.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Plenty of android games with nitdroid too: http://nitdroid.com/index.php?title=Addsoftware

And don't forget PSX4m.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

While it's pretty awesome that all of these games and emulators can run on our phone, I find it quickly becomes gimmicky since the games weren't designed to be controlled with touch screens, accelerometers and super tiny keys.

Don't get me wrong, I love my phone and wouldn't trade it for anything, but if it's primarily games you're after, I'd go android.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

You're doing it wrong. I've played 1 and a half scenario and it works perfectly. You need a stylus, luckily one came with the phone.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I really admire your patience and mortification. ;)

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I don't know if it's been mentioned but Tyrian/OpenTyrian is pretty good as well.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

rpg games on n900 like open tyrian and heroes 2 sux

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Looking for roguelikes? Rogue itself works beautifully in Dosbox.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

I think that open tyrian isn't an rpg and homm2 is more strategic game with rpg elements :p
Rpg's are great for n900(like Final Fantasy VII, Paper Mario).
Shooters like OpenArena sucks, because of controls.

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

These answers are leaving me very confused :(

But is homm2 really playable?
Also can someone please answer if JA2 and Wesnoth are playable? :confused:

Re: N900 as a gaming phone?
 

Wesnoth is very playable. The load times are a little slow, but loading every time your guys miss every attack is pretty cheesy, so a little discouragement could be considered a feature.