Hands on with Nokia's N-Gage beat-'em-up One

Beat-'em-ups aren't the most obvious genre to bring to mobile phones. Not only are there technical issues such as fast-moving 3D graphics, smooth animation and pixel-perfect collision detection to worry about, but the mobile's keypad is hardly designed for jabbing button presses and complex combos either.

Nokia is obviously keen to prove it can be done though, because after bringing One for the original N-Gage, it's in the process of releasing another version for the new N-Gage platform. The developer behind both games is the Barcelona-based Digital Legends, which has been working hard to squeeze the graphically rich 3D game within the constraints required.

At the recent Mobile World Congress, we had the opportunity to get some hands-on time with One. Playing on an N81 in landscape mode, the effort that has gone into the visuals was easy to see. We played two of the seven worldwide environments available – a sun-baked Mexican car lot and a dark, underground German car park – and both were suitably atmospheric.

As for the action, One does suffer somewhat from the limitations of its hardware. For instance, playing on the N81 with the movement controller on the left and the punch and kick buttons on the right, there was a tendency for the phone's slider mechanism to slip open during some of the more active moments of a bout. As the helpful Nokia staff pointed out, this issue was reduced somewhat by rotating the phone through 180 degrees.

As for more standard measures, One follows the usual beat-'em-up approach. Button presses and movement are expectedly less fluid than on a joypad, let alone an arcade stick, but the smoothness of the animation gave the game a solid feel. Pulling off combos and counters was more tricky, however, with most of our early bouts having a certain turn-based flavour to them, as you and then your opponent had a go.

More impressive was the game's overall presentation, with graphic novel strips used in between levels to drive the narrative forward (in Story mode). There are also very detailed character customisation options (everything from gender to clothes, hair style, tattoos, etc), which enable you to create your own fighter and use the points you earn throughout the game to further individualise them. And as you defeat the 30 opponents in the Story mode, you also unlock them and add them to your stable.

Other features Nokia says will be available at launch include multiplayer – two-player head-to-head via Bluetooth – as well as a global leaderboard and the ability to check out the fighting styles and stats of other players. And offline, as well as the main game option, you can also play in Arcade mode.

So, it didn't exactly knock us out but One is certainly an ambitious project for Nokia and it's one we'll be keeping our eye on as the official launch line up for N-Gage is assembled.