Top 10 Games Phones: May 2008

Much has transpired in the mobile gaming world since we last compiled a list of the top ten gaming handsets. Having seen Gizmondo and Nokia's ludicrous N-Gage QD come and go, it's fair to say that we were in the midst of a bit of a creative recession back then.

There were plenty of perfectly good handsets out there, but nothing like the abortive monsters that marked mobile gaming's Cambrian era of wild experimentation. Everything had stopped being exciting, and had become settled, as though mobile gaming was a child whose playtime was over.

Well, in the months since then playtime has well and truly resumed. We're touching screens, tilting phones, modding, tapping, thumbing, dusting off once-dead platforms, basking in the flickery glow of N-Gage's second coming, and listening at the wall for news about iPhone gaming and the shadowy Project White Rock. It's all going off.

In fact, almost every phone from last year's list has been usurped. The unassailable N95 is still in there, sitting more or less pretty in third place, but even this has been revised and re-released as the infinitely sexier N95 8GB model.

So, without further ado, meet the new generation.

	1. Nokia N81 8GB The number one spot in this contest is almost impossible to call, and would have been furiously debated had I made the mistake of asking for anybody else's opinion. Dissenters would have pointed out that it came in a paltry 24th in Kishonti's GLBenchmark test, and that it contains neither of the year's flourishing technologies: touchscreen and accelerometer control, both of which the number two handset contains in absolute spades. Whereas the iPhone is slick, new, and powerful, however, it's also unproven. The N81, on the other hand, is almost perfect at dealing with what the mobile gaming world currently contains. It runs both J2ME and Symbian titles, it supports landscape gaming, and, most telling of all, it was the handset Nokia chose to showcase its well-received and well-supported N-Gage platform. It almost certainly won't make this list in a year's time, but as a phone for right now it's unbeatable. Arguably. (Read our review.)
	2. Apple iPhone There's every chance that the iPhone will be occupying the number one spot so emphatically and singularly this time next year that the rest of the competition will look completely ridiculous. In its relatively short life, Apple's inevitably distinguished foray into the telecommunications industry has achieved an incredible amount. Even before Apple unveiled its SDK, modders had got the The Secret of Monkey Island running, and in parallel with licensed software development confections like Game Boy, SNES, and PlayStation emulators have been appearing on the internet and making jaws drop. And then there's the SDK. A pixel-perfect accelerometer-utilising version of Super Monkey Ball (knocked up in a fortnight) has already been unveiled, and with every major publisher signed up to develop for the iPhone, the future could be truly dazzling.
	3. Sony Ericsson W910i Just as Vaseline and Marmite began life as the by-products of unrelated industries, the Sony Ericsson W910i's gaming prowess is a happy by-product of a fairly ridiculous innovation. It's a Walkman phone, and its big gimmick is that you can shake or tilt it to change tracks. It's a preposterous idea that barely works, but the same technology opens the door to the hot new world of tilt-sensitive gaming. As with the iPhone, you can tip the whole handset to make things happen onscreen, and the pre-installed Marble Madness 3D demonstrates this facility to good effect, beating Apple's Super Monkey Ball demo to the punch by several months. The W910's gaming credentials don't end there, however. You can also tip it on its side and use two buttons situated above the screen in portrait mode, like you can with the N81. The other two pre-installed games – Lumines and V-Rally – are just as impressive as Marble Madness, and the W910i sits quietly ahead of all but its most impressive competition. (Read the review.)
	4. Nokia N95 8GB It really does say a lot about the competition that the mighty N95 8GB doesn't even secure the bronze. Equally, given that it's quite close to the N81, it says a lot that there are two other handsets separating them. It's a close race, and the N95's gaming credentials are strong. Like all Nokia Series 60 devices, it can run both the more common J2ME games and flashier, fancier Symbian games. Like the N81, it can access the N-Gage service and all of the friend-adding and fancy-game-buying that doing such a thing entails. It also supports landscape gaming, and were it not for the fact that it lacks two little buttons at the top of the screen it would be at the top of this list, instead of four spots down. (Read our review.)
	5. Sony Ericsson W960i Tilt-sensitivity is nice, but we can't help but feel that touchscreen is where the future of mobile phone technology lies. Buttons are already starting to look old-fashioned, like wind-up windows in cars, and the Sony Ericsson dispensed with them without hesitation for the W960i. Well, the D-pad anyway. While the troubling K850i employs a bizarre D-pad and tentatively features touchscreen on the first half-inch of the screen, the W960i wades more confidently into touchscreen waters. Pre-loaded on the device are Quadrapop, a so-so puzzler, and Vijay Singh Pro Golf 2007, a so-sweet golf-sim from Gameloft, fully controllable with the stylus. Disappointingly, the stylus control is limited to tapping points on the screen, rather than making swings, but it's a step in the right direction. Why is the W960i ahead of the LG U990, which has a bigger screen and no buttons at all? Well that's why: the latter has no buttons, making the W960i infinitely more compatible with the current crop of games. (Read our review.)
	6. LG U990 There's no denying that the U990 is brave little phone. Brave to imitate the iPhone so shamelessly, brave to dispense with buttons altogether, and brave to attach a stylus to itself with a piece of string, like mittens on an unacceptable duffel coat. As soon as you use it, though, one thing becomes abundantly clear: it's no iPhone. The screen is far less responsive, the display far less crisp, and the machinery inside nowhere near as powerful. Nevertheless, LG deserves kudos for having the confidence to lose the buttons, and while the first games we've seen on the device – RealArcade's casual games – don't take full advantage of the technology, LG's device has a lot of potential.
	7. Sony Ericsson K850i Okay, so this is a controversial handset for a number of reasons. Critics have rubbished the five-megapixel camera, expressed astonishment at the bizarre D-pad that braces the '2' and '5' keys like a rampart, and poured scorn on the three little patches of touch-sensitivity arranged like fickle spectres along the bottom of the screen. Despite these deafening reservations, however, the D-pad and the touch-pads won me over. It's a remarkably innovative control interface, but one that takes very little getting used to and, once you're there, is far more robust than most mobile phones can provide, even those with joysticks. It's also a fairly powerful phone with a bright, crisp display, and the accelerometer buried deep inside its robot gut allows you to tilt-sensitive games, like the aforementioned and preloaded Marble Madness 3D. (Read our review.)
	8. Sony Ericsson W890 We're getting away from the cutting edge of gaming now, but the Sony Ericsson W890 is a great phone in so many respects that the absence of the major gaming mod-cons shouldn't put you off. It's a sleek, elegant and robust handset with all the gaming compatibility that owning a Sony Ericsson handset brings, and its gaming performance – while by no means spectacular – is consistent with its solid showing in every other department. Its strongest feature is probably its small but serviceable joystick, like the one used to such good effect by the K800i, and the preloaded games – Lumines, The Sims 2, and the evergreen Sega Tennis – show it off well. (Read our review.)
	9. Nokia N82 For an N-Gage compatible handset to come in at number nine, it really had to get some stuff wrong, and the N82 went wrong in one of the worst ways imaginable: control. The D-pad is spongy, and while most of the games that supply its killer edge are landscape compatible, there are no extra buttons at the head of the screen, meaning that they're largely unplayable. It's a huge waste. But then, given these disappointments the N82 really had to get some stuff right to make the top ten, and it did. For a start, it's an N-Gage compatible device, which automatically brings with it a universe of gaming potential. Then, like its Series 60 peers, it runs both J2ME and Symbian games. Finally, it's a 3D powerhouse, boasting the sixth best frame-rate performance in the world. The fact that such a beast on paper is languishing in at the dark end of this list is testament to the importance of control. (Read our review.)
	10. Samsung G600 The Samsung G600 is exactly why it's difficult to write reviews of handsets as gaming devices, because, really, that's not what they are. The Samsung G600 doesn't have an accelerometer, touchscreen, landscape gaming, or even a particularly appropriate D-pad. However, it makes this list because – let's face it – you're not going to buy a phone solely to play games on, and as an all-rounder the G600 is difficult to knock. It's powerful, the display is bright and colourful, and it's easy to find and download games through Samsung's Fun Club service. You'll enjoy the games, and you'll love the phone. (Read our review.)