Race your friends in real-time

The network 3 has achieved a UK first with the release of the country’s first real-time multiplayer games. Lock ‘n Load Combat Arena and Rally Pro Contest MP are available for compatible handsets and they enable players to face off against each other simultaneously on separate handsets, directly over the 3 network.

Lock ‘n Load Arena, a 3D shooter in which you view the action from the perspective of your in-game character, features up to four players running around and shooting each other with big guns, all in real-time. That means that when you shoot another player, they’re hit and killed immediately by you, even though they’re playing on a different handset. Meanwhile, Rally Pro Contest MP transfers the four-player action to the race track, with players racing against each other in rough-and-tumble rally cars.

The two games are the first multiplayer titles that don’t use the hot-seat multiplayer mode, whereby two or more players take turns on a single handset and, according to 3, it’s the way forward. In fact, the network is so keen to show off the technology that 3 customers can download the games for free, paying small amounts only when they play them. Each time you join a multiplayer game you buy your way in, which costs 50p. You then have four lives to use in Lock ‘n Load and three races in Rally Pro Contest MP.

The games are understandably demanding in terms of the hardware they require and currently only work with Nokia’s Series 60 models, including the 6630, 6680 and N70 models.