It’s happened to the best of us. You’re waiting in a particularly long line, or you’re a passenger on a long car ride, or maybe you’ve finished that Spanish test before the rest of the class. What do you do? With no viable gaming system anywhere in sight, you rely on a communication necessity for entertainment: the cell phone.
Cell phone gaming has been popular since Nokia’s Snake hit the market. Suddenly, phones weren’t just for talking! I’ve been a huge Snake fan since my first cell phone for years ago, but the options now available for mobile gaming are almost endless.
I personally have a Motorola T270 phone. With it came a connection to Cingular’s wireless Internet. Though this, I have found that I can download many games, for modest fees of $3-$5, plus Cingular charges for airtime. There seems to be dozens of options, with titles such as Beach Volleyball, Mission Mars, FOX Racing, Charlie’s Angels, Splinter Cell.. the list goes on and on. Categories they are found in include Arcade, Casino, Strategy, Sports, and Classic, amongst others. Not wanting to anger my Dad into canceling my cell phone plan, I decided to download only two.
My first target was called Snowball Fight and cost $4, to be billed directly to my account. When the game finally loaded onto my phone, I found it boring. Real-life snowball fights are exciting and arouse all of the senses… painfully cold fingertips, tingling battle wounds, etcetera. Cell-phone snowball fights are boring. I was supposed to aim at a kid who was crouching behind a snow trench… blah blah blah, you don’t care, trust me. It was horrendous. Aiming was difficult, as was the sequence of motions necessary to pack a snowball and throw it.
To atone for the angst that game had caused, I chose for my second game and old favorite. You may possibly have heard of Snood, assuming you haven’t lived under a rock for the last few years. I figured such a fabulous game couldn’t go wrong. Five bucks later, I knew I was right. The concept is the same as on a PC, as well as the types and levels of games to play. Aiming is hard to adapt to, but once you do, it will definitely become as addictive as its PC counterpart.
So would I recommend entering the world of mobile-phone gaming? Yes, definitely, if you are able to partake in its pleasures. It’s a great and convenient way to pass time when PS2 isn’t available.
