I expected a great deal more.

The Nokia N-gage no doubt was considered, and still is, the most breakthrough game deck in all of portable decks to date. Serving the purpose as a cellular phone as well as my own personal game deck means that it is expected to excell in both areas. One key problem with the first crop of N-gage games is that they didn't quite show the true potential of the N-gage deck itself. Pandemonium is one such game that proves that fact.


Pandemonium is a game that will delight new and old fans of the classic Playstation 1 game from 1996. The game Pandemonium is, at heart, simply a side scrolling game in which you play in a "rail-system" type of adventure. Much like a subway that moves along on a rail, it can only go in one direction. This is the case with Pandemonium, yet massive 3-D worlds and animations engulf the entire body of the gameplay making the experience sheer 32-bit eye-candy. Although the game does move in one direction, the pathway you move in will swirl, twist and turn all along the way, and will even open up to new pathways depending on what times you jump or what pits you jump down into, and the vast 3-D world moves all across the screen with your many movements. Clearly the game was a big hit because of it's fast fluid animation, it's simplistic gameplay, and it's replay value with all the different pathways and endings of the levels you played throughout. In it's pocket conversion to the trusty N-gage console, many things went wrong that turned this incredibly fun game into a lackluster dissapointment.


GRAPHICS: As far as graphics go, the game is dead-on fantastic. The 2-D backgrounds move fast and look colorful, the 3-D landscape moves fast and beautifully without flaw, the detail to every character and image is gorgeous and overall, this game served as a perfect example at E3 of what the N-gage is capable of.

VALUE: The game, in fact, looked SO beautiful, that it was quite insulting how much of the original game was cut from the N-gage version. At least 7 huge levels from the Playstation original have been removed, the intro and ending movies, the entire musical soundtrack, both the human pinball and mega race track bonus levels, and the infamous ending credits level in which you got to collect thousands of bonus items and reak havoc along the lengthy racetrack while the ending credits scrolled in the background. Frankly, it feels like more than half the game I love so much is...well...GONE!

CONTROLS: The N-gage and QD both serve no barrier to awesome control. The simplistic controls require only the use of a jump button and an action button, just like the original. And the control pads are of course great. Since side scrollers don't require diagonal control to be very important, Pandemonium controls more comfortably than the original if I do say so myself.


N-GAGE VERSION OFFERS ANYTHING DIFFERENT?: With the revolutionary technology of the online gaming community meeting area, the N-gage Arena, Pandemonium offers online competition against any online players' ghost time records. Basically, the Arena was in it's infancy at time of this game's release, so all you really get to do is see how quickly you can get through a level and then post your time online. If no one can beat your record, your name will be posted at the top of the online ranks and you will get incredible recognition.

Also, the Arena can be used for downloading a tutorial program to your game deck's memory so that if you ever are stuck, an icon in the corner of the screen will show up. Clicking it will show you an online ghost character that you can follow. But seriously, only a fool wouldn't know where to go in this game! Heehee.


So simply, there you have it. Frankly, I bought it anyways, because at least with what you have, you do get a lot of enjoyment. Luckily, you can't be ripped off when purchasing this game. It's now been lowered greatly in price by more than half the original retail cost. The most expensive you should ever pay for this game is $14.99. Anything else is unreasonable.