The Nokia N-Gage (The first version of game deck that is) was released within the year 2003. Mobile gaming was the future and Nokia were to lead the way in this new and ingenious era of entertainment. Their first attempt to break the mould had been a very good success; sales of the unit were amazing, figures no one had expected. Taking advantage of such a high tide of accomplishment, Nokia quickly realised that releasing a new unit, sleeker, smarter and more powerful, that they could raise the sales even higher.

Nokia were not far wrong, in fact, they were precisely right.

And now, under half a year since their new unit was released, the break through was about to occur; the N-Gage’s first MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online). So, what was this pioneering title known as? Pocket Kingdom: Own the World. An impressive title do you not agree? Something that sounds very impressive you might think.

Think again.

During my years of playing RPGs, not many mind you but enough for a wide experience of the genre, there have been many titles that are works of wonder, creations that are beyond belief and, in some cases, are so close to perfection and realism that they could be true stories and events written in time itself. However, sadly, as in all things, there are creations within the genre that are pathetic, weak, not of any credibility at all and are so poorly put together that even a non-gamer could have put it together in a month or so.

Pocket Kingdom: Own the World is exactly that; a complete disappointment and nothing more than a game, rather than an attempt at a true adventure and world.

In all honesty, I cannot think of a single good thing about this game.

Let us start from the beginning. In all fairness, we have not been able to actually test the online playability of the game. The review code that we received from Nokia did not allow us to use that option (something I find highly ridiculous, seeing as though it is the first MMO title and us being the reviewers would need to let you know of this new experience but we cannot---go figure). This being the case (although I do not see how) the game could be good within that mode, however, knowing the game itself, I cannot see how this could be the case.

So, only being able to review from the normal offline mode (though the game workings are the same as they are online) it is best to start with the game content itself.

Pocket Kingdom is simple. You start off with your own castle and a personal assistant; they will get you to grips with the game and its workings. From the castle, you can visit a shop, where you can buy items or more units (soldiers, wizards, monsters, etc). There is also a lab; here you can create new weapons, armour and accessories, also emblems to upgrade your units. Also within the lab, you can make changes to your castle; its looks, colours and transportation designs. Along with these two, there is also the party room in which you can create different groups, up to a limit of four, and equip them with weapons, armour and accessories. Lastly, there is the world map, here is where most of the action will take place and your conquest begins.

All of these seem fairly simple and self-explanatory yet, let us delve deeper, shall we? I am only interested in two of these four areas, one being the party room and the other being the lab, the item making area of the lab.

In all RPGs you are given the option to customise your characters, whether they are action RPGs, scroll battle like RPGs or any other kind. Regularly when you are given this option, you can change the character’s weapon, armour and accessory, sometimes even more than one accessory. However, in Pocket Kingdom you can only add one weapon, one piece of armour or one accessory. All right, in all other games you can only do this (apart from the accessory). It does not stop there. One unit can only have a weapon, a piece of armour or an accessory. Now, I do not know about you but the words pointless, half-hearted attempt and pathetic, do not quite say how this system actually is. Now, if this is not the only thing that turns you away from this game, then keep reading. Because of the limit of items you can equip to your units, they kill easily, some last only for one battle at a time and you have to continually buy more. The levelling up makes no sense, each of the units do not seem to have any sign of exp points and they are nothing more than single fighters that either survive the battle or do not.

Also, one of the major, key let downs of this game is that you do not even control the battles! All you can do is watch and pan the screen left or right. How on earth they came to the decision of doing this, I have no idea. Why they believed such a thing would work, who knows. There are four of your units in battle at the same time and yes, you cannot control them all at the same time but switching from one to the other of even choosing some kind of game plan would be much better than sitting and watching your team win or lose.

There is no more to say on the matter. The battles are simply pointless.

Moving on to the lab. When you make new items, whether they are weapons, armour or accessories, you have to have key items. The first is the material that you will be making the item out of and the second is the mould that you will use to create the specific item. This process is also painful, as at times, the item is not successfully created. This is not a design glitch; they have purposefully put it into the game. It wastes your money, time and wares out your patience.

Within the world map itself, you can move to different areas of the world, each one showing a different landscape and containing different castles. Within these castles there are enemies to battle against and some of them have more than one floor, meaning that you must take on a number of waves of enemies before you have actually conquered the castle.  More than one castle can appear on an area map. To see these castles and be able to attack them, first you must find them. You can do this buy sending out one of your teams to scout and search. Firstly you can search for the castle itself but you can also look for what items are there too. As said, once you find them, you can then send a team into battle against it.

That is the workings of Pocket Kingdom.

The game has a lot of ‘features’ or variety and choice of options. What I mean by that is, there are more than 500 different items, weapons and armour, also over 50 types of units to battle with. However, to list them and such would be pointless. If the workings of the game are abysmal then it does not matter what extras there are. In example, if you have a game where you run around an empty room, it does not matter if you can run around it with over 50 different characters or if there is more than 500 different pieces of furniture in the room, the game itself will still be terrible.

Graphically it has very good animation and design. The world itself is expanse, with many wonderfully drawn landscapes of beaches, mountains or plains.  The many types of units available are all excellent with different looks, armour, weapons, skin colours, designs, etc. All of these move fluently and continue and hold a very fantasy like theme, a theme that works well and is put across well both in the character and location designs.

Also, with sound, it carries on the theme of fantasy, with the music mostly, as there are no voices. The sound effects for the actual game itself are also great, with the blast of fireballs, slash of a sword or swing of an axe. It all works together well.

Although the world of Ulgress is vast and well laid out, there are minor problems about it that just seem to uniform, such as the layout of the castles on the map being in linear rows. However, the game itself is so appalling and to be honest, this has not been one of the most enjoyable reviews to write, in fact, every word I have written I have just wanted to go straight to the conclusion, as I see no point in going through and discuss all of the other aspects of the game such as graphics and sound when the game itself is simply bollocks.

Before I played this game, I was so hyped up about it; it was unbelievable. I supported it all the way and I could not wait until I got my hands on a copy. I thought that I would be glued to my N-Gage non-stop and that I would need no other game besides Pocket Kingdom. I was very wrong. If you have any sense, then I would not pay even £20 for this game, let alone £40. And I do not think I will ever play the game again to be honest, I just see no point in it.

You do not play Pocket Kingdom: Own the World; you simply choose the options and then the game plays itself. To me, that is not entertainment; it is just plain boredom.

Sorry SEGA but what were you thinking throughout the entire time you were making this title? It had the potential to be so much more but for some reason, it just seems as though it is not a game at all; just something to watch rather than play.

Tobias Rowe