Pics: Nokia N8 spotted again at #openmobile and showing off 3D gaming with Need For Speed Shift and Sims 3.

Rendered video demoes - obviously not convincing enough! Also note, this is of course stretched and out of proportion. You guys want real 3D gaming shown on N8 right? Scroll down below.

Click here to skip to the bottom if you want to get straight to the juicy bits. In short – I was shown on a real N8, NFS and Sims 3 which looked miles better than the video clips we saw in the video trailer.

Thanks to @WOMWorldNokia for taking me to Open Mobile Summit (have a few upcoming posts on this). Although most of my posts so far being on the N8, the event of course was not about the N8. N8 was not part of the programme, but as a Nokia fan, it was impossible not to notice it (especially in shiny green!).

I want to also thank the two N8 owners for demonstrating the N8 to a blogger which was probably NOT what they were expecting in doing at OMS.

___________

Spotting N8 number 2

On Wednesday, we saw a fantastic trailer type video demo from EA showcasing some fantastic 3D gaming on the Nokia N8. I should have filmed Jurjen Söhne, from EA, who was giving some great insight into the fantastic potential of gaming on the N8, but admittedly was in awe of the advert demo.

However, you some were a little doubtful given the N97 fiasco of video demos supposedly bringing something spectacular but in reality not delivering. I must admit – I also wanted to see proof on handset.

Well, yesterday afternoon whilst at the Nokia corner chatting/brainstorming about what questions we would ask Nokia’s EVP, MeeGo computers – Alberto Torres (upcoming post!) I saw another Nokia N8 at the corner of my eye.

This time, even more exciting as it belonged to Jurgen who was demoing some EA games to Nokia’s Nisha Malhan.

Nokia corner. Taking a test snap, and some moments later, Jurgen arrives and pulls out an N8!!

Will we get a second Nokia N8 Demo?

I cheekily approached both and asked if it would be OK to take photos. After some talk on what was OK to publish and what wasn’t – I got the go ahead from Zohe Mustafa, Nokia Marketing (and I think another Nokia staff member but I forgot their name).

Video footage I have taken won’t be allowed for publishing but photos were OK. Nokia have been very strict across all media/blogger encounters to prevent any live images of the OS and especially NOT video as  Nokia want everyone to see Symbian^3 on N8 when it’s properly buffed and polished.

This is understandable given the early lashings N8 and Symbian^3 got from a proto review. Sometimes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and only when you have the full and final piece will the user experience be greatest. That’s what I’m hoping for, at least.

The short clip showed Need For Speed Shift looking glorious on the Real N8, MUCH BETTER THAN THE VIDEO DEMO!!! But alas, I can’t publish that. Despite it being fantastic news for Nokia and potential N8 consumers, Zohe said that they still have a few things to sort out and improve.

I was very pleased to hear of these (Nokia imposed) high standards expected of the user experience with N8. Zohe mentioned that Nokia have learned from their mistakes with N97.  Nokia seems to paying much attention to detail to ensure that people handing over hard earned cash for N8 get the mobile experience they deserve (ha, and not the frustration that we N97 users have been subjected to :p).

Anyway, enough walls of texts, this is what you clicked to see: (Note, Jurgen’s N8 is a “proto” version with C0 and not N8 branding like the first N8 I spotted at Open Mobile Summit.

NEED FOR SPEED SHIFT on Nokia N8

This looked completely beautiful on the N8. Knowing I couldn’t publish videos and that time with N8 was short due to imminent arrival of Alberto Torres, I took as many snaps as I could (so some snaps maybe blurry as I didn’t give sufficient autofocus time).

Jurgen controlled NFS with the accelerometer and showed off his excellence in upside down driving (to demo the in game experience)!

The cinematics looked nice, but will the game be this good?

Loading screen showing instructions. Uh oh – it’s plain 2D. Nothing glitsy. Will the game visuals fail to impress?

Hell no!

It looks AWESOME! Easily the best looking game I had ever seen on a Symbian phone (Maemo 5 showed promise with Bounce Evolution, Zen Bound and Jurassic Roller Coaster 3D)

SIMS 3 on the Nokia N8

I was really pleased to see SIMS 3 loading full screen.

I had some apprehension that due to the screen ratio of the game originally developed on iPhone, there would be some black bars as suggested by the trailer demo. But no, it runs in full screen.  Jurgen did mention in our first meeting that these weren’t just ports, but were tailor made to take advantage of what the N8 has to offer. So, higher resolution, true widescreen gaming!

Did you know that 4/5 top grossing applications in Apple’s app store were EA titles, the number one of which was Sims 3?

I’m a big fan of the Sims franchise – the first iteration got me hooked straight away. Now you’ve got the latest version coming soon to a Nokia N8 that’s as visually delightful if not more than the iPhone competition. We do of course, already have Sims 3 at Ovi store but only a stripped down, 1990s looking version.

That was as far as I got, I didn’t get the chance to see in game but I think there’s enough evidence here to show N8 can and will pull off some graphically demanding games.

Tags: 3D Games, EA, N8, Need For Speed Shift, Nokia, Nokia N8, Nseries, Sims 3, Symbian^3

Category: Nokia, Nseries, Symbian