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Ashen is the first exclusive first person shooter on the Nokia N-Gage. Although the system isn’t ideal for games of the genre, Ashen still does a decent job of providing N-Gage fans with a classic style gameplay.
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You play the game as Jacob Ward. One day your sister, Vanessa, sends you a letter from Seven River City. She explains that she has found the ‘lost city’ of Maqabir. Vanessa had spent years searching for the city, and most people thought her devotion to the legend was mad. Assuming the letter was just another of Vanessa’s delusions, you dismissed it. Time passes, and you don’t hear anything from her. Great storms hit Seven River City, and strange creatures begin to appear. The inhabitants of the city begin to flee from the chaos, and Vanessa is nowhere to be seen. Somewhere in the ruins of Seven River City is your sister. You head to Seven River City in an attempt to save your sister’s life, and uncover the legend of Maqabir! The story is set up as sort of a Silent Hill sort of thing. It even does a decent job at being creepy. The story is sparingly told throughout the game, but it is interesting enough to keep the gamer wondering what’s going on.
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The gameplay is very basic, and it’s safe to say that Ashen lacks originality when it comes to this area. Almost every aspect of the game is something that gamers have seen before, even in classic games like Quake or Doom. You’ll pick up a variety of weapons, from an Alien Pulse gun to a gatling gun, and then fight your way through enemy forces. All in all there are 8 different weapons, and 13 different items. There are also 8 different enemy types that you’ll encounter throughout the games 8 levels. Neither the weapon and equipment variety, nor the enemy variety is anything impressive, but they’re both sufficient for the game and provide with enough variety to change things up now and then. The levels are more impressive, with a fair amount of variety and surprisingly large sizes. You’re actually going to have to spend some time with each stage.
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The game’s biggest downfall is the controls. You can’t really blame Ashen for this, but the N-Gage just isn’t designed to fit first person shooters. Nearly every button on the N-Gage is required to play and due to the spacing it can be quite difficult to do more than one thing at a time. The most basic combinations, such as shooting and strafing can be extremely difficult. You either have to take your fingers off the shoot button and press strafe instead, or you have to find a way to do both at once. You’ll often find yourself strafing, stopping, shooting, strafing, stopping, shooting, etc. It’s not impossible, but it’s frustratingly tough.
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Enemy encounters are actually few and far between, and when you do encounter them it’s never more than 3 or 4 at a time. This creates a less action packed experience, but it would have been very difficult to fight off many more enemies than that considering the control problems. The space between enemies helps to build a little bit of the horror theme as you venture through dark alleys never knowing when the next alien will jump out at you. One of the game’s few original aspects is your ghost vision goggles. These allow you to see invisible enemies, and also lighten up a room to make some things (such as enemies and weapons) easier to see. The problem with these goggles is that they have a power meter, which reduces quite rapidly as you use them. As a result, you can’t keep the goggles on for long periods of time. You’ll either have to continuously stop to recharge the goggles, or throw them on for very brief periods of time. Neither option works particularly well since an invisible enemy can pop out of nowhere at any time and kill you in just a few hits.
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Another problem I had with the game was the fact that there were no save points, nor auto-save areas. In order to save you had to complete an entire level. This can get pretty annoying when you’ve played through most of a level, die, and then have to start all over. Having good-sized levels is one of Ashen’s strong points, but when you have to beat the entire level just to save you’ll sometimes wish they weren’t so long. This is worsened by the fact that this is a portable game… you should be able to save at any time.
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The graphics in Ashen are a mixed bag. The enemy design is pretty poor, and sometimes it can be difficult to even tell which enemy type you’re fighting. You’re also likely to encounter a lot of clipping throughout the game. Baddies will walk halfway through walls, and you’ll gaze right through a wall to see oncoming foes. The levels are better with a fair amount of detail and plenty of variety in design. There are even some nice lighting effects, such as when your weapons fire. Ashen isn’t going to amaze you with it’s visual quality overall, but it does look decent.
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The game’s sound is better. The weapon’s sound effects are of high quality, as are the roars and groans that the enemies make. The music is also fitting for the game, and at times really builds on the games eerie feel.
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The game features up to 4 player multiplayer mode using Bluetooth wireless technology. You can battle your friends in all 8 of the levels from the single player mode and 2 unique levels.
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Despite its problems, like sloppy controls and no save points, Ashen manages to bring a decent first person shooter experience to the N-Gage. If you like classic style first person shooters, you’re very likely going to enjoy Ashen. Just don’t expect the game to be perfect…
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