Nine Over Ten 9/10

Day Nine

Right after busting my ass out of jail, I was supposed to make it to the safe house. I had to contend with not only a couple of patrol cars and 2 roadblocks, but also a faulty GPS system on my dashboard. The GPS had the direction arrow pointing the opposite direction even though I parked the car right in front of the safe house. I swore I put in the right address into that damn thing…

I was about to get comfortable when a phone call came in from a guy called Nickel. Looks like I made it into the gang’s books after all, but with one catch… I’m supposed to steal a car and bring it back in one piece. It turned out to be not just any car, but a BMW M3 E92. Now when I got my own moolah..I’m gonna get myself one of these.

The hot job didn’t go too well as the place was suddenly springing with cops and they had with them some really fast rides, no thanks to Ford, or is it Dodge… No matter, I had a few more tricks up my sleeve

Day 10

Just yesterday I had another encounter with a dastardly malfunctioning GPS device, but this time it was in a stolen M3. No thanks to the faulty directional arrow, I nearly got caught by my own colleagues who didn’t know it was me incognito.

In any case, the poser’s (Nickel) boss called, Hector’s the name, stealing cars is his game. Apparently I’ve made quite an impression (I hope he didn’t notice the dent I made on the M3 after ramming a cop car). He’s looking forward to doing business with me in the near future.

I’ve got another problem in my hands now. Hector is actually putting up the M3 (dents and all) for sale, and I’m short a couple thousand bucks. The plan was to sell off my first car (the old jalopy of a GTI) but the plan hit a snag. I can’t seem to sell ANY of my cars. This is ridiculous. Of well…. looks like I’ve got to take somemore car stealing missions from Hector to afford the car.

Day 12

Remember the latina who called nearly 6 days ago? Well she’s back and she asked for a race. I promptly raced her on the highway and guess who won? Yours truly. But at what price? The girl disappeared again. Crap

Day 13

Rather than spend the day pining for lost love, the chase is on (literally). Chase called and its time to take down Hector. But first, I needed to round up his robber friends wrecking havoc in the city. Good thing they didn’t realize that I was me driving the souped-up police car.

I sent 6 of them to jail, but not before Chase revealed that Carmen (the latina from yesterday), is really Hector’s girl…double crap!

Click here to read Part 1 of the NFS:U diaries

Day One:

The mission just came in, a mysterious lady just asked me to “make it big”. In fact I find myself involved in a bank heist and I’m at the wheel of a getaway car. I’m supposed to make it to a safe house and avoid the police. Heck, I don’t need a mission for this, the boys in blue were on to me as soon as I started moving my car.

I quickly take out one of the two police cars, and lost the other one in a series of turns. Strangely my car is without a scratch despite having ram one of the cars head on. Kids, do not do this with your Dad’s Toyota.

The same mysterious lady de-briefs me at the safe house. Turns out her name is Chase and she’s a cop or something. That makes me a cop too.. I think. I’m confused. I’m an accessory in a robbery for crying out loud.

Chase does have a problem. While some people like to keep stuff short and sweet, she’s the short and oblique kind, often speaking tersely with no more than 4 words a sentence. I don’t know what’s her problem but apparently now I’m supposed to participate in more illegal racing events.. and win them.

Day Two:

The first race I participated after meeting the lady was a doozy. It was a street circuit but despite all the twist and turns, my opponents can’t seem to show up on my rear-view mirror. The next one, a sprint race from Point A to Point B across town was boring as heck. I was in Paradise City the other day and that place was happening! Can’t say the same about this town though.

Day Five:

Despite winning several events in a role, I felt that the car needed some upgrades. The garage guys were of no help, they kept on saying that performance parts were not yet in stock. “How bout a new rear spoiler, mon?”, one of them offered. Thanks..but no thanks.

One problem I noticed about my car, the stereo’s broken. It’s spewing some crap Hindi New Age tune whenever I’m not racing and it keeps repeating tracks…I count at least 2 of ‘em. It’s driving me nuts.

Day Six:

It took a couple of races before things got interesting. Chase got in touch with me, TELLING me to win the next checkpoint race. I don’t get racing from toll booth to toll booth under the clock, especially when the highway is empty.

Anyways a hot Latina, Carmen, called right after I won, suggesting that we should meet up soon. I haven’t even seen her shadow since.

One way to get over disappointment is shopping. Nothing beats the feeling of spending ill-gotten gains and the fact that my mechanic finally has the parts I wanted. What’s even better is that even after all the upgrades, I still have enough moolah for a new ride, a Shelby GT500. I promptly upgraded that as well.

Day Eight:

The next set of events to me away from the city to coastal suburbia, which was a refreshing change. I had a “Mass Destruction” message pop-up on my phone right after I rammed into my tenth traffic cone in a race…seriously..traffic cones, and how did they know about it at the first place?!

Chase called again right after I won a knockout race, snatching the win from a Mustang GT. “We need to mess with cops”…followed by some gibberish about not going fast enough and infiltrating a criminal gang. Holy Cow!

After getting back from the coast to the city in record time (one of them toll booth speed runs again..), I got busted for mass property destruction. I would have said “Same team guys!!” if it weren’t for my deep cover status. Thank goodness for illegal racing and the prize money it entails. I got myself..and my ride..bailed out in no time.

Looks like the people at EA Mobile are really committed to the Nokia N-Gage with new games coming in time for the Winter holiday season and also a strong lineup for 2009. Here’s the press release:

EA MOBILE STRENGTHENS COMMITMENT TO NOKIA N-GAGE WITH NEW GLOBAL GAMES LINE-UP

Top titles coming to N-Gage include EA SPORTS FIFA 09, Spore Origins, The Sims 3 and Tomb Raider Underworld

Rome, Italy – October 29th, 2008 - EA Mobile™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc (NASDAQ:ERTS), today furthered its support for Nokia N-Gage with the announcement of an extensive global release schedule for the platform. Key titles available in time for the Winter holiday season include EA SPORTS^TM FIFA 09, Spore^TM Origins and MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition, with many other popular games such as Need For Speed^TM Undercover, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® and The Sims^TM 3 arriving in 2009.

“Nokia is thrilled to be bringing a tremendous roster of titles from EA Mobile to N-Gage customers around the world,” commented Gregg Sauter, Director of Third Party Publishing, Nokia. “The breadth and quality of this new games line-up is testament to the strong relationship between Nokia and EA Mobile. As N-Gage accelerates its growth through 2009 and beyond we look forward to continuing our close relationship with EA Mobile to deliver even more innovative and exciting games to the global N-Gage community.”

Peter Parmenter, Director, Worldwide OEM at EA Mobile added: “We’re delighted to extend our support for Nokia with a superb games line-up from EA Mobile for N-Gage. We’re committed to exploring methods to make the experience of finding, buying and playing mobile games easier and more compelling and N-Gage gives us a robust ecosystem to bring to market some of EA’s most popular franchises as well as those of one of our key partners, Eidos, with Tomb Raider: Underworld^TM and Pandemonium ^TM.”

EA Mobile games scheduled for release on Nokia N-Gage in the next 12 months include EA SPORTS FIFA 09, MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition, Spore Origins, Boom Blox ^TM, Need For Speed Undercover, Tomb Raider Underworld, Pandemonium, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR and The Sims 3.

###

About EA Mobile
EA Mobile™, a division of EA’s Casual Entertainment Label, is the world’s leading wireless entertainment publisher with award-winning games such as Tetris®, Bejeweled®, The Sims, and Need For Speed. The EA Mobile portfolio also includes casual games based on the company’s partnership with Hasbro, Inc. including MONOPOLY, YAHTZEE and SCRABBLE (in the U.S. and Canada) as well as sports blockbusters from the EA SPORTS™ brand, including Madden NFL Football, FIFA Soccer and NASCAR®. EA Mobile develops games for multiple mobile platforms including mobile phones, smartphones, the iPhone and iPod. For more information about EA Mobile, please visit www.eamobile.com.

About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA™, EA SPORTS Freestyle™ and POGO™. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA’s homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com

About N-Gage
N-Gage is a made-for-mobile games service available in compatible Nokia Nseries and other S60 3^rd Edition devices from Nokia. N-Gage makes it easy to find, try, buy, play and manage high-quality mobile games as well as connect to friends and other players in the N-Gage Arena, Nokia’s mobile gaming community. Nokia is working with the world’s leading publishers to deliver a broad portfolio of games. www.n-gage.com

About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet services, as well as our enterprise solutions and software, is a key area of focus. We also provide equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle, EA Mobile POGO, Need for Speed, Spore, Boom Blox, Need for Speed and The Sims are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Tetris is a registered trademark of Tetris Holding, LLC. Bejeweled is a registered trademark of PopCap Games, Inc. John Madden, NFL, FIFA, Tiger Woods, PGA TOUR and NASCAR are the property of their respective owners and used with permission. MONOPOLY, YAHTZEE, and SCRABBLE (in the U.S. and Canada) are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. iPhone, iPod, iTunes and Mac are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Tomb Raider: Underworld^TM, Tomb Raider^TM and Pandemonium^TM are trakemarks of Eidos Interactive Ltd, all rights reserved.

When it rains, it really pours over here at Nine Over Ten 9/10. The PR guys for EA were nice enough to send a 1 minute 4 seconds trailer for Need For Speed Undercover, featuring Maggie Q, guns, hommies, and of course fast cars. Have a look (right click and click on play to view the video):

A whole lot of Need for Speed Undercover stuff today. Did you know that Maggie Q, poster girl for NSFU was in Hong Kong today on an Asian Media tour for the upcoming launch of Need for Speed: Undercover (NFSU)?

Bet you didn’t know that, but in any case, feast your eyes on the boxart for NSFU on the Nintendo DS, PC, PS3, PSP, Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360, as well as some really shiny screenshots of the cars in the game:

Have you seen Maggie Q’s PETA poster? It’s hot! Literally! Never mind that she’s nude, she’s lying on top a bed of chillis. Don’t get them in your eyes!

Anyways, she’s the new leading lady for EA’s newest installment in the Need for Speed franchise, Need for Speed Undercover (link here). I just wish they would bring Hot Pursuit to the Nintendo DS.