Nokia Lumia 720 on Test Drive

Thanks to the Nokia Test Drive program that I participated in, I was recently able to have a first-hand experience on the Nokia Lumia 720. Basically, I signed up at the Nokia Philippines Facebook page, received a confirmation email and picked up the device at a Nokia Store in my area. Read on as I share my five-day get-to-know session with this Windows 8 phone.

Beach Rally

A few months ago, I blogged about Snake Xenzia. This time, I’m featuring another game on the Nokia X1-01, Beach Rally. It is a race-type game that actually reminds me of Road Fighter from the Nintendo Entertainment System (actually, I knew it as the Family Computer when I was a kid). You control a red sports car and try to go as far as possible.

Along the way, you’ll be able to pick up some power ups in the form of lightnings which boost your car’s speed for a short period of time, and flags which add five seconds to the game clock.

There are other cars in the course, but I consider these as just obstacles since the game is not really about getting to the finish line ahead and being ahead in the ranking. So you plainly have to overtake them and no longer worry about them catching up with you.

When you get to a checkpoint, more time will be added to your clock and the game goes on. But once you run out of time, then it’s game over for you! Your final score will then be assessed, with your final total multiplied depending on the level you have chosen (Easy is times one, Medium is times 1.5, and Hard times two).

The farthest I’ve gone: 4 checkpoints and a final score of 7926 on the hard level. Now I gotta play some more and master this game. If I do, I might just see “Superman” flying by. Just like Road Fighter, right?

Snake Xenzia

Snake Xenzia is a built-in game featured on the Nokia X1-01. It is basically a colored refresh of the 3310's monochrome Snake II, which I enjoyed playing some years ago. This further reminds me of the 5110 and 3210's Snake where we've already deviced a strategy to achieve the maximum score of 2008.

Snake Xenzia has eight levels (unlike its predecessors, which have nine) and three game types:

• classic,
• modern - choose from five mazes available: box, tunnel, mill, rails, and apartment (six if you count the "no maze" option which is just the same as classic), and
• campaign - where you advance to the next maze after your snake eats a certain amount of food (not really new to me, I've seen this one on the Snake EX2).

What's missing though is the 2-button control (at times, I would have preferred to press only the 1 and 9, or 3 and 7 buttons respectively, like I used to before) instead of using 2-4-6-8. Anyway, I've been playing with the classic game type and my highest score so far is at 4784. Now, I'm wishfully thinking I could play some Space Impact and Bantumi on this phone, too!