One of the big promises of the N-Gage that has, up until now, gone unfulfilled has been the convergence of gaming technology and wide-area communication technology, two characteristics inherent to the device. Sega's Pocket Kingdom: Own the World, which touts itself as the world's first mobile massively multiplayer game, definitely delivers one of the most fully formed online experiences that Nokia's hybrid handheld has seen. Getting this far, though, seems to have required a lot of sacrifices in terms of depth and overall playability. Although there are also some design choices here that are simply poor, the game gets enough right that you can at least see what Sega was aiming for.

The Map of Ulgress is a treacherous place indeed.

Whether you're playing Pocket Kingdom online or off, the action takes place in the Map of Ulgress, named after Griefer Ulgress, the most brutal and merciless player the world has ever seen. According to the game's mythos, his account was eventually banned, and the Map was plunged into chaos while all other players started vying for the number one slot. As one of these very players, you have to build up your armies and battle with non-player characters, as well as other players, in an effort to have your name read at the top of the "All-Time Owners Board."

Pocket Kingdom has an extremely strange self-aware tone to it, reminiscent of the .hack series for the PlayStation 2. All the in-game characters openly acknowledge that it's just a game, but there is constant reference to player characters that are fictional. That the main character in the game's mythology is just a player, rather than some kind of ancient god or evil overlord, is quite telling, but if you think too hard about it, you'll go cross-eyed. Making things even stranger is the fact that the overall presentation has a pretty traditional fantasy feel, but rather than speaking Queen's English, all the in-game characters speak in bad Internet shorthand by glibly tossing out stuff like "LOL" and "PWNED" in the heat of battle. Furthermore, the characters have similar names to match. Despite whether or not you'll get a kick out of the referential tone or find it kind of disingenuous and embarrassing, what's important here is that this design choice ultimately makes Pocket Kingdom harder to get into for those not already steeped in its culture.

Why, exactly, is our level 20 knight reciting Ice Cube lyrics as his victory cry?

For all its MMORPG posturing, though, the gameplay experience is only mildly reminiscent of games like EverQuest or Star Wars Galaxies. Rather than putting you in the shoes of a single character with a discrete experience level that you are constantly working to increase, Pocket Kingdom treats you like the general of an army. You hire (read: purchase) characters of various class types and form them into teams of four. After arming them with weapons, armor, and/or protective trinkets, all of which you'll forge yourself, these teams are sent out into the world to battle other Pocket Kingdoms, or they are sent to defend your own Pocket Kingdoms from incoming attacks. Over time, your soldiers will gain experience levels, making them more lethal in combat, and you can also apply special badges to them that can change their appearances and have significant effects on overall prowess. And unlike your usual MMORPG character, who can be resurrected after falling in battle ad infinitum, your soldiers are quite mortal. Falling in battle usually results in both a removal from the party and a loss of equipment to the ether, though a character is eventually declared "owned," at which point his or her demise is permanent. Though a penalty for failure seems appropriate, having a character permanently die (especially after you've fostered him or her through dozens of battles) feels rather severe, and makes it difficult to get too attached to any of your troops.

When you first start up Pocket Kingdom, you won't actually be able to get online. Instead, you'll have to prove yourself in the offline component, which is almost identical to the online component, except that you'll only be fighting against NPCs. It should only take an hour or two to gain enough experience to start playing online, but even then you'll probably want to log several more hours offline. There is no ranking system or anything separating the newest scrubs from high-level veterans, and your opponents will invariably mop the floor with you the first few times you log on. Once you do get a powerful enough army built, online play can be pretty fun, though it doesn't differentiate itself from the offline mode that much. There is a player-run auction system, as well as a rather clumsy messaging system. Nevertheless, aside from the naming conventions, it can be a bit difficult to differentiate between players and NPCs, and the battles themselves don't give you the sense that you're battling another person's army. The combat itself is a rather passive experience, too.