One E3 2005 Updated Hands-on

One is still a few months away from distribution, but we were able to play a near-final version of the game at Nokia's E3 booth nonetheless. In the time since our last look, Nokia and Digital Legends have filled in a number of gameplay gaps, fleshed out the story mode, and finalized the fighting locations. The almost-finished product looks like it's going to rearrange the mobile fighting game landscape.

We had a chance to play through a couple of levels on story mode, where you have to fight 48 opponents, one after the other. Even though everyone's using jeet kune do, each of these fighters has his or her own look, aggression level, and special moves. After you defeat one, you can learn his or her special combos and techniques, kind of like Mega Man would if he were a street fighter instead of a blue robot. Most of the game's combinations aren't too difficult to pull off. Essentially, there are a couple of base-level techniques that involve hitting a punch or kick button three times, and the more advanced combos involve adding in directional presses. For instance, the sequence back and punch, punch, down and punch, punch, forward and punch unleashes a devastating elbow strike combination.

The story mode also introduces you to your sensei, Master Fon Shien, a wizened old man who serves as a kind of manager. He'll keep tabs on your career by telling you about who you're fighting next and where you're going. There will be a total of 14 fighting environments in real-world locations, like LA, NYC, Mexico City, and Jamaica. A Nokia representative also revealed a few more details about One's much-discussed connected features. Apparently, every city with more than 100,000 inhabitants or so will have its own bracket on N-Gage Arena, where players can compete to be the best local fighter. Furthermore, the standby challenge mode will make it into the final version of the game. You can set the game to standby, and it'll seek out other One games on standby via Bluetooth. If it finds one, the game will initiate a challenge, which the other player will have 30 seconds to accept.

No new information was available on One's release date, although Nokia has indicated that the game's basically finished and just needs to go through the distribution process. We can't wait to try the retail version of this game out. We'll have the review for you as soon as we get our hands on it.