Been almost a year to the day since we first heard BioShock was making the jump to mobile phones. And we haven’t heard squat from it since. So let’s catch up with some footage.

This was taken from the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, and shows what the 3D version of the game will look like. There’s also a 2D version of the game for less powerful phones which, judging by the concept, sounds awful. But that’s just us, as developers Indiagames would have you believe otherwise:

The 2D version, even when I first thought of it, I said ‘how can you do a 2D version of BioShock? I’ll tell you what: our guys and 2K have really captured the essence of the game in a 2D format. It’s really unbelievable. It obviously doesn’t look like BioShock as you know it, but it gives you the same essence. The guys are pretty proud of it.

Both versions should be out “soon”.

BioShock mobile game shown off at MWC 09 [Pocket Gamer]

iPhone appears to be one of the main drivers behind mobile gaming growth, according to the comScore report released on Friday.

iPhone owners accounted for 14 percent of mobile game downloaders in November, with 32.4 percent of all iPhone users reporting they downloaded a game in the month, compared with a market average of 3.8 percent.

That’s nearly 10 times the average. No wonder so many companies are hopping onto the iPhone bandwagon.

Smartphones Provide Extra Mana for Mobile Games Industry as Audience for Downloaded Games Grows 17 Percent [comScore]

スクウェア・エニックスがiPhone参入、2008年度今冬に『クリスタル・ディフェンダーズ』を配信予定 [Famitsu]

There are decent games out there, but there is a lot of dross – derivative, badly designed and poorly implemented.

Nokia want to change all that. They have been running the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge – a competition that asks developers to submit their most innovative game designs for – running under Symbian or Java on N-Gage or standard Nokia handsets

Being Nokia, they have a certain amount of hard cash to throw at the problem and have put up prize money worth €70,000 – that’s €40,000 for the winner, €20,000 for second place and €10,000 for the third runner up.

The ten finalists up for the big money are:

* Active Tecnologia e Consultoria Ltda. (Brazil) with Cinemarena – set in a movie theatre, controlling avatars on the big screen
* CreatePlayShare (India) with Ball – play any ball game on your mobile or even create your own new game
* Different Game (Sweden) with Ghost Wire – use your mobile device to communicate with ghosts
* Eclipse Interactive (UK) with Watchers – conspiracy adventure game that uses Nokia Maps and other real world tools to find locations
* Int13 (France) with Kweekies – augmented reality virtual pet game
* Jadestone (Sweden) and C4M (France) with Melokey – a music game for mobile devices where you learn to master songs and play them against other in-game characters to win the hearts of your fans
* LemonQuest (Spain) with Wave Pirates – turn into a pirate navigating the seven seas, looking for gold and glory
* Onur Yazilim (Turkey) with Comet Hunter – a 2-D shooting game which combines the excitement of shooting with natural sound effects made by players themselves
* Simlife (China) with XDancery – a music game where players can touch the screen, draw patterns on screen, shake the device or sing into it to hit the music tempo notes
* TechnoBubble (Spain) with Fun Cam – a mixed reality game that connects your camera on your mobile device to the TV

The winners will be announced at the Nokia Games Summit in Rome on 29 October.

Who will win one of the most prestigious mobile gaming prizes of 2008? [Game Challenge via NokNok.tv]

Trism, the clever iPhone puzzler from Demiforce, will be arriving in June for the very reasonable asking price of five American dollars, according to an update from the game’s developer. The Bejeweled-esque title uses the iPhone’s accelerometer for a hardware appropriate block matching twist on the genre, something Apple fans can try for themselves when the demo ships this summer. Demiforce writes that the final product will support online achievement rankings and teases the odd hidden feature. Still filed under “Do Want.”

Today Other Ocean announced that they are working with Sega to develop a demo version of the iPhone game.

“We were tremendously honored to be asked to work on the demo version of Super Monkey Ball and also to participate in the actual unveiling,” said Ayre.

“Apple’s SDK is extremely developer-friendly and the iPhone, with its accelerometer, is the perfect platform for Super Monkey Ball,” explained Gordon Wood, Other Ocean’s Technical Director and Senior Programmer. “The iPhone is going to be a major player in the handheld gaming market, and we’re excited to be among the first to develop games for the device.”

“We knew Super Monkey Ball could be a perfect game for the iPhone, and all we needed was the right team to partner with to make it happen,” said David Cobb, Sega’s Vice President of Product Development. “Other Ocean was the obvious choice to build the demo version, with their experience giving us a clear advantage.”

I don’t know if the iPhone is going to be a major gaming device, but it sure as heck seems to be a better platform for gaming than a regular phone. Now when is that demo coming out?

[Thanks Anthony]

Official N-Gage Site [via Gizmodo AU]