One of the N-gage hidden gem that this Nokia Gaming phone had during its brief run and probably one of the more unique one as well, Glimmerati! Compared to other Popular games that N-Gage had, Glimmerati had rather unique things in store to offer for the players in its package which left quite a lasting memory to me.
Fast forward to early this year, I had the pleasant opportunity to revisit this game couple and surprisingly the game still hold up at some aspects. Thus, as a part of commemorating my reunion with Glimmerati, I proudly present my full take on Glimmerati with this article.
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Glimmerati is hybrid, story-driven racing game where you play as a young man who recently inherited a wealthy sum from a deceased relative and happen to have a knack in car racing. In a fateful encounter, the protagonist’s driving skill impressed an Influential Wealthy Man named Maxwell Mccain who is a CEO of massive corporation and happened to be the President of an Elite racing club called, Glimmerati.
Through this turn of event that happened to the Protagonist in Glimmerati. The player will get to see a glimpse of early 2000s European High society lifestyle that came along with the racing scene in a One-month tour across Europe with the Club Glimmerati.
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As the newest member of the exclusive racing Club Glimmerati, the player will get to compete in series of car race with fellow members of the Elite club which came from all sorts of affluent backgrounds ranging from Corporate CEO, Rap Singer, Movie Director to Conglomerate Heir. The storyline of Glimmerati will be mostly made up from the players interaction with these fellow Club members
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Glimmerati is a Top Down Racing game featuring a pseudo 3D graphic which was quite ahead of its time. Exploring the urban scene of western Europe, The player will mostly compete in 8-man Point race throughout the game with selections of Racing cars that will be available throughout the game. But from time to time, the player with race in different sorts of Objectives and even occasionally drive Limousine or a Speedboat and even an experimental Racing car.
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In terms of Difficulty, Glimmerati is relatively easy on the main story mode save for certain segments. But the real difficulty comes in Challenge mode where the player is competing on 1v1 racing game against Glimmerati member to unlock their car especially the latter half part. By the time you reach Klaus/Christos challenge level, the difficulty have spiked to insane level where the race are impossible to win unless you resort to crashing your opponent car or have particularly good skill in driving game. As casual player, you will probably will have to restart many times in attempting to win Nicole’s challenge level.
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In Glimmerati, the player will race in several main locations in Western Europe, starting from Italy, Paris, Alps and Finally Monaco. The Dev also did quite some elaborate things on this particular aspect that are surprisingly quite deep for a Mobile game. As Glimmerati really gives out the Exclusive luxury vibe from the locations that player got to visit in the game story mode. The Racing Maps in Glimmerati is also actually quite big and easily trump out any Gameboy Advance racing game counterpart featuring a pseudo Sandbox that unfortunately Players didn’t have the luxury for full exploration. This is one of the few things that Glimmerati misses out to make it the best racing game in N-Gage and surpassing Asphalt 2
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Glimmerati features 8 available fictional Sports Car as its roster which the player gets to use in Free race after they clear the challenge in story mode. Each cars have absolute incremental stats advantage with Maxwell’s car being the best overall car which is really good if you manage to unlock by winning the Glimmerati’s president challenge. But given Glimmerati’s main story difficulty you can probably win with the starter car if you are good enough and if you have to pick up one of Glimmerati’s member, Klaus Massiv Z69 will serve just fine throughout the rest of the game when you unlock it.
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Having the main protagonist who belong to privileged class who quickly become the rising star of his class, Glimmerati offers a glimpse of luxurious lifestyle of Elite high society that comes with the glitz and glamour. As the story progress on, the player get to meet all sorts of people that are associated with this kind of high flying highstyle from financial advisors, self proclaimed rivals and gorgeous top models. Sometimes you get more options in the encounter as you help your fellow Glimmerati club member. There are plenty racing games that offer similar kind Story mode, but not many that took same direction with Glimmerati.
Surprisingly for a mobile game, Glimmerati had plenty of voice-ins with the character interactions which is quite a rarity for a Portable Game until PSP enters the market.
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For a portable console racing game, Glimmerati do incorporate collectibles which is very uncommon for its kind. A mobile game doesn't have to be this elaborate, but Glimmerati do take the less traveled path to make up for its relatively short play time which can be finished around 4-6 hours. Throughout the story, the player can collect all sorts of trophies gained from the quests that the player can look back at. Having the protagonist that belong to Upper crust of Modern Society, the player have the options to gain trophies as a proof of the adult adventure which often appear throughout the game. There are replayability value in Glimmerati as you have the choices to take different quests throughout the game and obtain different trophies.
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For a Mobile game of its time, Glimmerati is quite daring to include Mature tone in its story. From time to time, the player got to have a fanservice encounter which come in the Top Models character encounters like Cassidy Smith which I just noticed that she is the Glimmerati suggestive poster girl. While there are no explicit R-18 scenes in Glimmerati to keep the game rating low enough. The implied sexual adventure is more than enough to fuel the fantasy of the teen males who happened to play the game. N-Gage could have more of this type to have better appeal for mainstream audience back then.
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The main story of Glimmerati revolves around the interactions of the players with 3 Main characters. One of them is Maxwell Mccain, the CEO of Mccain Corporation who is also the president of the Club Glimmerati. He is the one responsible to have the protagonist join his Elite racing club and even behave as a mentor to him.
Through Maxwell, the player got to see how a man in his prime and the peak of society behaves stereotypically. At times, Maxwell shows the sort of Charisma that a man of his stature requires to earn and maintain his privileged position. But at the same time, you get to see the sort of vices that Maxwell fell into just like his archetype and it becomes a major problem for him on the later part of Glimmerati storyline.
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The other main character of Glimmerati is Maxwell’s Wife, Nicole Mccain. Obviously, Nicole plays the perfect archetype of her role, being the perfect career woman and wife of a Powerful man at the same time. Given the vices of her husband, Nicole is obviously not pleased with the display of unfaithfulness and in the later part of story the player could help Nicole to bring Downfall upon Maxwell. However the ultimate outcome for the ending is pretty much the same no matter who you sided with in the storyline.
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The last of Glimmerati main character is Penelope Ashcroft who apparently the last champion of Glimmerati Club tournament. Apart from being a skilled racer, she happens to be a Lady from good upbringing that has tons of suitors flock around her including a Nobleman which the player have the option to face to confront the one sided rivalry. For some reason, Penelope developed an intense crush toward the player on the later part of Glimmerati story just to show how irresistible the protagonist is.
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Once the player become the champion of the Glimmerati race tournament, the player joins a final race to determine who will become the president of Club Glimmerati. For a game that have Car Racing as its core gameplay, for some reason the Final race is a super speedboat race which is ridiculously difficult as Nicole’s AI blatantly cheat just like in her challenge race and I should have tried to see an alternate outcome if the player lose the Final Race.
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Once the player become the champion of the Glimmerati race tournament, the player joins a final race to determine who will become the president of Club Glimmerati. For a game that have Car Racing as its core gameplay, for some reason the Final race is a super speedboat race which is ridiculously difficult as Nicole’s AI blatantly cheat just like in her challenge race and I should have tried to see an alternate outcome if the player lose the Final Race.
After you finished the final race, you get the ending where the Club Glimmerati have a luxurious after party and the whole drama between Maxwell and his wife apparently swept under the rug. As the finale part, the player gets the attention of Penelope as his grand prize.
Glimmerati’s ending from my last playthrough is exactly the same thing I remembered 18 years ago. While there might be alternate ending, the overarching storyline are very linear which doesn’t have much replay value unless the player go for the completionist attempt to see all of the sidequest outcome. Glimmerati had the right mix to be a successful game but it is just that the Dev Bugbear entertainment didn’t do proper finishing touch for what could have been a Racing game series that could spawn multiple instalments. Glimmerati might have perished into obscurity along with N-Gage, but any prospective new players could still gain something out of exploring this game, considering it is one of the few games out there that allow you to roleplay as the cream of the crop in Modern society.
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