Ovi Store for Nokia N900 appeared quite a while ago and offers more and more applications, media and other stuff. Among free games from Ovi Store I’ve found another simple and absorbing time consumer – Xploder for N900.
This N900 game idea is simple, on every level you have small bombs flying around the screen and on every level you need to detonate at least the given number for the level. The bomb blows up when comes to explosion range of previous bomb or initial explosion given by player, the point is to cause long enough chain reaction. Sounds easy, at least for first few levels when you can blow up everything you need with first blow, but gets more tactical and challenging every level, even with more bombs flying around.
Apart from easy rules and really nice and smooth game-play Xploder for Maemo 5 gives really nice visual experience. The best thing is that all of games from Ovi Store are very nice-looking. Full screen theme of game, really nice shading of explosions, well designed and implemented. I’m still grounded around 8th level, but I feel Xploder will give me much more entertainment.
I really encourage you to visit Ovi Store and check applications there, they’re well written, run very smoothly and don’t be afraid of ‘Store’ in name, many of applications available there are free!
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MJ

I remember the times when I used to spend really lot of time sitting in front of low resolution CRT monitor, playing this old games, having fun with something that (in comparison to todays game industry productions) looked bad, didn’t have cool 3D graphics or fancy symphonic music, but the idea was just marvellous and kept me playing for long time. Some of this games appeared on N900, let’s get closer look on Free Heroes 2.
This game ports good old Heroes of Might and Magic 2 to N900. Since the game is still protected by copyright (haven’t become abandonware yet) you get only data from demo version and if you want to play full game you need to have original and copy needed data files. Nevertheless this is enought to have fun for some time, we can see well known main menu screen, with all of it’s meedieval elements. The game was originally made for lower resolution, so main menu, town or hero screens are always 640 pixel wide, but rest of the game is nicely fitted in 800×480 screen. Gameplay doesn’t differ from regular, actually I advise to use stylus here, it was much easier for me, but my fingers are rather  thick and clumsy, so it’s up to you. I’m eager to play some more, lunch break is way too short to bring all memories back
I hope that more games from regular PC will come to N900 in time. If you dig more you will find at least few of them already in devel or testing catalogues, some may not work yet, but I hope it will change in the nearest future.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

This time I have there rather simple, monochromatic, but futuristic and interesting at the same time. ‘Nerv’ part of Contour Nerv theme name may already give you some idea on what to expect, but let’s take it in some order.
At first glance you’ll see where the ‘contour’ came from. Orange borders around black objects are everywhere. Background with hexagonal field and some signs fitting the same background-border idea remind of some futuristic science-fiction computer interface, like from Star Trek, or some cyberpunk anime. It’s quite good first thought if I’ve understood author’s intentions correctly, sice Nerv was hi-tech paramilitary organization in one cyberpunk story, anime fans should know which one .
Theme isn’t making any revolutionary changes to UI, but I think it’s pretty readable, with good contrast, elements are clear even with minimal backlight on screen. Contours are giving good idea on interface elements boundaries, using fingers on touchscreen seems easier when I see where exactly I have element to tap or drag.
Contour Nerv theme gives a good view on simple, but futuristic concept, without many annoying details or inconsistencies, I like this kind of monolytic approach to theme creation. If you want a good and simple theme I can recommend Contour Nerv.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

If you want to fully customize your N900 you’ve probably already spent hour’s looking for good theme. I think I can help you a little by the means of review for some of available free themes. Let’s start with free Buff Theme.
On first sight this theme shows calm set of sandy brown and blue elements. Everything looks pretty clean, desktop widgets are readable, shortcuts placed on blue fields, bookmarks have contrasting black border and white caption. Wallpaper is simple and tidy, vertical strips are good base to create loopable wallpaper without much effort, but if you watch carefully one of strips is double-sized when switching desktops, most users won’t even notice that minor issue .
One of the most interesting parts of this theme appears when you go to App manager download section. If you’re familiar with Icon sets for Linux desktop you may recognize these icons as a part of Buuf icon theme, a bit grotesque cartoon images, used as category icons in this theme.
Complete view on this theme shows well-thought-out concept and pretty good implementation. As for me it makes good alternative for my standard theme and wallpaper when I decide to change it some day. Try it, maybe it will be your favourite.

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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum