Symbian
This has actually been a big year for gaming on the Symbian OS. Surprised? Then you didn't know that Symbian powers the Nokia N-Gage, the gaming phone that allows players to join in massive multiplayer games with people from around the world.

This year saw the release of the N-Gage QD, the second version of the device with greatly improved upon the original. With its signature game, Ashen, the N-Gage QD captured fan interest from the start.

According to Bill Pinnell, Product Strategist for Multimedia and Games at Symbian, the N-Gage's 3D graphics and the N-Gage Arena, which allows thousands of people to join in a game at once, have been the reasons for its success.

The key to creating great portable device games, he told us, isn't just porting console games over and making them smaller, but using the connectivity options that the devices offer.

Pinnell is now working with a variety of companies to bring 3D graphics to standard Symbian-powered smartphones. The recently released Nokia 6630 was the first to use Symbian version 8, he said, and with OpenGL ES, it allows developers to use existing 3D standards when creating cell phone games.

Hot Symbian OS titles:

N-Gage QD:

--Pocket Kingdom ($34.99)

--Pathway to Glory ($34.99)

--Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell ($5.99)

--Tomb Raider ($19.99)