I think it'd be a good idea to spoiler box that.RAKtheUndead said:That's a question with a very simple answer: It really, really sucks at gaming.
RAKtheUndead said:A lot of the use of the iPhone happens to be internet surfing, or games playing, or other little toys which seem to be designed for distracting one from the poor overall telephonic abilities of the device, but it seems that they didn't have a look at the other products in the portable games market to investigate one of their biggest problems. Nintendo have always held the high ground in the portable games market, not because of the processing power of their systems, but because they realised that battery life is an important aspect, and gave it an accordingly high amount of attention.
The Game Boy held top position in the market even when far more advanced systems made its monochrome screen look like an archaic remnant - because it could keep going when other systems were completely drained. In a comparison with the DS and the iPhone, one would almost draw parallels between Apple's device and the Game Gear, but that would be unfair to Sega - at least they aimed for a market who wanted games more advanced than some 14-year-old's weekend programming project. Anyway, why are we giving Apple the benefit of the doubt in the computer gaming market? It isn't like they haven't tried entering the market before - and failing hard when they did.
I'll discuss this later.RAKtheUndead said:Out of those applications which have become popular, many of them, inexplicably, are games. Some people seem to think that this represents a new competitor into the handheld market, but I'd like to ask them something: Are they actually aware of the history of a) Apple and computer gaming and b) the mobile phone in the context of handheld games?
To the first part, I start with three words: Apple-Bandai Pippin. This machine, based around a Macintosh computer, was one of the biggest flops in gaming history. In an era where the Sony PlayStation sold in excess of 100 million, the Pippin sold just 42,000. Even the Atari Jaguar and Amiga CD32 sold more than that! Even putting that aside, the last time that Macintosh computers had a significant exclusive title, it was called Marathon, and that developer was bought up by Microsoft. So answer this: Why are we giving Apple the benefit of the doubt in the computer gaming industry?
I told you I'd get back to this. Two "fails" in two paragraphs.
As for the second part, we have to look at another major flop in the games market, this time introduced by the biggest mobile phone company in the world. Enter the Nokia N-Gage, an ergonomic disaster which proved exactly why mobile phones and gaming weren't meant to mix.
Putting these two things aside, the focus on games from the iPhone platform is still perplexing. Conventional logic would suggest that the iPhone and iPod Touch are unsuitable for any sort of moderately complex games, for a simple reason. The iPhone has just about the worst ergonomic design of any modern gaming platform, because against all common sense, nobody bothered to put any proper buttons onto the phone.
At this point, I'd like to have a look at one of the games in particular on the iPhone, one that's maintained a lot of popularity over its lifetime. This game would be Doom, the famous title by id Software. Now, I find myself quite experienced with the game, having played it on several operating systems and platforms. While I mightn't be a "speedrun Nightmare" player, I'm certainly familiarised with Ultra-Violence difficulty at least.
I've tried playing Doom on a platform with a touchscreen before, using my Palm T|X to play the game. The experience is simply horrible, and not just because the resistive touchscreen isn't particularly responsive. It's because the touchscreen buttons lack tactile feel, and they're ergonomically badly placed. The T|X has a considerable advantage over the iPhone, though - at least it has a directional pad and a set of proper buttons on it.
Things get a lot worse when you try to translate that to the iPhone. On-screen buttons are loathsome for gaming in any circumstance, and when you have to use them to control the entire game, it soon becomes apparent that the hardware developers haven't had any experience in computer gaming themselves. I can only imagine how much worse it would be for even more complex games, and it's an utter case of design failure.
For this reason, many of the more popular games are simplistic and arguably childish in their appeal. Excuse me if I sound elitist, but these games seem more like some 14-year-old's Flash game that they're doing for a weekend programming project, and I largely set aside these games a couple of years ago. I see why a bunch of "casual" gamers might want these sorts of simplistic games, but once again, I ask, if it's the applications you're after, why not just buy an iPod Touch? The hardware is essentially the same, except that you're not trying to rely on this device as your phone, so you don't have as many issues with the battery life, and the poor quality of the OS doesn't matter as much because the iPod isn't competing in a market with multitasking OSes with more sophistication and extra in-built features. As for me, I'll stick with my Nintendo DS, with Super Mario 64 DS and Chrono Trigger.
This is a useful gaming system.I think this sums it up quite nicely.RAKtheUndead said:...The tilt functionality is highly overrated, and makes it hard to focus on the game itself. It's a gimmick. As for the touchscreen point, that is one of the most pertinent reasons why a device built for gaming requires some dedicated buttons.
Anyway, as a matter of interest, I went back to my Palm T|X to see how my Doom performance was on it versus playing it on the PC. On the PC platform, I can play at Ultra-Violence, as I mention in the article. Now, there are two control setups that I've used at various points of time.
I hold the device in landscape mode, with the directional pad to the left. From there, I can either map the D-Pad such that the left and right keys are set to turn, with virtual touchscreen buttons on the right-hand side set to strafe in either direction, similar to the control system on the Game Boy Advance port, or else, set the left and right keys to strafe and use the stylus on the screen similarly to current Nintendo DS first-person shooters.
The first of these methods is horrible. The virtual touchscreen buttons lack sensitivity, although that's a case of the resistive touchscreen on the T|X over a capacitative model. Using these buttons with a pair of thumbs also leaves big greasy thumbprints on the buttons, and they feel unpleasant in any circumstance compared to a set of tactile buttons.
The second method is more comfortable, although there are still issues. It's closer in general feel to a PC first-person shooter, with the D-Pad closer in function to a WASD layout. In this circumstance, having a resistive touchscreen improves playability, as the stylus doesn't obscure the screen in the same way that a finger would, and it feels more comfortable in any case. However, the screen isn't as accurate as you'd really want - when moving the stylus, it tends to move in a skipping motion, making long-range accuracy a case of trial and error. There's also an issue with the positioning of the buttons on the left-hand side, seeing as the T|X isn't a device designed for gaming, and it would be more comfortable if there were a shoulder button on the left-hand side mapped to fire, similar to console and Nintendo DS first-person shooters. In this mode, I can adequately play to the standard of Hey, Not Too Rough, which is two difficulty levels below my normal difficulty on PC (and previously on the Game Boy Advance).
So, based on the evidence I've amassed so far, the list of most comfortable set-ups goes as follows, in order of preference:
PC, WASD and mouse > Game Boy Advance > PC, directional keys > Palm T|X, d-pad strafe > Palm T|X, d-pad turn > iPhone, any setup.
Doesn't turn out too well for the iPhone, and adding insult to injury would be that if the stylus sensitivity could be increased on the Palm T|X, it would probably beat the Game Boy Advance. Somehow, I don't think resistive screens are through just yet.
The I-Pod Touch doesn't get attention as its terrible to play games and most Major Developers ignore it.
