Thursday, March 28, 2013

Man Mobile Gaming Isn't Real Gaming

I never understood the mindset that gaming on a mobile device isn't really gaming.  I've seen people say iOS/Android gaming is fake while 3DS gaming is real gaming before and it honestly made me go "What the hell?"  The big sticking point in this reasoning is that the lack of buttons on the hardware, kinda not of a good reason for these games to be looked down on.  I didn't even think how stupid that reasoning is until I was playing Ikaruga on my Nexus 7, a popular shmup made for Arcade then ported to XBLA, Gamecube, and Dreamcast. 

Plays pretty damn good to me.


The funny thing is I think it was pretty damn good on a tablet, and I was so floored about how well it played I bought other shmups for my tablet and they pretty much played better then using a arcade joystick.  Something about controlling a ship with your finger feels like you have a much more precise control over your ship in all honesty.  Now don't get me wrong there are games that don't play well with touch controls, but to be fair that can be said about any game with any method of control.  With all the gimmicks we have had in the past to control games it's surprising that we draw the line at touch screens.  I mean we have had IR, camera, motion, light gun, "mind control" (yes that was a thing in the works), and touchless controls; yet people stop at a touch screen.  But with the growth of the tablets and gaming on it this raises a fun question. Would games like Metal Slug, Sonic, Final Fantasy not be considered real games anymore because they are on tablet going by what the "hardcore" (which I say with disgust because these people make me wanna distance myself from gaming)?  Hell what does this say about Nintendo DS and its games that use stylus only controls, if you get a stylus with a point to it (hard to find but they do have them) for a tablet would a touch screen only game for the Nintendo DS not be considered a real game because it can be done on a tablet (like The World Ends With You)?  I mean if we are talking how a game plays I much rather play a tablet game like Ikaruga then something like Kid Icarus Uprising for the 3DS, because as a leftie it had horrible controls.  I think gamers need to stop whining about the method a game is controlled by and worry if it plays well with the control system given.  Because if we can tolerate the gimmicky way a game could have been played in the 80's/90's when a game wasn't even built with that method in mind, we can learn to play a game that was built for a touch screen and not instantly dismiss it just because it uses a certain method of control.