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Gaming A New Golden Age of Gaming

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by arcticstoat, 1 Jun 2011.

  1. arcticstoat

    arcticstoat Minimodder

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  2. thil

    thil What's a Dremel?

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    The trouble is that Angry Birds is to, say, Deus Ex as Twilight is to Catch-22.
     
  3. Ph4ZeD

    Ph4ZeD What's a Dremel?

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    Excellent article. To the above poster - mobile gaming is always going to be more casual, drop in and play focused due to the nature.
     
  4. Nikols

    Nikols What's a Dremel?

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    Yup, apple have nailed the drop in and play aspect of their iOS platforms. Take FIFA 11... On a bus playing a match, it's your stop next, hit the home button and put your phone in your pocket, make calls, play on the net then decide to finish the match so open FIFA and it's right there where you left it.

    The multitasking methodology applied allows games that would not traditionally be drop in and play be played in this manner.
     
  5. KiNETiK

    KiNETiK What's a Dremel?

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    Although Apple's closed platform has its flaws and annoyances, I cannot see myself switching to Android any time soon thanks to the range and quality of the apps/games available on iOS. I have been really impressed at some of the titles available on the mobile platform.
     
  6. yakyb

    yakyb i hate the person above me

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    funny how apple gets the credit for that when its actually EA who developed it

    i disagree about the comment that the mobile market will always be casual. in 10 years we have gone from the nokia 3300 to the samsung omnia 7 what is another 5-10 years going to bring?

    it only one title to change the shape of gaming
     
  7. Ph4ZeD

    Ph4ZeD What's a Dremel?

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    It will always be mostly casual. Hard to be immersed if your standing in a rainy bus stop on a cold, windy autumn night.
     
  8. kaiser

    kaiser What's a Dremel?

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    I agree with the above comment.. I find that most of my mobile purchases are spur of the moment as I find myself needing something to do away from home, as the caption on the second picture says "Yet it's often the simplest games which stand out the most", well perhaps thats because no gamers want to tackle an FPS epic on a tiny screen and with clumsy controls... even angrybirds suffers from a lack of control finesse due to 'Fat Finger Syndrome'

    How does the heirachy of fidelity of control go? Mouse/Keyboard > Gamepad > Motion > Touch?
     
  9. yakyb

    yakyb i hate the person above me

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    yeah thats all well and good now but what about when a tablet becomes so powerful it is essentially your home machine when you get home you dock it to your mouse / keyboard to do all the more intricate controls

    when you are on the move you take your tablet with you and perform asset management (take WOW for example at home you run around Raiding whilst on the move you manage your auction house items or guild functions)

    what about football manager this is not a casual Game yet any reason why this is not availible yet on a tablet / phone (other than development time), no reason why that cannot be played with touch whilst on the bus. (hell you could even challenge the bloke sitting next to you if you had 10 minutes)

    we must remember all the old quotes, '128k is enough for everyone', i see a world in which there might be a use for maybe 5 computers etc etc

    one day we will have 100meg wireless internet where ever we walk there is no reason that mobile gaming will always be casual (although casual gaming will always exist)
     
  10. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    Has anyone noticed that as soon as the DS and mainly the PSP started touting great graphics and full games ie. COD, GTA thats when they started to flop. It was games like tetris, pong etc that you could play in 5 mins while waiting around. Simple yet addictive. How many people do speed runs of GTA on the bus to beat a high score? It feels like a slog. Mobile gaming is all about quick snappy 5min games that are pick up and play but as soon as you need to go it can be put down without feeling like you wasted the last 15mins. I don't want to start through a race only to quit on the last lap cause I ran out of time. On the flip side there is a place for full featured games but when those games become your only draw, you've lost the portable market. I don't feel like iOS or Android have created a new golden age, rather re-discovered the formula for the old one. We live in the age of regenerating health, big cinematics (taking control away from the user), unlimited lives and generic copy paste programming. People complain consoles hold back games but its just a new generation of gamers (an age group that couldn't hold their own head up during the 8-bit era) who don't know what made games great. They missed that evolution and its these portable devices that show what makes portable games what they where in the 90's. It was the simple concept, that was addictive yet challenging that didn't offer everything on a silver plate. Who remembers completing sonic in one sitting where you fail you start again from the start of the game never mind the level? Returning to that would be a huge backwards step since we have so many tools available but gunsmith has the right idea with crysis ironman. Nuke the save if you die, It makes the game so much more exciting. You certainly feel you've earned something. Half life 2 was great for the same reasons, no regen health, check points well spaced, enough health and ammo, physics puzzles are great tools.
     
  11. runadumb

    runadumb What's a Dremel?

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    It really pains me to say this but if Apple developed the next generation of Ipod/phones with a controller specifically built for those devices in mind they would quickly dominate the mobile game space. Not just the casuals but a lot of the more core gamers as well.
    Sony Ericsson tried this (and apparently are failing hard) but their attempt was lackluster and hugely overpriced.
    Sony has the NGP too worry about and as such can't release something that could compete with it. If they had any sense they would buy up the last part of SE and iterate on that design yearly until by the 3rd gen or so it was an NGP, but that won't happen.

    Microsoft is another one that could do it as unlike Sony they don't have a mobile game system so windows phone could (and probably will) be their entry into the market. However they have other things too iron out first on that platform before making it into a proper gaming device with buttons.

    Apple is the biggest threat right now as people just buy their stuff. The ipad would have failed so hard had it been released by anyone else but offered the same (lack of) functionality. People bought one not even knowing what they would use it for! Hence why I, reluctantly, think they could sweep the board clean.
    New Ipod/phone, with additional and optional slick gaming controller = WIN!
     
  12. Stelph

    Stelph Minimodder

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  13. Cei

    Cei pew pew pew

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    runadumb, there are third-party stick on 'nubs' that make controlling touchscreens a lot easier - and they cost very little. Apple won't do a controller, because it would ruin the looks of the device - and to Apple that's as important as the function.
     
  14. runadumb

    runadumb What's a Dremel?

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    i actually bought an Icontrolpad at easter for my Nexus one and loved it so much I bought an Xperia play on Ebay at the weekend (hasn't arrived yet). A device that whenever I found out it's final spec hugely disappointed me. A device I have slagged rotten all over the internets...yet I ordered one because I love gaming on my phone so much. it also helps that ebay has them "realistically" priced ;)

    ps Zelda on the snes is still a bloody good game. Now I won't have too constantly reconnect the ICp whenever I leave a game. Just flip open the phone, touch a few icon and I'm right back where I left off :) Already ordered a spare battery.
     
  15. Woodspoon

    Woodspoon What's a Dremel?

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    Just a personal view and I'm sure loads of people will tell me how wrong I am, but the badge 'gamer' is getting used far too much, just because someone plays angry birds on their mobile while waiting for a bus does not make them a 'gamer', it just means their killing time.
    Grumble over.

    I just hope that the traditional games market doesn't suffer as a result of developers seeing a new cash cow.
     
  16. Denis_iii

    Denis_iii What's a Dremel?

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    I am anti-apple and anti-google so fingers crossed the WinPho7 gets alot of game dev's onboard as I am very likely to pic up the next gen WinPho7 device from either HTC or Nokia.
     
  17. chrisb2e9

    chrisb2e9 Dont do that...

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    What I find amusing is that angry birds isn't exactly an original game in itself!
     
  18. azazel1024

    azazel1024 What's a Dremel?

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    I don't quite know that we are in a Golden Age, but mobile gaming is certainly exploding in a way that it never did when we were limited to Palm equivelent devices, Gameboys and slightly later Playstation portables.

    I am very, very anti-Apple. I hate the general ethos that has permeated the company for a long time. However, I have to say, they generally make a nice (if over priced) product. Now if it wasn't so locked down and if the company attitude wasn't arogant and restrictive it might not be so bad. I'll admit I got an iPad 2 as a birthday gift last week (totally out of the blue unexpected) and at first I wanted to hate it, especially because I was eyeing up a Transformer or Iconia. I just can't hate it though. There are many things I can't do with it that I wish I could (at least short of jail breaking and even then maybe not), but it does 95% of what I need a portable device to do really well.

    A Mac would never, ever work for me for a PC (and not just because gaming would be very limited without booting to Windows). It just plain wouldn't, but I have to say, for a tablet, the iPad really does just work and works well.

    All that said, I do really hope MS can come up with a good tablet OS that is closely linked and interoperable with Windows on the desktop/laptop. Especially application interoperablity. Maybe in a couple years I'll be looking at an Wintel tablet come a couple generations down the road of Atom and the upcoming Windows tablet OS.

    One can hope at any rate. Until then I'll continue my love hate relationship with this iPad thingy (certainly, for now, more App options than on Android).
     
  19. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    I don't really like playing most of the games available for mobile devices, as I do prefer controllers to play games with. Be it wheels for racing, mouse+keyboard for FPS and RPG or joypads for sports and arcade.

    Where I totally can see touchscreen working better then the other controllers is RTS like C&C, AOE etc. that would be totally awesome on a tablet with high enough resolution (i.e. atleast 1280x1024) to have enough room for the interface in addition to the rest.

    Look at those playing Starcraft 2 on desktop-touchscreens and it's just so intuitive to play these kind of titles on a touchscreen.

     
  20. Bede

    Bede Minimodder

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    iOS games are a step back in every sense for gaming. The hardware is more limited than a Wii, has less intuitive controls than a PS3 and no online community to speak of. Yes there is 'freedom' in limited hardware, meaning devs do not have to spend ages making beautiful levels and thus we avoid the Final Fantasy XII problem. However, indie devs cannot create something as beautiful as Trine (though that would translate well to touch screen I think) or exciting as Interstellar Marine. Instead you get nice-but-trite games like Angry Birds which have been found on flash games sites for a decade. There is no golden age in iOS, only stagnation.
     
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