Check it out. It's frakkin' awesome!
-Blaine
Posts
Dragon Age Day 2023
4 months ago
20120620
20120614
Mobile Gaming is Terrible Again
I used to mock people who played mobile games. I'd insinuate, or even flat out state, that mobile games (DS + PSP) were mostly terrible kiddy versions of games, and I wasn't wrong. Then Hotel Dusk happened. Then Phoenix Wright happened. Then, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions happened. Things were looking up.
Since then, mobile games, mainly via iOS, have exploded, and have thus been properly watered down for the slack-jawed anti-intellectual masses. This is good and bad.
The good is that we got Angry Birds. The bad is damn near everything else that came out.
As I see it, we should be working to make mobile games more like games that can't be mobile. Throw in a 'save anywhere' feature on the mobile version, and you're good to go.
Granted, PC gaming has been there for years. I've been able to play any PC game I wanted on the road for a number of years, but it's difficult to deploy that setup in a vehicle while on a road trip, or on a train. This is where the PlayStation Vita comes into play (and maybe even some phones.)
The Vita has some serious horsepower, and should be the home for straight ports of PlayStation 2 & 3 games, and based on my experience with MLB 2012, continuing the same season on both devices is easy and a great way to play the game.
What I'm hoping happens is that the wall between 'home' gaming and mobile gaming goes away, and the two converge into one. It'd be great to have a deep RPG on the iPad, play it on the go, then come home and stream it to my TV via AppleTV. Same thing with the PS3 and Vita.
Steam Cloud has made this simpler than ever. I used to map my 'My Documents' folder on my laptop to my gaming desktop and set it to sync for offline, so that saves would stay concurrent, but I don't need to do that anymore for most games.
Get rid of the gimmicks, stop catering to the lowest common denominator, and focus on the technology and richness of experience.
What say you? What's your ideal gaming experience, both at home and away?
-Blaine
Buy my book!
Since then, mobile games, mainly via iOS, have exploded, and have thus been properly watered down for the slack-jawed anti-intellectual masses. This is good and bad.
The good is that we got Angry Birds. The bad is damn near everything else that came out.
As I see it, we should be working to make mobile games more like games that can't be mobile. Throw in a 'save anywhere' feature on the mobile version, and you're good to go.
Granted, PC gaming has been there for years. I've been able to play any PC game I wanted on the road for a number of years, but it's difficult to deploy that setup in a vehicle while on a road trip, or on a train. This is where the PlayStation Vita comes into play (and maybe even some phones.)
The Vita has some serious horsepower, and should be the home for straight ports of PlayStation 2 & 3 games, and based on my experience with MLB 2012, continuing the same season on both devices is easy and a great way to play the game.
What I'm hoping happens is that the wall between 'home' gaming and mobile gaming goes away, and the two converge into one. It'd be great to have a deep RPG on the iPad, play it on the go, then come home and stream it to my TV via AppleTV. Same thing with the PS3 and Vita.
Steam Cloud has made this simpler than ever. I used to map my 'My Documents' folder on my laptop to my gaming desktop and set it to sync for offline, so that saves would stay concurrent, but I don't need to do that anymore for most games.
Get rid of the gimmicks, stop catering to the lowest common denominator, and focus on the technology and richness of experience.
What say you? What's your ideal gaming experience, both at home and away?
-Blaine
Buy my book!
20120604
20120601
3 days until E3 2012 ...
First, as I do every year ...
I never get tired of that video.
Second, read my E3 preview for Galaxy Next Door.
Third, I can't wait.
Before I really get cranking this weekend and next week and what's actually at E3, I want to take a moment and celebrate the impending eye-fucking that happens at E3 by promoting my favorite aspect of the internet, which is wild speculation.
Hell, I won't even call it that.
Shit That I Hope is at E3
- I know Dishonored is going to be there, but I really, really want it to be awesome, and I want it to be packed to the gills with three things: 1) numbers, stats, skill trees; I wanna have to do fucking algebra to tweak my character; 2) story; I want to apologize to people for not being more involved in their lives because of this game; 3) at least one game mechanic that distinguishes it from the glut of shooters that dots the modern gaming landscape
- anything at all on The Last of Us
- anything at all on Dead Space 3
- Company of Heroes 2; I want to see that this game is on own path of evolution, and not just aping the changes from Dawn of War to Dawn of War 2, Relic's other bad-ass RTS franchise; Company of Heroes is a better game than either Dawn of War (though I LOVE DoW), so I hope they don't take the safe route [oh yeah, THQ isn't even going to be there! DAMMIT!]
- Final Fantasy XV; not only FFXV, but let's see it hearken back a bit to some of the classic systems and mechanics, but push the franchise forward in terms of narrative; maybe embrace some branching story and dialogue, perhaps?
- cross-functionality between the current and future XBox OSes and Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8; streaming XBox games to PC sounds amazing, but let's also seed parts of games to Windows Phone for on-the-go interaction; there's a great piece on next-gen console OSes over at GND here
- iPad + AppleTV has the potential to be an amazing 'console' on its own, if only someone has the guts to step up and start making really bad-ass RPGs for the iPad; everything on iPad right now feels 'light,' and not much like a 'real' game; this can be addressed by having deep systems and beefy story; I'm curious to see if anyone boldly steps into this arena
- I want solid dates for PS1 on PS Vita and the release of Guild Wars 2
- I want to see if Nintendo is going to get out of its own way in terms of making a console on which people can play games, or if they're just going to pin their hopes to another gimmick
- Vita games; where are they?
What else? What are you hoping to see?
Keep an eye out for more from Untitled Gaming and Galaxy Next Door!
-Blaine
Buy my book!
I never get tired of that video.
Second, read my E3 preview for Galaxy Next Door.
Third, I can't wait.
Before I really get cranking this weekend and next week and what's actually at E3, I want to take a moment and celebrate the impending eye-fucking that happens at E3 by promoting my favorite aspect of the internet, which is wild speculation.
Hell, I won't even call it that.
Shit That I Hope is at E3
- I know Dishonored is going to be there, but I really, really want it to be awesome, and I want it to be packed to the gills with three things: 1) numbers, stats, skill trees; I wanna have to do fucking algebra to tweak my character; 2) story; I want to apologize to people for not being more involved in their lives because of this game; 3) at least one game mechanic that distinguishes it from the glut of shooters that dots the modern gaming landscape
- anything at all on The Last of Us
- anything at all on Dead Space 3
- Company of Heroes 2; I want to see that this game is on own path of evolution, and not just aping the changes from Dawn of War to Dawn of War 2, Relic's other bad-ass RTS franchise; Company of Heroes is a better game than either Dawn of War (though I LOVE DoW), so I hope they don't take the safe route [oh yeah, THQ isn't even going to be there! DAMMIT!]
- Final Fantasy XV; not only FFXV, but let's see it hearken back a bit to some of the classic systems and mechanics, but push the franchise forward in terms of narrative; maybe embrace some branching story and dialogue, perhaps?
- cross-functionality between the current and future XBox OSes and Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8; streaming XBox games to PC sounds amazing, but let's also seed parts of games to Windows Phone for on-the-go interaction; there's a great piece on next-gen console OSes over at GND here
- iPad + AppleTV has the potential to be an amazing 'console' on its own, if only someone has the guts to step up and start making really bad-ass RPGs for the iPad; everything on iPad right now feels 'light,' and not much like a 'real' game; this can be addressed by having deep systems and beefy story; I'm curious to see if anyone boldly steps into this arena
- I want solid dates for PS1 on PS Vita and the release of Guild Wars 2
- I want to see if Nintendo is going to get out of its own way in terms of making a console on which people can play games, or if they're just going to pin their hopes to another gimmick
- Vita games; where are they?
What else? What are you hoping to see?
Keep an eye out for more from Untitled Gaming and Galaxy Next Door!
-Blaine
Buy my book!
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