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Welcome to Untitled Gaming, repository for unfiltered, uncensored opinions on all things related to games, and best of it all, it comes from two adults that don't live in their mothers' basements. Additionally, we do not think it's the coolest thing in the world to scream racist and homophobic slurs, all in the name of drawing attention to our sad, little lives. We do other less obnoxious things to draw attention to our sad, little lives.

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Blaine's Other Blogs: Self-Indulgence Manifested (main) / The Filthy Sportswriter / Technological Distinctiveness / also check me out at Galaxy Next Door

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
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