Stop Accepting Ineptitude

It shouldn’t be neccesary to explain this, but bad controls equals bad games. You can’t get to say “despite its’ bad controls, it’s still a very good game.” You can praise other parts, but it’s still broken nonetheless.


But even seasoned game pundits seem to accept touch screen games for being naturally inferior and then simply continue to praise them to the heavens, for just the effort.


I bought N.O.V.A for the iPhone and I tried the demoes of Modern Combat and Modern Combat 2. I even paid for Battlefield 2. There is no reason to try and sugarcoat this. The controls are bad. Unresponsive and not the least bit tactile.


All reviews note this. And praise them nonetheless. “Oh it’s so amazing to see something like this on a cellphone!” they say. No. No it’s not. The iPhone is a technical beast and less than the iPhone is also capable of 3D shooters.


But when the Nintendo DS and Wii had poorly designed games released, the hammer dropped. Why? Because these were stated game systems.


Well guess what? When a game is released for a device, it’s a game system. And a broken game that only costs a dollar is still broken game.


Two days ago, Dead Space was released for the iOS devices. Unanimously, the controls are criticized. Well obviously. It’s the same controls as Battlefield 2 featured. But the overall game is still praised. At least it tried.


It’s not about criticizing just to be critical. It’s about demanding developers to do the effort that is required of them. I know it can be hard to put words to game design. We aren’t as trained in enunciation what, how and why a game works, as we are when it comes to films. But never before have games been as big a part of our lives.


We owe it to ourselves to understand when we aren’t being respected by the designers, whose creations we invest our time in.

iOS gaming 2: Kosmospin Again

You can hardly say that I communte a lot, so it isn't there I get to experience my iOS games. Still, I do find the time.

Kosmospin's characters and world are growing on me. Sure the characters are stereotypes (french person, british military man and so on). But they're cute and lively. Acquinting them in the actual levels and not just the menus though would definitely make them more alive.

And now we're at it, could they please eat some of all those dang treats I rescued? It seems like they just like hogging them from Ufo.

"Why won't you eat them, damnit!"

The meat of Kosmospin, the quests (or levels as we'd normally say) is not of a huge amount, but the difficulty, which is quite engaging and rewarding does make it last a while. Some of the objectives though, are a little cheap (gather 1000 points...!).


Perhaps the various levels could use some balancing. Often the constant bombardement of Ufo makes completing a task neigh impossible and quite frustrating. In those cases, there's nothing to do but make for failure, since there's still no restart button. It ends of meaning that the possibility of completeing a level is based solely on which random balls (and amount of them) that Ufo ends up hurling at the planet.

I don't know if I'll have more to say about Kosmospin, but I might. If not, there are still plenty of good iOS games to discuss.

iOS gaming 1: Kosmospin

Seeing as I've always loved my mobile games and never had any issues with engaging in a story on a small screen, I do ever so hope that iOS gaming will eventually be more than cheap 5 minute thrills. Until then, Kosmospin falls neatly in-between the two.

The newest addition to my iOS games, is Kosmospin, by, if I'm not mistaken, Swedish developer Simogo (Simon + Gordon?).

Spin the planet to control Nod, the little character on the planet, to collect treats and deflect incoming balls from the menacing Ufo.

Lovely music and breathing visuals with a bit of written humour. I just hope they create a new icon. This one is just to plain to do the game justice.

Besides an endless mode, there are also a bunch of small objective based levels, with more to come.

Bounce various spheres back to Ufo

Importance

What is important about this game, is that Kosmospin, besides being a good game overall, is a very fine example of a touchscreen game. The little spin move that the game consists of, and the sliding-of-finger motion that the player performs is as natural and unintrusive as the core iOS systems normally are.

Before iOS gaming can become truly great, as few games do even today, a common understanding and acceptance of what works for input and play is needed. Kosmospin definitely has this and I hope Simogo's next game, on a yet unrevealed platform, will continue their touchscreen success.