Why iPad is worth buying as a games machine

call me old school, but i wont get non dedicated gaming devices, i will support consoles and handhelds, the most i can, until they become another things entirely, like alwyas connected, on the cloud, all digital etc, thats one of the reasons i have always supported consoles and handhelds, and nto PC or devices like this one, sorry i know there are good games on them, and people that like it, but it is the way iam.

@40 No. You’re just as terrible as this article. Fucking terribad in this terriposts. Congrats on getting your promotion, terribad!

I have to disagree, on almost every point. iPads cost too much to justify buying one for gaming, given the depth of the software, and lack of physical controls.

My wife got an iPad for free from her work, so I decided to give Zenonia a try, as I heard it was a quality 2D Zelda-clone. Unfortunately, as good as the game looked, I found it to be a frustrating experience between struggling with the damned touch controls, the 2 screen sizes (too big for the lap, or too small to see things past my hands!), and having it freeze the very first time I played it, so I never went back.

Though I am loathe to use the expression, ‘hardcore gamers’ need the deeper games and superior controls offered by dedicated gaming consoles and PCs.

Though, there is a bit of a catch 22 when trying to label gamers as light or hardcore, because I don’t think anyone that would drop 5 bills on an iPad to play games could be called a ‘light gamer’, however, that’s the only kind of games that are to be had on the platform.

Personally, I don’t think iPad’s are even good for kids, as they are much too easily breakable. It’s basically a piece of glass with an expensive wafer-thin computer behind it–probably the last thing I would give to a child to play with. But that’s just me.

The one thing I do agree on is that Clash of Heroes is an excellent game. But I’ll stick to playing it on my DS.

Haven’t been reading VG247 in depth for a month or so after starting a new job and being busy with the family. Nice to see that you commenters are still a surly bunch of miserable motherfuckers.

Cheer up people!

I don’t get the hate in many comments. It’s not about iOS gaming replacing “classic” consoles or handhelds but adding to them. On iPad alone, there are several excellent games that don’t use virtual d-pads or avoid using even two directional arrows and thus don’t require you to hold the rather heavy device in your hands while playing. Strangely, none of them is included in Pat’s list – just to name a few: New Star Soccer, Uplink, all Cave shmups (and several other shmups), Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery, Waking Mars, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Incoboto, Perfect Cell, Aquaria, Battleheart, Machinarium, Hunters 2, Battle of the Bulge, World of Goo.

“I don’t get the hate in many comments. It’s not about iOS gaming replacing “classic” consoles or handhelds but adding to them.”

Hammer meet nail, meet head.

This is completely right.

The people who say that iOS gaming is going to ‘kill’ console/home gaming are as tragically short-sighted as the deluded fools who decry iOS gaming as just ‘Angry Birds’ or ‘Cut the Rope’.

@54: It was like this a month ago too mate, it’s incredible the number of posters who can’t disagree without being absolute miserable fucking cunts. It’s like they want to be disliked. Is it a badge of honor on the internet to be a rude and unpleasant cunt?

@52 You just called DSB “terribad”! *boom*

That’s pretty much the worst thing anyone has ever said to me

@55 To a pretty large extent, iOS games are classic games. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m old enough to remember playing games like that and being blown away.

Maybe that makes a difference, I dunno. 23 years ago, that was core gaming.

While I disagree with this article, I get the Enthusiasm Pat has at this early point with the Tablet. When my Wife and I, each got an Asus Transformer Tablet as gifts, we were blown away.

Many of the Games Pat listed are on Android, or will soon becoming.

Control Schemes with just Tablet controls are Atrocious. The game Zombie Driver THD, is the same game on the Consoles. I bought it on the Tablet during the 75% off sale. This game is almost non-playable without a blu-tooth controller. Yes you can Emulate the PS3 controller, but it is still not supported for all games.

Games like Zen Pinball, and the new Star Wars Pinball, are Impressive, and control just as good if not better on my Tablet, and are cheaper, even Anomaly HD and Anomaly Korea control very well.

But then again games like Dead Trigger, Call of Duty Black OPs Zombies, Predators, Dead Space, Dark Meadow, Shadow Gun, Horn, and Wild Blood, which I consider more the type of games you find on Consoles, are Horrible on Tablets without a great Controller like the Xbox Controller.

While I really enjoy my Tablet, there is just something about kicking back with a Controller in hand and playing a Game on a Big TV screen, something you will never do with a Tablet. While my Tablet is HD and Gorgeous, it is still like playing a game on an Awesome 19 inch TV, which really gets tedious after a while.

Tablet gaming will continue to evolve, but I never seeing it replacing the Consoles, but I will predict something wild here and now..

“I see Sony and Microsoft releasing their own tablets, that will let you take their console games on the go with you, whether on the go to the bed, or in the car, or somewhere else.”

So Tablet and Consoles will be married to one another, just each working together, while offering something different.

Stay Frosty my Friends.

There’s a wrong assumption about the physical controls: the fact that they’re needed. The way we control a game is just an abstraction between a certain gesture that we perform and a certain event happening in the game, and a gamepad, a keyboard or a mouse are specific devices created to solve particular problems of interaction, and their use in a game in not mandatory at all. But the idea of “simulating” them on a touch screen is flawed at start, it’ll never work properly, as much as a virtual keyboard will always work worse than the physical counterpart: it was created physical with certain characteristics, and being physical means that with some practice you don’t need to watch it while typing, because you will feel what’s under your fingers.

IOS is a perfectly good developing platform for games, one of the best actually, very accessible and easy to program for, but it has still many problems: about the specific issue of controls, a lot of games try to emulate physical controls because they’re familiar, but that’s just unimaginative and uncomfortable, and there are A LOT of games that successfully experimented with alternative control schemes, taking real advantage of the touch screen: you just need to forget about the classic tropes, like the dual analog stick control, which is great if you have dual sticks (you don’t say) but just WRONG on a touch screen,

There’s value in taking advantage of mobile platforms, apart from the obvious economical reasons: touch controls are the future, because a person can just take his tablet and start gaming, without the need of practicing a clunky gamepad, memorizing all the buttons and becoming proficient with the analog stick abstraction. For example, a touch screen is actually MORE precise than an analog stick: it’s similar to a mouse, if you map position in game to position on the touch screen (and not velocity in game to position of the analog stock, like happens on consoles): one good example is the game Arc Squadron, which actually maps RELATIVE position on the touch screen from the beginning of the gesture to position in game, exactly like a mouse… it’s better than a gamepad.

Pat – you should play the lego games with your kids on a console – really great introduction and you get to play with them.

I had an iphone for years and now android and I’ve yet to find a game I enjoy on any of them past 10 minutes – I want full on twitch gaming and you only get that from consoles.

The same casual gamers who bought a ps2 then bought a wii and now own an ipad. That’s why the ps3 and 360 have sold the same as the first playstation and so will the 720 and ps4. Stop trying to get casuals back console makers. They’re not coming back and you’re diluting my chances of a decent 60fps arcade racer. Mind you, now even Criterion have given up on 60 fps I’m probably screwed anyway.

Sorry, I play my portable gaming on my 3DS. I’ll be DAMNED if I’m paying over $500 for a gaming device. It wouldn’t serve me any purpose otherwise. It’s just a giant iPhone…

I’m an android person and both my wife and I use Android phones. That said, we bought an iPad first Gen when it first came out since she wanted to try one and I’m a geek.

My wife still uses it to read between the times my 9 year old is using it for sims and my 10 year old mentally handicapped son is using it for angry birds and plants and zombies.

That’s the real huge things here. My son can play games, unassisted on the thing. He can’t do hardly a thing unassisted, but he can operate the iPad and it gives us hope.

^ thats actually a beautiful story. No matter which hardware or what not. Cheers!

Ipad is a gooood gaming machine.. the problem are the games theselves.. i enjoy my iGamingg sessions but they just don’t leave me with enough memories to cherish honestly.. and i always love those small moments that console/pc games give me.. so in short the design is the problem other wise with the current toolsets (unity, unrealMobile,) and the horsepower the latest iOs devices have, you can make great games on Ipad too.. touchscreen is a problem really but I am sure not to a good designer..