Design Superiority for Established Genres

Disclaimer: The proceeding article is editorial content. The views expressed are those of the author and do not neccessarily reflect the official position of the Advanced Media Network.

Many genres have arisen and appeared on portable platforms throughout the history of gaming. Some genres started specifically on these devices, but others have been introduced from other sources. Within the world of games that started on their native machines and have been ported to another system, things haven’t always been that well done. To a degree, we have seen that when bringing a game over from the PC, for instance, one suddenly can find their control options very limited, or at the least quite clunky when scaled back to use on a control pad device.

Going back as far as the SNES, to start with a popular mainstream device, we can see where some of the shortcomings were already coming into play. The SNES was a popular ground for a few games brought over from the various brands of computer. One of the foremost designs on the system that did come to pass was the simulation type of game. On the SNES, at least until the invention of the SNES Mouse, games such as Sim City, Civilization, and Sim City 2000 forced the user to navigate with the D-Pad and buttons. Try as they may with buttons to pop between menus faster and other shortcuts, movement was clunky and was just slow. In Civilization on the PC, everything was mouse-driven unless you chose to use a keyboard hotkey to build a town or fortify a location, but again on the SNES you had to click very slowly through the menus. When it came to managing a turn with around ten cities and fifty units, it was a pain. SNES Civilization and Sim City 2000 did have use of the mouse, but with it, the games lagged along quite slowly as it wasn’t implemented well. On the Nintendo DS though, this could easily be fixed bringing the ease of a mouse controlled environment finally into play. With something as simple as a tap here and a drag there, one could move their way through a turn in a fraction of the amount of time.

Another style of genre most would actively agree lags badly on any format is the beloved first person shooter (FPS) genre. This genre, which encompasses anything from the old traditional DOOM, to the much more modern engines used in games like Call of Duty, would greatly benefit from the design of the Nintendo DS. Games in a 3D perspective, where anything at any angle could pop out, such as in Call of Duty: Finest Hour on the Gamecube, aren’t handled as smoothly as they were on the earlier PC version of the game. On even the most modern of console, unless the title has included a mouse-and-keyboard style setup such as Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena had on the Dreamcast, you were stuck with a dual-analog control stick setup. On the Nintendo DS, through the use of the stylus on the bottom screen, one can finally have quick control easily matching the fluidity of a PC-controlled first person shooter. With the stylus, one can always navigate it around for a free “mouse look” of the area to check for a sniper, tap to jump over a wall, or take out an MG42 nest on the 3rd floor of a blown-out building. As your right hand would be occupied with the stylus, the left could use the D-Pad for basic movement, L Button to fire the gun, and then R could be queued for a secondary weapon. During less hectic moments (or under cover) the other 4 face buttons could be used to cycle guns, inventory, or check orders. With a layout similar to this, one would no longer have to deal with slow response of a second analog stick. Would you rather be able to turn around quickly and accurately, or slower at the mercy of an analog stick and get beat to death while doing so? And in the multiplayer mode of the game, one could issue orders over the microphone while going at it with many other people over the local or WiFi-based LAN.

A third and final style of gaming seen on consoles and handhelds that could benefit from the unique design is the high action and strategy based worlds of the real time simulation (RTS). Games such as Command & Conquer and Star Craft have shown up on various consoles, and even a knockoff of Warcraft called Warlocked on the Gameboy Color made an appearance within the decade. Again, on the systems these games have appeared, either a mouse had not been designed for it, or were sold in such low numbers most never got a hold of one. These games demanded the use of a mouse to have very speedy response to the live combat so you could manage construction, resources, and the fight all at the same time. On the PC, these games were a snap to deal with being able to click anywhere in an instant with the mouse. On the Nintendo 64, these titles were a dog having to tab through slow-scrolling maps, and slow-scrolling arrows over the construction menus, making things much harder. Using the stylus with the Nintendo DS, though, the player could easily tap around a brigade to send them where needed, quickly tap the map to get to your base to build up three more divisions, and hop back in time to manage the fight taking down the enemy with relative ease.

It appears to me that the Nintendo DS not only is designed to try many new revolutionary types of gaming such as Polarium (One Line Puzzle) or Jam With the Band, but also to correct gaps in various genres that suffer when taken off the computer. Through the hardware of the Nintendo DS, players can now easily spin around to take out that evil Nazi up in the window with the slash of the stylus making this genre finally friendly on-the-go. Games like Sim City or Civilization, that are turn-based resource management fights against the system can now be navigated with ease, making the games pleasurable instead of a test of patience. And then the series of games that play out like Command & Conquer can finally be rapidly realized and deployed without having to slowly corral units and deal with resources. Thanks to the use of the stylus and the touch panel, the shortcomings of mouse-friendly games can now be dissolved, and with this barrier gone these genres can be enjoyed as freely as possible on-the-go too.

Formerly employed at Midway Home Entertainment, Jeff Kennedy is now an industry analyst and editorial columnist for AMN. You can find his columns across the network, but his home is here at Advanced Analysis.big guns