The Genres That’ll Succeed On Apple’s iPad

By Alex Coulter
for GameZone.com

A few years ago, I watched a video of WarCraft III being played on a large touch-screen interface. Rightfully so, I was impressed. The idea of playing video games on what looked like a computer from Minority Report was just mind-blowing. Now, just a few short years later, that technology seems to be within our grasp with the iPad. But is Apple’s entry into the tablet computer scene going to help revolutionize gaming, or is it nothing more than an iPhone on steroids?

Now, don’t get me wrong – I love my iPhone. The games I play on it are fun, varied, and cheap. Over the past year, I’ve played more games on my iPhone than I did on my DS. From racers, to tower defense games, to whatever the hell Rolando is, the iPhone has some entertaining games on it. Translating that success to the iPad, however, might not be so easy.

What’s great about my iPhone is that I always have it with me. No matter where I am, if I’ve got a few minutes to kill, I always have a couple dozen games to keep me entertained. However, the biggest limitation of the iPhone as a true gaming system is the screen size, considering that you actually have to touch it in order to play. The iPad addresses this shortcoming… sort of. The iPad offers a 9.7-inch screen, which is much larger than an iPhone or iPod Touch, but still small compared to a laptop or a desktop monitor.

I understand that the iPad wasn’t made exclusively for gaming, but let’s just pretend for a second that it was. At 9.7-inches, the screen is big enough to take it out of the handheld sphere of gaming, but at the same time too small to handle full-fledged games. Take for example, the aforementioned WarCraft III demo — I think that the iPad’s touch screen is perfect for real-time strategy games, but I’d much rather play it on a 20 inch-plus screen where I can have a fully functional user interface and be able to see dozens of units on screen at once.

The iPad’s screen also affects possible control schemes. The worst controls found on the iPhone are in games that use a virtual thumbstick. It’s unresponsive, unintuitive, and a pain to use; yet, it’s already being implemented in iPad games like Geometry Wars. I also don’t want to have to use a controller or a keyboard to play games on the iPad – that’s what my PC, 360, and PS3 are for. The iPad does have a built in accelerometer, but it’s far too gimmicky to carry an entire game’s control scheme by itself. In order to provide compelling controls (i.e. no virtual thumbstick, peripherals, or accelerometer), the iPad needs a large screen to allow a greater range of movement than the iPhone.

Obviously, no matter how big the iPad’s screen is, some genres just won’t work with nothing but touch screen controls. First-person shooters, for example, simply can’t function without a mouse and keyboard, or a thumbstick. Sure, developers could make an FPS work on the iPad, but I can guarantee it won’t be as good as the exact same game on a PC. The iPad thus faces the same precarious paradox as the Nintendo Wii: its unique control scheme is its biggest attraction, yet at the same time, its largest limitation.

So what games would work better on the iPad than an actual gaming console? Again, the first thing that jumps into my mind is a real-time strategy game. Touching a unit to select it, dragging your fingers to select a group, double tapping to attack move… it’s like this device was made for the RTS genre. Sure, the iPad may not have the processing power to run Blizzard’s highly anticipated StarCraft II, but I’d love nothing more than to play the original with touch screen controls.

Role-playing games could be great on the iPad as well. With a top-down view and a control scheme similar to the one found in the Zelda games on the DS, RPGs like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy would be a blast to play. And the iPad could display vibrant 16-bit visuals with ease. The 2D RPGs are becoming rare in this age of hyper-realistic graphics, but the iPad could help bring them back into prominence.

Certainly, Apple’s newest device is not a replacement for an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, but it does have potential. Whether or not that potential is realized, however, depends on whether developers create games that use the touch screen controls to their advantage. Is the iPad going to revolutionize gaming? No, probably not… the Nintendo DS introduced gamers to touch screens over five years ago. But the iPad can offer a fresh, new way to play certain types of games, and it brings me one step closer to playing WarCraft III with nothing but my fingers.