26 May 2007, 11:48 am
Enigmatic_Oddity wrote:
...Advance Wars: DS I find is better controlled with the stylus, as moving units and selecting menu options becomes a lot quicker than with D-pad controls.
I found it far, far slower than with regular controls. There's no way to scroll around the screen, no way to unselect something fast, no way to go to the next unit, etc.
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Metroid Prime: Hunters, whilst not my favourite game (I don't like FPS games), is excellent and is particularly notable for having PC-like controls, which is great for a FPS.
I found it pretty much unplayable with the touch screen, and not accurate enough with the digital controls. Plus the DS doesn't ship with a thumb strap thing anymore. (Plus the game was just plain bad anyway-a shallow deathmatch game carrying the Metroid name
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There's also a few RTS strategy games on the DS (Age of Empires, FFXII:RW, Heroes of Mana) or ones that are coming soon which wouldn't have been as viable without the touchscreen support - have you ever tried playing an RTS on a console? Like PC FPS games, it doesn't work nearly as well, and I assume the touch screen will remedy that.
Age of Empires isn't an RTS, it was (thankfully) turned into a turn based game, and the high review scores reflect that. In theory the touch screen sounds like it would work well for an RTS, but in practice it doesn't work.
The other games you mentioned are just mini-game/Rhythm games. Yeah, they couldn't be done in exactly the same way on another system, but they're not really a full blown game like a Metroid or a Final Fantasy or whatever. I did think Magical Starsign used the touchscreen surprisingly well, but it wasn't any better than using regular controls (and definitely worse than a good analog stick/d-pad combo).
The touch screen isn't very accurate, is really cramped, only responds to one input at a time, etc. It's just basically a gimmick. 2 1/2 years and I can't think of one real, expansive game that's used it to any benefit. I'd gladly trade it in for an analog stick.
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As for RPGs, I don't think either system really has that many of them. DS might have slightly more, but none of them are that good. Square Enix has disappointed by doing remakes of games rather than original titles (FFIII, and now FFIV), although DQIX looks very promising. Can't expect that one for a while though. On the PSP, there's Tales of Eternia, which given my experience of the Tales series, should be fun. It's probably better than any RPG on the DS at the moment. Some might disagree and say the Mario RPG for DS is great, but I didn't like Superstar Saga on the GBA and this looks largely like the same game.
I loved Mario & Luigi 2. Liked it better than the first one (and better than the first two Paper Mario games-haven't played the third). Polopocrios on the PSP is a solid fun little RPG. I haven't played enough RPGs lately to recommend more though.
Golden Sun 1 & 2 on the GBA were really good, but they're long out of print. (They're by Camelot...who I wish would do more RPGs and less sports games...)
Forgot to mention that there has been at least one super successful RTS on a console-Pikmin. I think you have to design the game around the interface, as there's no way a console can do the kind of precision necessary to play something like Starcraft well.
Dragon Force I think can kind of be considred an RTS too, and was phenomenal.
26 May 2007, 8:13 pm
Wolfpup wrote:
I found it far, far slower than with regular controls. There's no way to scroll around the screen, no way to unselect something fast, no way to go to the next unit, etc.
Actually, you can scroll around the screen by dragging the stylus to the edge of the screen. I've had no trouble with unselecting a unit, although I guess clicking outside of a range takes more work that just pressing a button. I didn't know there was a way to select the next unit though, other than moving the cursor over it.
Wolfpup wrote:
Plus the game was just plain bad anyway-a shallow deathmatch game carrying the Metroid name
I agree, Metroid shouldn't be a FPS. I hate FPS, but I love Metroid. I did read the original Metroid Prime games for the GC were less FPS-like, though.
Wolfpup wrote:
The touch screen isn't very accurate, is really cramped, only responds to one input at a time, etc. It's just basically a gimmick. 2 1/2 years and I can't think of one real, expansive game that's used it to any benefit. I'd gladly trade it in for an analog stick.
I don't think the touch screen is a gimmick unless it's used that way by developers, but I would have liked an analog stick on the DS too. It's limiting developers from doing a lot of the 3D genres.
26 May 2007, 9:35 pm
