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Gaming on phones...

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GadgetAddicted

Newbie
Can anyone give me any input on how practical it is to play games on a phone with no hard buttons? Examples would be the HTC Eris and the potential Bravo/Passion. I kind of don't want the Droid because of the keyboard, the D-Pad seems necessary to play games with...

Feedback?
 
LOL that's what I keep telling everyone. Games sell big time so make a phone designed for games in mind...the money is not on fancy weather widgets and facebook apps
 
Well when I went in the Verizon store i had exactly ONE game i wanted to try and that was Cestos and it worked beautifully. (until i tried to input text and accidentally hit home instead of the menu button or whatever brings up the chat D'OH). Although I'm constantly hitting up youtube for android game reviews and pretty much all the games I see are touch screen only. (does everyone on youtube reviewing android games live in the UK and have Hero's?). One thing i like to point out to those worried about games is the iphone (boo's and hisses) it has ONE hardware button on the front and it sure as hell isn't for games so if people can make games that work on that (and they do) then keyboardless android phones are not a far stretch off.
 
GadgetAddicted said:
Can anyone give me any input on how practical it is to play games on a phone with no hard buttons? Examples would be the HTC Eris and the potential Bravo/Passion. I kind of don't want the Droid because of the keyboard, the D-Pad seems necessary to play games with...

Feedback?
Click to expand...


i think a keyboard or hard buttons is obviously better. but touch screen games can be just as good. just look at the iphone and some of its games. they are pretty advanced with 3d graphics and everything and they work pretty damn good.(check out hero of sparta, its like a ps1 game!). i think gaming with a good touchscreen is going to get the job done well. but for serious gamers who might like to play fight games like mortal kombat a keyboard would be needed.
 
fight games? I like to play fps games that pretty much require every key on the keyboard along with a mouse. I'm looking forward for a PC that will play Armed Assault 2. I guess it will be a while for that game to come to a phone...

I'm not so crazy about the face that the Droid doesn't have a trackball. We already see games that require a trackball....you can't really replicate that functionality with a touchscreen or keyboard.
 
GadgetAddicted said:
So, anyone out there try gaming on an Eris? What's the experience like?
Click to expand...

I tried playing Ninja Gaiden on my Eris, and was not too happy with the results. The cross pad was alright, but the buttons designated for A and B were not very responsive. I am going to try a few other games, but so far I am not impressed. I think card and puzzle games may work ok as compared to side scrolling games, so I will probably try that next.
 
Well that kind of scares me a bit, given that I am dying to get the passion/bravo which has no keyboard. My life for a Droid w/ Snapdragon, an optical "trackball" and Sense UI! LOL.
 
Here's my vision for games:
1) you would use the keyboard WSAD for directional control, other keys for crouching, switching weapons, etc
2) clickable trackball for fine control aiming/shooting
3) accelerometer would allow you to turn your 'head' to look around, up/down, move 'shoulders' around.
It would be almost like this experience except that you tilt the phone instead of your head:
YouTube - TrackIR5 & ArmA2 Premiere (TrackIR 5)
I'd think that would be great not just for fps and flight sims but also boxing games where you have to dodge while throwing punches and moving around the ring.

But the droid doesn't have a trackball, the nexus doesn't have a keyboard and the g1 doesn't have the best specs so I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer...
 
I use Gameboid (Gameboy Emulator) and Snesoid (SNES Emulator) without any problems. The trackball works as a DPAD. For games like Mario, tilting the screen to move also works. You can map game buttons to Volume Up, Down, Search, back, and Call. No problem with any games so far. The hard buttons are more responsive that the Search and Back buttons which are both touch. There is also an on screen d pad and on screen touch Start and Select buttons that you can toggle on or off. Edit: Left off that the trackball is pushable and is a mappable hard button on the Eris.

So far all of the games in the market that I have tried work for me. Jewels, Bonsai Blast, etc are all designed for touch screens
 
It wouldn't be a bad idea if Android was made compatible with external accessories. Imagine if you could plug in a USB game controller or keyboards. It would have to be designed well for the phone to be practical.
 
Sketchee said:
I use Gameboid (Gameboy Emulator) and Snesoid (SNES Emulator) without any problems. The trackball works as a DPAD. For games like Mario, tilting the screen to move also works. You can map game buttons to Volume Up, Down, Search, back, and Call. No problem with any games so far. The hard buttons are more responsive that the Search and Back buttons which are both touch. There is also an on screen d pad and on screen touch Start and Select buttons that you can toggle on or off.

So far all of the games in the market that I have tried work for me. Jewels, Bonsai Blast, etc are all designed for touch screens
Click to expand...

I should have thought to look and see if you could change the orientation of the buttons. Thank you for the advice.
 
ari-free said:
LOL that's what I keep telling everyone. Games sell big time so make a phone designed for games in mind...the money is not on fancy weather widgets and facebook apps
Click to expand...
It was called the ngage and lets just say Nokia isn't selling it anymore.

I never understood the fascination with serious gaming on a phone. There are devices that do this well. Time killers like puzzle games and such, that's fine. But do you really want to kill the battery on your communication device by gaming on it?
 
mrthundercleese said:
It was called the ngage and lets just say Nokia isn't selling it anymore.

I never understood the fascination with serious gaming on a phone. There are devices that do this well. Time killers like puzzle games and such, that's fine. But do you really want to kill the battery on your communication device by gaming on it?
Click to expand...

look at the app store. Games are the apps that make the most money.
On the other hand, iPhone users don't believe in multitasking because of the strain on the battery...
 
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