Glad to see I'm not the only one who feels badly toward the touch screen nature of a lot of these games. Perhaps a public outcry will change things, but if Motorstorm RC is any indication it might just be down to the developer not being smart enough (or having enough time, though that seems unlikely) to put both touch and button control in. I just loaded MRC on my Vita tonight, and while most of the menus seem to use some form of touch screen support, the game is, for the most part, control-only. No tilt here! It even gives you just two control options, and they're both analog stick-based. The only touch screen game control I would (maybe) have liked to have seen in a game like this is drive-to-cursor, where the car would drive to the point your finger touches the screen, but lacking this kind of option is no problem to me! :lol:
@ DaMummy
It's funny you should mention all those games seem smartphone-like. Out of all the ones you mentioned, none of them were originally from smartphones. On the other hand, you have games like Asphalt Injection and Dungeon Hunter Alliance that were from smartphones. Haven't played either one, but the demo of Asphalt 5 on my phone was terrible, and Dungeon Hunter Alliance didn't get very positive reviews (and I really, really wanted a dungeon crawler...!). I do agree with the way you're thinking, tho. If they're going to make games that seem like smartphone games, what's the point of paying $250 for a console that has physical buttons and controls just to play touch screen games? Thankfully it seems like on the Vita the touch screen is a gimmick, not a requirement, converse to smartphone games where the touch screen is pretty much the only common denominator across every phone. I just hope developers will figure that out early-on.
Where I think touch screens would excel in games are mainly on menu systems or places where "aiming" with a finger would be better than doing the same with an analog stick and cursor (though, as Uncharted has shown, using the tilt controls to aim while sniping works kinda nice, too). For example, the in-game item use for Monster Hunter takes some getting used to, but in the end I feel it works better than taking your hands off the controls to touch an item*. However, if you were arranging your box or setting up for a quest, having a touch screen would be more than ideal.
Edit:
@ SONY
Not terribly surprising, considering the pricing. A lot of people scoffed at the price, especially since the other DS's were cheaper, still readily-available, and had a full library of games. Where Nintendo possibly failed the 3DS's launch (price aside) is that many people were under the impression that it was yet another DS incarnation, as opposed to a whole new system with backwards compatibility. Proof of this is what I heard from a lot of people who weren't in-the-know: "I already have a DS. Why do I need another one?" Now that it's $150, more parents would be willing to buy one for their kid(s), and more people would be interested to "upgrade" to the 3D "revolution." I bought my 3DS for three reasons.
- Probably the easiest to hack (1st gen)
- It's f***ing glassesless 3D!!
- Dead or Alive
I've had my 3DS since the US launch. I have 2 3DS games (DoA, Rayman). I now have a Vita, and after a week, I have 5 games. I think it's safe to say the Vita is the more interesting of the two systems to me. :lol:
