Gadfly2317
05-19-2004, 02:45 PM
Here is why I am completely certain the DS will offer a far better gaming experience than the PsP. Please use your imagination here and then consider whether you’d rather play games the old way, or the new way.
Advance Wars, other tactics/strategy games, and all turn-based RPG’s will be able to sport features that the PsP will NOT be able to do, and these features are NOT cosmetic or gimmicky. Whether game designers will implement what I’m envisioning remains to be seen, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t, since it is so obvious.
In case anyone hasn’t played Advanced Wars, it is one of the most fun, deep, and addictive games ever created for any system (and I believe any future installments will be DS exclusive). If you haven’t played it, it shares some similarities with Final Fantasy Tactics, except it is a military strategy game with units like transports, helicopters, submarines, bombers, infantry, tanks, missile silos, etc.
This game with a stylus touch screen and a second screen with battle animations would be portable gaming perfection. You could conceivable play it without using any buttons at all, eliminating the hand-cramp common to portable gaming. Touch screen could display the field of battle and all the combat units. Imagine being able to select a unit simply by pointing at it, then pointing at its target. The battle animation would occur on the other screen, and while it was still going on, you could be selecting other units and targets. Pointing to a factory, airport, or harbor would bring up the menu of weaponry you can construct, and again, you just simply point at your selection. No more achy navigation of long menus with the D-pad. It shouldn’t take much imagination for any fan of games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Advanced Wars to see how much better these games could be on the DS than on the PsP.
How about a portable version of an RTS game like Star Craft? I’m sure I’m not the only gamer in the world who would love to be able to group my units with a stylus, as well as simply point to their destinations, or actually draw their patrol routes, and to be able to keep an eye on two areas of action at once with a second screen. This type of gaming CANNOT BE DONE ON THE PSP.
The same thing applies for RPG’s, which are a popular genre of game. Think of how much more efficient it would be if you could just point at a party member, select the spell or attack from a pop-up menu, and then point to the target, with battle-animations on the second screen. Would you really choose to game the old way, cycling through all party members, menus, and targets with a d-pad or even an analog stick? How cumbersome. How inefficient and slow. How old old-fashioned. How PsP.
This stuff alone makes the DS the wave of the future for portable gaming. There are plenty of dual-screen and interface changes for other types of games, too, but the potential innovations I’ve mentioned above are the ones I’m truly excited about.
(And visualize this: since the DS sports wireless capabilities, and the stylus/touch screen makes text entry possible, you could possibly make some sort of MMORPG, or at least a game that connects a high number users.. I could see something like that becoming a huge fad in the school cafeteria’s and libraries around the world.)
Or you could get a PsP and enjoy a crampy little version of the oh so “1990’s” Gran Turismo.
Advance Wars, other tactics/strategy games, and all turn-based RPG’s will be able to sport features that the PsP will NOT be able to do, and these features are NOT cosmetic or gimmicky. Whether game designers will implement what I’m envisioning remains to be seen, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t, since it is so obvious.
In case anyone hasn’t played Advanced Wars, it is one of the most fun, deep, and addictive games ever created for any system (and I believe any future installments will be DS exclusive). If you haven’t played it, it shares some similarities with Final Fantasy Tactics, except it is a military strategy game with units like transports, helicopters, submarines, bombers, infantry, tanks, missile silos, etc.
This game with a stylus touch screen and a second screen with battle animations would be portable gaming perfection. You could conceivable play it without using any buttons at all, eliminating the hand-cramp common to portable gaming. Touch screen could display the field of battle and all the combat units. Imagine being able to select a unit simply by pointing at it, then pointing at its target. The battle animation would occur on the other screen, and while it was still going on, you could be selecting other units and targets. Pointing to a factory, airport, or harbor would bring up the menu of weaponry you can construct, and again, you just simply point at your selection. No more achy navigation of long menus with the D-pad. It shouldn’t take much imagination for any fan of games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Advanced Wars to see how much better these games could be on the DS than on the PsP.
How about a portable version of an RTS game like Star Craft? I’m sure I’m not the only gamer in the world who would love to be able to group my units with a stylus, as well as simply point to their destinations, or actually draw their patrol routes, and to be able to keep an eye on two areas of action at once with a second screen. This type of gaming CANNOT BE DONE ON THE PSP.
The same thing applies for RPG’s, which are a popular genre of game. Think of how much more efficient it would be if you could just point at a party member, select the spell or attack from a pop-up menu, and then point to the target, with battle-animations on the second screen. Would you really choose to game the old way, cycling through all party members, menus, and targets with a d-pad or even an analog stick? How cumbersome. How inefficient and slow. How old old-fashioned. How PsP.
This stuff alone makes the DS the wave of the future for portable gaming. There are plenty of dual-screen and interface changes for other types of games, too, but the potential innovations I’ve mentioned above are the ones I’m truly excited about.
(And visualize this: since the DS sports wireless capabilities, and the stylus/touch screen makes text entry possible, you could possibly make some sort of MMORPG, or at least a game that connects a high number users.. I could see something like that becoming a huge fad in the school cafeteria’s and libraries around the world.)
Or you could get a PsP and enjoy a crampy little version of the oh so “1990’s” Gran Turismo.