Sunday, June 23, 2013

Two games and a Nexus!

Let me admit it first- I am a gamer. And not the kind of gamer that played once and forgot twice- No sir! I started playing when there was NES and now own a PS3 at home and now Age of Empires by its nickname- AOE. Yes! I am that kind of gamer. And when Android came I obviously jumped to the games it had to offer. But the journey was arduous and tiresome for me. To the extent that I dispelled the thought of playing on mobile ever. Why you might ask?

My first Android- Samsung Galaxy Ace!

Now, while this is was an excellent phone for beginning the journey into the heart of Android, it had two severe debilitating issues-

1. The RAM and processors were just not up to the gaming mark.

2. Internal memory hated you!

While the first became an issue in the later period of its life (after ICS came to life), the second one was always an issue. It posed two problems- One that I could not add too many apps to my quiver and second I could not add many heavy apps. Despite having an external option, after Google Maps is done with you there is not much space left for anything. Later I rooted the phone and did some changes that did help me getting extra space but by that time my zeal to play games on that phone had gone. Also, I was due a new phone anyways.

The second son- Sony Xperia S

Built to play, this phone had everything I needed- A gorgeous screed with Bravia display, a dual core processor with GPU, 1 GB RAM and 32 GB of mammoth space. I could install any app I wanted without worrying about whether it might fill any space in my phone. And it was Playstation certified! Turns out, something was still missing. Infact, looking back Xperia S was the phone that made me feel that I am not made for gaming on phones or maybe gaming isn’t made for phones. I had not played any games on my Xperia S for so long that eventually I started deleting them, not for want of space but because keeping them made my app drawer lengthy.

The prodigy- Nexus 4.

Of course, no story is complete unless  there is a happy ending somewhere. I, very recently, bought Nexus 4. This phone blew me away. It has a quad-core processor to start with and a whopping 2 GB RAM. This effectively means that anything thrown at it will go out of the park. A 4.7” screen proved to be perfect to do anything really. Be it watching an odd video or just reading a novel. Most importantly, I suddenly found myself playing games again. The games haven’t changed much. They were present even when I was using Xperia S. They all can be played on that phone as well. So, I kept wondering what changed.

It came to me just now that the factor that changed the whole equation was ergonomics. Nexus 4 is symmetrical and is held like a joystick while playing games while Xperia S is longer on one side by quite a degree. The symmetry suits my joystick loving hands and because the screen is wider than Xperia S it also gives me enough estate to see even after my thumbs are on the screen.

Now, how much you might ask I have started playing games?

Here enter the two games that have practically brought gaming back to me- Auralux and Stick cricket.

The first one is a RTS in its purest form and Stick cricket is well… a sport game. I practically am playing both the games everyday spending over an hour overall on gaming. And this time is not coming fro commute or anything but full blown dedicated time to the two games. I have also paid for these two games for the extra packs and the removal of ads so that they do not disturb me while playing,

The overall impact has been such that while I paid zilch on gaming during my Xperia days, in less than a month I have spend on four games (In Android!) and might spend more in future.

I never considered the impact of ergonomics as much as I am seeing now before my eyes.