10 reasons the iPhone is a shitty game platform

BATTERY LIFE

Maybe it’s a good thing Apple’s average game can’t hold a player's attention for more than fifteen minutes. Not since we had to strap six AA batteries on the back of a Sega Nomad has a portable “console” devoured energy with the ferocity of the iPhone. It seems like using almost any app runs the battery down at an average rate of damn near 1% a minute.

Above: Unless you got pow-ah....

Throw in prolonged screen usage and Wi-Fi capabilities and you’ve got a recipe for the sleekest brick an Apple devotee could ever desire. While playing a game, my charge generally goes down almost 50% on a train ride to my local airport. Good thing it’s attached to my phone, clock and contacts!

THE APP STORE IS A NIGHTMARE

Apparently, Apple’s UI/design team hasn’t stopped drinking the champagne it uncorked back when people were willing to camp out for iPhones like they were Jonas Brothers tickets. Say what you will about the prevailing evil of GameStop, at least you don’t walk into their stores and have to sift through a single pile of games.

Above: Welcome to the analog App Store!

Wonder why most game sites don’t cover them in any official capacity? Usually press releases are the only way to tell anything exists underneath the rubble of “Top-Selling” Air Hockey and Skee-Ball games.

“DICE” IS A F***ING GENRE NOW?!

Nuff said.

APPLE HATES TEH SEXY

Nevermind that signing an annual phone contract means you’re old enough to purchase porn, condoms, and a morally questionable plane ticket to Thailand, Apple is still desperately trying to filter the naughty in a manner that makes a pre-ESRB Nintendo look like full-time smut peddlers.

Let’s ignore for a second that how Apple distinguishes between scandalous and suitable is hypocritical at best. If you’re going to try and maintain a tyrannical grasp on your platform by restricting the material desired by discerning adults (willing and able to pay upwards of $1,000 a year to a nationally reviled cell carrier), they’ll eventually leave you for a platform that will give them what they want. And perhaps more importantly:

Above: What of poor Tecmo? Tits and ass are their bread and butter

QUALITY CONTROL IS NONEXISTENT

Did you know iPhone has over 15,000 games? Wow! Did you know China has over a billion people? Man, that must be an awesome country! By Apple’s gaming standards, its OS is eligible for a Spike VGA. All you need is a bare minimum of interactivity and an arbitrary point scale and you’ve got yourself a killer iPhone app! To further showcase the severe imbalance between quantity and quality, we’ve broken down iPhone games into three subcategories:

Air Hockey

Above: You can’t put a cap on perfection! 

Consistently a Top Seller, Air Hockey’s undeniable appeal stretches from easily duped women over forty, all the way to amateur game developers too unimaginative to clone Pong. Speaking of which…

Beer Pong

Apparently, idiots and the App Store can never get enough Beer Pong. How is it better than Pong? Pong doesn’t contain an undrinkable beverage, stupid!

Garfield

Above: This game will not function on Mondays 

“Garfield” may as well be videogames’ term for “Jumping the Shark.” Owners of the GBA know full well that once this pathetic excuse for a cultural icon shows up on your platform... it’s all over. The moment Garfield appears on your platform more than once, all taste, dignity, and innovation have gone out the window, and he usually marks the point where a console goes from relevance to just another glowing doodad for toddlers to suck on.

The author would like to state that he is a proud owner of an iPhone and believes it to be a remarkable feat of technological engineering (although not necessarily for gaming). For any Apple fans who were butt hurt or offended, head on back here next week, once The Week of Hate is over, for a kickass apology.

Mar 25, 2010

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