Last Night, or: How I Learned to Loathe the Loss of Dedicated ...

Before last night I was ready for the transition. I was ready for that inevitable evolution where tablets and smart phones?exclusively?rule the portable video game space. Where your Vitas and DSs are ancient relics of a long-lost era, destined to collect dust in attics across the globe and remembered forever as the final forays into the dedicated handheld gaming market.?Before last night I was ready for an i-Device to become my all-in-one item that does it all.

Before last night, I was bloody wrong.

So tantalizingly treacherous

My revelation is represented with two separate instances, each involving the same system. The first is a story of ultimate uncertainty. With Gamers Association receiving an App Store code from one of our publisher contacts, I immediately took interest as I will be away on vacation next week, secluded from consoles. I inquired about the Game That Must Not Be Named (for narrative secrecy only, as I?m sure it?s spectacular), questioning about its compatibility with my admittedly-outdated 2nd Generation iPod Touch (I?m cheap; I know). An iTunes description claimed it would work with any iOS device sporting 3.1 or later, yet my past experiences created the skeptic that I currently am. And the answer? Maybe, but it might not be optimal. This vague position comes from the publisher?s own mouth, no less. So I tried it, and they were right: performance was stuttery to the point of being unplayable. Now keep these moments in mind as we move to #2.

You recall my upcoming getaway? Great! As this outing has been an annual family affair since before my baby years, I?ve learned to plan and prepare for my time spent in solitude. This year I considered doing something I?d done before, digging out the old Game Boy Advance (my DS?regrettably within the hands of a happy kid from Craigslist) and reliving a legend or two. But bringing a Game Boy Advance isn?t just bringing a Game Boy Advance. No, it?s bringing a Game Boy Advance and any potential cartridges I might play and a bunch of AA batteries for extra insurance and that little light add-on as this ain?t hoity-toity SP AND?my super-sexy bag with strap to stash it all in.

Or, I could jailbreak that iPod and emulate my path to happiness.

All that raw code?I must be a badass hacker now!

I chose option B, and the decision was a slow-burning disaster.

Unaware of your technical upbringing, I?ll be brief with the background. No hands-on electronics master myself by any means, I was a wee bit worried about the underground process. To my delighted surprise, however, the right software makes jailbreaking itself a simple step-by-step operation that?s over in seconds. Only when I branched out to reach for what I truly wanted did I discover my roadblocks.

Holding buttons and rebooting my iPod like some makeshift spin-off of Simon Says, I sighed with relief as the jailbreak completed correctly?but then I dealt with a few freezes. And there?s the Loader, which gets me Cydia, which needs some already-researched sources, which results in the emulator, though don?t forget the BIOS, and, wait, where are the ROMs? Failed installation attempts from host sites that are apparently no longer in service struck me, my second-to-last straws, so I settled for A Link To The Past?(a game I do own, dear FBI readers). A smile of nostalgia sprang across my face as I peered at the pixelated Link?and I lost all level of interest in an instant.

The same Mario you?ve always loved, only worse!

With a small screen setup to accommodate the cramped controller interface, I wondered why I was going through so much trouble for a sub-par playthrough of these classic adventures. And this is where it hit me, when I realized I?d been wrong all along. I?ll accept an Apple or Android for Angry Birds, but I never want it for a grand Zelda experience. Nostalgia aside, the absence of tactile feedback brings about slippery mechanics not at all ideal, and I cringe to imagine an every-jump-matters Mario platformer with touch controls. The battery, too, proves problematic. While I can?t fairly state how a new machine would hold up after hours of heavy gaming, my power plunged in no time. That said, who wants to ration their playtime if extended sessions mean sacrificing access to emails, the Internet, or even essential phone service?

And that initial tale? Why, it?s a quick story about what might be the worst offense of do-it-all devices: uncertainty. Without something specifically created for and assigned to gaming, subsequent iterations and updates with state-of-the-art hardware continuously split the market, making older machines incompatible. Incompatible, but only sometimes. Only maybe. Only it might not be optimal. And that fact, that no way of knowing, is rightfully ridiculous.

When I do rediscover my Game Boy Advance for this vacation, that system with its cartridges and its batteries and its light and its bag, I know I can play anything available for it, regardless of release dates at launch or toward the tail-end of the life cycle. I know that no power doesn?t mean I?m excommunicated from the rest of the world. I know my Game Boy Advance is good for one thing and one thing only: playing games. That?s good enough for me, and I never want it any other way.

Source: http://www.gamers-association.com/2012/07/last-night-or-how-i-learned-to-loathe-the-loss-of-dedicated-handheld-gaming-devices/

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