Reasons to hate touchscreen gaming

[Prof. Bars]

Yes, yes. I know it can be good. I love my DS, I play the shit out of DJ Max Technika, and I enjoy my ipad Cave shooters.

...but I spent a good amount of time playing Sonic CD on my phone, and trying to get Good Futures on all the stages. And I finally made it to the last boss. And I beat him.

And accidently tapped the screen while celebrating, skipping the ending I earned.

I haven't even been using the touchscreen! ;_; I'm playing on an Xperia gamepad!

...time for Youtube, I guess.

[GameMasterGuy]

Because you're covering up part of the action. Sonic 2 for the iPhone makes Silver Sonic much harder than he should be, seeing how one thumb covers where he goes to on the left side of the screen, and the other covers up the other place he stays in.

[Gamerforlife]

I still find touch screen to be not entirely accurate, even when using the stylus on the 3DS there are still times when the game doesn't do what I want. The touch controls on my ipod touch are so inacurate it's ridiculous. I'ms always fighting with that thing just for basic navigation with the browser. Same thing with Wii controls in games like Zelda Skyward Sword. I think the DS uses the stylus better than the Wii using motion controls though. I have played some DS games where stylus is clearly the only way to play whereas I still play quite a few Wii games where the motion controls feels tacked on and gimmicky

[MrPopo]

I think that's more of an indictment of controller-based games being ported to touchscreens, rather than touchscreen gaming.

[Lodestar]

I play my friend's DS sometimes and it has a problem with recognizing stylus inputs around the center of the screen--it's like it's a void that can't be reached. Turns out it's a royal pain for most games, like Mario & Luigi where I need accuracy for certain mini games. Cursors and other gestures will skip over the small area like it doesn't exist.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I was playing Crash Bandicoot on some Sony tablet and couldn't get past the first level. The controls were just mutilated.

And for the record, I think the best DS games don't use the touch screen (Dragon Quest IV) or give you the option to ignore it (Chrono Trigger).

[GameMasterGuy]

Or let you spam a repeated, vague gesture (TWEWY).

[Damm64]

Because i love smashing buttons on beat'em ups

[neilencio]

One thing I don't like about touchscreen gaming is that I get paranoid about scratching my DS lite screen with the stylus (I use a hori screen protector and I need to replace it almost every month because it gets scratched like hell. People say the unprotected screen will not get the same scratches but still, it can be unnerving to see what the hori is keeping away from my screen).

Another thing is I can't use my thumbs without getting grease/fingerprints/dirt on the screen. It's not like I'm a total slob as to eat cheetos while playing, just the sweat from your hands and fingertips is enough.

Last, the touchscreen I have is not conducive to button mashing/click spamming (a shame, because there are a number of nice touchscreen-controlled roguelikes on the DS that would have benefited from clickspamming)

[Prof. Bars]

I thought at first, using touchscreen controls was genius on SRPGs, like Front Mission and Super Robot Wars. When it came down to it though, it's much much faster to just use the D-pad to blast through all the menus. Bonus points if a game let you use a shoulder button to confirm commands.


A thing I do love about touch controls is the idea of playing Shumps with them. At least, as far as I can see with a nice big Ipad screen, and a copy of Dodonpachi. So much control in your hands.