Gaming

My original impression of gaming on a tablet was very similar to the low end flash games you could play in your browser. At the time there were a couple that I did enjoy, but as a gaming platform I felt that android tablets had an uphill battle to fight when it came to market fragmentation, both with various OS’s but even more importantly on the hardware level. This is where Apple has always been able to be successful when it came to gaming on your mobile devices. When developers know exactly what hardware they are developing for they can push the limits and create amazing products. For android they might create a great game, but in most cases they had to develop for the least powerful common devices. This is where Nvidia comes in, not only did they create an architecture that is capable of supporting those amazing games, but they also came up with an app called TegraZone.

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What TegraZone is, is a hub for anyone with a Tegra device to be able to check out games specifically designed for their hardware as well as a place to find up to date news about Tegra itself. I will be honest, normally I would avoid something like this and after Nvidia suggested I take a look at it I was extremely hesitant. Even after diving in a little and seeing that they have all of these games I was a little concerned that this would be yet another marketplace to confuse me like the Amazon app store. When I found a game that really peaked my interest I finally gave in and clicked get it now. I was VERY happy to find that TegraZone is actually just fully integrated in with the standard Google play store. There was a major difference though, they are showcasing games that actually push the limits of the Tegra hardware where in the Google Play Store I would have to sort through pages just to find a few of these sometimes hidden jewels. On top of it all, if you look around there are some games where they have specific Tegra 3 versions of the game that add additional detail over the standard version of the game. Talk about feeling like a king, not only did Nvidia basically lay out the best games to show off my tablets performance in front of me, but I even was given access to features the lowly plebs will never have a chance to see.

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Of course not every game is perfect; they have their own rating system as well as comments from other Tegra users. This is especially nice, because you don’t need to flip through pages of comments from people who aren’t using a similar device that may be dealing with issues you don’t have to deal with, remember Nvidia has made us Tegra owner’s kings. For games that also have professional reviews published on them, they also include ratings and quotes from them as well.

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Now that I was armed with lists of games to play on the Transformer Prime what did I do? Well those of you who may not read our site often may not know this about me. But anytime I can game and actually justify it as work and more importantly to my wife, I am sure as heck going to game. I downloaded a variety of games and set about on playing my games anywhere I could find a little time. It didn’t take long before the PC gamer in me got a little curious, what will happen when I use the keyboard in some of these games? Surprisingly I found that a lot of the games supported the direction pad on the keyboard but there of course wasn’t any use of the more traditional WASD. Oh well, I’m still a badass, I’m gaming like I would on a PC on my tablet! I showed it off to my wife and she apparently didn’t find it as interesting as I did. So I set out to find an even better way to game on my tablet, this time I’m going to show her!

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Lucky for me, Nvidia actually included a Bluetooth wireless controller along with the tablet. Before long I was playing my games via a wireless controller. Once again I proudly called my wife in to show her and just like before she gave me a judging look and asked if THAT was really why I called her in.

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Months later though, I had gotten in a small portable Bluetooth controller from SteelSeries that was considerably smaller than the one I used before. This time I didn’t bother showing my wife, frankly I couldn’t handle the rejection even once more. Shortly after, I found myself sitting in a waiting room with my tablet and lucky for me a wireless connection. Like I said before, anytime I can game and call it work I am all about it, so I went about getting a little work done while waiting. I setup my wireless and jumped into a game of Shadowgun: DeadZone. For those who don’t know about the game, it is similar to Gears of War but not on a large console and amazingly enough it even has full multiplayer support. Out of my pocket I pulled my SteelSeries FREE Wireless controller and I jumped into a game online with various other people. I wouldn’t say I was doing amazing, but being able to use a controller is a world apart from only being able to use the touchscreen. Finally my wife looked over and noticed what I was doing and for the first time, she was extremely impressed!

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As it turns out, it wasn’t about the controller or the interface that really pulled her in, although it didn’t hurt. She was blown away that I was playing this amazing looking game in a waiting room online with various other people. She was blown away that I had basically brought the entire console gaming experience with me on a device that did so much more. You see, the whole time I was trying to impress her with all of the Transformer Prime’s features, I completely overlooked the most impressive part, Nvidia had basically created a make shift gaming console.

With the upcoming introduction of their Tegra 4 handheld console coming soon, it’s hard to not look back at my experience and not see that this was their vision all along. Although I would like to reserve judgment of the Nvidia Shield Device until I hopefully get one in my hands, I feel like I have already seen a sneak peak of what is to come and I am a little excited.

 

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #30969 22 May 2013 18:19
Today we have a look back over a year of tablet use and how my views have changed

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