Rant-cellphones.

[Terminal Est]

Any fans of Parasite Eve on here? What about Final Fantasy VII, who would have enjoyed playing Before Crisis?

Oh and guess what, for the old school fans...they are making a sequel to Final Fantasy IV.

Bu...THAT'S TOO DAMN BAD YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO PLAY ANY OF IT, BIZNATCH.

Ahem.

I hate cellphones. I totally understand that the video game industry, in order to gain a positive image in society more than it currently holds needs to expend...but I am sick and tired of being denied sequels or spin offs to franchises (I know, I complain about shitty spinoffs all day, shut up.) I have come to love because they are cellphone exclusive. This makes me so sick. The screens are small, and since when does anyone want to play anything with touch tones? What the hell? I can understand that handheld exclusives may anger some folks who do not want to shell out for it just to play a branch of their favourite series...I swallowed the bullet, and am enjoying my PSP and DS. But cellphones is just going too far...I keep missing all these interesting titles because of this, for the games that DO make it here...now; I totally understand that in Japan, this is a total fad, and they appreciate it because of the society's hectic pace, but my words still stand.
Companies know this...we never did get Before Crisis over here...in fact, our current cellphone technology is like retarded compared to Japan, where cells are big...our best version could not even manage a three year old game. So, most of these games we never DO see over here...but I still complain, because were they to be put on a different format, everyone knows we would buy them all.

Anyways. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Having to buy better versions of your cellphone and pay monthly fees is ass. Are these games meant to be merely time killers, or are they really putting deep and significant titles on these? How the Devil does one play Street Fighter on a cellphone???

Does this rant justify the cause? Are cellphone games something we would enjoy, or am I doin it rong? What the hell happened with televisions? Am I just a lonely old cat lady?

[Son of Sephiroth]

I just find phone games to be time wasters for wiating for a train and whatnot. It will never come close to be of the scope and scale of even our handheld titles.

[JET73L]

I like cell phone games, as long as they are actually decently made. None of this "You must travel down the hallway, and walk around the evil guard, to save the pincess!" stuff. That's just trying to get more more money. However, if a game is actually worth playing (like one of the better chess games out there, or a pretty good computer Scrabble game, or a classic like Galaga or that cell phone port of Legend of Zelda that was going around a while back), I will want to play it... the problem, however, is with the phones.
We in America, or Canada or England or Holland, cannot play the cell phone games such as Before Crisis that are made for two or three different types of mobiles in Japan. The few games tha do make it to the staes, most people can't play because they are made "console specific," despite that, with cell phones as opposed to game consoles, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of currently in-use "consoles" (different types of cell phones that won't play games with the wrong screen format or without the line of code that says "play on the LG XD-36 000 000 000," or whatever phone you have. I really think the mobile phone industries could do better to have some more uniformity, so that individual phones wouldn't be competing within the same company.

So, anyway, that's my opinion on this. I can clarify, or reply to later responses, but that's all for now.
(although, I wouldn't mind a petition to make cell phone games available for more phones more often)

[MidgarFanatic]

Originally Posted by Terminal

I hate cellphones.

Haha… I guess all of this doesn’t even matter to you though if you don’t even have a cellphone, or refuse to even buy one. But trust me I don’t blame you; for me they are an evil necessity.

Like a lot of people these days, I find that I have become somewhat attached to my cellphone. I do not necessarily enjoy it, but I live alone so it is my only form of communication with the outside world. Because I do not have a landline, my cell phone is my only conventional phone number… so basically what I am saying is that I take it with me everywhere, like a tumor I guess.

So I have been interested in watching the attempts at adding services to the modern cellphone. The traditional voicemail is of course always welcome, but I also like the fact that you can now store music on them, negating the use of carrying around an iPod device, the “other” shiny new item.

It guess it’s obvious, at least in North America, that the cellular technology here is severely lagging behind the Asian market. They just go ape sh*t for this stuff in Japan. From what I understand of the culture there, cellphone games are very popular and many people (especially younger users) can get totally obsessed with them. Remember Tamagotchi? I suppose in markets outside of Asia, these kinds of fads just dont tend to stick around for very long. So I think the expense outweighs the predicted public interest required for sustainable development.

But I would love to play several of these games. Of course Before Crisis has always been an attraction, but I am also really interested in this FFIV remake as well... being the "old schooler" that I am. *wink*

My guess is that one day they will release most of these titles on different consoles, most likely a portable. Take this into account… the upcoming FFXIII Agito was originally going to be a cellphone exclusive, and they are now making it a PSP release instead. Maybe this alludes to some crossover potential? But anyways, I foresee some alternative portable ports of many of these cellphone games in the future. I just hate having to wait so long for it… blargh.

*Cait Sith runs away with my iPhone*