With smartphone games, downtime becomes a pastime

All right, fess up, people. Have you never played a game on your cellphone? Really? I'm here to let you know you can come out of the closet now.

It's OK if you're, say, a middle-aged woman who harbors a secret obsession with mastering "Angry Birds." I know there are a lot of you out there. It's perfectly acceptable now if your co-workers or children find out. Or maybe you're an office worker whose commute or lunch break simply isn't complete without a few (dozen) rounds of "BrickBreaker." Oh yes, your numbers are legion.

We're pretty much all gamers now, and with all respect to Facebook and the Wii, the prime driver of gaming's new ubiquity is the proliferation of smartphones. Almost everyone takes a phone everywhere now, and almost all of those phones can run some decent games.

Of course, any phone can talk and text, so when people are choosing a phone they are generally considering two things: the network and the available applications. The best network for you depends mainly on where you live and where you travel, and now that the iPhone is available for both AT&T and Verizon, you can make those choices more independently.

But when most people think about applications, what they're really thinking about are games. As of early June, the top 14-selling applications on Apple's iPhone App Store are all games. (The Android and BlackBerry markets are different, as we will explain.)

But which phones are best for games? And what are some of the best games available? To find out, I asked Apple, Google (which makes Android) and Research in Motion (the company behind BlackBerry), to send me their latest and greatest phones. Sorry, Microsoft, Windows didn't make the cut this time. The three companies also sent their latest tablets.

For phones, Apple sent the iPhone 4 on Verizon (list price up to $699 without a contract commitment, also available for AT&T), Google provided the Samsung Nexus S on T-Mobile (about $530, also available for Sprint and in a low-speed mode on AT&T) and RIM provided the BlackBerry Torch 9800 on AT&T ($549.99, no other carriers).

All of the devices were new to me. As a full-time video game writer I actually have not been steeped in mobile gadgetry over the last few years. I work at home and spend so many hours playing video games in my house that I don't usually want to bury my head in a screen when I go out. My main phone is an extremely dumb old flip-top that I like because it is durable and the battery lasts for days. (The big problem with any of the fanciest smartphones is that if you use them at all intensively the battery is usually dead within 24 hours.)

After a few weeks of use at home and on the road, I came away with a fresh appreciation for all three systems. They are much more different from one another than I expected, and their distinct appeal is clear. Games are a part of that, but not the whole story.

Source:- http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/with-smartphone-games-downtime-becomes-a-pastime/articleshow/8785967.cms


Thanks & Regards,
Ankit Wani
Summer Intern @ DENIP Consultant Pvt Ltd.