Mobile gaming on smartphones and tablets has come a long way over the last decade. They now offer a much more detailed and immersive gaming experience. Look at first-person shooters like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Mobile, compared with early 2D, side-on games like Angry Birds.
Are modern mobile games finally as good as their bigger cousins released for consoles and computers?
Shrinking the Device
Video games were once played on giant machines bigger than a human. These arcade devices contained huge processing units specially designed for gaming which were able to run for a long time. While the large size of arcade games is part of their styling, it was also necessary to provide enough cooling to the bulky electronics inside.
By the 1980s, many consumer games consoles and personal computers were available to buy, allowing video game fans enjoy their favorite titles at home. These 8-bit devices were immensely popular, with leading devices being the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, and the Atari 7800.
It was these consoles that saw the release of titles that are still popular today, including Tetris, Super Mario and Zelda.
At the same time, the first handhelds were hitting the market. They were nothing like what we know today, with tiny monochrome displays, primitive games and clunky controls. Nintendo changed things when it released the Game Boy in 1989, with Tetris being its flagship launch title.
Later iterations of Nintendo handhelds helped to define the handheld category, with each release getting more powerful. The latest of these was the 3DS, which offers two full-color screens and 3D effect graphics, all in a lightweight format that can fit into your pocket.
Mobile Gaming
While portable consoles like the Game Boy and 3DS made it possible for people to play games on the go, they are dedicated devices used only for gaming. True mobile gaming comes from playing on a device you carry with you anyway; your smartphone.
Early games were basic, limited severely by the processing power of the first few generations of iPhone and Android devices. This changed rapidly when older console games like Driver, and the PlayStation 2 version of Grand Theft Auto, were released for iOS and Android.
More recently, games have been released on mobile devices at the same time as console/PC releases. Many of these titles offer cross-platform play, allowing you to compete with friends from your mobile while they play from their console or computer.
Minecraft, Fortnite, and Old School Runescape are all examples of games that can be played between mobile and PC. In these cases, mobile gaming really is as good as playing them on a console or computer.
Cut Out Features of Mobile Games
Sometimes though, mobile games have features removed or graphics toned down to make them run on a mobile device. This is to be expected. Even a dedicated gaming phone doesn’t have the same processing power as a PlayStation 4.
Call of Duty: Mobile contains the majority of the features found in the latest console version, but some are removed, like the “Realism” and “Ground War” modes. Additionally, touchscreen controls make it difficult to quickly pull out your knife or switch between weapons.
Some games don’t need to cut out features for their mobile versions. You can see this most with online casino and card games that are available in both desktop and mobile versions. In most cases, players will get access to the same features on their mobile device as they do on their computer. You can see this with PokerStars, whose mobile app gives access to the same ring games and tournaments as its desktop software, but with the added convenience of being able to play on the go.
Microtransactions
Many gamers dislike microtransactions because they can corrupt the playing experience and promote a “pay to win” model that can be frustrating. They feature more prominently in mobile games because they are usually “free to play”, rather than the traditional model of paying upfront for the game.
Microtransactions can negatively affect the mobile gaming experience. It’s difficult to say whether they stop a mobile game from being as good as a console game, because some players like the customization elements. Microtransactions are now also appearing in blockbuster console titles, including FIFA and NBA 2K releases.
Overall though, mobile games are now closer to the experience of PC and console games than they have ever been. It’s unlikely that the graphics will ever be on par with the most up to date title, but the ever-increasing power of smartphones is closing the gap.