It has been clear for a while that developers really want to make games for portable platforms that far exceed what can be done with the hardware in terms of actual playability. I realize that that sentence is excruciatingly cumbersome, so let me say it simply with this declaration: I have never played a decent shooter on a portable game system.

All the PC snobs will, at this point, turn up their noses and say that theirs is the only platform that can do shooters properly. Shut up. I don't know if you've ever actually fired a gun, but point-and-click control is like riding a tricycle and pretending it's a jet - way too easy. I wouldn't dare claim that console controls are realistic by any stretch of the imagination, but at least they give a tentative nod to the fact that a firearm doesn't always point exactly where you want it to.

So like I was saying, in order to have the kind of control you need to make shooting work, you need a second thumbstick. Or perhaps I should say that you need two thumbsticks, because that slippery little bastard on the PSP does not count as a first.

Really, the solution here is obvious: Make a portable game system with full console controls. A console controller isn't very big; attach a small screen, a cartridge slot and a battery pack and you are essentially done. Why hasn't this happened?

There seems to be an infuriatingly insular mindset among game hardware developers that portable game systems must be small, smaller, SMALLEST! At first, it just had to fit in a kid's pocket so he could sneak it into class and game away while the teacher obliviously droned on (guilty as charged), but it doesn't even make sense any more. The compulsion is to make a system as small as it can possibly be, and damn the design concessions - no one expects good gameplay from these things anyway, right? Remake the DS, remake the PSP; don't make improvements or anything, just miniaturize them!

WAKE UP! Your core demographic are adults now! We don't need to fit it into our pockets, we just need to fit it into our backpacks. We just want to be able to get our game on when we're not at home with our PC's and consoles. This is a really simple concept. STOP SHRINKING EVERYTHING! Give us some god damn thumbsticks!

Once we see improvements in the hardware, no doubt we will see improvements in the software. It has been many-a-moon since I've seen a portable game that was worth buying. I don't care how ignorant this makes me sound, but I'm tired of reading books whenever I'm bored and away. I've read War and Peace, mother-f***ers. I've had enough. I'm done. Let me play.

[tags: portable gaming, portable systems, ds, psp, war and peace]