What are you playing this weekend? No, shut up. I don’t want to hear it. Call up some friends, get them over, tell them to bring snacks and drink, and play Sportsfriends until Fanta drips down your giggling chins. The bundle of J.S Joust and other ace local multiplayer games finally arrived on PC last night, after yonks of only being found at games events (well, and PlayStations, later). They are great and this is what you’re playing this weekend and no, I don’t even want to hear it.
RPS Feature Beyond The Joystick
If I’m going to be dull and reductive about it, playing videogames works like this: we tell a game something through an input device – say, a gamepad, motion contoller, touch screen or keyboard – and get a response back in the form of images or sound. It’s like a conversation, but it’s shaped by the devices we use to talk. Without the Wiimote, there is no Wii Sports. Without the touch screen, there is no Fingle or Bloop.
If I don’t own the relevant controller, then I can’t play these games. But what if the controller doesn’t even exist? Many games are impossible to conceive of because we don’t have the hardware to act as muse. Are we living on a junk diet of gamepads and mice – or a rich land of controller plenty?
Let’s have a chat with a few developers and see wot what they think.
