Notices

I'm so cheesed off at Nokia — here they are, designing the coolest Linux tablet ever with an awesome combination of features for the price, and they failed to add a couple of buttons on the right side for playing games! Such buttons add essentially zero cost to a gadget like this, and would have made it far better for console-style gaming.

(And yes, I'm aware of the GP2X, but it seems to lack both the pen digitizer and WiFi, making it far less useful for other things... I'm cheesed off at them too! )

So. Given the hardware as it is, how is it as a game controller? Does the d-pad on the left work well as a joystick (e.g. PacMan or Q-bert)? Any thoughts on how you would play something requiring a couple of buttons as well (e.g. Mario Bros)?

Thanks,
- Joe

"So. Given the hardware as it is, how is it as a game controller? Does the d-pad on the left work well as a joystick (e.g. PacMan or Q-bert)?"

I haven't played with a device yet, but according to the game development tips on maemo.org the directional pad isn't so hot for gaming: "Avoid using the 4 way rocker for fast and complex movements. It's not well suited for gaming, and there's no diagonal."

Well, it's really not too bad for certain games. For instance the maemoblocks (tetris) game is rather playable, providing that you remove the cover first.

But yeah, it's clearly not designed for serious gameplay.

i guess people are going to have to be more creative by using games designed more for the stylus than anything else.

Just enough to squeeze all the functionally of the n770

The d-pad is absolutely, unequivocably, horrible! The switches have a bit of tension so there's a dull click when you push on it. When the protective cover is slid behind the device you can't push left on the d-pad easily (they lowered the edge a bit but it's still in the way). About the only button that works fine for games is the select button in the center of the d-pad.

The only game I played where the interface wasn't half bad was free-civ... Doom was a valiant try and it's rather playable... both were a little buggy for me, enough that I wouldn't play them much. (Freeciv switched my human player to A.I. so I got to watch the computer ruin my empire... which was fine since I couldn't figure out how to attack anyway)

for playing games, I'd suggest a bluetooth gamepad.

I'd also humbly suggest chaos strikes back has a nice usable interface and nobody has posted any bugs yet!!

I'm getting to it, I swear I need to wait until the GF is working a night shift so I'm not scolded... but then I can play an hour a day during the commute