Inaction Shot from Double Dragon
The old classic bashy game, Double Dragon, was recently released for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). It’s on sale for a low low introductory rate of $3.99; it will go up to $7.99 eventually.
The game, as you’d expect, hasn’t changed much from the original version. There’s a manual version that gives “advanced players” lots of control, and an automatic version that auto-combos for inexperienced players. The automatic version doesn’t let you do some of the more powerful combos, though.
It's awfully hard to point yourself in the right direction.
The controls, unfortunately, don’t make it easy. Frankly, they suck. The lack of a physical d-pad makes it really, really hard to figure out what you’re doing in a twitchy sort of game, and I had all sorts of trouble just trying to point myself in the right direction.
Running was very inconsistent; attacking was very inconsistent. I found myself unable to reliably hit the buttons that I needed to hit. Now, keep in mind, I wasn’t any good at Double Dragon when it was first released on the NES and I’m still no good now, but between my lack of skill and my utter inability to use the controls, my attempt to play was an abject failure.
It's not entirely obvious which button you should hit to start playing.
There’s more to the suck, however–the rest of the user interface is pretty terrible, too. Buttons are small, although at least they’re spaced out; they use the tried-and-failed approach of two presses: one to select, one to confirm. It’s not at all obvious from the home screen which button to hit: gamers with retro experience will probably figure out what “Mode Select” means, but anyone else will probably be really confused.
Once you’re in the game, there’s a move list. That’s good! Double Dragon has officially entered the 21st century of video games. They’ve even made it so that you can swipe up and down the list–a usability victory to be sure.
This doesn't work the way you think it should.
But even where the developers decided to modernize the game, they didn’t do a good job–the move list scrolls in the wrong direction when you swipe up or down! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s quite unique.
There are a few other gripes; there are a lot of loading screens. It’s not usually a horrible thing: they’re usually pretty fast. My iPod Touch’s screen is small, of course, so the game can get pretty hard to see at times. The d-pad and buttons cover up the screen, which makes it really hard to figure out where dropped weapons are in certain areas. And I’ve had loading screens crash on me, although not frequently.
Are you sure you want to find Willy?
If you are a big fan of the iconic games, it makes a lot of sense to buy this. The dialogue is as cheesy as ever, the action (if you can make it work) is good, and the difficulty is reasonably high, like with most games of its vintage. If you’re generally good with other touchscreen d-pads, this may be no worse than what you’re already used to.
But for the rest of us, it’s awfully hard to recommend this game. Double Dragon is as good as ever, but everything else about this port–the controls, the HUD, the interface–it’s all a depressing failure.
The game might still be a success in one sense, though. Playing this game really drove home the point that there are a lot of games that could benefit from dedicated controllers like the Xperia PLAY will purportedly have. There are other devices, like the Pandora Handheld, that already have these controls built-in. If you want to play Double Dragon, get an emulator and one of these handhelds. You’ll have a lot more fun.