TooNice
Not unexpected, but sad trend. Okay, so it's just one gaming medium being replaced by another, but so far I am *still* woefully underwhelmed by iOS/Android gaming. “Free” games are usually either ads supported or Freemium aka “Pay to win” or “Grind your life away”. Now, I am not as bothered by ads supported games as I am by Freemium games, but the quality of those games simply do not compare with a *good* handheld game. Since I have limited gaming time anyway, I'd rather pay £40 for a quality game, over a collection of 100 grind-tastic freemium games.
The problem isn't really the hardware of tablets (which, I assume are more powerful than most handheld consoles, if not initially then certainly after a while). It's not even the OS. The controller is an issue for certain games (a PS3/360 controller is pretty much the size of a handheld console, and you need to take that on top of the tablet if you want to game on the go), but that's not even the biggest issue for me. I want games with a compelling story and gameplay that evolve as I progress, and I find those very lacking iOS/Android.
I'm first going to agree with that comment about the desirability of paying your £40 for a “quality game” rather than a collection of in-app-purchase dross. Trouble is that there's quite a lot of £40 titles that aren't “quality games” - and yes, I do mean you CoD:Ghosts!
The rest I'm not so sure of. You talk about ad-supported and “freemium” (which I'm assuming means those “lovely” in-app-purchase ones), but you don't mention anything about paid-for games - cheapskate! <grin> From experience I know that there's a few of those paid-for titles that - while still being way under your £40 benchmark - are actually good value for money. I'm a fan of tower defence stuff, so maybe I'm easily pleased. There's a case for that old cliché about getting what you paid for perhaps? I'd recommend the Humble Bundle stuff - been some pretty good titles, perhaps something like Breach and Clear or Catan would appeal to you? Galaxy on Fire (HD)'s not bad for an Elite type experience, although it's quite a short campaign.
The “compelling story and gameplay that evolves as I progress” I'm also not so sure of. The “compelling story” is definitely do-able, and I've seen a couple of reviews stating that the game did try and ramp up difficulty. But are you perhaps trying to compare a tablet game to a full PC (/console?) one rather than to a “mere” handheld device? If so, then there's definitely a resource issue - that of storage. DS's etc have their cartridges, consoles have DVD's and PC's disks. The tablet on the other hand has very limited internal storage. Just spot checked a few PC games and typically you're looking at 30GB storage and above for a PC game. Now a tablet implementation won't be that “lardy”, but even so if you assume a tablet edition was 1/3 the size then you're still at the point where two games has blown all the storage on that tablet.
Story also did say “UK children” and if my two are anything to go by then the gaming equivalent of War & Peace would leave them cold and have them going back to Candy Krush after a few minutes. Attention span of a gnat, and an impatient one at that.
Ttaskmaster
I have personal issues with controllers, too, but that's more to do with having knackered hands.
Seems whichever kind I try, the only thing that ever really works for the sorts of games I want to play is my lovely M&KB.
Hmm, I wonder if there's a way to remap to keyboard and mouse on those tablets that support them (Microsoft Surface etc, Asus Transformer series).
DanceswithUnix
It the PC old enough to count as a “Traditional Toy” yet?
You know you're not up with the “kidz” when someone looks at your desktop setup and on seeing your 23"+ monitor wonders out loud what possessed you to buy a tablet so large that you need a stand for it! (Overheard in PC World)