Modojo: Take the DDF Challenge

Some time ago the losers over at Modojo(Google it yourself, chumps) issued a challenge regarding internets perception of cellular telephone games.

Mobile games don't suck, and we can prove it.

And that's where I stopped reading. There are many things wrong with the article, and I will systematically point them out and humiliate its author.


First, and this is probably the most obvious problem with their position, is that Cellular Telephone games do indeed suck. They're basically Tiger games in colour. You remember those, right? They were as much fun as my doctor visit after I met your mom. "B-b-b-but DDF wot about Metul Guers Salad and Sod of Whore and and and..." No. The games suck on consoles and they suck more on telephones. You know what else sucks? All the other games on telephones which are basically just blatent ripoffs of games that already exist. What is it about owning one of these devices where you feel good about forking over cash to people who have just copied someone else's hard work and development? Perhaps we'll answer that next.


Secondly, cellular telephones are for losers. Seriously, if your job doesn't make you have one, then you shouldn't have one. What's so bad about them? Well, it's more or less a socially fashionable collar and leash, for one. There's also that horrible movie Cellular. In fact, movies as a whole have been ruined by the proliferation and near ubiquitousness of the infernal devices. from the films themselves to jerks in the cinema who talk on them or let them ring. When was the last time you were yelled at by strangers in a library/theatre/lecture/museum/concert/meeting/funeral for not talking on/having a ringing telephone? I rest my case. P.S. I also hear they shoot cancer waves into your brain through the ears.


Thirdly, there the problem of a phone as an input device.



You seriously expect me to use this to have any sort of meaningful control over whatever lame program is passing itself off as a game on that tiny screen? That's almost as absurd as using this to eat food.

Yeah, I went there. So even if the games didn't suck, which they do, and even if cellular telephones were not for losers, which they are, there's the basic issue of useablility which is totally glossed over by the mobile apologists. The number pad sucked for the Intellivision, it sucked for the Jaguar, it sucks on the PC and it sucks twice as bad on carcinogenic telephones --because they're twice as small.


So what's with Modojo's zealous pushing of these subpar games? I smell kickbacks.


Here's the DDF challenge. When you get the urge to waste money on some lame bejeweled clone, where the jewels are replaced with crude approximations of the cast of Moesha's faces, here's what you do. Take that money, head down to your local Goodwill, buy an old Tiger game, and realise that somehow, despite having broken buttens and a cracked screen, it's actually more of a game and more fun than anything on your precious mobile. Plus you'll have money left over to buy some John Denver records.


DDF's note: The picture I used of a Nokia phone does not in any way imply my endorsement of their phones. Nokia, like all cellular telephone manufacturers sucks. Thank you.