Professor E. Gadd
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2012
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- Wii U
Amazon's Fire TV is continuing to make news headlines because of its cheap price tag and good ecosystem for movies and music, but many people are missing the fact that it's also an Android box that plays a large library of Android games, which is a very attractive option compared to playing the same games on phones or tablets. Android has been getting ports of old "retro" games for a while now, but most of these ports don't exactly have a mass following. It looks like Amazon is about to change that with the Fire TV.
Why is Fire TV better? Because it has a dedicated gamepad, which, let's admit it, works much better for most games than touch screens do. I tried Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on my friend's Fire TV, and it felt amazing. Granted, the graphics are very dated, and it feels weird to see pixelated Sonic sprites blown up on a huge HDTV, but as far as the controls go, no touch control scheme can beat a physical game controller. This is the closest feeling I've had to playing Sonic on a real Genesis.
Because built-in storage is limited on most set-top boxes, including Fire TV, I don't see big games being ported to these platforms. But several high-profile games, including GTA San Andreas are already available on Fire TV, and they look and play great. Do you really think you need a 30GB Blu-ray disc to enjoy the latest in gaming? I don't. If anything, those games just take forever to load, and game size rarely adds much to the actual gameplay experience. I really look forward to exploring more gaming on this box and will probably fork over the $99 and buy it very soon.
Why is Fire TV better? Because it has a dedicated gamepad, which, let's admit it, works much better for most games than touch screens do. I tried Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on my friend's Fire TV, and it felt amazing. Granted, the graphics are very dated, and it feels weird to see pixelated Sonic sprites blown up on a huge HDTV, but as far as the controls go, no touch control scheme can beat a physical game controller. This is the closest feeling I've had to playing Sonic on a real Genesis.
Because built-in storage is limited on most set-top boxes, including Fire TV, I don't see big games being ported to these platforms. But several high-profile games, including GTA San Andreas are already available on Fire TV, and they look and play great. Do you really think you need a 30GB Blu-ray disc to enjoy the latest in gaming? I don't. If anything, those games just take forever to load, and game size rarely adds much to the actual gameplay experience. I really look forward to exploring more gaming on this box and will probably fork over the $99 and buy it very soon.
