Both the Nintendo DS and the PSP promise to bring you a better portable gaming experience. However, games for both of these systems have design features that make them more attuned to a console game than a portable one. First of all, there are some key differences between portable gaming and console gaming. The most obvious difference is that portable games are not as technologically advanced as consoles are in terms of graphics and sound. While that is the most obvious difference, I would argue the biggest difference is the amount of time you have to play. People playing console games usually are able to play for at least a few hours at a time, whereas people playing portable games are usually in a situation where they don't have a long block of time to play.

This brings me to Lumines, one of the best games on the PSP. A player that has played Lumines for a little bit and gotten good at is able to play the Challenge mode (the main single-player mode) for about an hour and a half before being in any real danger of losing. For the player, that hour and a half is pretty much a waste of time. It's fine for a novice player that hasn't grasped the game yet, but if I know what I'm doing, and it's going to take me a few hours to play a single game of Lumines, there aren't many situations where I would be able to play a full game. It is possible for you to pause the game and put the PSP in sleep mode, but then you're obligated to remember to finish your game later. A better option for the player would be the ability to increase the difficulty level, so you could skip that hour and a half you would be otherwise forced to play through and go straight to a difficulty that would be competitive for you.

Now let's move to Meteos for the Nintendo DS. This is one of the highest rated games for the system, and those ratings are not unfounded either. Not only is the game fun, but there are plenty of things to unlock, and you become closer to unlocking these with every meteo you can force to fly off the lower screen. This is great for a portable game, because whether you play it for an hour at a time, or just a few minutes, you are always working toward unlocking new things. The only problem with Meteos as a portable game comes from the need to have precision with the touch screen. Needing precision with a touch screen becomes a big problem if you play this game (and most other DS games for that matter) in a place where portable games are often played: in a moving car. When you're playing a game using the old D-pad and buttons, if you hit a few bumps in the road, it won't affect your playing too much. But if you are playing a game that requires some precision with the touch screen and you hit a bump in the road, it can effectively lose the game you've got going, and this has happened to me with Meteos. This doesn't mean that the touch screen is useless when you're inside a car. Kirby Canvas Curse requires less precision, and it is very playable in a car as a result.

Both Lumines and Meteos are fun games, and will rightly be remembered as classics for their respective systems. But these games each ignore a fundamental rule of portable gaming: you should be able to play for a short amount of time and accomplish something (Lumines), and that you should be able to play anywhere (Meteos). Remembering where players will be playing and how long they will have to play are important to consider when designing any game, whether it's portable, console, PC, mobile, or arcade.

Note: views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's and are not necessarily those of Wolverine Soft.