Screen Time for Vice City

Last week I got myself an MFI controller to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on my iPad.

Spoiler: It was surprisingly good!

A couple of years back I finished the main story of San Andreas using only touch controls. It was pretty awkward, but the game was playable overall. But forward to last week when I was catching up with its (harder?) predecessor Vice City, I got stuck on the mission “Demolition Man”1.

It turns out, the iPad Pro is not enough of a computer to let you play using a keyboard. What about a DualShock controller? Despite them working perfectly on macOS, they aren’t supported on iOS. Enter the lost and forgotten world of MFI controllers.

The Internet pointed me to the SteelSeries Nimbus and I gotta say, it’s fantastic. It has a good grip, sturdy construction and weight, and great thumbsticks2. It comes with a Lighting port and pressure sensitive buttons—something I haven’t seen in any console, ever.

Next up: Liberty City Stories.

  1. You are in control of an RC helicopter on a time limit. ↩

  2. Sadly, MFI support for clickly thumbsticks came just recently with iOS 12.1 ↩