Opinion: I don't want to play BioShock on my iPhone

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"If you're playing the movie on a telephone, you will never in a trillion years experience the film.

"You'll think you have experienced it, but you'll be cheated. It's such a sadness that you think you've seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real."

Those are the words of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director David Lynch, speaking out against the idea of watching a movie on a smartphone's postage-stamp-sized screen.

But he could just as easily be talking about playing a cinematic game on mobile. A game like philosophical underwater epic BioShock, which is to make the lateral move to iPhone and iPad sometime this year.

But do you really want to play such a game on such a device?

Sure, shooters can work fine on phones. Modern Combat 5 is proof of that. But BioShock isn't really about shooting, and blasting gene splicers and setting up traps to down a Big Daddy represents a tiny fraction of what Bioshock is all about.

BioShock is really about the world. It's about descending into a surreal underwater city, exploring a rich and imaginative Art Deco metropolis, and playing archeologist in a dystopian nightmare.

Intricate details like delightful posters and subtle props are lost in the small screen, and bombastic action set pieces lose their edge when displayed in miniature. An iPhone is definitely too small, but is an iPad even big enough to showcase Rapture properly?

There's the sound, too. The scene-setting '50s soundtrack, the rambling of the splicers, and the iconic audio diaries that have been scattered about by long dead denizens of rapture.

And the whale-like yell of a Big Daddy and the haunting chants of the Little Sister and director Ken Levine's cameo as the vending machine voice-box that says "Welcome to the Circus of Vaaaaluuue!"

Using those crappy Apple earbuds would be like smearing Vaseline over the screen, but will big cans suffice when you're surrounded by the noise of the public?

And there's the controls. The virtual controls are a bit rubbish, basically, and having to juggle health, EVE, weapons, and plasmids with make believe buttons was about as much fun as taking a Big Daddy's drill to the testicles.

So you'll definitely want to invest in one of those MFi controllers.

All this means means to get even close to experiencing BioShock the way it was meant to be played you're somehow balancing an iPad on a table, while using a mediocre controller, and wearing giant headphones.

Not exactly the portability and convenience promised by mobile gaming, is it?

And besides, you'll want to turn out the lights to set the right ambience and amp up those scary bits. And you definitely don't want to be disturbed by fellow passengers during an important story beat, so maybe you should just play it at home.

And at that this point, you might as well just play in on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, or Mac. The graphics will be a whole lot better, too. And it's only like six quid down at CEX.

Ultimately, it's great that we can experience media on practically any device we want. But as famed dinosaur hunter Jeff Goldblum once said, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

I can watch movies on my iPhone or iPad with Netflix, but it feels wrong to watch a film on such a small screen when it was made with 10 metre tall cinema displays in mind. You as well get as close as possible with a 40-odd-inch TV.

And in the same way, I have no desire to play BioShock on iOS when it was clearly made for controllers, headphones or surround sound speakers, a big TV, and a few hours of isolation.

I just hope developers aren't planning on using the extra oomph of Tegra K1 processors and Apple's Metal tech and Unreal Engine 4 to bring console-style games to phones.

Especially when some of the best games on iPhone - from Threes! to Ridiculous Fishing to DEVICE 6 - are so wonderfully primitive in their visuals.

And I'm not against console and PC ports. But publishers need to think carefully about which games to bring over. 2K made the right choice to bring XCOM: Enemy Unknown to iPad, but BioShock simply isn't the right fit.

Now Civilization V? That could work…