Date played: June 20th
Platform: Vita
Time played: 180 minutes
Session fun rating: 10/10
I bought a Playstation Vita! A local store had a deal with two free games with the purchase of the Vita, Uncharted Golden Abyss and Wipeout 2048. I am a HUGE Wipeout fan and I like Uncharted so I thought, hey why not? The first thing I'll say is that the Vita is a high tech device and it shows. It's fucking slick, it's fast and the 5 inch OLED display is simply stunning. I spent most of my time just setting up the thing, checking the settings, tying my PSN account, downloading apps and just kind of messing with it.
The first thing I did was something that no game journalists really talked about as far as I know, a thing called Welcome Park. It's essentially five or six mini-games that act as tutorials. While not really fun, they did show me the cool features of the Vita like it's multitouch display, back touch pad, microphone, motion sensors and cameras. The Welcome Park game even has trophies!One thing that is apparent right away is that the 3DS is cheap hardware. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love playing on 3DS but the hardware is slow as hell compared to this thing.
The apps are great, I downloaded Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and Skype, all of which work great and are all easier to use than on my Android phone. I also customized my home screen which is closer to a phone interface than a game system interface. It's all touch based too, the buttons are only really used in games and some apps. I made sure to connect my Vita to my PS3 for remote play but just as on PSP, there doesn't seem to be much to do on it. There's also a thing called "near" which is a way to see what players close to me have been playing. It's pretty cool but with WiFi only, it will have limited use I think. I think one of the best features of the Vita is it's amazing ability to multitask. It takes less than 3 seconds to get out of an application and start another one. It's really impressive, better than my 3DS, PS3, 360, only rivaled by my Android phone.
I didn't even know this, but the Vita also comes with some AR cards, just like 3DS. There are only a few games that support it but they are free on PSN so I downloaded all I could find for free. I have a 16GB card so for now, I have plenty of room. I only tried out a Resistance statue thing that was really boring and useless but looked cool. I also tried a Fireworks game that was actually pretty fun. It's basically Fantavision but in augmented reality. I spent a good 15 minutes playing that and see myself playing it again. There are others but I haven't had a chance to try them yet.
In the end, I finally tried Uncharted and Wipeout after all the patches were done. Uncharted looks great and plays a lot like, well, Uncharted. The dual sticks work well but are a bit sensitive and make aiming a bit difficult. I turned on auto-aim and turned off all the motion sensor stuff and already, the game was better. I only fought a few guys but it's clear that this is going to be a good game, even if it feels closer to the first game than it's amazing sequels.
Wipeout looks amazing and moves real fast. Since I already bought Wipeout HD and it's Fury pack add on, I also got to download those for free for Vita. I haven't really had a chance to play it properly but I know I'm going to love this game, I just can't resist the Wipeout series, I even liked Fusion on PS2. I'm really excited about the Vita, it seems to be a great device so far, I just hope that good games keep coming out on it.
Platform: Vita
Time played: 180 minutes
Session fun rating: 10/10
I bought a Playstation Vita! A local store had a deal with two free games with the purchase of the Vita, Uncharted Golden Abyss and Wipeout 2048. I am a HUGE Wipeout fan and I like Uncharted so I thought, hey why not? The first thing I'll say is that the Vita is a high tech device and it shows. It's fucking slick, it's fast and the 5 inch OLED display is simply stunning. I spent most of my time just setting up the thing, checking the settings, tying my PSN account, downloading apps and just kind of messing with it.
 |
| The interface is slick |
The first thing I did was something that no game journalists really talked about as far as I know, a thing called Welcome Park. It's essentially five or six mini-games that act as tutorials. While not really fun, they did show me the cool features of the Vita like it's multitouch display, back touch pad, microphone, motion sensors and cameras. The Welcome Park game even has trophies!One thing that is apparent right away is that the 3DS is cheap hardware. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love playing on 3DS but the hardware is slow as hell compared to this thing.
The apps are great, I downloaded Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and Skype, all of which work great and are all easier to use than on my Android phone. I also customized my home screen which is closer to a phone interface than a game system interface. It's all touch based too, the buttons are only really used in games and some apps. I made sure to connect my Vita to my PS3 for remote play but just as on PSP, there doesn't seem to be much to do on it. There's also a thing called "near" which is a way to see what players close to me have been playing. It's pretty cool but with WiFi only, it will have limited use I think. I think one of the best features of the Vita is it's amazing ability to multitask. It takes less than 3 seconds to get out of an application and start another one. It's really impressive, better than my 3DS, PS3, 360, only rivaled by my Android phone.
I didn't even know this, but the Vita also comes with some AR cards, just like 3DS. There are only a few games that support it but they are free on PSN so I downloaded all I could find for free. I have a 16GB card so for now, I have plenty of room. I only tried out a Resistance statue thing that was really boring and useless but looked cool. I also tried a Fireworks game that was actually pretty fun. It's basically Fantavision but in augmented reality. I spent a good 15 minutes playing that and see myself playing it again. There are others but I haven't had a chance to try them yet.
In the end, I finally tried Uncharted and Wipeout after all the patches were done. Uncharted looks great and plays a lot like, well, Uncharted. The dual sticks work well but are a bit sensitive and make aiming a bit difficult. I turned on auto-aim and turned off all the motion sensor stuff and already, the game was better. I only fought a few guys but it's clear that this is going to be a good game, even if it feels closer to the first game than it's amazing sequels.
Wipeout looks amazing and moves real fast. Since I already bought Wipeout HD and it's Fury pack add on, I also got to download those for free for Vita. I haven't really had a chance to play it properly but I know I'm going to love this game, I just can't resist the Wipeout series, I even liked Fusion on PS2. I'm really excited about the Vita, it seems to be a great device so far, I just hope that good games keep coming out on it.
