PSoneclassics.com

PSoneclassics.com

Garry Gaber was a Lucas Arts employee working with some of my favourite games ever. He worked on Star Wars Shadows of the Empire for the N64, and Star Wars Dark Forces 2 Jedi Knight. Now with his own studio out of Austin Texas he’s working to build a space combat game in the vein of X-wing Vs. Tie Fighter (another favourite of mine), and most importantly release it on both the PC and the Vita.

He’s started a Kickstarter for the game, and the word needs to get out! They’re about 1/3rd of the way there, and for only 15 bucks you get a free digital copy of the game either on PC or PSVita, so get out there and start kickstarting!

Here’s the link to the Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/732317316/starlight-inceptiontm

Oh well, at least it wasn’t on a weekend like it was last time, hopefully some new features come out of it.

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There is no box art, so... Here

Once again another PS Vita launch title is being reviewed, I was lucky enough to grab a free copy of this from a nice person on reddit. Super StarDust Delta is the Vita version of Super Stardust HD on the PS3, that I received free from Sony during the whole PSN hack episode. I have probably played this game on the PS3 about 10 minutes total. And to start with the Vita version I actually wasn’t that interested in it until I started to figure my way around the controls and then… well… Continue reading and you’ll find out.

Gameplay

Super StarDust Delta is a twin stick shooter in the most classic sense. Move with the left stick shoot with the right, it’s a basic concept but it still feels great, and the Vita’s analog sticks do a great job of keeping the action moving smoothly. You’re charged with destroying different types of asteroids that are flying around different planets, these could be made of Ice, or Rock, so you have to switch between different weapons to be more effective. These can be upgraded with pick ups you get from destroying special green asteroids. You get another few weapons as well like the charge (triggered with the left shoulder button), which turns on a temporary shield and rams your target, Missiles which shoot out around out in a large circle to help you when you’re surrounded (triggered by the front touch screen), and a Black Hole, triggered by the back touch screen which spins the asteroids around the center for easy targeting (you can also chose where you want the black hole to go by dragging your hand on the back pad, it’s really easy to trigger this one by accident though).

Points!

The main difficulty in this game is the shear amount of things on screen at once, you’ll be fighting not only asteroids, but other enemies, like ships trying to kamikaze themselves on your hull, explosive charges that follow you, and big scary bosses at the end of every level that are all a ton of fun. You have to figure out your strategy for each boss, but you won’t be tearing your hair out, and overall the gameplay is fun, engaging and not cheap.

There are tons of extra mini games and alternate control options included in the game as well (especially if you buy it with the Blast pack that adds on even more content).

Graphics

There is a lot of colour in this game

This game is beautiful, not only do the colours pop on screen but it runs really smooth. One gripe I have about the presentation though is how the camera moves when you’re playing. The levels are a little too big for the Vita, so to look down or up you have to use the accelerometer in the device to change your view. It feels a little off to me to say the least, and it prevents you from lets say, playing while in bed if you don’t sit upright.

That little gripe aside, the graphics are bright and run well, the music is good, and everything is easy to see on screen, so you don’t get jumped by a barely visible foe. There’s not too much that could wrong on this one, considering they just had to update the same graphics from the PS3 Version, and nothing did, the OLED screen also helps a lot to have those colours pop.

Should you buy Super StarDust Delta?

One of Super Stardust Delta's bosses

Absolutely yes. this past week alone I’ve replayed the the arcade mission through at least ten times to improve my score and get up on the worldwide highscore lists. It takes the place that Everyday Shooter had for me on the original PSP, that is to say, an addictive, engaging and fun experience, that you can pick up and play without having to invest hours and hours into. The graphics are great and the gameplay is very solid. This should keep you entertained for a while.

Super Stardust Delta is a great launch title for the Vita, and will stay on my system for a long time.

8.5/10

Just last week, the Sony Bend PSP games, also known as the best shooters to ever be released on the platform were removed from the Playstation store. This included Resistance Retribution, Syphon Filter Logan’s Shadow and Syphon Filter Dark Mirror. Why they were removed is a mystery at this point, put most educated guesses point to the same reason MotorStorm Arctic Edge was removed, that there was some glitch in the software that allowed you to load a PSP emulator onto the PSVita.

I don’t blame Sony for removing that possibility for piracy, but still these games were some of the best on the PSP, and I was hoping to at least play through Resistance Retribution at some point on my Vita. (Maybe Motorstorm Arctic Edge as well!). Considering that Sony is so Firmware happy lately, maybe they’ll update these games back onto the store once the loop is fixed.

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The Official PSVita of PSoneclassics

Finally a Vita Review

The Playstation Vita is something that I’ve been looking forward to since before it was announced. The Vita has a lot riding on it’s shoulders with the giant of portable gaming Nintendo still competing strong, and new comers to the portable gaming scene making It had a soft launch on February 15th and I managed to grab one at my local game vendor. I’ve had it for about a month, I’ve lived with it’s ups and downs and I feel like I can finally give an honest review, and maybe demystify some of the questions adopters might have. Continue on to read the full review!

The Look

despite the crappy camera I own to take this, the Vita screen is beautiful

First things first, the Vita is a sexy machine even though it doesn’t look too different from the PSP. When you turn it on though, you’ll realise that the screen is something else entirely. Side by side with the PSP (PSP-3000 here) you can see a real difference in the brightness of the screen, and ofcourse, the definition. This translates well into gameplay especially with the great new graphics intense Vita games that were released with the system (but that comes later).

Playing PSP games on the system also works well (even if there is only 275  digitally compatible titles at the moment with the promise of more to come). But on the games that I’ve seen so far PSP games look just about the same, and possibly a little fuzzier due to the higher definition of the Vita screen, the brightness and colour of the screen largely makes up for this though. If you have a lot of digitally purchased PSP games or are just looking to try some classics you missed out on, the Vita will serve you just as well as a PSP, and in many cases the games seem to run just a little bit faster.

Sound

There are two little speakers on the device just above the analog sticks, and they are responsible for your sound. They work well enough and are certainly loud enough when you want to play your games without earphones by yourself. They sound crisp, but not nearly as crisp as actual earphones do. You should spend most of your time with earphones on, but know that if you’re planning to use the Vita as a home device, the speakers work just fine.

The Feel

Well when I first put my hands on the Vita I felt it was a little big, but your hands actually fit quite well on the device with the thumbs and fingers well placed to use the front and back touch screens. The front touch screen is incredibly responsive actually, much faster response rate than my ipod touch. The back touchpad seems just as responsive, but it will take you a few days to know exactly where you’re touching on the back end.

buttons are a bit smaller, but feel crisper.

The analog sticks aren’t as good as the Dual Shock 3 sticks, but they still work incredibly well, and while playing games I had almost no problem getting headshots with the control scheme (Unit 13′s controls really stick out as a good example in this case).  They also have nice rubber tops to them so you won’t have the skin grated off your thumbs like you could on the PSP’s analog nub. First and third person shooters are now a real joy to play on the Vita, which was the PSP’s biggest downfall (at least in the west!).  The face buttons are smaller this time around, but they’re very responsive and you feel a satisfying click when you press it; they aren’t soft or mushy, same goes with the excellent D-pad, which should be a lot better for playing fighting games (cue my excitement for Mortal Kombat Vita coming in early April). The PSP D-pad left me with some pretty wicked blisters after playing Street Fighter Alpha 3, I haven’t had such problems here yet.

The Vita does feel like a premium device, and in comparison the PSP feels like a child’s toy.

Battery Life

Sony announced that the Vita would have a 3-5 hour battery life and people feared the worst. Luckily Sony was telling the truth, I have timed over five hours on a graphic heavy game (Uncharted Golden Abyss) before needing a recharge. Many people will say that’s simply not enough for a handheld, I like to respectfully disagree. Five hours of game time in a day isn’t a little bit of gaming, and ofcourse you can charge the device while you’re playing. It would be nice to have more time in a device for long trips, but still five hours is more than enough time to game in a day, and if your commute is more than five hours per day than I would consider you in the minority (and would recommend you sleep instead of game on your daily adventure).

Memory

PSVita Memory card, so much money for such a small thing...

This is a little bit of a sore point for people, and I feel their pain. The Vita has no internal memory to speak of, that is to say you need to buy a memory card to save games and especially if you plan on going the digital distribution route.

The biggest memory card you can get is 32 gigs, which is alright, but at $100 it’s a little pricey. That is until you take a look at some other companies doing worse. Apple for instance who charges $199 for an 8 gig ipod touch, and $299 for a 32 gig version. Still highway robbery, but it makes the Vita look a little better in comparison. I grabbed a 32 gig card after the 4 gig card given with the first edition bundle proved itself to be utterly useless. It does add a lot of extra price to the system, but luckily the ditgital distribution system saves you the money you spent on the memory card.

You’ll want to cry when you take a look at how small the cards are when you get it out of the box. But I guess it’s cool to see how small this memory can get. You can expect the cards to get cheaper as soon as 3rd party manufacturers get on board.

 Camera (Cue Video)

The camera as seen above is decent enough, but the killer app for the camera (Skype) has yet to be released. There are some interesting AR games you can play on the Vita though, with three of them coming out for free to all Vita owners. They’re tech demos to be sure but they’re fun too, and there are even online leader boards for some of them. They’re doing some cool stuff with this to be sure.

The Store

At this point it’s a little bare bones. But there are some pretty excellent benefits if you do decide to buy all your games digitally. Games are on average about 5 dollars cheaper on the store, and you’ll not pay any tax while buying games online (or at least I don’t). Tax is 13 percent in Ontario where I live, so instead of paying for a $40 game + tax ($45.20) I end up paying $34.99 flat. Having already bought a few games I can see that money I spent on the memory card will soon find it’s way back to me. I also don’t have to carry around the small cards everywhere I go just to switch game titles.

The Software (Interface, content management, browser)

User interface, captured via the screen capture function (PS Button + Start)

The new user interface that the Vita has is actually a decent enough little system. It takes a few moments to get used to, but it’s similar to the smartphone operating systems that we’re used to nowadays. The interface is all done via the front touch screen though, which is an choice that many gamers in the last month have been questioning, but I really couldn’t see myself using the buttons to navigate through the screens. One little slowdown though is the splash screen before you start an app or game. You click on Uncharted and then you have to click on another screen to start.

- Content management

This is, at the time of writing a little frustrating, if you connect your Vita to your computer or your PS3, your Vita will take over the content management side of the equation, and it’s a pretty picky little device I have seen. Many of the hundreds of videos I have saved on my PS3 will not even be recognized by my Vita, and many of those that it does recognize, it won’t copy or play. PSP titles are also not recognized by the Vita while connected, and now my PS3 after some magical PSN update won’t allow me to copy the PSP titles I already had saved on the system (and in some cases won’t let me download them again!). This is a huge problem for me, as now it seems to protect the Vita, the PS3′s ability to copy games to other devices has been gutted. I can also no longer copy PSone games to my PSP for play. This is frustrating as hell, and I expect Sony to fix this problem as soon as the Vita gains the ability to play PSoneclassics.

SO many PSP games!

Everything that the Vita can download though works well and downloads through the Vita store flawlessly. They do need to add in more PSP titles though for compatibility. I can’t wait to play my copies of Gran Turismo or Valkyria Chronicles 2 (which is “compatible” but not on the official list, so it won’t download to the Vita).

FIXED! To have your old PSP games play on  your Vita you must re-download them and not install them in a folder, then connect your Vita via the content manager, Every game I’ve tried so far works on the Vita with no problems a huge plus for former PSP owners.

- Browser

It works well doing just regular surfing, but there is not Flash or HTML5 support at the time of writing, and there’s no youtube app either. If you want to download your favourite podcast however it works excellently, and will download your file while you browse, or watch videos, or listen to other music. It’s serviceable and it works just as well as the itouch browser, but not having that added ability to play video does hamper it a bit. I’m assuming as the Vita continues to get updated the browser will support more and then I can see it becoming a great portable browser, but not yet.

Overall Conclusion

Some of the great visuals you'll see on the Vita

The Vita is an excellent device and Sony has done an amazing job at making another handheld that can not only compete with Nintendo’s 3DS, but show all those iOS drones that dedicated handhelds aren’t dead. There are some extras in there like Netflix and Facebook that can make the device a little more social, and those apps work really well, but primarily this is a gaming device and that’s what it does best.

This is just a hardware review, but make no doubt about it, the graphics that this little baby can push are spectacular. Uncharted Golden Abyss for instance is the best looking portable title ever, no joke, and this only being a first effort on the platform by studio Sony Bend, one can only imagine that amazing visuals we’ll see over the coming years. There are a few hiccups, but they’re all very fixable through firmware updates, which are probably being readied as I write this. There being no PSoneclassics support at launch is a bit of a disappointment to me, and I’m sure everyone who frequents this blog (at the moment you can only play PSoneclassics through remote play which I’ll do a separate review for). But the hardware is great, the controls are great, and if you’re looking for a new handheld gaming device that is truly and proudly built for gamers, the Playstation Vita should be your choice.

9/10

Persona 4 is an RPG that I missed on the PS2, and I’m really happy Atlus software is releasing this on the Vita as an upgraded port to the original. I’m usually not an RPG guy, but Altus’ own title Persona 3 Portable  made me give out my very first perfect 10 review. That game is still available on PSN and is playable on the Vita as well. These are the wackiest RPGs around, but they’re also some of the best. As soon as a Western release date is announced, I’m there.

PSoneclassics.com

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P.S. Sorry for the Hiatus… It will be explained after the Non Disclosure Agreement is up…

I can't wait to touch it...

PSVita coming up fast

Honestly I’m getting excited for the launch of this thing. The PSVita seems to answer so many requests of Sony’s handheld division. It releases on February 22nd – less than a month away, and I’m trying to figure out what accessories I’ll grab with it.

Question one: Wifi or 3G version?

This to me seems like a pretty simple choice. With the 3G version being $50 more expensive and not really adding anything new to the experience (there are no games that are using the 3G feature as of yet it seems) and with data plans for 3G in Canada being outrageous, the Wifi Model seems like the way to go. Playing online can’t be done on 3G so why not just survive on WiFi like the rest of the world? I travel a lot as well, and having to pay for a 3G plan when I’m not in the country seems like a stupid thing to do.

Wifi Model $250

$100 dollars isn't terrible... but it's not great either

Question two: Memory Cards

There’s no doubt about it, memory cards for this baby are expensive. Though they’re not as much as previously thought the 32 gig card is $99.99. This is a hefty price tag, but when you think about it and compare it to Apple iTouch pricing $199 for an 8 gig, and an extra $100 for another 24 gigs – it’s not that bad. But does anyone need 32 gigs on a PSVita? If you’re looking for a good amount of space but a cheaper price you can take a look at the 16gig card for $60. Still lots of room for games, but not the full hundred bucks they’re looking for. This does need some thought, but I have the 16gig card in my sights at the moment.

16 Gig Memory Card $60

Question three: Games

No boxart for me...

Vita games are the same price as new PSP games were, so you’re looking at $40 a title. The real question for these games it whether you’ll get them digitally or with physical cards. Personally I’m looking to grab my games all digital, considering you can never lose them and you can always download them again if your hard drive manages to crap out or if you change systems. Obviously there are a few PSP games that I have that I’ll be playing on the Vita day one (Because since the launch of the ill fated PSPgo I’ve been buying all my games digitally). Really though for me it’s all about the Uncharted. I’m a big fan, and I can’t wait to see what it feels like on a handheld. Already the game is looking great. Another title, Gravity Daze has peaked my interest. Maybe I’ll have to pick that one up too.

Uncharted Golden Abyss, Gravity Daze $80.

Question four: Protection

The last thing you want on your new console is a scratch. Now of course I’m not going to be putting it in the same pocket as my keys, but just incase that happens I better buy some protective plastic to cover up the screen. You can never be too careful and they’re cheap as hell.

Screen protectors $10

All my money...soon to be gone...

All told?

So all told we’re looking at about $400 (Plus tax!) of hard earned cash going towards this thing, I hope Sony is appreciating it. Really for me the thrill of getting a console on launch day is exciting, despite the fact that people in Japan have had it for over a month now. I’ve never had a console on launch day before, so I think it’s time to change that. As soon as I grab it I’ll be taking pictures and writing a review for the site, including what PSP games look like on that gorgeous OLED screen. Lets just hope that Sony adds in the PSoneclassic emulator soon (it’s not going to be there for launch), and that they add a PS2classic emulator as well. I think that’s everything I’m looking for in a handheld.

Anyone else looking to get the PSVita at Launch? I mean c’mon, Uncharted on the bus!

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