You know what isn’t great?

I decided to make a post similar to my cross-buy topic except this time I'm just complaining about stuff... so probably not so different from that post. Obvious stuff like…

13 Comments

Rogue Legacy PS4/Vita

Rogue Legacy came out on PC a year or so ago but just recently made its way to consoles. Despite being an avid fan of roguelikes and rogue"lites" I never got…

Comments Off on Rogue Legacy PS4/Vita

Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty Review

My experience with the Oddworld is almost nonexistent since Keen and I never owned a PS1, which means we missed out on all that cool stuff. It was one of…

Comments Off on Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty Review

Starlight Inception on PlayStation Vita

I have many fond memories of playing TIE Fighter when I was younger and it is still probably my all-time favorite Star Wars game. You’d think that it would have turned me onto other stuff like Wing Commander, but I actually never gave those a try. TIE Fighter is pretty much the only space combat “sim” that I have played but I still really enjoy the game type. It was just the other day when I was browsing the weekly PlayStation store update when I noticed that something called “Starlight Inception” had released on the Vita. I checked it out and apparently it was a successfully funded Kickstarter project and also released on the PC. Since I’ve been drifting more towards handheld gaming lately I was more interested in the Vita version so I reached out to Escape Hatch Entertainment and they were kind enough to drop us a review code. I can’t speak for the PC version of the game but these are my thoughts on the Vita version.

starlight inception space combatVisuals & Presentation

I knew that the Vita version was obviously going to be a downgrade visually but that doesn’t really bother me. TIE Fighter still looks great to me. The visuals are pretty rough, though. When walking around the interior of the main ship (which you do entirely too slow by the way) things look rather plain. However, after I actually got into my first mission I was pretty impressed by the space visuals and how everything looked. The game may not look as nice as its PC counterpart but it gets the job done. Honestly the only things I wish it had were a few particles here and there to give me the feeling that my ship is actually moving but that’s just me nitpicking.

The second mission was pretty awkward. You fly around near the surface of a city which had just recently suffered an explosive attack. The problem is that it mostly looks like a large gray wall with buildings sprouting up as if the view distance was incredibly short distance. I actually tried to find a youtube video of this scene for the PC version and after viewing it I kind of understand what they were doing for that mission. The problem is that pretty much all of the extra effects that actually make that scene work are missing from the Vita version. (more…)

4 Comments

Ragnarok Odyssey Ace & Pushing Keen out of his gaming comfort zone

ragnarok-odyssey-aceGaming for us may have mostly taken off with PC games but prior to that we did invest a good deal of time playing stuff like our Master System, Super Nintendo, and later on the N64 and PS2. We used to play all kinds of different stuff together but over the years he has withdrawn into a near impenetrable shell that doesn’t have much room for anything other than MMOs and a few other games. Getting him to even try other types of games can be incredibly difficult.

For years I’ve been trying to get him to play a Monster Hunter game with me but that hasn’t had much success at all. I think I might have mentioned a while back that the first attempt saw my PSP thrown to the ground in frustration. Anywho, a while back I discovered another game in the “Hunting Genre” called Ragnarok Odyssey Ace. From what I could tell it was the updated version of the game like Ultimate was for Tri. I picked it up for my Vita and after playing it for a short while I figured that I might be able to get him to try playing this with me.

Monster Hunter may not have drawn him in initially, but Ragnarok looked like it might do it. Bright colors, Norse-ish theme, wizards, etc. Plus the combat seems more approachable than Monstrer Hunter. If I couldn’t get him to try this out then there was really no hope. After a lot of complaining, guilt-tripping, extortion, and pestering I was finally able to convince him to play it with me. We downloaded the PS3 version of the game (which can play with the Vita as well) and gave it a go. (more…)

4 Comments

Toukiden

For the past several days I've been exclusively playing Bravely Default right up until Toukiden came out on Vita. I'm still playing BD but now I'm just switching back and…

10 Comments

Tearaway

Tearaway is a wonderful game and one of several really good reasons why more people should pick up a Vita. Usually I end my posts with that kind of sentiment but I thought we’d switch things up a little bit. Not only that but I really enjoyed this game to the point where I think it merits earlier mentioning.

The Gist, The Gameplay & You

tearaway-finnSo what is Tearaway? It is a curious game but I believe you can safely classify it as a platformer. There’s more to it than that, though. There are some small elements of easy puzzle solving along with several instances that require creativity on your part. The obvious thing that distinguishes Tearaway from a lot of games is its visual style. The entire game is made to look as if it were crafted out of paper. Not just flat pieces like Paper Mario but full on paper craft figures and buildings and plants, etc. The entire world looks like it was made out of colored construction paper and it’s ridiculously charming. (more…)

3 Comments

PS4 Launch Day Coverage

The Playstation 4 released today, and we have a lot of great coverage planned for you!  Throughout the day we'll be publishing posts with our initial impressions of the hardware,…

5 Comments