Jetpack Joyride Controls

Jetpack Joyride is a game that I've played a fair amount on my iPhone. It's a fun game of the single-button style where you move up by pressing the button and down by letting go in order to dodge obstacles that travel from right to left on the screen. The bad part about the iPhone version of this game is that the only place they could put the button was on the screen. That means that part of the screen must be covered by your finger in order to control the game, meaning that part of the screen is not visible when you need to interact with the game. That is a problem since the only way of knowing if there is something to dodge is by looking at the screen, some of which is now covered by the controls.

This week, I was pleasantly surprised to find Jetpack Joyride as a free download for my Playstation Vita. I thought, "Perfect! Now I can play this game by pressing a button." It turns out that I was wrong in my thought. The only way to press the button in the PS Vita version of Jetpack Joyride is to touch the rear touch pad. While the rear touchpad is a huge improvement over using the screen to cover up your vision, there exists yet another problem. The problem with the PS Vita controls is that it is nearly impossible to hold the device without accidentally touching the rear touchpad. There is no way to configure the controls to be anything else, and so I am left wondering why they didn't just use the 'x' button, or better yet, allow the player to use any of the buttons they want. It couldn't have been that difficult to allow any of the controller buttons to indicate a desire to move in the game.

Please game developers, don't use touch controls when a button will work better. Let me repeat, do not use touch controls when button inputs will work better. Thank you.

Treasures of Montezuma Blitz

This last week, a new game was released on the playstation network for playstation Vita that is free to download and play, at least initially. This game is not in fact a gift to players as the term "Free to Play" seems to indicate, but instead has micro-transactions that allow you to get ahead in the game. If you've tried bejeweled blitz on any platform, this game is basically the same idea. You get 60 seconds to match 3 as many times as you can to get the best score you can. 

I've actually been really enjoying playing this game, and I find the 60 second play sessions easy to fit into my life. I also personally like how the number of lives is limited, but that they refill over time. This encourages me to go do something productive after I spend 5 minutes playing. Of course someone that doesn't have other things to do, might be tempted to spend $0.99 to instantly refill the 5 lives to continue playing, but that option does not interest me at all.

My main complaint about the game is the gem system. Each round you can generate a number of gems based on your performance. However, the special abilities that you unlock as you level up cost a number of gems to use in each game, and this number is typically way lower than the number of gems generated from playing the game. As a result, I tend to just play the game with all of the bonuses turned off all the time, making me wonder why they are even in the game if I can't use them. Other than the customization being useless, this is a decent way to casually play a few minutes of "Match 3" ever now and then.

Escape Plan DLC

Escape Plan has done amazingly well for Sony. At only $15 to download the whole game, it has a low barrier to entry, and allows vita owners to show off the features of their new device to friends. Additionally, it has a charming story with an attractive, mono-chrome presentation. Naturally, it makes sense that Sony would want to release extra downloadable content for the game. The unexpected part is that they are making this DLC free. I know I'm excited to get my hands on a new chapter of this game, so feel free to read more about it on the playstation blog post.

PS Vita Commentary

I've now had my Vita for more than a month, so I thought it would be a good time to make a post about what I think about it and how I've been using it. First, I got the vita primarily because I have a great amount of interest in current mobile computing platforms and want to support further development and research in that area. I also believe that dedicated gaming machines are important for the video game industry, and I feel like I should support that area too. Beyond my desire for these areas to expand and continue improving, I genuinely believe the Vita to be an interesting device for someone like me to play with.

The Playstation Vita has a nice large display and a good array of control options. In particular, I really appreciate the direction pad, the analog sticks, the face buttons and the shoulder buttons. All of these inputs allow for traditional control styles. The front and rear cameras have very quick response times, making them ideal for interactive gaming applications, but sub-par for more traditional image capture purposes. The other methods for input include accelerometers, and front and rear touch pads. Some casual applications can benefit from the touch screen, however I've yet to find a game that uses accelerometer data as anything useful that goes beyond just a silly gimmick. In fact, I almost always find accelerometer based gameplay to be obnoxious since I like to play for a few minutes in bed while relaxing, and I'm not in a mood to move around much at that point. The rear touch is occasionally interesting, but entirely too easy to hit accidentally. This becomes even more irritating when the score in a game is affected by all of the accidental rear touches going on.

The games I have been playing since I got it include "Plants vs. Zombies", "Escape Plan", "Motorstorm RC" and "Super Stardust Delta." Each of these games is convenient for a mobile platform because they provide short play session options with plenty of ways to continue playing. Plants vs. Zombies is essentially the exact same game that appears elsewhere with intuitive front-touchscreen controls. If you don't have another version of PvZ already, this one is worth picking up. Escape Plan consists of a set of levels with mostly front and rear touch controls to move your characters and adjust the environment to allow them to travel from beginning to end. Motorstorm RC is a simple RC car game with quite a few maps and intuitive RC car style controls. It is a great deal at the free price I paid for it, but I would actually even recommend it to anyone who likes RC cars. Finally, Super Stardust Delta is an interesting asteroid shooting game with a few annoyances in the controls (tilt to change the view and accidental rear touch or shake bombs). This is just a brief overview of each of these games, but hopefully I can say something more in-depth about them in the future.

Overall, I think the Vita is an interesting system with a lot of promise. I believe the hardware itself is a steal even at $300 for the 3g version, but it remains to be seen if consumers will realize that. Additionally, I think Sony is going to have a lot of problems trying to move mobile device software at prices as high as $50 for a single game when nearly all other mobile devices have an endless supply of free or $0.99 games that, while they are lower quality overall, make people think twice about buying a downloadable game for even $10. PS Vita games can charge some premium, but they really should not be allowing games that sell for $3 on iOS and Android sell for $40 on the Vita. Things like that are really an embarrassment.

This year in gaming

There are a couple things I'm quite excited for that are coming out this year and will affect the gaming part of my life. The first one is on "early release" today and that is the PS Vita. I'm the kind of person that is always excited about a new piece of hardware, and since gaming consoles are released so infrequently and are relatively inexpensive, it's a good chance to get the latest and greatest for me. The bundle I'll be getting is the one releasing next week that comes with an 8GB memory card and the Super Stardust download game. The only other game I plan to get at release is Escape Plan. If I remember, I'll post something about my thoughts on the games and the hardware after they come out.

The second gaming item for this year that I very much look forward to getting is Diablo 3. This is a game I have wanted since I was much younger. It will give me a chance to play satisfying hack-and-slash rpg game play with my brothers and friends that live all over the place. I've been in the beta for a while and I can say from experience that it is a very enjoyable experience to fight your way through hordes of beasts and demons on the way to collect shiny new gear. For the record, I plan to play a monk as my first "main" class. Oh, and Diablo 3 is supposed to come out in Q2 of 2012, so I presume that I should get the full release version by the end of August.

Finally, I want to talk a little bit about the new expansion for World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria. MoP will bring a quite large redesign to the classes in WoW, probably one of the biggest changes to happen to WoW yet. I think this change is much needed, and will show the rest of the MMO industry that it is important to actually rethink things instead of just sticking to what everyone else has done. For those that don't know, the design of talents in MoP will change from the talent trees (dump a bunch of points in early talents to unlock new tiers) that have been in WoW since it first came out to a much different system. Talents will appear every 15 levels or so, and will effectively be a choice among 3 options, each providing a meaningful decision. Now, everyone gets the basic necessities of their spec and instead can have actual variation that isn't just choosing to be worse than everyone else.