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.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Wizard Fight Race 7II
Last weekend I had a few of my friends work on a game that we started from scratch and brought through to a state of completion. A lot of the ideas were things we had been discussing for a while, but the concrete plans came into being during that 3 day period. If you want to see what we made, the game can be downloaded or you can play it in a browser (assuming you install the right plugins). For the record, the title of the game is Wizard Fight Race 7II, and the number should be pronounced "seventy-two".
If you download and try it and want to provide any feedback, feel free to send me messages at my twitter account, @cordoro1, and I'll try to get back to you when I can. I feel like this experience was something that I needed and that it helped me remember how fun it can be to rapidly prototype a game when using the right programming environment. We used Unity as our game engine, which we had barely touched before we started this project. I'm impressed with how much we got done, despite the fact that the game might feel a little unfinished (the whole thing was done by only 2 programmers/designers in 72 hours).
If you download and try it and want to provide any feedback, feel free to send me messages at my twitter account, @cordoro1, and I'll try to get back to you when I can. I feel like this experience was something that I needed and that it helped me remember how fun it can be to rapidly prototype a game when using the right programming environment. We used Unity as our game engine, which we had barely touched before we started this project. I'm impressed with how much we got done, despite the fact that the game might feel a little unfinished (the whole thing was done by only 2 programmers/designers in 72 hours).
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Diablo 3 Release Date
I'm super excited and just needed to mention that Diablo 3 finally has a release date. It'll be out on May 15, 2012. For proof, here's a twitter post. That is a time that works extremely well for me, meaning that I might actually get to play it a fair amount when it comes out.
Also, I'm happy they decided to remove PVP from the game at least at launch. I think that the best thing for a game like Diablo would be to maybe allow PVP but completely ignore it and just let players do whatever they think is best. If they allow PVP balance to affect the main part of the game, then they will be doing a huge disservice to the players that actually wanted to play the game.
Also, I'm happy they decided to remove PVP from the game at least at launch. I think that the best thing for a game like Diablo would be to maybe allow PVP but completely ignore it and just let players do whatever they think is best. If they allow PVP balance to affect the main part of the game, then they will be doing a huge disservice to the players that actually wanted to play the game.
Games Made in a Weekend
I think the development of a game from scratch in a very short time is an interesting way for new ideas to end up as games. If you're interested in checking one out, take a look at https://sites.google.com/site/72hourgame/
There should be more content appearing there shortly.
There should be more content appearing there shortly.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
How I've played Diablo 3 beta so far
As a mentioned in my last post, I'm most excited about getting Diablo 3 this year and the class I want to play primarily is the monk. I thought I'd take this chance to post a few of the abilities that I've enjoyed as I've played in the beta.
First, I find that the basic attack I enjoy most is Deadly Reach because it does a good job of hitting a cluster of enemies. Blinding Flash or Lashing Tail Kick I like to use as my primary spirit dump. Then the main signature ability, and the one I enjoy the most is Dashing Strike, because it allows the monk to quickly dash around the battle and get to the high priority targets quickly to then be able to clean up the minions later. It is a good thing that abilities will be able to be modified with runes, otherwise I feel like every monk would feel the same by always needing the Dashing Strike ability for mobility.
First, I find that the basic attack I enjoy most is Deadly Reach because it does a good job of hitting a cluster of enemies. Blinding Flash or Lashing Tail Kick I like to use as my primary spirit dump. Then the main signature ability, and the one I enjoy the most is Dashing Strike, because it allows the monk to quickly dash around the battle and get to the high priority targets quickly to then be able to clean up the minions later. It is a good thing that abilities will be able to be modified with runes, otherwise I feel like every monk would feel the same by always needing the Dashing Strike ability for mobility.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
New Minecraft Server
Earlier this week, I built a new computer with parts purchased from newegg (and an SSD and HDD I had sitting around). The parts I got include the following:
Running a Terraria server on my linux machine is a new thing for me, so I don't have all the scripts in place yet. However, I found it relatively simple to get TShock to work by just installing the new version of the mono runtime. Once I get my scripts in place to make it easier for me to start and stop my two terraria worlds remotely, I'll consider posting a version of the script for other people to use if they are interested.
- CPU: AMD FX-4100 4 Core (3.6 GHz) $109.99
- MOBO: MSI 760GM-E51 $69.99
- MEM: Patriot 1333 DDR3 4x4GB $69.98
- CASE: Antec Three Hundred + 430W PSU $69.99
- HDD: 1TB (not sure of the details)
- SSD: Intel 160GB
- DVD+RW stolen from my old Compaq
Running a Terraria server on my linux machine is a new thing for me, so I don't have all the scripts in place yet. However, I found it relatively simple to get TShock to work by just installing the new version of the mono runtime. Once I get my scripts in place to make it easier for me to start and stop my two terraria worlds remotely, I'll consider posting a version of the script for other people to use if they are interested.
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