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(Long Live) The Playstation Vita (Is Dead)

Monday, August 11th, 2014

Earlier this year I purchased one of these:

It’s the Playstation Vita, which is their followup game system to the PSP. It actually came out quite some time ago (December 2011), but I held off buying one simply because there was nothing on it that tickled my fancy. The game that eventually lured me enough was TKX by Jeff Minter:

There’s a lot to like about the Vita. It’s solidly built, has very nice controls (especially the dual sticks), is solid state only (which means no silly discs like the PSP) and has a beautiful screen. And when I say beautiful, I mean beautiful. To save costs Sony has actually downgraded the screen in newer models to an LED, but the first version (and the one I have) includes an OLED screen which is simply the brightest and highest resolution screen on anything I own. Yes it means the battery life is abysmal (maybe 2 hours) and the unit is quite heavy but I’d say the tradeoff is worth it for the great screen.

The problem with the Vita is, well it’s that it’s pretty much a dead system.

What does that mean? It means that here in America retail support for the system has floundered, and interest amongst consumers is at an all-time low. Few games are released for the system and those that are don’t have any sort of wide appeal. Furthermore, there are no games at all scheduled after November this year and Sony themselves have said they will release no games themselves. By this time next year I very much doubt this system will be in stores, if produced at all.

And yet these past few weeks I’ve been having more fun with my Vita than any of my other game systems! These ‘no wide appeal’ games infrequently coming out are mostly niche Japanese RPGs which mean they’re my game of choice and I’ve been snapping them up! Games like…

Demon Gaze, an awesome Wizardry clone featuring a complex game system and fabulous graphics…

Toukiden, the closest game every to capture the magic of Monster Hunter. The screenshot above shows how impressive the graphics of the Vita can be in an AAA game…

Persona 4 Golden which I haven’t played yet (it’s next on my list) but if it’s anywhere near as good as Persona 3 on the PSP will be a gem!

There’s many more, and most of the remaining games are of this genre as well. Even if nothing else is released after November, I’ll still have a library that will take me a year or more to finish (assuming I ever stop playing Toukiden). For a dead system, that’s not so bad!

So what killed the Vita? It was an also-ran outside of Japan, where it seemed to immediately inherit the niche market from the PSP. Western exclusives were nonexistent and ports from PS3 games (such as Borderlands 2) were flawed. Obviously competition from the 3DS (especially Capcom’s choice to move Monster Hunter to 3DS) and tablets/phones hurt as well. But ultimately the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of Sony, who for many many years now have demonstrated they have no idea how to market a handheld outside of Japan.

Rest in Peace Vita. You may be a dead system and simply not know it yet, but I’m going to be playing you for a long time yet!

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech, Toys | Comments Closed

Busy Day

Wednesday, July 30th, 2014

Wendy’s serves the full menu all day did you know? That’s how I had a spicy chicken sandwich at 7:30 am! This was my breakfast of course, and we had woken early since we had a busy day planned. On our way to our second Vegas hotel we had two stops to make. The first was this place, about an hour from the Grand Canyon:

Bearizona is a wildlife park with a three mile drive-through section and a more traditional zoo for smaller beasts. The focus is on wildlife of Arizona and it’s a very impressive park.

That’s a goat and a white bison. They also had buffalo, wolves, burros and other goats. The star attraction of course is these guys:

Look at that show off bear being cute in the water tub! The large bears roam free in 14 acres, not caring at all about the cars and people within! There are many of them wandering around, and in the zoo portion of the park there are many more in two enclosures divided by age. Here’s a shot of the cubs:

They look peaceful enough there, but 99% of the time they were play-fighting with each other like little fuzzy wrestlers! The little buggers were so cute!

In addition to bears the zoo has foxes, porcupines, otters, an American badger and a few other beasts. It’s laid out very well and we both enjoyed Bearizona quite a bit. If you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a visit 🙂

A few hours later and we were back in Vegas. Only a few blocks from our next hotel was today’s second attraction: the Pinball Hall of Fame.

This is essentially a warehouse containing hundreds of pinball machines, almost all working and playable. They range from old EM games from the 1950s through to the last pinball made (so far) from 2013. They also have retro arcade games and a few other odds and ends.

It’s a pinball fans dreamworld, and I scurried around playing as many as I could. This included some landmark games like Black Knight, Fireball, Haunted House and Pinbot.

One of the appeals of pinball for me is the art. Many of the games on display were beautiful, especially restored as they are and lit up like they would have been when manufactured.

All the games had historical information on them. Impacto (look at that art!) was an oddity since the guy that owns the museum in 40 years of looking has found no info on the game or the (Spanish) company that created it.

Needless to say I loved this place. If I lived nearby I’d visit all the time 🙂

And then we arrived at our second Vegas hotel, Caesar’s Palace. It’s a bit posh and a bit expensive and a bit luxurious. Should be fun!

Posted in Animals, Family, Games, Otaku, Trip | 1 Comment »

Magic 2015

Saturday, July 12th, 2014

Today, for the first time in about 18 months, I went to a Magic prerelease event. It was for the new core set, Magic 2015.

I was surprised to see that turnout was relatively low compared to the last event I attended: only 22 people turned up. I was the oldest in the room, and there were no familiar faces from the events I attended a couple of years back. I also seemed like the only person that was there on my own…

We had to choose a colour and were given a box with a booster of that colour (including a promo) as well as five more boosters and a few other goodies. Here is the box contents:

I chose white but amusingly ended up with more red and blue cards than white. I stubbornly committed to white anyway, and out together a 40 card white/black deck containing:
– 14 creatures (11 white, 3 black, 2 artifact)
– 10 spells (8 white enchantments, 2 black removal)
– 16 lands (9 white, 2 black)

I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the deck, but had a “what the hell” attitude and went with it.

My expectations were realized as I faced my first two opponents, both of which utterly defeated me 0-2. My deck seemed very weak, particularly against evasion, and my ‘bombs’ were hiding in the bottom. After 2 rounds, I was dead last of 22 players!

But then things started to look up, mostly because these three finally made an appearance:

My third opponent (a sweet girl who’d only been playing a few months) was destroyed by the mythic creature above, and I ended up handily beating her 2-0. It seems my luck had turned, since I then easily defeated opponents 4 and 5 2-0 as well. Every time I cast Soul of New Phyrexia I won the game. That ‘make permanents indestructible’ ability is crazy!

After five rounds I had 9 points total, but missed out on top 8 (and therefore a prize) by a mere point. Not a bad showing considering how badly i lost the first two rounds!

Magic 2015 seems like a fun set, and it was fun to see the cards interact. However I left with mixed feelings about the event itself. It was fun to make the deck and see how it turned out, but the truth is I don’t have as much fun at the prereleases as I used to back when I went with SFL. For me, magic is more fun when you’re playing with friends, and it may be a while before I attend another prerelease.

Posted in Games, MTG, Otaku | 2 Comments »

If I Announce It, Then Surely It Must Happen

Sunday, June 29th, 2014

The day is nigh my friends, for exactly 5 weeks from today, on Sunday August 3, the first game from legendary (and mysterious) game design trio FloBeRo entitled Menagerie Of The Gods might will be released!

This game has been in (sporadic) development for many, many months, and sometime on or about Thursday, July 30th a ‘game jam‘ may will be held to force the game through alpha, beta and final crunch so it can be released on time!

Here’s a mockup screen from early in development:

As you can see this is a word game. More specifically, this is a divine word adventure game in which the player – in the role of Noah himself – must fight off the attack of savage and legendary unique beasts who are angry they were not invited on the Ark. You attack by completing words from a given pool of letters. The longer the word, the more damage you take. But beware, since these beasts fight back. How many can you defeat? How far can you get? How high can you raise your score? Time will tell…

And who are FloBeRo, the creators of this epic game? Well they wish to remain anonymous, but I was able to secure a quote from each of them for their fans:

Lead Art Designer ‘Furonzo‘: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away!”

Lead Programmer ‘Lotus 4-5-6‘: “In space no one can hear you scream!”

Lead Game Designer ‘Electric Blue‘: “You’ll believe a man can fly!”

Wow, heavy stuff there 🙂

Mark your calendars everyone: August 3. On that day, the future of electronic gaming will arrive right here on this blog…

Posted in Art, Blog, Games, Miscellaneous, Tech, The Unknown | 1 Comment »

The Tale of Mycroft and Stocking

Wednesday, June 25th, 2014

Have you heard of Avalon Island? If not, then you’re missing out because a diverse group of citizens is really making it an interesting place to live.

That’s the latest census shot. Take a close look at the front row. There are some familiar faces there! There’s a dude that looks like me, a girl that looks like KLS, and people that look like Adam, Bernard and Florence. Very weird place, Avalon is. You’ll also note a diverse range of other citizens including Einstein, David Bowie, Ali G and even Admiral Ackbar. What an island!!

The islanders have many talents, and I’m particularly interested in their musical abilities. It didn’t take long for instance for Florry and Severus Snape (who must have moved here from Hogwarts) to form a band and start recording techno music. I present the first single by ‘Dark Artists’ named Operation Robodachi:

Now that’s talent! And not only can Florry sing, but she’s also a yoga savant!

But let’s get to the matter at hand, which is a chronologue of a recent ultra-dramatic event that occured on Avalon.

Meet Stocking (of Panty & Stocking fame), here shown in one of her daily jobs as a newsreader:

Cute isn’t she? Anyway she came to me and said she had a mad crush on Mycroft (the guy that looks like Adam). I was not surprised by this, since I had already seen the latest poll of all the girls on the island:

Woah, there’s something about those top three guys that just get the female hearts fluttering! I wonder what it could be?

Anyway, I told Stocking to go for it. “Be cute”, I said, “and confess to Mycroft on the beach!”. And she did…

He was silent for a moment… and then he said…

OMG!!! He spurned her! Or, in her own words:

Poor stocking.

So what happened? Why was such a cute girl rejected by the islands most eligible bachelor? Well the answer is quite simply really. Mycroft has no time for love, since he has sold his soul to rock-and-roll. Behold, the debut single of the new Avalon metal trio The Three Kings:

OMG what talent! Could pop princess Florry have competition for the Avalon charts? And what does she think of the Mycroft x Stocking drama? When asked, her only response was:

Posted in Art, Games, Miscellaneous, Music, Otaku | 1 Comment »

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