PS Plus July for Vita

-dusts off vita- You know, I honestly have no idea why I don't play this thing more. Or at all to be honest. Its a fantastic platform and thankfully most developers ignore the rear touch panel or make it completely optional. I have 5 screens worth of games installed, even more not installed. All my installed ones are very well rated around the industry. Dunno what holds me back.

Anyways. Bunch of discounted games for this month, feels like a better offering than in recent months. Three free games too.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/07/01/ps-plus-free-games-for-july-2015/

For starters there's your entire sony lineup for july PS Plus subscribers. Outside the vita I highly recommend you all grab Styx for the ps4, fantastic stealth game with lots and lots of variety that entertains plenty of playstyles. That and Styx himself is a funny as hell snarky little ass heh!

I picked up two of the three free ps vita titles, here's a quick experience.

WNR Followup

Ok, had a day or so with each of the games I picked up this week. Here's my feelings about each.

Star Horizon(apple)
Definitely a Starfox fan's dream come true, this is a railshooter in space with really nice graphics and responsive each to use controls. As a default, anywhere on the right side of the screen, hold your finger down and move around to steer. Single Target, multi target and large single target weaponry is accessed by your left hand, bottom corner. Swiping our finger up down left or right moves in the correct direction extra quick like.

Missions are large enough but not so big that they drag on. They are farmable, which will be necessary inorder to save up and upgrade your ship. They are star rated, each star giving a larger cash reward.

There are a number of ships and each is fully upgradeable.

The banter between pilots and you and your ai is really amusing and adds to the game. What dosent do anything for me is the random jabber your character says when being fired at by enemies or killing enemies. When your character says "Talk to the hand, cuz the face ain't listening!" 14 times in one mission... yea. Stretches my patience somewhat.

There's some variety to your missions, all are action packed. Every mission so far for me has felt like the first 10 minutes of star wars episode 3 when obi-wan and anakin were in a major space battle.

I like what I'm experiencing, two thumbs up.

Roll Back Home(apple)
Simple stage based puzzles. Get from point a to point b. Tilt controls, mandatory. I played it for a bit then moved on, I'm not a fan of tile controls.

Steamworld Dig(vita)
Started playing this thursday morning around 2 am. Played it until 9am, went to bed. Picked it back up around 2pm, beat it at 9pm. So thats... 13 hours on my first attempt? Sounds right. Dosent account for getting up and doing other things and whatnot. Very very very enjoyable experience. This game keeps you moving along at a comfortable pace, I never actually felt bored or underpowered for what I was doing.

Very very nice controls. analog or d-pad control schemes.

Sounds, good good. Nothing spectacular, nothing atrocious.

Three entire enviroments, lots to mine loot and kill. Final and Only boss was entertaining. Two thumbs up!

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster
Ok, confession. I never got more than 20 minutes in to final fantasy x. About 20 minutes in my wife decided she had figured out the controls from watching me play and she then hogged the ps2 until she had completely beaten this game.

Now, as a first time player experiencing this title for the first time ever... I'm impressed. This game changed alot of the rules I've come to know and expect from final fantasy titles. This was the first to ditch the traditional leveling system in favor of a sphere grid. The first to use voice acting. The first to use 3d enviroments. The first to not have the traditional theme songs in their proper format somewhere in game. It is also the last to use the traditional combat system.

I'm afew hours in, definitely enjoying it! Actually managed to kill my battery yesterday on the vita for the first time... ever.

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Ok so there's the recap. I'll be in diablo 3 alot for the near future. This weekend they ditched the 50% exp boost and put in a 100% exp boost. Then tuesday reaper of souls hits :)

-cracks knuckles-

o/

Wednesday Release Roundup

Game Developers Conference is in full swing, as such the release list wasn't as large as its been of late. The two games I mentioned earlier today, their the two I picked up. Here's the TA release link for your full browsing leisure :

http://toucharcade.com/2014/03/19/new-iphone-games-march-19/

My two?

3 reasons for dusting off my Vita

Yep, took awhile to find it. Was buried under some old paid for bills and a mccdonalds paper bag. Why did I dust it off? Lookit what hit their store today :

Vita : Need for Speed Most Wanted

Need for Speed Most Wanted
Take gran turismo, add in a splash of need for speed most wanted(psp), toss in a dash of midnight club: la, mix it all up and you have a game that while incredibly fun dosent quite beat any of the three. Important, I said incredibly fun. And it is, I am enjoying myself a whole lot here. There are lots of cars, the graphics are amazing, controls do their job nicely, the music isn't offensive and there feels like plenty to do here to keep me busy for a long while.

Gran Turismo Influence
. Graphics, the turismo on the psp has the flat out best graphics of any racer on sony's handhelds to date and this game definitely takes that and runs. The graphics are one step behind the concole counterparts to this game, same with visual vehicle damage.
. Upgrades, the lack of visual customization reminds me of turismo. In this game you don't actually buy any of your upgrades. Each race in the game rewards certain upgrades depending on how you place, once you earn the upgrade, you simply choose it from a menu and walla, upgrade complete. There's no garage in this game, everything happens on the fly in the game.

Need for Speed most wanted (psp) Influence
. The ranking system. You race against random folk, accumulate enough points, unlock a new top 10 most wanted person, race them. Where this differs is 1, you dont have to race to earn points. Smash things, hit cars, jump ramps, escape the police, smash billboards, etc all earn rep points. 2, After you beat your opponent in a legitimate race, you then have to total their car inorder to earn said car and advance up the ranking.

Midnight Club: LA Influence.
. Illegal racing, open city streets, massive city to wander around, pedestrian traffic. Where this differs, the pedestrians are morons. If youre stopped in the middle of the street surfing menus and a pedestrian car comes up, he will not stop. He will ram you, smash the crap out of your car, wail on his horn and rage till you move. Similar thing happens if a cop cruises up except he'll rage and then arrest you.

So anywho.

The story is short and simple. You race around the city making a mess of everything, winning and what not. You earn points. When your points surpases the 10th place person, you unlock them for racing against. When you beat them, you then literally beat them till you total their car. Once this happens, you earn their car and rise up the ranks. Rinse, repeat, walla. Thats all you need to know. There isnt a whole lot of story here folks, just a whole lot of really fast racing.

Visuals. Gorgeous graphics, no real visual framerate issues, amazing scenery. As stated above the graphics are a step behind the consoles but leaps and bounds beyond the gameloft racing games which are its only current competition on the vita. Vehicles take visual damage as you abuse them but actual parts havent fallen off so far. Once you load in to the city you will only see loading screens for races and car changes. Crusing around generates no loading screens.

Gameplay. Race cars. Smash Cars. Jump things. Run from police. Upgrade Vehicles.Thats what you do here. The menu system is straight forward. Right arrow key brings down the menu where you choose from your unlocked cars, make upgrades, choose races, etc. The map is fully detailed, takes a moment or two to load though. Vehicle upgrade unlocks are singular to the vehicle you unlocked them in. Unlocked nitrous on your masariti, want to drive your tesla around? you'll need to unlock the nitrous there too.

Sound. A blend of modern music types, nothing annoying. Vehicles have unique sounds to their engines. Nirtous sounds a bit weak.

Fun Factor. I'm really enjoying myself. The game falls a bit short of topping any of the titles I referenced above. Turismo is a better simulator. Midnight Club is a better street racer. Need for Speed Most Wanted (psp), well I stand corrected. This game tops every need for speed thats ever been on a psp. I'll keep playing this game until rockstar puts out a new midnight club. God I'd love a new midnight club.

o/

Now Playing Vita

I've been waiting for the day I could make a post such as this. I enjoy my vita greatly and am continually stumped by the lack of attention it receives from developers. The only thing I find absolutely annoying about the handheld is the back touch screen. The following came out this week and immediately ended up on my Vita.

Assassin's Creed Liberation
Feels and plays exactly like a full console assassin's creed... with some of the vita's more quirky gameplay mechanics.

Ragnarok Odyssey
Monster hunter meets phantasy star visuals? Sold!

Need for Speed Most Wanted
A literal console port, slightly reduced graphics but everything from the console's is here :) Finally, my racing urges are satisfied...

Appologies for the lack of details for each title, I'm still in varying early stages for each game. Will blog more on them as I get further engrossed. That said, thank god we finally have triple a titles on the vita! Woo hoo!

o/