Tag Archive: ps vita


Playstation plus top 5 games of 2013

Filed Under: Gaming, Playstation by dr3amcast3r — Leave a comment
December 20, 2013

The blog of Sony Europe made a challenge for the users to elect their top 5 games of the Instant Game Collection (IGC) for 2013. And they’ll also offer 5 yearly subscriptions among the comments. You can find the post and comments here.

I wrote a text about it and the blog told me that my comment was to big so I had to shorten it a lot. Because I didn’t want to lose it, so I’ll post it here.

I hope you enjoy and give me your opinions about my choices.

Hi there everyone. Despite some of my (more than fair) complains about the service, I do love it. So here goes my top 5 games of ps+ for 2013, actually it’s 10 games, 5 for each console.

My top 5 is based on 3 things:

1. How much I enjoyed the game

2. How well the game adapts to the console in question (controls, graphics, and if the game uses the full capabilities of the console – mainly in the ps vita category)

3. How well the game looks

I’m a huge fan of RPG (prepare for a landslide of them) and I’m completely unable to play fps on a console because I’m left-handed For my brain it doesn’t makes sense to use the right analog for camera and the left one for movement, my brain thinks in mirror mode. On a pc, where I’m really good (no bragging here) at FPS, I use the mouse on my left hand and the keyboard with my right hand, this is the only reason why I won’t be putting many fps in the list.

 

In the PS3 Category we have

(like all good top 5, I’ll start by the bottom :p )

In 5th place I give you Infamous 2. Why is an FPS here you could ask right after what I wrote above. One single word: Move. I only play Infamous with move. I loved the game, the story and the graphics. In my book, it’s a very worth 5th place.

4th Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I’ve been an unconditional fan of Need for Speed games since Need for speed 2, played all of them on the psp and I love it on the ps3. Thanks for this one.

3rd Kingdoms of Amalur – Reckoning. I’ve been a huge fan of R. A. Salvatore for years now. When I heard that he had participated on the lore of this game I was on my nerves to get it, but my pc can’t support it, so didn’t bought and them SCEE gives it on ps+. Awesome. About the game: compelling story, great graphics and excellent game play, what more one ask.

2nd Assassins Creed 3. It’s free-run, it’s parkour, it the American Revolution a guy with a personality to match! I love this game. The graphics, the Story, the game play and the hours of fun I had with it.

1st Lord of the Rings – War in the North. I’m a complete geek when it comes to “Lord of the Rings”. I was planning to buy this game when Cris announce it for ps+. This game gives you the opportunity to play the story parallel to the events of the books (and the movies) from the instant before Frodo arrives to Bree, to the destruction of the One Ring in Mount Doom. If you ever wanted to know what else was going on in Middle Earth during those months, than this game is for you.

 

And now for the PS Vita

 

5th – Uncharted Golden Abyss. This game is here for one simple reason. It uses the ps vita capabilities to it full extend. Every single game on the ps vita should be developed with the same hard work this one had.

4th – Oddworld Stranger Wrath. I bought this before it came to the IGC (bought it on cross-buy). Despite being an fps, is one that I can actually play and enjoy. The game is very good to play on the go and that’s why it gets the 4th place.

3rd – New little King Story. A very simple and childish game, but great to play on the go. It joins two types I really like a lot, RPG and Building. Give it a try.

2nd – Gravity Rush. The game is an almost perfect. Great Story, good controls, full use of the ps vita hardware (including Accelerometer, back touch pad, etc)

1st – Lego Lord of the Rings. Gets here for the fact that is related with Lord of the rings (I’m a complete geek remember) and I love Lego. This game does fall short on two aspect, replaying already passed levels, appears shorter than the ps3 version (although I don’t why).

Honourable mentions. This are games that I didn’t enjoy for the fact I’m unable to properly play them on a console, but if I could, they would be on the top five for sure:

Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3, Hitman, X-com Enemy Unknown (bought this one on Steam after it hit the IGC).

Now games from December because I was on exams this past month and hadn’t time to check them.

Cheers!

 

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Dump to ps3

Filed Under: Gaming, My thoughts, portable by dr3amcast3r — Leave a comment
August 16, 2013

Ever since the launch of ps vita, people complained about the lack of backward compatibility with the psp games. First of all, Sony abandoned UMD (thank the Lord for that), so no loading of UMD games on the vita; secondly, they announced that the program to get the umd at a lower price on psn was only available on Japan (hummm?!?); and finally they marked on psp games on the psn as ps vita games also, charging a full price for a 4 (or more) years old game.

This attitude left many dedicated fans thinking “What am I going to do with my UMD collection? Do I need to carry two consoles with me or just spend (another) bunch of money re-buying my games? (if they are available on psn, otherwise, tough luck).

The problem seems to be without solution, but only Sony wish it to be without solution. A few years ago, right after the first CFW/devhook for the psp someone release an UMD dump homebrew. The piece of Software basically  made a file from the UMD that a CFW could read through an ISO loader. This allow legit buyers that had a cracked psp to carry with them a bunch of games without carrying a bunch of UMD’s. The games would all go to the psp memory stick. This had several advantages.

  1. you would carry several games on the same card;
  2. meaning that, when you where tired of a game you could switch to another
  3. and the games loaded much (really much) faster.

With this in mind, I came up with the idea of a official psp software that would allow us to dump our legit bought UMD’s to a ps3 hard drive and them just copy them to the ps vita.

In order to give some restrain to piracy, the dumped games could only be played on a ps vita registered to the same account on the ps3 where the files had been created. This still doesn’t stop you from borrowing your friends UMD to dump to your ps3, but it would limited it by far.

And if you don’t have a ps3, Sony could create a desktop app with the same functions and restrictions, an addon to CMA so to speak.

This idea might go a long way to boost ps vita sales, because people would at the console and say “Ok, if I buy this device, I can dump all my umd to my ps3/pc and them just play them on the ps vita. Nice”

Cheers!

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Is the ps vita the new n-Gage

Filed Under: My thoughts by dr3amcast3r — 1 Comment
August 1, 2013

With more than a year of life ps vita is far from being the success Sony expected. Vita sales are all times low and apparently, never, since launch, it’s weekly sales have surpass it direct competitor, the 3ds. One must ask himself what is the problem? I personally own a vita. When I bought it I was torn between getting the ps vita or the 3ds. End up with vita for a single reason: hardware specifications. All other arguments where in favour of 3ds.

More games, backward compatibility with other ds games, lower price, easier to hack and run homebrews (ds flash cards have been around since the console was released, and as I write this post it’s already possible to run 3ds games on 3ds via flash card). But where the 3ds lack, ps vita excels – the hardware it’s built in.

This relation led me to remember a device that was the “Next big Thing” in portable gaming. The n-Gage. It was a great device, that never succeed. So we come to my main question. Is the PS vita the n-gage of the 2012? N-gage had “almost” everything it needed to succeed. Good hardware, join games with music with cellphone, read memory card (sd at the time), easy to install games that weren’t “arranged” legally and had an OS with personal digital agenda (PDA) functions. I remember buying  a s60 nokia phone in that period and I still use it. So why did n-gage failed? Because of the same reason that ps vita is failing: the sense that simply there aren’t any good games for the system.

Sure we had the release of Soul Sacrifice, Ragnarok, FIFA13, just to mention some. But the fact is, that if you start trying to pin-point the best vita games, you do not have much to choose from. For instance, where is Monster Hunter? Or Final Fantasy? Phantasy Star Portable?

Right now the system is on a life support system called “Playstation plus” that give 2 “free” games for the system every month and two extra for one year. However, it doesn’t have a life of it’s own, and the guilty part here is Sony.

They were so focus on preventing piracy that they ended up punishing the fans. And let’s face it, psp only started to sell like water in the desert when is was cracked. The good games for psp only came out after the console was cracked (like with all previous gaming systems from Sony). Now ps vita already has some good games (expensive as hell, but that’s another subject), it’s include in the ps+ program, has great hardware (lot’s of it not used) and the new ps4 will put the vita even more on the front line of gaming. But is that enough?

I personally don’t thing so. Where I live (Portugal) the ps vita as Zero Marketing and from I (don’t) see on youtube, neither the rest of the World. So I leave you with a list of what might save ps vita (with an emphasis on the “might”):

  • More marketing (and a good one).
  • Good games, at decent prices, need to come out.
  • The memory card price tag problem must be solved ASAP, either by putting a 8gb card on every box or by lowering the cards prices (the second being the best).
  • Some sort of backward compatibility for psp games and an app store similar to Apple and Google app store where apps can be published either for a low price or free (it’s a pity that all that marvellous hardware is only used on games).

With this I think that ps vita might actually beat the DS line to the ground, stop living on life support and be a true independent system, that can also work with living room system. Instead of the terrible feeling that I got from the ps4 show, The vita will be a companion for the ps4 that can also play games on the go.

Give me your comments and toughs on it.

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Playstation Plus

Filed Under: My thoughts by dr3amcast3r — 1 Comment
July 31, 2013

When I bought my ps vita, it came with a voucher for a one year subscription of playstation plus (ps+), valuing 50€. At first I tough that it was another crappy marketing maneuver made by Sony. I couldn’t be more mistaken. The marketing is surely there. They wave at you with the “instant Game Collection”, “Additional discounts on sales” and Special discounts only available for ps+ subscribers. If you buy the service, it costs you 50€ (maybe less if buy/renovate it in Christmas time), in return you get all the mention above.

But what each of those items means.

“Instant Game Collection” – this translates to 3 free games for your ps3 and 2 free games for your ps vita. this games are yours to play as long as your subscription is active, even after they are replaced by other 3+2 games twelve months later. This games are usually reference games for each console. Last year games where: Little Big Planet 2 (ps3), Infamous 2 (ps3) and MotorStorm Apocalypse (ps3), Uncharted Golden Abyss (ps vita) and Gravity Rush (ps vita). While the vita games are still up, in the middle of June the ps3 titles where replaced (for a period of twelve months) by Uncharted 3: Drakes Fortune, Xcom: Enemy Unknown and Little Big Planet Karting.

This 5 games alone more than worth the 50€/year you have to pay. However, every month, and for a 30 days period, 5 more games enter the roaster.

Just to give you an idea, here is the list for June, July and August 2013

June: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (ps3), ICO and Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection (ps3), Demon’s Souls (ps3), Rayman Origins (ps vita) and Coconut Dodge Revitalised (ps vita)

July: Battlefield 3 (ps3), Payday: The Heist (ps3), Saints Row the Third (ps3), Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus (ps vita) and Unit 13 (ps vita) (and a big rip-off)

August (start today): Need for speed: Most Wanted (ps3), Mafia 2 (ps3), Spec Ops: The Line (ps3), Lego Lord of the Rings (ps vita) and When Vikings Attack! (ps vita)

These 3 months alone go well over 100€, no imagine this for 12 months… But before you go running to your local store to buy this or quickly login in your psn account to buy a subscription, there are some cons on this service.

The biggest one is for people that like to run homebrews on their consoles. Ps+ forces you to update to the latest version in order to access psn and there for to be able to download your “free” games.

One other issue is that you depend exclusively from want Sony thinks you want to play. For instance, this month the list for ps3 has nothing for me since I mainly enjoy RPG, however, June was AWESOME because of Kingdoms of Amalur. This means that sometimes we can ended up playing games you would never buy.

The third issue relates with a vita problem (don’t miss my article “Is the Ps Vita the new n-gage” to be publish soon already publish, just follow the link). Sometimes there will be a psp game slipped away between a monthly update branded as a ps vita game. This problem mainly affects North America and is accompanied by a lot of flaming in the official blog and forums.

However, if you don’t care about running homebrews on your console, don’t care about being force to update and specially, don’t want to spend a fortune in games, this service is for you.

if you like this post, share it on your social networks or post a comment.

Cheers

Francisco

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