Aaand Driveclub Looks Palatable Again

The information contained in the above video is no longer completely true, and that is a very good thing.

In the original Playstation Blog post which shared details of the game, the plan for the Playstation Plus version of the game was finally fleshed out 'fully', which was something that had been...well, not nebulous, but unconfirmed, I should say.  And what we saw was not exactly what we had been lead to believe and, worse, was just not good.

One of the recurring questions we keep seeing is about the scale of the PlayStation Plus Edition. The simple answer is that with an active PlayStation Plus subscription, you can download DRIVECLUB PlayStation Plus Edition, which comes with one location (India), 11 tracks, 10 cars and access to all game modes.

[...]

We think you’ll have a lot of fun playing DRIVECLUB once it launches on October 7th, digitally via the PlayStation store and on Blu-ray at your local retailer. If you’re an active PlayStation Plus subscriber and have been playing the PlayStation Plus Edition, but decide you want the full DRIVECLUB experience, you can purchase a one-time upgrade for $49.99. This will give you access to all five locations, 55 tracks, 50 cars and all 50 tour events, as long as your PlayStation Plus subscription remains active.

Emphasis mine.  What it basically boils down to is that you're offered a slice of the game for free if you have Playstation Plus, which has always been the case.  As with other free things attached to Playstation Plus, it is only free if you keep your Playstation Plus subscription active and that is understandable.  All of that is very basic and there is no problem.  However, the rub lies within the portion that says you can upgrade your Playstation Plus version into the full game for a purchase that is only $10 less than the game retails for, but it retains that pesky "Only available while you have Plus" qualifier which is where we all (understandably) freaked out.

I imagine it was there to prevent a de facto $10 discount for Playstation Plus Members (since if it wasn't there, there's literally no reason to buy the base Digital version of it) but that shit just will not fly.  Short term < Long Term, sers, and that is something that everybody has been making clear in the past year or so.  As with those scenarios, the internet went vocal and, again as with the scenarios of late, the internet (and common sense) have won out.  An Update (within the post I already linked) spells it out clearly:

UPDATE: Our priority for DRIVECLUB is to enable you to play and enjoy everything it has to offer and PlayStation recognises that the prior plan for DRIVECLUB entitlement for the upgrade to the PS Plus edition was not appropriate. As a result, we have adjusted the PlayStation Plus terms for DRIVECLUB.
Now, If you intend on downloading DRIVECLUB PlayStation Plus Edition, and upgrading to the full game experience, you will have access to the full game even if your PlayStation Plus subscription runs out.

Emphasis mine again.  This places the Plus version firmly within "Get" territory once again.  It's not hard to convince me to get a Free Game through Plus (the "Free" part generally does it), but I was more or less considering skipping it completely.  Not because I was totally outraged (though I was very annoyed with the decision) but because I just don't like Racing Games, so it does not take much to dissuade me away from one.  Telling me that I can get a game and then -buy- it, but not have access to it for a set of reasons that is very easily undergone is a very nice way to do that, however.  Thankfully, that is not the case.  That means I'll give it a shot provided it's not like a ridiculous size that will require me to spend like four days downloading it.  Who knows, maybe I'll even like Driveclub!

probably not, it's a racing game after all

Touch My Katamari is Pretty Good

Tonight was not my first exposure to Katamari since that honor was given to the demo for Touch My Katamari around when the Vita launched.  It was a really fun demo because the core mechanics of the game are pretty solid and the demo level had some really interesting layout and music that made it rather memorable.  It was because of the demo that I went "Yeah, I'm going to buy this game at -some- point", yet that point never came until today.  Thanks to the fantastic Japanese Game Sale going on, I grabbed the game for $3.75 and I do not regret it even a little bit.  (I also bought Atelier Totori Plus as I said I would, but I don't have 3 Gigs free and I need space for the Killzone Mercenary Beta anyway)  I thought about it and realized that even though I played the demo like fifty times, I didn't really say a -lot- about it.  Yeah, I mean, I said two paragraphs about it all that time ago, but now I have the game proper and it's fresh and new (to me) so I should go a little deeper.

If you're not quite sure what a Katamari is, I have to assume that you're not really up on the niche stuff which is sort of an assumption one can make because of the whole definition of that and whatnot.  Regardless, it was a series that I knew of for a while even if I didn't play a single iteration of it until this one on the Vita.  Basically what the game is about is rolling a ball that captures things on it to make it bigger so you can roll up bigger things.  Like a snowball effect, except you're eventually rolling up cars and people and being a general menace to society by making a gigantic ball of chaos.  Some missions there's a time limit to make as big of a ball as you can, some missions there's an amount of things that you have to collect, and some missions, it's just about getting to a particular size.  Eventually, I think there's a mode where you can just roll up everything and that will be amazing if it's true and I want it, but I'm good with what I've got for now.

It is very....quirky.  Quirky isn't the right word, of course, but it's the only one I can think of without saying "Japanese" and getting all sorts of negative connotations leveled at me.  Even though you all know what I mean, you bastards.  You're the Prince under the King of All Cosmos who is in a guy in too tight tights asking you to make giant balls of things that he can eat and turn into stars.  Please, go into your own minds and think of an appropriate word for that scenario as it lays out.  Try to blame me, I dare you.  Aside from that, there's all sorts of weird animated cutscenes that go on betwixt the missions, which are presented to you by talking to people who are standing on the hat of the King of All Cosmos while also ignoring gravity.  All the missions seem to involve bettering the King in some fashion, either by making a Katamari that has a lot of sports equipment to make him get out more, or a lot of rich things to make him look better off than he is, but really, it's all about rolling a ball around and making it bigger and bigger and bigger.

That works.  It's simple and it's far more enjoyable and engrossing than you might think.  All you're doing is rolling around the Katamari and picking up things so you can pick up bigger things as stated, but there's just something -to- it.  You roll by a King Chess Piece and say "No, too big for now", yet keep it in mind as you roll up about twenty toothpicks, six coins and some batteries that have been progressively larger.  By the time you see the Chess Piece again, you barrel right on through to pick it up because you're big enough now, and thanks to that, you're big enough for something else and so on and so on.  It's that sort of driving force that doesn't make it quite strategic, but distinctly gives the game structure that allows you to play around within those admittedly expansive confines.  Structure that you will eventually roll over to bring into your latest Katamari that will be as large as the day is long, and make a rather impressive star that burns twice as bright.

As stated, there's a demo of the game on the Playstation Store and while the game is $3.75 (only until the store updates on Tuesday) you should give it a shot.  Worst that will happen is the charm, the music (which is fantastic) and the game itself will fail to grab you and you won't spent less than four bucks on something.  Or, depending on your outlook, you'll love it and have to spend less than four bucks on it which is not that big of an issue either.  Basically I'm just saying that there's very little to be lost and potentially a lot to be gained here.  It's not a particularly big game, but it offers a lot of replayability once new modes open up and give you new incentive to try out the previous stages again.  And again, it's less than four bucks for a few more days.  I feel I have to stress that, while also reminding you that there are other games in the Japanese Game Sale that you should also buy like Soul Sacrifice which you should buy because I'm telling you to buy Soul Sacrifice.  Subtly.  Subliminal messaging.

roll up allll of the things!

PSA: There is an Amazing Vita Sale Going On

Completely out of the blue, the Playstation Blog announced a sale this previous Monday that would go live this past Tuesday and carry over into next week's store update on Tuesday where different titles are switched in.  As someone who loves his Vita so much who wants other people to similarly love their Vitas, I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up at least once, so that is what I'm doing here.  The sale is the Japanese Games Sale which is appropriate because a lot of the games that are really good on the Vita are Japanese (though there are notable exceptions, of course) and quite a few of them are included in the sale in one vein or the other.  Of course, it would just be easiest to sort of...show what the sale is and -then- talk about it first.

August 13th – 19th

Game	Regular Price	Sale Price	Plus Price
Soul Sacrifice	$35.99	$24.99	$17.49
Gravity Rush	$35.99	$24.99	Free
Sumioni: Demon Arts	$14.99	$10.49	$7.34
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus	$39.99	$27.99	$19.59
Guilty Gear Accent XX Core + R	$14.99	$10.49	$7.34
Atelier Totori Plus	$39.99	$27.99	$19.59
Silent Hill Book of Memories	$29.99	$14.99	$7.50
Touch My Katamari	$14.99	$7.49	$3.75
Ridge Racer	$24.99	$12.49	$6.25

August 20th – 26th

Game	Regular Price	Sale Price	PS Plus Price
Street Fighter X Tekken	$39.99	$27.99	$19.59
Muramasa Rebirth	$34.99	$27.99	$20.99
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection	$29.99	$20.99	$14.69
New Little King’s Story	$19.99	$13.99	$9.79
Dead or Alive 5 Plus	$39.99	$19.99	$10.00
Ragnarok Odyssey	$29.99	$20.99	$14.69
Dynasty Warriors Next	$34.99	$17.49	$8.75
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3	$39.99	$19.99	$10.00
Super Monkey Ball	$29.99	$20.99	$14.69

As stated, the first batch of titles will be only be on sale until next Tuesday, where another batch of fantastic games will take over and threaten your wallet with all the fury of a thousand purchases.  Or something along those lines. 

One thing that I do want to emphasize so much that I started a new paragraph for it is that I want you to buy Soul Sacrifice.  As you know, I really enjoyed it and I want a sequel which is only going to happen if more people buy it.  So buy it.  At $17.49, it's practically a steal (even if some of the other games in the sale are literally a steal) and it has hours upon hours upon hours of content to keep you coming back for more, not counting the batches of free DLC that have come out for it.  Which I don't even think are -done- by the way.  So the game is there and then some and I cannot say enough that I want you to buy it because I love it and I know that I'm not going to be alone in this.  It's one of those games that I will eventually Platinum because I just want to really badly, even if it's going to take a ridiculous amount of effort.

Other things I'm going to pick up personally include Atelier Totori Plus, which Chance assures me is very cute and well worth the sub-$20 pricetag on it and Touch My Katamari because that name, the demo is amazing and I have just wanted it for a while, so $3.75 is absurdly reasonable.  I briefly considered Guilty Gear, but I don't like Fighting Games as a rule, and I already have BlazBlue attached to my account and I really want to play that...when I have 3 gigs free which isn't going to be anytime soon, I can assure you of that, unfortunately.  If I liked Diablo-like games, I would certainly pick up Silent Hill:  Book of Memories since I enjoyed the demo for it and....even as it stands, I still might.  It's a weird, neat little game and it's something that I want to like, and am assured by some sources that it's something that is indeed likable, but I just haven't reconciled that with my brain just yet.

The following week is when it gets a bit ridiculous.  Muramasa: Rebirth just came out not too long ago and for $21, you're getting a crazy good deal.  Similarly the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for Vita, while it lacks Peace Walker, is still twice the price it'll be on sale for and even if you're just looking for one or the other, it's simply easier to buy both because they're both fantastic games.  Just pretend you're getting one for free if you need any more convincing than that.  While I have my complaints and whinges about Dynasty Warriors Next, sub-$9 is a good price for just about anything, and it -is- based on Dynasty Warriors 7 which was the best Dynasty Warriors game before 8 came out (which I have yet to play even though I bought it on release day auuuugh).  So if that's something you're interested in at all, it might not be a bad idea so long as you're not a Trophy addict.  Honestly, there's not a bad game in the second week of sales aside from perhaps Super Monkey Ball (which I don't think I've heard a single positive thing about) and New Little King's Story which is purely dependent on your tastes, I believe.  (Have heard mixed things about it, myself)

Regardless, the prices are amazing, the games are great and it's a sale that is geared specifically towards getting you to enjoy your Vita more than you already do.  Unless you already own like -all- of the games in the sale in which case you are probably enjoying your Vita just fine enough.  Because you also likely have Persona 4 Golden which means you're not even reading this because you're still playing it because it's so good.  So please, if you're one of those folks complaining there aren't enough things for the Vita (or know someone who is saying that) direct your attention to the storefront for the next two weeks and gorge yourself on something great for a price that won't hurt.

but no seriously, at least buy Soul Sacrifice

Dokuro - Escort Quest: The Game

Just recently, Dokuro was added to the line-up of the Playstation Vita's Instant Game Collection, so I decided I'd grab it up and take a look at it, since it's something I've been rather interested in for a while thanks to the rather unique art style it's got going on.  It was not a game that I paid close attention to, however, which shows as I thought of it as a sort of puzzle platformer instead of what it actually is...which is a puzzle-platformer wherein you have a little partner of sorts along for the ride.  This is....more than a little off-putting to me as I started to get into it, but it was something that I sort of would become cool or at least not a hassle as things went on.  It was wishful thinking of course, and as we all know, wishful thinking and two quarters usually just leaves you with fifty cents.

The story behind the game is basically that you are some kind of skeleton knight and a demon kidnaps a beautiful princess and is holding her hostage because that's just kind of what happens.  The skeleton thinks that's kind of shitty and then just goes and frees her because he likes her or something, so she starts leaving.  Problem is, she wasn't being held, you know, right by the front door or anything, so she has to get -out- of the castle and be free, but the thing is, she's patently unable to do so without a little help.  And that is, indeed, where you come into play, being the thing that aids her escape by basically doing everything in your power to ensures she has a level piece of flooring or something equivalent under her feet since she can't jump worth a damn or....be...useful in any capacity whatsoever.  Really, she's more of a hindrance, as you might guess.

Escort quests are usually the most reviled thing you can put in any form of video game simply because the AI of the escorted is generally coded in such a way that it's a wonder they don't actually trip over their own feet and snap their neck.  It's not inherently wrong - after all, if someone is battle-worthy enough in the worlds that such quests inhabit, then they generally don't need an escort - but it's definitely an exaggeration of the issue at hand, because oftentimes they're not really programmed with surviving in mind.  Egregiously so.  The princess in Dokuro is of the same cloth, willfully walking into angry looking things with swords, bottomless pits in the right circumstances, and under anything of considerable weight as it's very obviously coming down from above.  She is at the level where we consider the NPC "beyond saving" because clearly nature and Darwin have something out for them.

That's not to say there's nothing good to the game, as it does feature a few neat little things from my minimal exposure to it.  You get some magic chalk which you can use to connect ropes at certain points which will likely be a neat mechanic....eventually.  Beyond that, you get a potion that allows you to transform into a handsome knight who is not only stronger (can actually kill foes) but is also able to carry the princess at points.  On the downside, he's taller meaning that it's impossible for you to get through certain parts, and he cannot jump as high or as often as the skeleton form, meaning mobility is a bit limited.  Both of these points are kind of hampered by the fact that the controls are a bit finnicky - jumping doesn't feel like it's right where it needs to be which is a problem for a platformer, and the melee combat as it is is far too simplistic while also leaving you open for counter-attack as a fault, not a mechanic.  Even though the levels are rather short and compact, these two little factors can often cause one to drag on forever which is...less than ideal.

Perhaps I'm just not the best judge for this game since it's admittedly in a vein of things that is not my cup of tea.  Puzzle-Platformers, by and large, go right on by on my interest radar, so really the only reason I grabbed this was because it was free and because it looked unique.  And in that respect, it -is- unique, and is definitely something you should check out yourself.  But after clearing the first boss and finding myself sighing in frustration a few levels into the second chapter because I keep missing easy jumps and getting smashed by falling roofs that work much faster than it looks, it's clear I'm not enjoying it.  I don't think I can get into it enough to find the enjoyment that I'm assured is sunken within it somehow.  I'm still well within the "Give it a good shot" phase, but it's wearing quite thin and come Tuesday when I load up Dragon's Crown into my Vita, it'll be a forgotten non-issue.

I think what bothers me the most is the melee because you hit things, they fly back and, if you're playing the knight, they then explode, but why?  And doing that as the skeleton knight just...seems superfluous, really.

Confession Time - I Don't Really Like Pinball

I'm in that sort of weird period of time where I want to play something, but just about anything I could -want- to play is long-enough of a commitment that it'll go right through the time in a couple weeks when Dragon's Crown comes out.  This is not good, because I'm going to play Dragon's Crown because it's going to be awesome, and I'm going to be a Wizard and everything is going to be wizard.  (I tried to find something appropriate for that reference and it failed.  Definitely not wizard)  Anyway, instead of playing through Muramasa Rebirth on Fury (which I did unlock, thank you Chance, it took some doing, but I re-did the boss fight as Momohime on Chaos and it was awesome), slapping Persona 4 Golden back in (because honestly, one play isn't enough), getting rid of Virtue's Last Reward and replacing it with BlazBlue (which is hard because I love VLR even though I platinum'd it) or even just playing Shin Megami Tensei IV or Pokemon Conquest on my 3DS XL (which I'm loathe to do because I hate holding that thing all day from Animal Crossing) I decided "Hey, I got Pinball Arcade for Vita with Playstation Plus, so let's try that."

(Parentheses)

This....I'm not going to say it was a mistake, but, er, I'm just....I'm really not a fan.  I've played Pinball in the past and I haven't really enjoyed it then despite knowing that I should by all rights, but it has never clicked with me.  It's far too busy, especially when you have tables like the above pictured, the flippers always seem to make the ball go where I don't actually want it to go, and far too often have I been subject to watch in hopelessness as my ball hits one of the side 'gutters' and I simply cannot stop it or recover it.  It's akin to pouring out a glass of water in front of a prone man dragging himself through the desert.  Like throwing table scraps to a dog while someone starved watches on.  Like making really bad metaphors and making you read through them to get to a point.  My point is that on far too many occasions, my ball was thrown into a gutter through no fault of my own, and it's agonizing and all I can do is flip the flippers with fury unchecked while I mutter curse words to the electronic voice shouting out about Shrunken Heads or Bigfoot or traveling to Africa or shut the fuck up, Ripley.  Just shut up.

Anyway, one of the gripes I do have with Pinball Arcade is that it has a....rather unintuitive start-up if you're walking into it without really knowing anything.  Because I opened it, got through the title screen and saw "Season One Tables" and "Season Two Tables" and went "hmm, that's odd" and just went into Season One, looking around until I saw the Star Trek:  The Next Generation table.  Interested, I clicked on it and was informed that I could buy it or a table pack for value and I didn't have a damn clue what was going on.  It was only after going back to the initial options and looking at the third one over "My Tables" that I actually understood what was that whole bit actually was.  Obviously, they want to sell you some more tables and that's perfectly acceptable but....I don't know, maybe make option number one "PLAY THE TABLES I CURRENTLY OWN BY SOME MAGIC".  Maybe.  It might just be helpful.  Just a bit.  Perhaps.  Tiny bit useful.

Pinball Arcade initially comes with four tables - Black Hole, Ripley's Believe it or Not!, Tales of the Arabian Nights and Theatre of Magic - all of which have their own themes and quirks that admittedly do make them rather interesting in design if nothing else.  It's thanks to this that I understand the enthusiasm for Pinball Machines in general, as they're rather intricate, amazing little things that have had an inordinate amount of thought, creativity and love put into them.  Black Hole, for instance, is a space-themed machine and it has a spot in the middle that you can kind of see, but it's kind of dark, presumably being the "Black Hole".  At a certain point, you can get your ball into an area where it'll drop into a -lower- area of the machine that lights up under that glass spot, revealing an inverse pinball machine.  Rather than rolling towards you, the ball rolls -away- from you while the flippers are switched as well, making it all a crazy, interesting perspective twist that is really cool on its own merits.

All of the tables have their own little thing like that which I can like or dislike (as stated above, the Ripley table is just far too busy with all the stuff on it) on merit, but there is the whole matter of playing it.  No matter how awesome a table is structured or built, I'm still just watching a ball roll around until I can hit it with a flipper and then until I can hit it with a flipper again until inevitably it rolls into the "lose" sections while I'm basically unable to do anything about it because it went right between the flippers (happens more than you think), goes into one of the 'gutters' or just zips by so fast that it doesn't even care that I hit it and instead uses that momentum to fly down faster or something I don't even know.  Perhaps it's simply because I got my fill of Pinball as a young'n with Sonic Spinball (a damn brilliant game if I may say) or perhaps it's just because I'm missing the point, but it just doesn't grab me.  It's a shame, really, because in theory it should be enough to hold my attention, but unfortunately not.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with my time until Dragon's Crown.

I will probably end up playing Pokemon Conquest because it's Pokemon and Sengoku-era Japan and HOW CAN YOU SAY NO

Virtue's Last Reward is Sooooo Good

After playing a bit of Kisuke's story in Muramasa: Rebirth and deciding I just really don't like Chaos mode because block and attack being bound to the same button but needing a significantly longer hold for the former isn't particularly.....good, I decided it was time to finally play something that's been on my Vita for a good amount of time now.  I've had Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Reward ever since the night it was made available to US Playstation Plus members and have not so much as opened up to the LiveArea of it, much to my own chagrin.  Too many other games to play.  Too many other things to do.  There was just too much going on before I could delve into the world of Virtue's Last Reward, which I knew would swallow up a good few days or closer to a week of my time.  But with Hotline Miami beaten, my desire to go back to Disgaea 3 with the knowledge that 4 is getting a long-awaited Vita port (and no doubt a localization sometime next year) shaken and my patience with Muramasa at a low-point, today was the perfect day to get into it.

Well, maybe not perfect.  After all, Dynasty Warriors 8 and Shin Megami Tensei IV, both of which I have on pre-order, will drop a mere two days from now and I'll be picking them up then.  I won't be able to play DW8 right away, but I will be sorely tempted to delve into SMT IV for curiosity's sake.  Regardless, sometime soon-ish, Rune Factory 4 will be a game in my possession and thereafter, I will not have what everyone calls "Free time" because my Free time will transmogrify into "Rune Factory time", so I sort of needed to get on this sooner rather than later.  In any case, I'm absolutely ecstatic that I did get on it, because if you couldn't tell, I think it is quite excellent from the short clip of it that I played.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be laughing with the game, considering the dire context of it - The Nonary Game, a game tied implicitly with death - but I simply cannot help myself.  I have no idea if Aksys meant to have done such a humorous localization with Zero III, the above bunny rabbit thing you see, nor do I know if Cindy Robinson was instructed to put as much....character into Zero III, but I'm erring on the side of believing they did.  Simply because it's so well done that I cannot help but think it was intentional.  Zero III simply revels in delight at the plight of our band of nine and the task of running the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition that Virtue's Last Reward revolves around.  While I'm not far enough into it to give you an approximation of its worth in terms of impressions, I'm not overstating anything when I say it was worth the download for Zero III's dialogue alone.

It does seem to play a lot like 999, in terms of having puzzle sections and then story sections and switching between them, which is quite welcome.  The puzzles so far are clever - nothing that's made me go "Fuck it, I'm reading a wiki", even though I've gotten close, which I believe is pretty much the best it can be.  The story so far hasn't really gone places aside from wonderful things with Zero III as mentioned (And Dio, who is voiced by Liam O'Brien which is always welcome), or at least not in a way I can speculate off of, but as stated, I'm in it early.  I do miss 999 a little bit in that nobody really has a....well, a pronounced personality thus far, whereas in 999, you could tell what was going on in the very intro scene of the game when everyone was collected together.  Also 999's character designs are miles better than VLR's, but that's a little thing in the long run, I suppose.

Still, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game and I'm glad I finally found a bit of time for it since it's been sitting on my Memory Stick for a while now, just waiting for me.  If you haven't grabbed it yet, it's not going to be there for too much longer (if it's not gone already), so I definitely -do- urge you to grab it.  However, if you have access to a DS, even of the 3DS variety, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of 999 to enjoy, because it's quite a good game.  This all does remind me that I never did finish my "Explaining 999's Best Ending" series of posts (which I would advise you to not pursue unless you've played it already) which is something that I -will- rectify eventually.  Promise.

Zero III really is just so good

Sony's E3. Hot. Damn.

• $399 / €399 / £349 This Holiday Season
• Versus 13 is now Final Fantasy XV for PS4
• Kingdom Hearts 3 for PS4
• GTAV PS3 Bundle With Specialty Headset - $299
• The Walking Dead Gets Bundled with Vita Plus DLC
• The Order: 1886 is Announced, PS4 Exclusive From Ready at Dawn
• inFamous: Second Son is PS4 Launch Title Q1 Title (before 3/31/2014)
• Playstation is still the Indie Darling with Transistor, Don't Starve, Mercenary Kings, Secret Ponchos, *Deep Breath* Outlast, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Galak-Z and Ray's the Dead all announced for PS4
• The Elder Scrolls Online Announced for PS4, Will receive Beta 'First'
• Mad Max announced for PS4 from the guys behind Just Cause 2
• NO USED DRM, NO ONLINE CONNECTION CHECK-IN
• Playstation Plus carries over to PS4 Will include one PS4 Free Game Every Month to start, but is unfortunately required for Online Multi-player
• Playstation Cloud Gaming launches 2014 Will Stream some PS3 games, launches on PS3 and PS4 first, Vita at a later date

So, the presser was pretty much -all- about the PS4 which, as a Vita fan makes me sad sad sad.  Still, we did get Destiny of Spirits announced, and with the Indie Push, I would hope most, if not all, of those indie titles also end up on Vita (as well as some others that are current) and there is still plenty of time to announce things on the showroom floor.  Though, I suppose we might have to wait for TGS to see the likes of Gravity Rush 2 announced.  Also....probably all the other stuff I suggested since most of it is Japan-centric anyway.

Except a new Vita God of War/Uncharted.  Come on.  Give me -something- here.

Regardless, Sony came out swinging with the PS4 and I shouldn't have to point out how.

Hot.  Damn.

So I Officially Don't Get Knytt Underground

Knytt Underground went up as yesterday's Playstation Plus freebie in the Playstation Store Update and I have to admit that I've been eying it for a while, but not enough to pick up the demo for the game since there wasn't a file size attached to it in the Vita store and I am considerably lazy at looking that kind of thing up.  I figured it's well worth the shot at the lovely price of 'free' and so I tested out my shiny, fixed internet by downloading all 657 MB of it.  "What's the worst that could happen?" I posited.  I've already played Braid, so I've seen about the lowest depths of 'artsy-fartsy' and pretentious that one could expect from a Puzzle-Platformer, and while I didn't expect anything of that sort from Knytt, it was technically possible as most things in the world are.  But I expected something better than that, something fun and challenging, possibly engaging, with a gorgeous art style to pull it all together.  That....is not quite what I got.

The game -is- quite beautiful to look at for the most part, and is no doubt enhanced by the Vita's absolutely wonderful screen.  Backgrounds are lush and vibrant, where the actual traverse-able areas are generally black, but not distracting from what you're -really- looking at.  The area where the actual look of the game falls is the character design and, unfortunately, it falls hard.  Sprites of humanoid things are generally only shown in portraits for conversations (that barely occur) but when they happen, they're so jarring from the beauty surrounding it, that you find yourself wondering how they managed to end up in the same game.  To tell the truth, they're not....horrible, they're just juvenile and they clash tremendously with the style of the rest of the game itself.

Those characters are unfortunately made less appealing thanks to the writing that is at once barely-there and over-stays its welcome.  Knytt Underground unfortunately suffers from a thought process that it has to be everything at once - beautiful and charming, funny yet serious, simple yet challenging - and, as with most things that attempt this, it fails spectacularly at doing everything by muddling everything together and accomplishing nothing.  When the characters finally do open their mouths, it's usually to spout some groan-worthy 'witty' comment or to attempt to further the equally groan-inducing 'story'.  Here is the story, idly, as it's told over three chapters.  Mi (the main character) can't talk.  She is going to get picked to save the world and can't refuse it because she can't talk.  Then that happens and the last chapter is trying to save the world.  That's it.  Everything else is superfluous and painfully so at that.  The entirety of Chapter 2 is spent looking for a key to doors that just open themselves when you can't actually find the key.  (Spoiler alert:  The key is actually in the fucking pocket of the fairy you're working with and you're -told- this about an hour before you figure it out.)

Nothing about the game screams inspired or enchanting, nor is any of it particularly good even.  It's....mediocre in the literal sense.  Not very good, but not bad either.  It's an effort, that much is for sure, but it's an effort that just didn't go well in the end product.  The designs and the 'humor' that the game tries to have only drag down what's already a fairly uninteresting game to play.  The controls are simple enough and the map design is a bit forced - you'll figure out over the three chapters that you're on the same map for all three, just that you start in different places for each one.  So all those things you see in Chapter 1 that you just can't get to, well, you'll come back to them in what is a poor attempt to making it Metroidvania-esque, I assume.  This is, of course, all sprinkled in with power orbs that are only present in a handful of areas that cause changes in your movement when you use them - orbs that attempt to introduce the actual challenge to the game and...well, succeed, I guess.  Not very well, however, which might as well be the mantra for the game.

Knytt Underground is just....confusing, really.  It doesn't know what it wants to be and thus tries to be a little bit of everything to no real success.  Or, rather, the first two chapters are like this.  Of a three chapter game.  I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that chapter three isn't going to introduce all sorts of game-changers that elevate it to something beyond what I think of it currently.  That's unfortunate, and perhaps I will be proven wrong, but I'm so convinced that I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to continue with Chapter Three - I could be playing other things, after all.  Things I have fun with.  Things that don't make me roll my eyes when the screen goes white and the self-insert narrator faux-cheekily says "...and then there was an explosion.", presumably with an implied hand wave with jazz fingers.  Of course that's not a thing I do often.....but that's not to say I never do it.

seriously, a thing tells Rob (the fairy) that the key is in his fucking pocket three times that is the stupidest fucking thing

I Wish I Loved Grinding

Disgea 3:  Absence of Detention was handed out last week as a Playstation Plus freebie, which I immediately picked up and by immediately, I mean "overnight for a 14 hour download".  I have a good portion of the Disgaea games, only skirting around picking up the re-releases and such (though I have some of those) so I -have- Disgaea 3 on PS3 already, and I did put a good bit of time into it there before moving on to other things.  That was a while ago, however, and my progress has since been lost, so the knowledge that there would be a handheld version of the game in the Vita port was comforting.  I do some of my best gaming on handhelds, after all, since it's far, far easier to keep at a game when you can take it anywhere you go.  That is unless the game utterly turns you off, of course.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Disgaea 3.  Well, there are a couple things wrong with it, chief being that the story is....terrible, but it is not a -bad- game.  There's not bugs in it, it's perfectly playable, it runs smooth, looks nice on the Vita and there was a clear amount of love placed into the game.  I cannot say "I don't like Disgaea 3" and be telling you the truth, because I -do- like it in premise and concept.

I just cannot enjoy playing it.

It is something that never ceases to boggle me; Disgaea as a series, as games, in story and in mechanics, is steeped in absurdity, practically slow-boiled in it and yet I can't bring myself to enjoy it as fully and wholly as I expect to and as I want to.  You can climb mountains that just don't exist in other games, and then you can climb -bigger- mountains than those ones.  You can reach Level 9999, you can deal a million damage with the swing of a sword, you can turn a Prinny into a handgun, you can go -into- a world inside of a weapon to make it stronger and you can erect a tower of people all for the effort of throwing one to throw another to throw another and so on.  You can do other things that are crazier than the mentioned.  There is not a sane bone in the body of any Disgaea game and that what makes them charming.

I would love it if I could find that enjoyment in Disgaea.  I did, once upon a time, as my save file for Disgaea 2 on PS2 will attest to, but I can't find that any longer.  Every battle just seems like it's the same one and I can't exactly figure out what the differentiation between that and a game like Final Fantasy Tactics, which I have no qualms playing almost any time, but there is some sort of difference there and it is key enough that it prevents me from making an actual effort.  My only idea is the grinding (as you may have guessed from the title) since you can grind literally everything, but I enjoy grinding in other things.  Like....Final Fantasy Tactics.  I would routinely play by the "X2 Rule" whenever I played FFT which was, simply, the "Suggested Level" in the strategy guide that was given to me with the game as a gift...times two.  Suggested level was five, I was level ten, ten, I was twenty, etc.  I love accelerating FFT characters.

There's just some sort of strange disconnect when it comes to the characters you get in Disgaea, though.  Perhaps it's because they're a bit more malleable than most games, but that should be inspiring more than it's not.  I don't suspect that I'll find the reason why and be able to exile it and find that Disgaea 3 'clicks' with me, though I would certainly like that.  I want to enjoy Disgaea 3 as much as I know that I can, and that I cannot it something that is of particular annoyance with me.  Still, I suspected as much and it's only because it was free that I'm playing it - I'm not actually regretting it or anything of that sort - I just want to be able to like good games.  And I feel that, beneath whatever it is that I just don't like about the series, they -are- good games.

Late to the Party

So, because Plants vs. Zombies is the free Vita game in this week's Plus update, I decided to grab it and try it out.  As possibly the last person alive who has -not- played any iteration of the game by this point in time, I am hilariously late to the point where it's almost irrelevant, but I wanted to speak on it anyway because that is sort of what I do, as you might have noticed by now.  Previously, my only exposure to the game was watching my rather young nephews play the game on a Kindle Fire, passing it back and forth between levels and/or failures.  Without an actual induction to the mechanics and such, I just sort of had to infer what was actually going on, but the relative ease of expressing how to play to the player that the game possesses made it a pretty simple task.  Now, playing it for myself, it turns out that exactly everything I suspected whilst watching it played is, in fact, correct.

To say that it's got an easy-to-use interface is to say that water is wet and other such overused sayings.  Do I even need to explain this?  No, but I'm going to anyway.  The goal is to keep zombies from knocking on your front door, which you accomplish this task by planting various plants that impede their progress.  The currency through which you buy these plants are 'suns' which appear on the screen via two methods - at timed intervals, a sun just sort of pops down, and you can plant the aptly-named Sunflowers which will generate them as well.  Every level just revolves around keeping Zombies from knocking down your door, which is not a difficult task to do, at least not at the start.  At its core, Plants vs. Zombies is simply a Tower Defense game, which is a genre I've expressed something related to displeasure with in the past.

This is not a game that has changed my opinion, unfortunately.  Plants vs. Zombies really doesn't do anything that other Tower Defense games don't do, so, to me, it doesn't really stand out all that much.  It falls into the same pitfall as other TD games so often do, where it becomes less and less about 'strategy' and reaction, and more and more about implementing the same exact spread when you can since, in 99% of the cases, it will keep you safely in the unchallenged position.  The image I've used above, taken from one of my own plays, is basically my spread.  Really, the only problem is keeping zombies away at the start, and then by the end, my offense is so ridiculously overpowered, plus a double-wall, that I could put my Vita down and go grab a drink, only to come back to my success.  At best, it's amateur strategy hour, and at worst, it's dreadfully boring.  Well, at least for now.

The game will, I'm sure, ramp up the 'difficulty' in later levels, which basically means that the hordes will appear faster and in greater numbers which isn't so much a challenge so much as it's pitting you against something that strains at the very foundation on which the game was built.  It's a difficulty spike in the same way that turning Enemy Health to 300% and Player Damage to 50% is difficult in that it's bullshit and doesn't make clever use of anything at all.  It's difficult in the same way walking in snow with weights attached to your feet is really hard to do.  What I'm saying is that I'm honestly not a fan of the way most games handle difficulty and Tower Defense genres tend to be among the worst offenders in this regard, since it is apparently an impossible task to design something of the sort with balance in mind.  Instead, it becomes Starship Troopers, in that you're kind of always going to die against an endless onslaught that you're in no way prepared for.

Regardless, the game is rather charming and, as I said, insanely easy to play.  While I can't say that I don't enjoy the game, because I certainly do in a sense, Tower Defense is still just not my bag.  The game itself has rather lovely visuals, a certain amount of charm around it and it's addicting if nothing else.  That may be in part due to how it seamlessly throws you from victory screen to set-up screen for the next level, preying on your impulse to say "one more level, just one more" until you've been playing for four hours and realize as much.  As something I got for free, it's fantastic and I can see myself throwing a good bit of time into it whilst I wait on other things, but it's not something I would have actively sought out, and especially after playing it, I'm glad that I didn't.  A little fun is still fun, of course.

One PS4 Worry

Let's face a few facts here.  If there's absolutely -anything- that the Playstation brand has definitively got going on these days, it's absolutely Playstation Plus.  It's undeniable at this point - for $50 a year, you get access to a constantly expanding library of games for both the PS3 and the Vita, Cloud Saves for both devices and a suite of other niceties.  Almost instantly after you subscribe, the inherent value to the service is made apparent and even if you don't take full advantage of -everything- it has to offer, you're still getting a great deal.  In short, it's a hell of a bargain.  Almost too much of a bargain, though, which is where the issue settles in.

Playstation Plus is built around two basic principles at the moment:  Cross-Support on both PS3 and Vita and catering to the inherent free nature of a Playstation Network account.  You don't have to pay to play online, you don't have to pay to get access to demos earlier (besides Plus-exclusive demos/betas which happen once in a blue moon) and you don't have to pay to get a 'full' experience.  It's -built- on the base experience that the PS3 provided, but the landscape is changing at the end of this year when the PS4 will join the PS3 and the Vita as supported platforms.  With what we've seen so far of the PS4's updated online interactivity, it's going to change drastically.

That drastic change doesn't come cheap, and with the go-to pay service -being- Playstation Plus, it's safe to say they'd want to use that as a way to recoup some costs and keep folks around.  What's worrisome is just what extent they're going to do so and how much of what Plus already is that they're going to have to take away to make that.  There's even a chance that the service could start to cost more once it's pulled over the PS4 as well, a really big chance, even.  Maybe even the dreaded one-two punch of announcing a price increase as well as pulling off features to make way for what has been presented in the basic PS4 service - the sharing, streaming and such.  It's a scary proposition after what has been an absolutely rock-solid program.

The best possible scenario, I'd say, would be that there's a minimal increase to match what XBox currently charges for Gold while adding features to the PS4 and keeping Plus the blanket service that it is.  Definitely not an Instant Game Collection for PS4 at the start, especially since the library will be a bit thin, but an 'introduction', so to speak, to some of the more advanced features, or at least better usage of said features.  I'm not encouraging arbitrary content locks that end up against a paywall, but it's a lot better than firmly inserting features -behind- the paywall entirely.  This is certainly not what I'm expecting, but it would be the move everyone would appreciate the most.  Everyone's happy, Sony locks in people almost from the get-go, since this helps folks not only picking up a PS4, but may also have a PS3 already, or look to get/have a Vita because of the ways the handheld will interact with the console.

Worst case?  Well, there's....quite a lot of ways that can happen.  Any combination of a higher price raise than a modest one, taking away features from the PS3/Vita's existing Plus (Let's face it - Instant Game Collection is the first thing on the chopping block) and locking down a lot of what they've shown on the PS4, or even online multiplayer, behind a paywall will certainly present a bleak outlook.  Imagine a scenario where that shiny Share button on your DualShock 4 serves absolutely no purpose because you're not paying Sony $50+ a year.  A scenario where you don't have Instant Game Collection anymore, you can't play those PS3 games in your library on the PS4 and are only able to play Killzone:  Shadow Fall with your friends because you're paying $50+ to Sony per year.  These are all possible, unfortunately, and grimly so.

Perhaps I just need to have a little more faith in people seeing a good thing going.  Yet, we've all seen good things come and go in dramatic and off-putting ways, so it's only natural to assume as much will continue happening.  The scariest proposition of all is that Playstation Plus will become something that you're not even using because the usefulness for you has gone, yet you have to keep it going for vital things like access to the games on your PS3 and Vita that you have, or one of the mentioned things for a PS4 that you might not even have.  Because they can't offer a service for the PS4 only - such a thing would prove exorbitant, especially if it's leveraged right next to Plus as a companion program.  But they can't also release the PS4 and just -not- bring Plus (or a rebranding of it) onto the system, either.  I can't help but wonder just how it's going to turn out, and clearly, I'm not expecting good things unfortunately.

Finally, That's Over With

Can you spot Ryu?

I find it odd that I have a sense of relief, at least greater relief than normal, now that I am more or less completely done with Game of the Year stuff.  Yeah, I'll probably still do a "Games That Weren't My Games" post since there are plenty of worthy titles that could bear that, but I don't have to do that right away by any means.  What makes it odd, I should say is that, rather than just being glad that I had so much to talk about this time around, I find that I'm just happy that I don't have to do the GotY posts any longer.  At least, not until next year, and I can honestly wait for that with no real issues.  For the last couple of days, I dreamed to be at this point where I didn't have to put down three games on a post and go on and on about why I loved them this much which was, by some measure, less and more than the games above and under it in some form.

Really, I think the thing that started to bug me is that I started feeling like it was coming off as a little self-centered.  I mean, I know it wasn't, or at least no more than any other post on this, an opinion blog about my personal feelings on things, but it was just a different feel.  I'm being silly, I realize, and perhaps I was just manifesting feelings of creative closure by projecting something else.  Since I knew every night for six days in a row exactly what I was going to write about which, in a way, was exactly like what I wrote the previous night and would be what I wrote the next night, it left little to the imagination.  It should've been perfect in that respect - I didn't have to worry about finding some news piece or picking out something that was significant enough during the day to speak on.  Yet, writing the same thing for, basically, a week straight got a little old fast I admit.

There's also a good chance that I've just written too much in the previous week and change.  Beyond my posts here, I spent the bulk of a night writing the rough draft of the prologue of the short story I've mentioned that I'm working on (nine pages typed much like these posts, but in OpenOffice Writer) and I've had a few other things that required a lot of writing here and there.  My nights have been more writing than not which is different and obviously a little taxing on me.  Not that I mind it in so many ways, of course, but strain is strain no matter what and it gets to be a little much.  Which is a sentiment that is defeated entirely by my spending three paragraphs talking about it.

My goal was to relax a bit tonight.  Of course, my definition of 'relax' seems a bit off, as it included writing this, doing another rather intensive writing thing elsewhere and playing the newly-downloaded Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus on my Vita.  It was provided free to Playstation Plus members and I've been itching to play it again, having not touched it since its initial incarnation on the Original XBox where I eventually conquered it with much struggling.  The game took me ten hours to download - ten, t-e-n, one-zero, TEN - and that was without the rather strange download pause-limbo that my games generally encounter during the overnight download when it's going to take a while.  Ten straight hours of downloading for 2.3 gigs of game and ten minutes into playing it, I had already considered deleting it.  Of course, I was playing the Ninja Challenges like a dummy and not the base game, which was a dumb thing to do.

Fifteen minutes into the story, the game re-introduced me to a move that I forgot completely about and that would have made my attempts at the challenges much much easier.  Which reinforces why it was a very dumb idea to go after them first.  So, in other words, playing the story is the right move and I've been enjoying it a lot even though I'm just in the second chapter.  I'm honestly surprised at how damn smoothly it plays, but by that same token, it -is- a rather old game.  When Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus 2 drops, if it's just as smooth, then that'll be something to truly admire and wow at, and for some reason, I actually have faith in Tecmo-KOEI's ability to do just that.  As for when I'll pick it up, well....that remains to be seen.  We'll see just how much I like this first one after playing it some more and getting in to the 'hard' parts.

Jet Set Radiooooo!

I like the Graffiti maker..

You better believe I got in on some of that sweet sweet Jet Set Radio love as soon as it was available and indeed, it was just Tuesday night, the very first night it was available that I had the game downloaded and picked into it for the first time.  I don't remember a lot about the game in its initial release on the Dreamcast, though I own it and still have very easy access to the disk and theoretically could have, at any point, tried to connect the console to my TV and re-experienced it.  But really, it wouldn't have been the same and after looking at the crisp appearance of it on the Vita's screen, I'm equal parts glad that I waited, and equally wish I'd tried it just to see the depth of the upgrade, but no matter.  I have tasted of the sweet sweet fruit that is the Vita re-release of the game and I am happy on the whole, even though I fear some of my affection for the game might be steeped a little too heavily in nostalgia.  Not too much, of course, and not in a big way, but still, there's some things I am poking at with a frowny face because I do not like them.

First off, from a positive view-point, the game does look incredibly wonderful thanks in no small part to the art style and the use of vibrant colors that makes everything pop deliciously.  And for what it's worth, I -believe- I heard complaints that the FPS chugged a bit in the console versions, but I've not experienced anything like that which honestly surprised me a bit, as the game does get chaotic fairly early in terms of a lot of things on screen that would make it chug.  Maybe that'll change in later stages, but I'll just believe that when I see it, really, because I have faith that it's pretty well set and can't help but wonder if the slightly extended wait was simply to optimize it; if it was, it certainly worked.  And even more impressive, I think, is the way that custom graffiti (as seen above) comes out looking, for the rather rudimentary editor you're given to play with.  I couldn't add the 'ed' to the end of it, but hey, 'Kupower" is a thing if by virtue of 'Kupowered' as a word is suggesting a thing that is powered by 'Kupower'.  There, I have made a thing.  Enjoy it.

Perhaps I was not in a way to enjoy the overall sounds of Jet Set Radio when I was younger, since I didn't remember it being quite so....well, fantastic, but I love it now and that's certainly what matters.  Whether it's the upbeat, enjoyable tracks playing during the stages themselves, never managing to be monotonous despite their extended exposure, or it's the exaggerated, excited voice of Professor K as he slings down the story as it is in his own way (while making sure to yell "Jet Set Radioooooo!" whenever possible), it's all an absolute treat for the ears.  I've taken to using headphones in general when I play my Vita because of the Youtube app (since I find some videos hard to hear otherwise) and it's games like this that truly make that worth it.  I'd put some serious thought into arguing that it is, in fact, a necessity, which is certainly not something I say about most games, but a strong audio direction like this has practically begs for it and you're doing yourself a disservice by not adhering to that.

The only gripe comes in when you slowly start to realize that while Jet Set Radio is a fun game, it is not an easy game by any means.  The controls are from the past to be sure, and precision is not its strongest suit.  It's an acquired taste, of course, as we've grown beyond such things with advancement, but that does not make them -bad-, simply harder and requiring more skill to truly make your own.  I have my complaints about this, a lot of them vocally as I play the game, but I don't begrudge it as I can feel myself getting better at it with every minute that I play it, since that is simply how it works.  As I go through the levels, it's easy to tell that the things that were issues in the earlier ones become trivial tasks to perform and when the time comes that I'll be able to try them again, it will be sweet, sweet vindication as I see that skill put to work.  When that day comes, I will be ready.

For the price of free, considering you have a Playstation Plus subscription, which you almost -need- to have at this point unless you hate value, Jet Set Radio is proving to be well and truly beyond the $10 it otherwise sells for.  Maybe it's just my joy at being 'reunited' with the game as one is reunited with an old friend and I'm simply swept up in the fun of it all, but I'm having an absolute blast with it despite the minimal grumbles it causes.  But grumbling is good.  Grumbling means that I'm invested, which I clearly am.  And I'm only going to get sucked in more and more as the grooves keep coming, getting to some of the even more memorable tunes.  Perhaps I'll even get to the end this time, which I'm quite sure that I never did back on the Dreamcast, which means it's something I am looking to rectify.

The Week The Wallet And Spare Time Died

The above (admittedly low-quality since I gave zero fucks about making it pretty) image displays the pick-ups I made today which is a lead-in to stating that the $100 I spent right there is me getting off light compared to some this week.  By spending only a meager one hundred dollars, I am getting the precise amount of entertainment I want and I am lucky that my desires, my wants, came that cheap this week.  You see, if you've been living under a rock or something, you will know that this was the week that a fucking metric ton of things came out, including but not limited to:  The above Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (which is faring a bit better in reviews than one would assume - The bulk of the negatives being that it's 'not enough of a Smash Bros clone' which is absolutely fucking hilarious and god I hate critics) and Persona 4 Golden (a must-have for any Vita owner), as well as Hitman:  Absolution, Disney's Epic Mickey 2, and a little thing known as the Wii U which you might've heard of, I guess, plus a whole slew* of games for it.

*Slew not guaranteed quality

If that weren't enough, some of you will recall that this is also the week of Black Friday, which also means that it is the week where a bunch of people replace their brains with their wallets and their common sense with concrete-solid self-centeredness.  (Not in a wholly negative way, but I'm sure you know what I mean.  The bulk of the people shopping on Black Friday are pushy brutes who will trample you to save three dollars on something they don't even want.)  That all means that if you can truly get through this week without spending a dime on games or such, then I salute you, for you clearly have a will that is more steeled than my own.  I mean, I'm in a dangerous situation as it is - I bought those two games as is, and man was I tempted to look further for something else.  "Oh, I'm sure they have a copy of Zone of the Enders HD Collection - I really do want that Rising demo..."  "Oh, perhaps they have 999?  Or at least Virtue's Last Reward - don't wanna miss out on that."  "No, no, I cannot buy the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on PS3 or Vita yet still.  God help me, I want to, but I can't."  These and more all circulated through my head in the scant ten minutes or so that I spent within the walls of GameStop as I purchased my items and left; being extra careful to give the Wii U demo console a wide berth lest I feel compelled to play it for 'just a minute'.

Of course, if you follow my Twitter (I apologize for bringing it up so much), you might have noticed that I became less impressed with it by a fair deal when a double-tap of bad news (coupled with something I already knew) put everything to a halt.  I'm not going to speak on it too long here, as I want to do a different post for that, but suffice to say if I had made a checklist of "Ways Nintendo Can Make the Wii U Completely Unappealing To Me", then that was a lot of boxes checked all at the same time on a list that wasn't realistically very long to begin with.  On top of that, there's all sorts of reports of consoles bricking left and right because the reportedly 5 gig or so firmware update you have to download when you first power up the system was being interrupted by users and/or bad luck.  (Turning the machine off because there's no canceling the firmware update in the former, internet cutting out in the latter)  Even if I were geared up and ready to get my Mario ZombiU Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper on on the Wii U, all that would've been enough to give me pause - enough so that I think I can resist its charms even after a hands-on.  But I dare not gamble when it comes to these things because it is a fire that I'm not risking a burn with, not yet.

Regardless of whether you do somehow manage to avoid the temptations of spending this week, or you succumb to throwing green (or whatever color your money is) at a clerk for items bound by plastic shells, your free time is in a deathmatch with all that is offered this week.  Why is that, you ask, even if I don't spend a dime?  Well, that's because Playstation Plus arrived on the Vita this week in all its glory, throwing six full games, at least one of which you're guaranteed to not own on a Vita, into your lap or your hands or wherever your Vita spends the bulk of its time when you're actually playing it.  Uncharted:  Golden Abyss (which is getting a wonderful-looking Card Game Add-on at the start of December), Gravity Rush, Wipeout 2048, Mutant Blobs Attack!!!, Jet Set Radio (!) and Final Fantasy Tactics:  War of the Lions join the stable of games included in the Instant Game Collection, not replacing a single existing one in the PS3's list, meaning you have access to an entire 18 games right off the bat for your price of entry.  These Plus games are yours after you download the Vita's 2.00 Firmware Update that went live Monday Nig-

Wait.  Wait.  Did I just say Vita's 2.00 Firmware Update?  Why yes.  Yes I did.  Let's talk about the 2.00 update for a moment.

Okay, 2.00 is awesome.  When it was announced, it was just like "Oh, it's the Plus update, woo" and as it got closer and closer, little things were being said, things about folders for music and pictures and videos which is nice, and things about the browser that were very noncommittal and it was just like "Oh well, some other tweak-y stuff, that's always cool.".  And indeed, there -are- a lot of tweaks; the PSP and PSOne Emulators saw a bit of an update in terms of letting you know how to get into the Emulator options (touch the screen for a few moments) as well as adding some more control and viewing options which is always nice.  Near has once again been revamped for whatever that's worth, and most instances of "Please Wait..." for various things (the one I noticed being Trophy Synching) seems to have been phased out completely which is alright.  But the thing to take away from this update?  The singular thing that elevates it from cool to holy shit yesssss?  Open a game.  Any game.  Whatever, open your copy of Xenogears (because you should have a copy of Xenogears) or Persona 4 Golden, whatever you want, and start playing it some, then press the PS button, swipe over and find your Internet Browser bubble, open it and look up your website of choice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That just happened.  

That just happened and it's awesome that it works now without a LiveTweet workaround.

Anyways, as I was saying, your time is being contested by these free games out there, simply waiting for you to give them a good home and a little attention and for someone like myself, that's going to be a goddamn chore.  I'm not done with Ragnarok Odyssey yet in terms of I haven't finished it, but with Persona 4 Golden in my possession, I am done with Ragnarok Odyssey for now.  Then I have a copy of PASBR for my Vita on my PS3 disk just waiting to be transferred over (at least, I believe that's how it works) which I actually intend to play because it looks neat.  The aforementioned Mutants Blobs Attack!!! has been downloaded and I put a little time into it already - it's a neat little game, I'll give it that much, but tilt sections are the worst.  On top of all that, I have Jet Set Radio downloading right this moment (and, well, for the last three hours and the next....three...hours) which you know damn well I am going to put some time into.  I do not have time for all this.  At all.  But goddamnit, I am going to make time for it all because this is prime-time right here and I haven't been this excited at being in the middle of a field of options in....well, quite a while.

Vita's Playstation Plus is Fantastic

When Playstation Plus was rumored to be heading to the Vita, and even after it was announced, everyone seemed to sort of tentatively wait to see in just what context it would, in fact, emerge in.  When it became obvious that it would be in a similar fashion as the PS3 iteration, with free games, discounts, Cloud Storage and automatic updates/synching, hopes were kindled, but cynicism even moreso.  It was mere moments following the breaking of the news, the outlining of the preliminary features that speculation was abound in terms of the 'free games' aspect, all wondering at the varied ways with which Sony could pull value away from Playstation Plus by splitting it across both platforms.  People were already imagining a world where the Instant Game Collection was still 12 games large, split across PS3 and Vita with the lion's share of the titles being for the former.

As you can see above, this is not the case.

It's almost with a certain level of smug satisfaction that I look on the titles offered, and their number, and consider just how many people just don't know what to do at this point.  That there is real and tangible value with enough meat to it that you can sink your teeth into it generously.  Not only do you get access to the same amount of games on the PS3, but an additional six games on the Vita now that, much like its console counterpart, will be shuffled out with other titles overtime to create a rather robust library for those who stick around and keep subscribed.  Being that, after being attached to your account, you can download a game for the PS Plus price of free even after it rotates out of being free there's a really hard argument to make against it beyond actually worrying about what you buy, in the case of not wanting to spend money only to get the same game for free later on.  It's an understandable fear, for sure, but one that I find is mitigated by the other upsides the program has to offer.

Personally, on the Vita side of the games, I already own half of them, and really, -really- came close to biting on two of the ones I don't own.  Combined, the games that I own set me back a cool $100 ($50 for Uncharted, $40 for Gravity Rush and $10 for FFT) so that does kind of sting, but being that I buy physically, I still have the cushion of getting a free digital version which, as we all know from other forms of media, not just games, you are not automatically entitled to simply because you bought the physical version of it at some vague point previous.  It's a method of 'future-proofing' so to speak, since everyone has been very lenient on allowing you to 'own' the games you purchase digitally, even if the company that sold it eventually loses the rights to actually sell it.  It hasn't happened a lot, but it has happened - developers and publishers letting selling rights to a game expire, meaning that it has to thusly be removed from a digital storefront in terms of purchasing.  If you -have- purchased it, it remains still in your download list for an undetermined amount of time that may truly be 'forever', and as we move further and further into the Digital Distribution future, all we can do is amass titles in a digital way and hope that the future has a place to play them.

For the games that I don't own, however, this is a straight-up double-tap of awesome since not only do we have a release date for Jet Set Radio HD Vita, but it's next week and it's free.  As if I didn't have enough to play as it is, now I get a game that was already prepped for purchase (I literally have left $10+ in my wallet specifically for the purchase of JSR) thrust into my lap for the price of nothing, meaning that money can then be put towards something else should I desire.  And I do, but one thing at a time.  I slowly realized with a growing horror that I have no less than half a dozen PS3 games alone that I want to play before years-end (though, I'll settle for Final Fantasy XII-2 and finishing Yakuza:  Dead Souls) and I have the bulk of Ragnarok Odyssey yet to conquer as well as the entirety of Assassin's Creed:  Liberation.  And then I have Persona 4 Golden awaiting my money next week as well as Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale because I have very poor impulse control when it comes to Cross-Buy, I've learned.  I think what I'm saying, as I've said all year (no seriously, it's a running gag) is that I just don't have enough time for all this gaming, goddamnit and that depresses me.

Mutant Blobs Attack!! and Wipeout have also had my interest for a while, but I've simply never figured on having time for the former, and I just....really don't like racing games.  For the price of 'free', however, I think I'm willing to give Wipeout a shot because I just might like it.  Maybe not, and I doubt very much that I'll sink a lot of time into it in any case, but this is pretty much a brand new world to explore.  Being that things are a bit more flexible in terms of downloading when it comes to my Vita, I feel completely comfortable in letting it go to pull down a gig or two over the course of the ten hours it inevitably takes, so whereas I haven't really experienced any free PS3 games, I will be experiencing the shit out of the Vita ones.  Doubly so because of the cloud storage that Plus offers, though I suspect I'll end up crumbling and purchasing myself a 32 Gig memory stick at some point in the future.  I almost need to, I think, as I believe my 16 gig is a little off, corrupting things with little warning.  That is why, by the way, I haven't mentioned LittleBigPlanet Vita in a while - my save is corrupted, and I really am not going to replay the entire game right now.

The moral of the story in any case is that Playstation Plus continues to be one of the better, if not one of the best, member services out there by sheer bang:buck ratio.  Even if you're a stalwart and claiming that the games are not, themselves free because the exist behind a paywall, the basic math just throws everything off.  For $50 that I paid a few months ago, I will, next week, be able to play Jet Set Radio HD, Mutant Blobs Attack!! and Wipeout 2048 without paying a cent for either game.  I don't know what Wipeout retails for now and I'm not going to bother looking it up, but I assume, all told, those three games come in around or under $50.  I have thusly made up my investment.  Next month when a game or two moves out of the rotation and is replaced with another, that is another game where my money is safely unspent on it, able to be put towards something else.  And that's just on the games part - the cloud storage is going to be a goddamn invaluable tool, especially for those out there who really, really truly don't want to spring for a 32 Gig memory stick.  Need space?  Throw your data on the Cloud, delete the bubble, bam free space.  And you can come back to it at any point in the future after a redownload.

Well played.  Well played all around.

E3 Rumor: Playstation Plus Vita Support Inbound

A fairly typical Plus month.

It's that magical time of the year just before the other magical time of the year - The E3 leaks.  (Of course, the other magical time being E3, I figured you all knew that and okay, shut up Mogs)  However, thus far, there hasn't been an actual whole lot that's rumored to appear or anything that's...er, super big.  Even what I'm going to talk about tonight is less "big awesome surprising news" and more "Hey, -just- this side of being late-to-the-party", but it's welcomed and appreciated nonetheless.  And while a lot of us preface rumors with a whole lot of "Now, it's a rumor, so don't look into it too much", but just think about it like this:  When was the last time there was a reported rumor that didn't come true?  Even silly things like MercurySteam making a 2(.5)D Castlevania end up being true, so it's hard to -not- believe these things when you hear about them at face value.

Regardless, today's 'rumor' states that Playstation Plus is coming to Vita alongside a sort of revision of the service; an upgrade, really.  The upgrade is set to have 'top-tier titles' for subscribers (I...don't know what this means) as well as, obviously, exclusive updates for people who might just happen to be Vita-only subscribers.  This will likely mean one PS3 and one Vita game free per month, as well as some meted out discounted/free DLC among the two systems, ensuring each individual store gets roughly the same amount of content, so as to not show 'favoritism', considering Plus subscriber will mean just that, regardless of whether you're PS3-only, Vita-only or both.  I'm not too sure if they'll be able to integrate the Auto-Update thing into the Vita proper, but I imagine it'll get access to the Cloud Saves (which would be extra handy for it, considering some data is stored with the actual game data itself and is a hassle to back up by other means) on top of everything else.

Of course, I imagine this functionality will need a firmware update and this is just me speculating and is no way included in the rumor itself, but while they're updating the firmware.....I'm still hoping that PSOne functionality for the Vita is included.  Not even because I'm planning on using it, not even because I'm miffed that it's not in already (I'm not so much, though), and not even because I'm getting tired of seeing it whined about everywhere, but just because that would be a great fuckin' move.  There was a lot of shit-flipping when Nintendo announced that not only was the Wii going to support SD saves or whatever a few years back, but that it was going to support it right now because 'hey we just pushed out the firmware for it while I was speaking about it'.  People really like that sort of "I'm waving my hands and MAGIC happened!" effect, so long as it's not announcing a brand new console that is in stores this very moment, and for something big like that, it would be a big boon.

I've said it a few times, but it would make a lot of sense for their presser, especially with Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale being showed off since I imagine a lot of classic characters will be in the game.  Well, -games- because it's quite obvious that the game will see a Vita version, but that's neither here nor there.  Something like "since we're honoring characters that really built the Playstation brand, it's only fair that we allow everyone to see these Playstation Classics for themselves.  To that end, PSOne games are now available to be played on your Playstation Vita" or something like that.  A little more flowery or whatever, but I'm sure you get the angle that I'm suggesting the take on it.  It's a pretty standard one, really, but always a crowd-pleaser, especially if it would mean that people get to play their Final Fantasies and other RPGs and Tomba! games and whatnot on the go.  I admit, it's technically a little far-fetched to expect, so I'm not exactly expecting it, but if it happens, oh man, will I be bragging about it.  After all, I'm really just suggesting timing since PSOne Support is an inevitability, clearly being worked on in the months since the Vita saw release.

Still, no matter what does or doesn't get added to the Vita at E3, it -is- heavily suggested that you go ahead and dip into Playstation Plus, at least for E3 (which means grabbing a 3-month voucher as I plan to do) since there are some 'surprises' lined up for Plus members apparently.  From the head content manager for SCEE's PS Plus means that it will likely be a -thing-, and hopefully not exclusive to PAL.  (I really doubt it will be, of course)  Granted, they're supposed to hype this stuff up, but I imagine this is genuinely something pretty 'cool', so I'm going to go with it.  At the worst, I'll just open myself up to a few time-sensitive free games and discounts that might push me into grabbing some Playstation cash despite being low on the real thing.  At the best....well, who knows?  And that's part of the fun.  Only a few more days until we find out!