PSVita review

Alright, My first console review, The PSVita.

The PSVita is Sony's newest handheld. The Vita sports dual thumbsticks, a d-pad, the standard playstation buttons, 2 shoulder buttons, and most importantly, a HD touchscreen, and a rear touch pad.

First off the Vita sports amazing graphics, I can easily imagine the Vita competing with the Xbox 360, the 3DS(no contest), and to a lesser extent the PS3.

The dual thumbsticks and the graphics invite developers to create shooters and other games(can we say Portal on the Vita?).

The Vita's touchscreen is easily on par with the iPhone and iPod touch and the Vita also sports a gyroscope (or accelerometer, not sure.) and I am sure it is pretty safe to assume that some iPhone and android based games will definitely make a Vita experience.

Now my only complaint with the Vita is not a hardware issue, the problem is that the hardware appears to be extremely underutilized. The Vita so far does not support online video(youtube and other videos) and no netflix to my knowledge. Also in the game I played to test the controls (Ultimate Marvel VS. Capcom 3) I found that the touchscreen and touchpad had been severely under utilized. I was disappointed that in Simple and touch mode the only Hypercombos I could perform was the level one attacks, What might have been better was to be able to set certain attacks to be activated by tapping different areas of the rear touchpad, similar to the 3DS using the bottom screen in street fighter. I do have to say that I would probably play the game if I could do that because I am a horrible fighting player and have never intentionally used a move in street fighter type games. This feature might be able to be added as an update but I am not sure how that will work on the Vita as of yet.

The web browser is very snappy as well, not as snappy as safari on an iPhone but a definite improvement over the PSP, the touchscreen keyboard alone makes it more bearable, add in Youtube support and I will be really sold.

It might also be an idea to be able to view media from a network hard drive.

So far I haven't been able to come up with any thing that can't be improved upon.

So my final analysis is:

Very nice specs and solid design.
Good graphics and sound, with solid controls.
A very friendly interface.
A great improvement over the PSP and hopefully for Sony redemption for the Go.
A hefty but not out of this world price tag.
A bit disappointing list of launch titles.
A solid platform with a lot of potential.

Worth it? I would say yes. The system may be more expensive than the 3DS but it has some very solid specs to expand upon.

My last thought and it is very last second but a shout out to Majong, This would be a very good platform for Minecraft in my opinion.

Twisted Metal PS3 Review

Twisted Metal is a PS only title that I fondly remember from my childhood. I can now say I own a copy of every single game in the series.

Twisted Metal is a car combat game that revolves around the Twisted Metal tournament hosted by Calypso, if you when the tournament you get one wish, this wish can be anything, Fame, Fortune, even eternal life, if you can think it you can have it, there are NO limits. However, voice your wish carefully, Calypso usually adds a twist to the wish. Very few have outsmarted him.

Personally I love this game, it fits in nicely with the other titles and is quite fun to play. My only problem with the game is that while all TM titles have been dark this one seems to take things a bit further, I am thinking that I am going to have to take a break and go play a happy game soon.

On a scale of 1-10 I give it:

Ease of play: 7 (while veterans of the Twisted Metal series will have no trouble playing it, it might be a bit confusing to newcomers.)

Graphics: 9 (The game is well modeled and the live action cut scenes are great. Although you might not pay much attention to the world as you try to kill and not be killed.)

Replay: 7 (While there aren't any collectables or anything, you can try and go beat your records in single player and of course there is always Multiplayer.)

Family friendliness: 3 (Not family friendly. The game is very, very dark and will be a bit much to younger audiences, that coupled with blood splatter, violence, and Strong language, like F***, B****, and others of that caliber, make this game a no no for younger gamers.)

All in all I give it a 8.

This game is fun an I believe it will be very fun to play multiplayer even on split screen.

Portal 2 Review

Portal 2 is by far on of my all time favorite games.

In Portal 2 you must complete tests to survive and hopefully win your freedom from the Aperture Science facility. Using the Aperture Science Quantum Tunneling device you will solve many puzzles to free yourself and save the day.

The game is full of wonderful characters and a brilliantly written script. Like most Valve games it manages to tell a wonderful story without the use of cut scenes.

On a scale of 1-10 I give it:

Ease of Play: 8 (The game has a very simple control set and pretty much all these controls are explained throughout the game, really the only things keeping me from giving it a 10 is that there are significantly more controls in the Cooperative Testing Initiative mode and that most newer gamers have issues in FPS games.)

Graphics: 10 (Portal 2 is beautiful no matter what console it is on, though it is probably prettiest on a high end computer. If Valve ever makes a sequel I would love so much to explore more of Apertures Sub levels.)

Replay: 6 (This is really the only area where it lacks, there are no collectables and the game is very linear so no exploring. But I have beaten the game 8 times now and I am thinking that after things settle down some more I will try for times 9 and 10. The game is just fun to play.)

Family Friendliness: 7 (While not inherently violent the game has some dark tones and the environment could be scary to younger audiences, Also there are some minor swear words used later in the game, the only one I can remember and it may be the only one is "Damn".)

All in all I give it a 9.

Valve, you have once again given us a wonderful game. Please make a sequel and as always we are still waiting for HL3.