Ouya : First Impressions

Ever since I first announced that I had finally received my OUYA friends have been asking me what it's like. So here we go. 

First of all, I think that explaining my expectations will help to understand my opinion of the console. OUYA was meant as a low cost alternative to the big consoles,  as a console for gamers by gamers, a place for indie games, a return to multiplayer-livingroom gaming, a device you can experiment with, open up and develop for. Paying into this idea (for me) was a protest against the big consoles, in my case the Xbox 360 and trying to wake them up to the fact that gamers have money that they will spend elsewhere if they aren't respected and cared for. (I'll rant about Xbox and their Xbox Live service another day) I just mention all this because I have read comments about the OUYA and it is constantly compared to the Xbox or PS3 - and I think that they misunderstood the concept of the OUYA and had unfair expectations.

The console itself is a small box no bigger than a coffee mug. A coffee mug! There is no external power source and sitting idle it doesn't make a sound, when the fan is on it's a quiet whir. The biggest complaint gamers had as the OUYA was being rolled out was the controller and perhaps there are some bits that I think are a bit flimsy; the triggers jiggle, the d-pad is a little sharp, the U-button got stuck on me twice - BUT when I hold my 70€-Halo Reach limited edition Xbox 360 controller with a chatpad and rechargable battery pack in my hands, yeah it feels great, but it costs 70% of the whole OUYA console. Oh, and I can use my fancy Xbox controller on my OUYA by the way (you can too, it's just got to have a cable).

Booting up the OUYA for the first time I was a little miffed when it asked me for credit card information straight away. I would have liked to be given the option of Paypal or something similar because in Europe not everyone has an actual credit card. Sofware-wise it's got a very clean interface, but I don't understand why I can't organize my game library into categories (such as 'purchased' and 'unpurchased' - not a word, whatever) - and that there is no overview of a download queue, you can't see how much a game costs until you click "buy" - of course there is a confirmation, but still. There's also no child-lock to make sure your kids to go buying up the whole store - but I am sure these things will be changed in the future as it progresses.

Although they guys and gals at OUYA announced that they had more games at the release of the console than any console previously, you have to expect that most of those games aren't going to be great. This comes hand in hand with the publishing freedoms that OUYA has allowed. Think for a moment of the indie games on XBL (after all these years) and we can agree that 89% is crap and I believe publishing is more restrictive and development is definitely more difficult - than on the OUYA. So you have to expect more of the same, at least at the beginning. The games (and apps) will come, as development comes - remember the developers have only had the consoles in their hands for about 8 months.

Games are free to try on the OUYA. Developers make their own restrictions as to what this means: either you can play a certain amount of time per day, or you have a demo-like, or you play to a certain level and then must pay to continue. Remember that we are talking about Android games that cost around $2.99. Developers or journalists complaining that games can't or aren't making money on the OUYA are also being unfair, the console isn't even on shelves in alot of places, definitely not here in Germany, and word just hasn't gotten out yet. I think the users that bought the console are reluctant to buy games so far because they want to see where the OUYA is going first, but I also think that once some original quality games get to the OUYA you will see an increase in sales. Some of the games on the OUYA I haven't bought because I have already played them on PC or on iOS and I see no reason buying them again.

OUYA as a company has some growing pains, but they are doing some things right. They gave their early backers $13.37 to spend on games, to hopefully smooth over any hard feelings about late consoles people might have had. I commend them for this, it was probably adds up to about $800.000 they just gave to people. Sure this means they are giving money to gamers to buy games from their store, but they are getting the ball rolling and I think it's smart. They've also started a "Free the Games Fund" to match funding for games that agree to OUYA exclusivity for a time.

All in all I am satisfied with the console (although I should say I am still waiting for my second controller) - I think they delivered what they said they would and if nothing else comes out of this console other than Sony and Microsoft changing their stances when it comes to indie games on their next-gen consoles then I think that it was already worth it.

Napoleon Total War

Napoleon Total War is another installment of the Total War series. set in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Having played Rome Total War i can compare the two directly.
The managing of the Cities has become easier but the battles, I don't think I have won a single one. They have become much more strategic with the use of buildings that your troops can enter and the use of different ammo types for the Cannons (artillery). Also the weather of course strongly effects the fire rate of your troops (ie. heavy rain makes it harder to fire) The Naval battles are insanely complicated, unforgiving and detailed.
The map itself has changed little from Rome Total War except that; there are more cities in the area, less of Africa but more of Scandinavia.
The multiplayer aspect has been revamped with the ability to not only play single battles but the campaign with other people, i have not yet attempted this but it is definitely something I look forward to.
All in all, the game has fixed many of Rome's weaknesses and faults making for sound managing of cities, fleets and Armies.

Lord of the Rings Online

Lord of the Rings Online ties in the fun of a hack'n'slash game like Diablo II or Torchlight II and enters it into the Massively Multiplayer Realm.
The character creation of this game is limited and therefore does not play as much as a role as in other games, ie. Skyrim or DC Universe. Once your character has been created you play through your character's Introduction, differing depending on your Character's race; Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling. These generally take half an hour. The game, as with all role-playing games, takes a while for the game to really get going. The game gives you a nice mix of errands to run and enemies to slay, so that you are not just running from person A to person B delivering notes as it is so often with RPGs.
The game being Free-to-Play has the option to simply buy equipment with real money. However, this is by no means a necessity for game play.
As the game is an MMORPG it is a more fulfilling experience when played with a friend.
Overall, the game is fun and definitely worth a test play.

League of Evil (iOS)

If you like Super Meat Boy then your going to like League of Evil! The controls are tight and precise - the levels are short but often pretty tricky. Like SMB (huh, an acronym that could mean Super Meat Boy or Super Mario Bros.) the game is all about timing and precision so it's good that the controls are the best you can get on iOS.
The idea of a flying kick attack is also pretty cool, as its used to lengthen double jumps over spike filled gaps and take out pesky enemies.
The graphics are small and simple, but detailed. Ravenous games knows that a smaller character allows for the player to have a good overview of the level (unlike Mega Man X* on iOS)

Everytime you die your recorded reply appears as a ghost during your next retry. These pile up as soon (as in SMB) there's a small army of jumping, distracting ghosts that preeters out towards the end on the level, it's quite amazing to think this is on a handheld. Too bad it's not on Steam with a community and player-made levels because it I really want to play it with a NES contoller.

*review pending

Infected by Infectonator

Infectonator got me quick. Sitting next to my 2 year old daughter while she had a bath, I turned on my phone wanting to delete some apps and clean up a bit. I stumbled upon Infectonator and decided to give it a chance before I deleted it. I remember the only reason I downloaded it was because of the pixel zombies - I thought they looked pretty darn good. Little did I know the blood bath that I was in for.

Goal: infect or kill citizens. That's right, it's not just infecting you can also "support" meaning to throw in an exploding barrel of infectious slime or a grenade and land mines. This game is so violent (achievements for killing police, blood smeared asphalt) and death and carnage all over - it would have been banned in the years of the SNES - and now it's on your friendly App Store!
The more you kill the more gold you can collect to upgrade your zombies and unlock new ones. Oh and the graphics are rally great, the people and the world looks a little generic but the zombies are cool and when the fighting starts its fun to sit back and smile with schadenfreude.

I love that there's a real world map and you go around major cities infecting people, then the FBI and other enemies show up in hazmat suits - there are some special characters too (for some reason I have a Christmas version and there's a snowman and Santa that love to kill zombies) there are also references to other games and movies: Skyrim, Left 4 Dead, Super Mario and Game of Thrones. There's also a little news TV channel that gives you a carnage report at the end of every level, but you can also access it from the menu to read an interesting random fact (did you know hippo milk is pink?)

Another fun detail is the speech bubbles that pop-up in the crowds, in the language of that city - I only understand the French and German but they were pretty funny.

But hey Altec, it's just a trick! There's IAP and the world map you like it's just a variant of the level selector you so much hate! Yes and no.... The IAP is never really present, only of you try to access it and the game is definitely beatable without using it. The map-level-selector I think is forgivable because thy tried something different and it fits well to the style - they could have just make a list of the levels on little squares with a star rating under it like all those ugly games but they didn't.

Funny things I found out were that you can replay a level over and over again (support objects like grenades are one use only but zombies are reusable) so you can rack up gold quickly by grinding a well populated level. Also the "free gold" that you are rewarded for linking the game to your Facebook and twitter accounts you can get just by clicking on the button, allowing the respective app to open (but not confirming) and then returning to the game - easy! Strangely though when you start your 2nd play through everything you unlocked is gone - which makes me wonder what would have happened if I had payed real money for those unlockables. (?)

Sure, at its core your just dropping units in and watching them randomly attack or die, but somehow the gore and the madness make it worth it. It's a mobile game for short breaks but as I found over the day I started playing - you'll be through in 2 hours and on your 2nd play through before you know it.

Keeper.

Bit Dungeon

I read about Bit Dungeon a while back, when it was only for the iPad. At the time I didn't have an iPad so I forgot about it, until they released the iPhone version. However I didn't really see a reason to rush off and buy it - my iPhone already has pages of unplayed games I want to check out and more then a few rogue-likes.
Today Bit Dungeon is free and I have been a little bored with the offerings on my phone so I checked it out during some downtime at work : it's awesome.
I'm only on my 2nd character (first one died rather quickly) but here's what I know:
The game doesn't insult your intelligence by putting you through a 20min tutorial. It doesn't have a bunch of pop-ups for Facebook-linking or try to sell you some stupid coins!
You travers each room and battle some monsters, some drop potions for health and magic, others drop little black circles you use for buying stuff later, more likely they drop nothing. When all the monsters are killed you get a key and use it to open another door and make your way through the dungeon. If you just run trough you will die so you're going to want to grid a little, re-entering areas where you will find ghosts and rats eating the corpses of your fallen foes that you can kill. Sometimes after clearing a room three globes will appear and clicking one of them will up your stats: level up yo!
Which brings me to the details, the game does this very well, I've already seen different styles of attacks from different weapons, bloody footprints because I walked over a bloody corpse and my 2nd character had to fight a totally different set of baddies in the first dungeon meaning some of the dungeon generation is done randomly. Equipment you pick up shoes up on your character (ie. skull helmet equipped makes your character wear a skull helmet - not just upping his stats) and a quick click on the health globe shows that there is a bit of depth in the stats too!
The retro style looks great, the inventory shows slots for rings and magic (meaning its coming) and I finally found a place to save!
In short: this is a keeper, fast action (even with dodging projectiles) leveling up, interesting art style - combing dungeons for loot! On my iPhone! So I guess for a while ill be taking far more "extended bathroom breaks."

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3, a game that got a lot of people excited. Now if I am to be honest with you guys, I have to tell you that I have been playing for just over a year now. So maybe not quite 20 minutes but I haven't changed my opinions much since.

The Campaign
Unlike it's predecessors, Battlefield Bad Company and Bad Company 2 (I must add here the stories and characters of these two games were discontinued for Battlefield 3) The game is much more serious. not from gameplay but from writing. The quirkiness of the characters which made the Bad  game so entertaining. What we are left with is a Die Hard game. Having said this the campaign is definitely simply the precursor to the multiplayer. It did have it's moments, however if you tried (even a little) to do the mission your own way you would most likely end up dead in a matter of seconds. You definitely can notice that it is only an entrée to the online meal. If after 20 minutes of campaign I had to choose to keep or drop, I would drop.

The Multiplayer
The Multiplayer of this game benefits strongly from the nearly complete destruction (especially the ability to bring down an entire house on your opponents) and the dust effects (which in my mind are insane) aswell as the sound quality and depth really emerse you into the game. As far as customization goes Battlefield 3 leaves little room for want. With four different classes each with unique items (ie Defibrillator for the Medic) and weapons takes the game away from the excessive freedom of Call of Duty and puts you into a slight RPG type game where you must choose if you want to heal or resupply your team (only two examples). On top of all this, yeah I know there is even more there are none class specific handguns and shotguns to add to the carnage. To top off your character you can choose a "specialisation" which gives your character a perk ie. sprint or suppression (your vision becomes less blury when shot at). There is even more on top of all this there is an arsenal of vehicles at your disposal. From tanks to attack-choppers to humvees to transport-choppers to speed-boats and even jets, yes you can fly a jet and have dog fights above while your team pilots a helicopter around you and a tank below. It gets pretty messy sometimes but in the right setting, gametype and map it just feels so right! The multiplayer also allows for co-op missions, I have yet to test these as no one I know owns the game. If after 20 minutes of multiplayer I had to choose to keep or drop, I would keep.

Overall
If you don't play online don't get this game. It's as simple as that. The campaign is short and mediocre at best. The multiplayer, however, makes up for what the game fails to deliver in the campaign. The game heavily rewards teamplay do if you are more a lone gun, titles like "World at War" or "Modern Warfare" might suit you better.

Super Meat Boy

I must say, that I didn't play this game for very long, but hey, this is about first impressions and what not, so here. I don't know if you've played this game or not, but just to clarify it, it is a platform game, with an amusing finish to each level where the collection of all of your plays are shown on one screen, your final screen. This amusing finish filled with your fast paced failed attempts of each of the times you've "grotesquely" died is extremely amusing.

I must have played for approximately 30min or so, I knew though that I liked it after the first five. Due to the large quantity of levels availible to the player, its extremely addicting and to say the least, it could have taken much more of my time from me. I am used to bloody games, but when I first saw the amusing death of my meat boy I was shocked by how bloody the whole thing was. If you don't have a problem with that though, it's a great laugh to have as a filler.

Needless to say, great fun, great filler. Any time to waste? Although not my favourite game, a quick fling if you get a chance is a great thing.