Game Room: February Roundup

SI Staff | Mar 1, 2012

Game Room: February Roundup

PS VITA

Sony

Sony's biggest hardware release since the PS3 is finally on shelves at your local electronics store. One look at the screen and it is love at first site. The huge -- by portable gaming device standards -- five inch display pops dramatically. The absolutely dazzling graphics owe their brightness and sharp contrasts to OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display technology. No other handheld screen produces graphics this clean, and compared to Nintendo's DS and 3DS it's worlds better. Touch screens are pretty standard these days, so the Vita took it a step further by adding a rear touch pad. You can now influence the action by swiping either side of the handheld. For example you're encouraged to aim your shots in FIFA Soccer by poking the rear touch pad, and in Little Deviants the rear touch pad alters the landscape to move your character around. It takes a little getting used to, but after a little exposure the rear touch functionality becomes both useful and natural. The launch titles vary in how often they take advantage of this functionality, but once developers get more time with the Vita, the sky is the limit for how this will impact control schemes. In addition to being the first handheld with rear touch capability, the Vita is also the first portable device to boast dual analog control sticks. This is huge for gamers who crave the type of nuanced control they enjoy at home, and a point of differentiation from touch-only devices like the iPad. The two tiny toggles are springy and reactive, precisely recreating the feel of standard video game controllers. The only concern here is whether or not the protruding sticks will be sturdy enough to withstand the type of abuse most portable gaming devices suffer when they're tossed into backpacks or luggage on the road. No doubt there will soon be tons of custom cases to protect your Vita, and you're going to want one. Vita review continued...

PS VITA cont.

Sony

The Vita is available in two flavors: a Wi-Fi only build ($249) or a 3G model ($299). With remote play the ability to be online anywhere is a huge draw. So far though, the 3G browsing and remote play have suffered from intermittent delays and hiccups, and persistent 3G burns through battery life much faster than Wi-Fi. If and when these experiences are smoothed out, it will be a huge boost to the Vita's unique experience. Vita offers two ways to buy games. You can still purchase physical media games from retailers: those come on small cards that insert into the top of the Vita. And you can also buy games digitally from the PlayStation store. All retail games can also be bought online, but there's also a solid lineup of digital-only games that sell for a fraction of the price and are worth checking out: including Super StarDust Delta, Plants vs. Zombies, Hustle Kings and Escape Plan. The Vita comes with an upgradable memory card that dependent on your usage could fill up fast with game save files and digitally downloaded games. Still, the Vita exists so you can play video games on the run. In that regard it delivers the best experience in portable gaming. Vita's impressive launch library -- keep reading for 12 Vita reviews -- is a strong selling point, and it features the best display and the most flexible control options in the history of handhelds. Gamers with the cash should seriously consider grabbing a Vita now. If Sony can iron out online functionality and drop the price, the Vita could become the must-have piece of hardware for 2012. Score: 8.5 out of 10

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Sony

Golden Abyss put you in control of adventurer Nathan Drake in an engaging single-player campaign. The graphics in Golden Abyss aren't quite as amazing as what we've seen on the PS3, but they're still very impressive in showing off the Vita's OLED screen. There's plenty of puzzle solving and searching around for collectables to keep you busy between the action segments. The game makes good use of Vita's touch controls, putting them into play in contextually relevant parts of the game. Golden Abyss is without a doubt one of the games you'll want to start your Vita game collection with. Score: 9 out of 10

FIFA Soccer 12

Electronic Arts

FIFA is hands down the best sports game to launch with the Vita. The game looks as sharp as its console predecessor and FIFA takes full advantage of both of the Vita's touch screens. Send passes all over the field simply by touching the area of the field you'd like to kick to. Once you're within range of the goal, you can poke the rear touch pad to aim your shot. Both functions are easy to pick up after a few minutes of play. Pretty quickly you'll forget what buttons to use for passing and shooting. Three different career modes (player, manager or player-manager) will take up the bulk of your time in FIFA and you can also join multiplayer matches online. The entire experience feels as if you just loaded up your console version of FIFA and shrunk the screen. Score: 9.5 out of 10

Hot Shots Golf: World Invitations

Sony

The Hot Shots series has done a great job of injecting the uptight and staid world of golf with a little color. World Invitational features all the crazy characters wearing crazy outfits you're used to. The game also ports over the same sturdy power bar swing mechanic. The Vita's touch screen is put to use by letting you select a variety of views on every shot. You can also adjust your aim using the rear screen. Both of these are simple and natural uses of the Vita's touch screen functionality. The game is all about fun, but you have a variety of ways to compete. Career mode let's you develop one character, while online play allows for competition with friends or with strangers in a daily tournament. A gameplay engine that's easy to pick up but hard to master will have you returning to the links early and often. Score: 8 out of 10

F1 2011

THQ

As the software library of the Vita expands, there's going to be plenty of ports of established titles coming down the road. An early entrant is F1 2011, which offers racing fans a robust career mode and multiplayer racing with all the drivers, tracks and cars you'd expect. Gamers that prefer more simulation-style racing over arcade will definitely appreciate F1's grinding races and learning curve, though you can dial down the difficulty if you're not an expert at racing games. The graphics in F1 2011 are solid, but the audio is a little underwhelming. As an early port F1 2011 leaves plenty of room for improvement. Score: 6.5 out of 10

ModNation Racers: Road Trip

Sony

Everything that's great about this goofy racer on the PS3 is available on the go in the Vita build. There are 30 races to tackle in the career mode, while you can also customize and share your own tracks online. The biggest difference from the console version is that you can use the touch screen to create your tracks now. Touch screen functionality is actually a perfect fit for creating courses. Dragging and dropping seems natural from the beginning and lets you whip up courses almost as fast as you can send your character careening through them. A clunky menu layout hurts navigation when you're not playing, but the action on the track is non-stop fun. A perfect game to enjoy in spurts when you're away from home. Score: 8 out of 10

Rayman Origins

Ubisoft

Rayman Origins was one of 2011's best games for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The Vita version doesn't disappoint with 60 levels of fun and challenging side-scrolling platform goodness. The game looks amazing and the integration of touch controls works pretty well. The only knock on Rayman Origins is the lack of multiplayer gaming, which seems like a big miss on the online-friendly Vita. Rayman Origins has a ghost mode where you can challenge your best times, but that's just not the same as playing this great game with other people. Score: 9 out of 10

Lumines: Electronic Symphony

Ubisoft

The premise of Lumines is simple: group same-colored blocks in squares to make them disappear and to score points. It's simple to learn but challenging to master. The game's visual aesthetics, tremendous soundtrack and smart navigation really work in harmony. The game smartly uses online leaderboards to track your progress against other players in a variety of clever and addictive game modes. As you progress in Lumines you'll build up experience points and unlock new functional avatars that help you score better. Lumines is another great game from Ubisoft that you'll want to add to your library. Score: 9 out of 10

Wipeout 2048

Sony

Sony's racer leaps into the future and dumps you into the world of the anti-gravity racing league. This is a no-frills racing game, plain and simple. You pick a spaceship and run through the courses until you've won all of them. There are power ups to help you speed by opponents as well as weapons to take down the ships in front of you. The Vita analog control sticks work smoothly as your steering wheel. A couple of online options spice up the action, including the ability to play against PS3 gamers, but the career mode is very short and not terribly challenging. WipEout 2048 is fun in short bursts but it ultimately could use a little more variety. Score: 7 out of 10

Little Deviants

Sony

Little Deviants is little more than a game masked as a "How To Use The Rear Touch Screen" manual for new Vita owners. The entirety of the game is made up of mini-games that unlock more mini-games. Each game consists of you maneuvering the quirky Deviants past bad guys by altering the landscape with, you guessed it, the rear touch pad. Wherever your finger is on the rear pad, the ground bubbles up, pushing your characters through a variety of mazes, obstacles and villains. It's certainly a great showcase for the Vita's rear screen, but the gameplay gets repetitive very quickly. Score: 6 out of 10

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Capcom

What self-respecting handheld unit would be complete without a good fighting game? Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 answers the bell with a solid port from its console brethren. The game's graphics are very good, again showing off the Vita's excellent ability to render colors, effects and motion. There's plenty of replay value with a host of multiplayer options and 48 fighters to choose from. Unfortunately, the optional touch controls in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 make combat too easy and drain the satisfaction of learning the button/d-pad controls. Multiplayer matchmaking and spectator options add plenty of replay value as well. Score: 8 out of 10

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus

Tecmo Koei

Our favorite ninja, Ryu Hayabusa, is back to slice and dice through hordes of bad guys. Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus is another ported title, but it does a good job in utilizing the Vita's front and rear touch screens, helping distinguish this version from its predecessors. The third person action in the game is fast and furious, though wonky camera movements and angles sometimes spring up at very inopportune times. The graphics in Sigma Plus don't disappoint, and if you've never played Ninja Gaiden, this is a great entry point to the franchise. Score: 8 out of 10

Dynasty Warriors NEXT

Tecmo Koei

Dynasty Warriors is strategy based game where you're fighting your way across feudal China in a series of missions focused on attacking and defending bases. Within each mission you'll control fighters with different abilities, guiding them into third-person combat against waves of enemies and bosses. Dynasty Warriors does a great job integrating the Vita touch controls, using them in quick-hitting standalone moments and as special combat moves against more powerful opponents. The immersive controls work well with impressive visuals making Dynasty Warriors an unexpected surprise. Score: 8.5 out of 10

Grand Slam Tennis 2

Electronic Arts

EA debuted the first Grand Slam game on the Wii to take advantage of motion controls and the Wii's surging popularity. With the Wii winding down, EA has finally released Grand Slam 2 for the HD consoles. The game features Total Racquet Control, which uses the right stick to determine shot type in lieu of a traditional button scheme. There's a steep learning curve with the stick system, but fortunately standard button controls are also constantly active so you have a choice to use those, the stick, or a hybrid of both. There's plenty of playable real-life players including Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Serena and Venus Williams as well as a good dose of tennis legends like John McEnroe, Pete Sampras and Martina Navratilova. The career mode is robust, and the exclusive inclusion of Wimbeldon makes going for a slam a legit affair. An array of multiplayer options rounds out a very solid tennis package. Score: 8.5 out of 10

Twisted Metal

Sony

After a lengthily hiatus Sony's frenetic racing survival game has returned. The storyline of Twisted Metal is definitely adult, a tad nutty, and naturally in the works as a feature film, but the heart of the game is the tremendous frenetic action once you get behind the wheel. The game features a challenging single-player campaign, but 16-player online multiplayer and local split-screen modes are where you'll want to spend the most time. The array of death dealing vehicles -- you'll unlock as you play more -- is impressive, as are the various power-ups and abilities you can use to clear the roads for victory. The graphics and audio in Twisted Metal are front and center, and are further enhanced by loud and destructible environments. Score: 9 out of 10

Kingdoms of Amalur

Electronic Arts

As the brainchild of fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore, master monster creator Todd McFarlane and designer Ken Rolston (to say nothing of being the first game from Curt Shilling's 38 Studios), Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning exits the gate with high expectations. It's a third-person action RPG, set in -- surprise, surprise -- a world that needs saving from a mysterious person of foretold power: you. Players can mold their character in whatever direction they desire, much more deeply than a game like Fable which KoA:R superficially resembles. The games skill trees and class system are adaptable to most play styles, and all of them are fun. Magic feels powerful and combat is surprisingly responsive and fluid, more like Arkham City or God of War than Skyrim or World of Warcraft. The graphics are better than serviceable, though they lack the grandeur of Skyrim, and the conversation system is downright primitive, but there are dozens of hours of really solid gameplay for the RPG fan. Score: 9 out of 10 VERDUCCI: From games to gaming, Curt Schilling on, well, pretty much everything

Jak & Daxter Collection

Sony

Jak and Daxter Collection is the latest HD-ified rerelease of previous generation classics, and platforming fans won't want to miss it. The value-priced trifecta includes three of the most celebrated PS2 platformers by Uncharted developer Naughty Dog: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II and Jak 3. Fans who played them on the PS2 will find them exceptionally well-rendered, with bright, sharp visuals and enjoyable voice work intact. Modern gamers may find some of the games' frustrations more acute, with some unskippable dialogue sequences and a frustrating in-game camera. The plot gets steadily darker over the trilogy, as the main character becomes more fleshed out and the gameplay and action more varied. Despite the shortcomings, most of what's here is worth a look, as the game's characters, level design, platforming and gunplay were top-shelf in 2001 and remain very enjoyable today. Score: 8 out of 10

SoulCalibur V

Namco

SoulCalibur V arrives at a real watershed time for fighting games. Last year's Mortal Kombat reboot set the bar for what gamers should expect from modern fighters, while Super Street Fighter IV and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 continue to captivate fans of the genre. SC V, actually the sixth game in the series, continues the series semi-3D fighting legacy with a deep bench of fighters and the modes you'd expect, but with few genuine surprises. The game's story mode is laughably thin, telling the absurd story through voiced-over still drawings, and does little to teach beginners about the various move sets. Learning the intricacies of the game at all is a challenge because of the peculiar move scheme outlined in the instruction book, but button mashers will do fine for a while. The online mode works quickly and simply, though be prepared to get consistently pummeled many, many times: the online crowd is nothing if not dedicated. SC V doesn't blaze any new fighting ground, but fans of the series will probably enjoy the journey. Score: 8 out of 10