Game On

You can touch this

Yesterday I cracked and bought myself a PlayStation Vita. I’d been wanting one since the Vita Rooms event, but let launch day come and go earlier in the week without taking the plunge. By the weekend, with a £230 tax rebate sitting in the bank and a burning desire to play some proper games on the go again, I decided just to go for it.

The hardware is beautiful and the interface is really nice. Unfortunately I’m not enjoying WipEout 2048, the only off the shelf game I picked up from the high street, but there’s a lot of great launch titles out there and if I get the same enjoyment out of my Vita as I did from my (pair of) PSP’s over the years then it’ll be well worth the investment.

Some free augmented reality games that I got from the PlayStation Network after redeeming a code are actually quite good fun, and show the potential for that kind of thing. The Cliff Diver game in that pack is pretty neat – creating a variety of augmented reality pools and diving boards upon your environment in which you can make the titular character do what he does – dives off cliffs!

Considering I was never intending on getting a Vita until I went to the Vita Rooms event, it just shows you how effective that type of marketing is. Let people play with the hardware and sell it on its merits.

I’m actually looking forward to my commute this week – no time better than 45 minutes on the train to get some good gaming in. 🙂

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Game On

Touching the future

This week started of with a chance to have a play with Sony’s new portable gaming console, the PS Vita, at the launch night of the PlayStation Vita Rooms in Glasgow on Monday.

I’d been fortunate enough to get a ticket to the PS Vita Rooms event by entering a draw on Facebook. Having done the same and ending up with an invite for an Access PlayStation event in early 2011, I thought it’d be unlikely for me to score another. But, however you get picked for these things, I was delighted to get one and went along to join the queue on Sauchiehall Street on a cold, but dry Monday night.

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Game On

Old Grandfather Turismo

The first game I picked up with my original PlayStation, back in late 1998, was Gran Turismo. At that time it was a showcase for the power of PlayStation – so much so that watching the gloriously captured replays was as much a part of the experience as actually playing the game.

Buying and playing Gran Turismo 5 feels heart-warmingly  familiar. Like an old friend has come to visit after a long absence and we’re recounting past glories together.

“Remember that time I nailed Trial Mountain in a 3000GT and blew away the field by so much I started to lap the back-markers?!” I’ll say.

And yes, Gran Turismo does remember. Essentially, he hasn’t really changed at all since the last time I saw him.

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