OLED vs LCD … the battle continues

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Over at GameFAQs, there’s endless squabbling over the new Vita models, now that the new Vita no longer comes with an OLED screen.  How big will the hit on picture quality be?  Well, I don’t have a new Vita 2000 to test, but here are a couple of pictures showing how the Vita’s OLED stacks up against a PSP Go and a PSP Street (E1000).  Click the images for full-sized versions

PS Vita (top) versus PSP Go (bottom)

PS Vita (top) versus PSP Go (bottom)

Now to add another contender, the PSP Street:

PSP Street (top) vs PS Vita (middle) vs PSP Go (bottom)

PSP Street (top) vs PS Vita (middle) vs PSP Go (bottom)

Fuel for the fire …

Back in Black

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This past Sunday I picked up a new all-black 3DS XL from Target (sale price – $175 and 5% Redcard discount.

Picked up a few games to go with it, and fed it a 64GB SD card – formatted to FAT:

  • Fire Emblem Awakening
  • SMT: Soul Hackers
  • SMT IV
  • Resident Evil Revelations
  • Tales of the Abyss
  • Monster Hunter

Impressions on the 3DS to follow …

Startup times

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Because the only measure of the worth of a game console is the length of time it takes to get from full power off to the main menu:

Console Startup time(seconds)
Nintendo DSi 5 seconds
Sony Vita 18 seconds (includes holding power button)
Sony PSP Go (w/16 GB M2 card) 19 seconds
Sony PS3 (60GB fat, with replacement 500 GB HD) 20 seconds
Microsoft Xbox 360 (120GB) 21 seconds

Ni no Kuni out today

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I’ve een playing Persona 4 Golden on the Vita for a while now, ad will probably post a review on that later (in short, buy it if you have a Vita and like JRPGs).

On the PS3, Ni no Kuni’s out today, and is currently on a truck riding out to my house.  Hopefully, it will entertain me for a bit longer than Tales of Graces.  Graces drags towards the middle – meaning I’ll likely do with Graces what I usually do with Tales games:  put ti down for a while and come back to it in a few months.

Vita wins!

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The Vita wins!  A while back I said:

Frankly, $200′s about my maximum price point for a handheld gaming system.  True, there are some deals out now that come close to $200 for the base wifi model (some retailers are offering a gift card with purchase), but there’s also the memory card issue – for 32 GB, you’ll get soaked for about $80 – about five times the price of a comparable MicroSD.  (A MicroSD can go into a PSP with an adapter that only costs a few dollars…)  Were the Vita more compelling in other areas, I might overlook the price, but …

Enter Amazon’s Gold Box Black Friday deal.  White Wi-Fi PS Vita, Assassin’s Creed pack-in, PS All Stars download, couple months of PS+, and a (tiny) 4GB memory card – for $180.  So I bought one.

I’m still not too thrilled with the Vita’s game selection or Sony’s insistence on making it difficult to use the Vita as a player for my media files.***  Still, the price was good, and I can at least play some of my PSP games and PS1 classics on the Vita’s larger screen and dual sticks.

Your move, Nintendo.

***About the only current Vita titles I”m interested in are Persona 4: Golden and Ragnarok Odyssey, and this Linux user doesn’t even have a Windows machine around to run Sony’s “content manager” – so my PSPs will; still be my go-to portable game/media systems.

And now, Tales of Graces f

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I’ve just put a game into my PS3 for the first time in months – Tales of Graces f.  How’s it going so far?

Presentation

Tales games aren’t known for their eye-popping graphics -and Tales of Graces f is certainly no exception to the rule.  The graphics are serviceable but not particularly impressive – looking more like a last-generation game than something on a current console.  Given the game’s origins on the least powerful console of this generation, that’s not really surprising.

Sound and voice acting really aren’t bad – in other words there aren’t any characters I want to instantly mute.

Gameplay – Battle system

It’s Tales, only without TP.  While the battle system is entertaining so far, I’m not sure I think it’s an improvement over what you get in Tales of the Abyss or Tales of Vesperia.  Instead of using TP (the Tales version of MP in other games), you have CP that are used for attacks.  These CP regenerate when standing still or blocking.   Having to wait or defend before attacking changes the pace in combat – it feels slower so far than previous Tales games.  I’ll give the system a little more playtime before being too harsh on it, though.