Monday, August 26, 2013

Oh ya, Ouya.

So, I haz an Ouya! I've actually had it for a while, but only got to turn it on once before we were caught up in moving and other boring, life-ly stuff. Now that stuff is more settled, here's my general impressions of the system.

I want to like it, you see, I really want to like it. But every time I turn it on, it's one hassle after another... the controller won't connect, the wireless won't connect, there's only 6GB of space... I don't think I've seen an android phone with that little space. And the games I like so far are all a gig or so in size, which is just too bad.

Speaking of games, it's a little like any indie website with a bunch of homebrewed games, except you have to download them on to your sad, tiny hard-drive, and the external storage hasn't had the kinks worked out yet. Either way, I'll be very happy when I can, say, hook up external storage and get it to work without having to look up a bunch of tutorials online.

So far, of the games I've played, I'm enjoying 'Rose', 'Dub Wars' and 'Final Fantasy III' the best, as the latter is much more fun on a console than on my DS. 'Rose' is a point and click puzzle adventure which is dark and creepy, and by far the biggest game on my oyua, at 2.5GB or so. Ugh. Which is a shame, as it's my favorite.

'Dub Wars' is a pretty neat Galaga-ish game, where the music controls your weapon systems and you fly around avoiding bad guys with your ship while trying to hit them with whatever weapons you happen to have at the moment. But the music is very good, and has helped make some progress in getting Shieldhaven to appreciate Dubstep. :D

I've also played "Pinball Arcade", but can't recommend it for the Ouya, as the controller triggers are too sticky and laggy to be good flippers. Also, I've already purchased most of the tables I want for the ipad-- which has considerably more space-- and have no desire to pay for them again to play on a less responsive platform. Which is really sad, as I like the big screen, but eh.

Either way, I still believe in what they're doing and want to give their SDK a spin at some point, so I'm holding out hope for improvements down the line.

And that's the news from the indy console front.