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Socoder -> Misc Gaming -> OUYA - My Views. |
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| Tue, 10 Sep 2013, 02:21 | |
spinal
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I've had my OUYA for over a week now, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it. Well, indented to be my thoughts on it, I mostly just waffled a bit. Set Up First thing I did was plug it all together ant power up using the only button on the system. Simple enough. However, before I got to do anything.... "System Update!" This doesn't bother my much, it's only happened once so far, unlike the PS3, which want's to download an update almost every time you start a game. Next pair the controller, again trivial, only needs done once. Then the 'fun bit'. You have to enter credit card details before you can even use the system. Not being a fan of such things, I quickly googled a solution. It turns out it only requires a valid card number, you don't need to have any money, so I found a 'test' number, the sort used for testing online shops, credit card readers and such. Used made up expiry date and security code, job done. The OUYA thinks I have valid credit card info. The only downside to that, is that currently, if there's a game I like, I can't actually buy it. I have heard that you can get gift cards though and there's always those pre-pay cards. So now I have the thing up and running. I have to say, it's quite nice. Spec-wize it's similar to a current gen Android phone only without the screen, sim card and is quite a bit cheaper. The Controller The controller is nice, not perfect, but quite good. It has the usual that you expect from modern game controllers, two analog sticks, 4 action buttons, a home button, 2 shoulder buttons and 2 analog shoulder triggers. Also, to slightly aid Android compatibility, a track pad for mouse input. The build of the controller isn't bad, it does feel a little cheap, but it's very sturdy, has a nice weight, the analog sticks are brilliant, much better than on some big name first party controllers. The touch pad is next to useless, little more than an inch square with no visible edges or ridges to tell you where it is. You'll sometimes set it off when just holding the controller, showing a mouse pointer on the screen, or sometimes fail to use it properly when you actually want to (running your finger way past the invisible edge and getting frustrated at the pointer not moving). Luckily almost no OUYA game require the use of the damn thing. Playing Games The OUYA shop thing is located in the 'Discover' menu item. It's a very simple layout, you have a couple of recommended games at the top, then a list of genres and at the bottom 'sandbox' which is where all new games are put, seemingly in order of upload, so to get a newly uploaded game, you have to scroll through a good 250ish icons to find it. The first few games I tried, weren't too good, the sort of things you expect on any of the Android game stores, endless runners, aroid objects while plummeting to the ground, simple games really. Just as expected, the OUYA is aimed squarely at debs after all. There are of course a couple of big company games on there, a couple of Sonic the Hedgehog games, Final Fantasy etc. But I've never really been a sonic fan. Those of us that use Monkey for game dev will be happy, the new OUYA target works a charm. The controller is picked up no problem and uses the regular gamepad code within Monkey. I haven't tried the IAP stuff yet, which incidentally is the only way to pay for a game on OUYA. But no doubt I'll get round to it. Buying games I haven't done this yet (as mentioned above), but I do know that the only possible way to earn money from your game, or pay for someone else's is though in-app-purchases. One of the few things I genuinely hate about mobile gaming. As long as people don't go using this the same way it's used on phone games (buy power ups to win the game, buy money to use in the game etc.) Then I'm happy with the idea. On the plus side, every single game on the OUYA store is free to download and try! The way some people apply this method, is to have their game as a timed demo, or a level restricted demo, or some other restrictions, then simple add a 'buy me' button on the title screen/menu which would unlock the full game. Seems OK. Emulators! A lot of us here are retro game fans, we grew up with them, they're what we're trained to like. So, as it seems are the OUYA people, who are more than happy to allow retro game adulators on the store. There are a bunch on there, so I game a couple a try. I'm not going to get into the legal issues here, but lets agree there are some. Personally I have a handful of SNES games that I backed up myself using my SNES backup device (one of the few modern flash carts), so I have a couple of games to test with. And I'll say, I'm quite impressed. Not only does the SNES emulator I tested work at full speed and the controller buttons mapped properly, but it was originally written for a phone, so is compatible with a whole bunch of other game controllers, including iCade! So now I can play my SNES games on my big TV, nice crisp picture, perfect sound and best of all, with a bluetooth SNES controller (theres a post here somewhere about how I made it) and my crazy USB iCade compatible SNES controller (again, theres a post somewhere about making that also). A lot of the emulators on OUYA seem to be made by the same guy, so all of them will probably support many different controllers, including xbox 360, ps3, usb-hid, wiimote, iCade, icontrolpad, gametes and probably many more. The bad bits The buttons on the controller are a little off. Nothing major, but in the same way that a lot of modern controllers are. Because of the size forced on it by the analog sticks, there is a lot of distance between the circuit board and the top of the plastic. Because of this, the buttons feel a little soft to push and worst of all the d-pad, much like on the gamecube, dreamcast and others, because of its height, ricks rather than just presses. Come on people, 25-30 years ago, this tech was perfected, now you've all gone and forgot. Keep the distance between the top of the d-pad and the circuit board as small as possible, it's not a joystick people, it's 4 buttons! it's not supposed to rick from side to side! The shop menu is a little crap. the thumbnail images aren't cached, so they all reload every time, sometimes this takes a while (I'm using wifi, rather than ethernet, which might be an issue). Also, in the shop, there is no comment system, only a 'like' button. So there is now way at all to get any actually feedback from players as to how well your game is, what might be wrong with it etc. Conclusion For its price and what it's meant to be, I like it. I can play a bunch of retro games on my TV, I can code my own games. I'm happy.If you want to get into Android game making and don't feel the need for a tablet, this might be the way to go. The fact that I have about ten controllers in the house that work on it is a very good move by OUYA and the Android community as a whole. Can it compete with the big named consoles? Power-wize, no. But lets face it, raw power isn't really doing those big consoles any good is it? Consoles can't get much more powerful than they are now, they're producing games that nobody wants and pulling out from producing the games that people do want. Could the OUYA be a step back to the 80's when bedroom coders ruled the games industry? Will the next be thing in home gaming be letting people code their own game again? Lets hope so. -=-=- Check out my excellent homepage! 
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| Tue, 10 Sep 2013, 03:07 | |
Jayenkai
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It worries me that OUYA may be a case of "too little too late". If it had been something that Google had initially come up with, right at the start of the Android explosion, I feel it might've faired a little better, but there's a war zone on the horizon. Not only has Sony just unveiled a "mini Vita without a touchscreen" PSVitaTV device, but Apple has added proper game controller support to iOS7, and although they haven't unveiled anything yet, everyone's pretty much expecting the AppleTV to inevitably fit the exact same purpose. Currently OUYA is the easiest option for us "Homebrew" devs, and if it stays that way, then I feel there may be hope for it. I still want one. I think it'd be a neat little device to add to my growing collection! Shame I'm f'ing skint.. Damn you, BlastTrax, you were meant to at least buy me an OUYA!!!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Tue, 10 Sep 2013, 07:54 | |
9572AD
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The biggest problem with the OUYA, aside from it being the "XBox Live Indie Games" of the outside world - assuming you don't like that sort of thing (which since you complained about the content I assume you don't), is the lack of storage space. Nobody wants to delete all their games to make room for the fancy new big games, then delete those to replay the older ones, and so on. So most people have simply stopped buying anything. Until/unless OUYA can provide a suitable workaround for this, the OUYA is on a path to destruction. -=-=- All the raw, animal magnetism of a rutabaga.
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| Tue, 10 Sep 2013, 14:19 | |
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spinal
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There is work around, as far as I can tell, it's a case of adding a script of some sort to the boot up of an android system, which will mount a usb memory device as internal storage, allowing to install as much stuff as you want. To be fair, I only complained about the games I tried. The store itself is my main issue, mainly the fact that nobody can leave comments. There are probably plenty of great games in the store, however, having to go down a list of 250+ icons to find them isn't fun. Also, it's a shame that the internet hasn't taken the OUYA very seriously, it's quite hard to find OUYA game reviews, top tens etc. Google seems plenty happy to find you reviews of the system itself, just not of the games. -=-=- Check out my excellent homepage!
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| Wed, 11 Sep 2013, 07:36 | |
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Jayenkai
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It's all kicking off, now!! Twitter Linkage -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Wed, 11 Sep 2013, 13:39 | |
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spinal
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My main problem with OUYA, is that the store is crap, the layout is wrong and the 'sandbox' is ordered back to front, showing new uploads last instead of first.
-=-=- Check out my excellent homepage!
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