1485: Trigger Happy Havoc

I’ve been refraining from talking about it until I put my review up, but now that’s safely filed, I feel I should enthuse somewhat about Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

For the uninitiated — and all the people who constantly claim they have no idea what Danganronpa is — allow me to explain.

It’s a visual novel-cum-adventure game from Spike Chunsoft, the developers who brought us the Zero Escape series that consists of 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. Its concept is something of a cross between Corpse Party and Zero Escape: a disparate group of individuals are kidnapped, trapped in an enclosed environment (in this case, a twisted, not-quite-right version of a school, hence the Corpse Party comparisons) against their will, and then presented with a series of challenges between them and their final escape. In Zero Escape’s case, this was a matter of solving puzzles and choosing the correct path to the end; in Danganronpa’s case, meanwhile, it’s a little more complex.

The game’s Zero-equivalent Monokuma — a far more in-your-face and sinister antagonist than the largely hands-off Zeroes — challenges the game’s cast to a “killing game” in which anyone who successfully gets away with murder graduates from the twisted school and gets to escape; meanwhile, everyone else gets “punished” by, well, being killed. Conversely, should the “Blackened” murderer be found out, they get punished, but the remaining students don’t get to escape — they just have to continue their school life.

The game unfolds over a series of chapters, each of which involves the surviving members of the cast investigating the mysterious school, trying to get to the bottom of what is going on and then, subsequently, investigating a murder that happens. This is then followed by a “class trial” in which everyone argues and yells at each other and, if you’ve done your job correctly, the culprit is identified and punished. In between these phases, you get short periods of “Free Time” in which you can hang out with the remaining characters to build up your relationships, which subsequently unlocks “skills” for use in the trial segments.

Ooh, I know, I know. It's... [SPOILERS] — Ooh, I know, I know. It’s… [SPOILERS]

The trials themselves are a far cry from Ace Attorney territory. The majority of them revolve around a mechanic called “Non-Stop Debate” in which the characters continue speaking their lines whether or not you’re ready to continue, and you have to shoot down “weak points” in their arguments with the “truth bullets” you gathered over the course of your investigation. On the default difficulty, for the majority of the game you’ll only have to identify which statement to shoot down with a single truth bullet; on harder difficulty levels (and at certain, critical moments on normal difficulty) you’ll also have to choose the correct truth bullets to refute the statements you think are false. This then gets even more complicated as the game progresses as people start shouting over the top of each other, represented by irrelevant “noise” statements floating across the screen and getting in the way of the things you actually want to shoot down.

This Hangman game has a lot more at stake than a stickman's life. — This Hangman game has a lot more at stake than a stickman’s life.

These arguments are supplemented by Hangman-like sequences in which you have to recall specific pieces of information by spelling them out, rhythm action sequences in which you struggle to make yourself heard over someone’s constant objections and, at the end of each “case,” a Trauma Team-style summing up of exactly what happened by assembling a comic strip depicting the events leading up to the murder, and what happened after that.

It’s a fascinating game; perhaps not as “clever” as 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, but that’s no bad thing — while 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward specialise in bending your brain around complicated narratives with peculiar structures, Danganronpa’s relatively straight line to the finish still manages to have plenty of surprises, twists and turns along the way, and has no qualms whatsoever about killing off its main cast with alarming rapidity.

In short, my review has hopefully already made this abundantly clear, but if you have a PlayStation Vita and the slightest interest in intriguing, compelling murder mysteries, you should abso-posilutely pick up a copy of Danganronpa this week. No, I don’t care if you’re already playing Bravely Default. No, I don’t care if you’re getting stuck into Lightning Returns. Danganronpa is fantastic, and I don’t mind admitting that I want as many people as possible to play it so we continue to see more and more games like this in the West.

1483: Virtue’s Almost-Last Reward

I will finish this game. I will finish this game. It’s been 40 hours. It’s a matter of pride now.

There may be mild spoilers for Virtue’s Last Reward in this post. There will almost certainly be spoilers for 999. I haven’t quite worked out what I’m going to write yet; I just feel like I need to do something like a brain dump in order to try and work out what on Earth is going on.

Putting in a “read more” tag so those casually browsing the front page don’t run into any spoilers… see you after the jump if you’re continuing to read.

Continue reading “1483: Virtue’s Almost-Last Reward” →

1078: Things I Hope We See the Back of in 2013

As I noted yesterday, 2012 was a reasonable year, if a relatively unremarkable one. However, it did play host to a number of trends that really, really need to fuck the fuck off. Here is a selection of my picks for things that I would very much like to not see any more next year.

Gangnam Style

LOOK! LOOK AT THE FUNNY KOREAN MAN! HE DANCING! HAHAHAHAHA

No. Fuck off. When your “viral sensation” gets performed on X-Factor, you know it has officially jumped the shark.

The phrase “jumped the shark”

I can remember it now, but I originally had to look this up five or six times before I could actually remember what it meant. It is a Happy Days reference, for heaven’s sake. Is there not something a bit more, you know, timely you could refer to? Or perhaps just say what you mean? Speaking of which…

Using the term “nice guy” to mean “creep”

I have ranted at length on this subject before so I will spare you that this time and simply say that by doing this you are simply perpetuating the stereotype that people who describe themselves as “nice guys” are creeps and rapists-in-training. Some of them are creeps, to be sure, but some of them are simply shy people with poor social skills. I count myself in the latter category, and have referred to myself as a “nice guy” in the past, and now feel hideously guilty about that. So quit tarring everyone with the same brush and find a new term to describe creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable, regardless of what they call themselves. I suggest “creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable” or perhaps just, you know, “creeps”. Capitalising Nice Guy or adding a ™ is not an acceptable way of creating a new term.

Reducing complex sociological issues to binary debates

This is apparent when you look at a number of different issues in today’s sociological climate, but it’s particularly evident any time someone starts talking about sexism and/or feminism. If you’re not in support of the most vocal, outspoken, ranty people who are standing up against sexism, you’re a misogynist. If you are someone who speaks out against sexism, regardless of whether or not you’re being obnoxious in your arguing techniques, you’re a “feminazi”. If you try and have a reasoned, rational debate on this subject, you’re “part of the problem”. There are no shades of grey here.

(Clarification that I am annoyed I feel obliged to include: My beliefs: sexism is bad, regardless of who it is directed towards. Women are awesome. Men are equally awesome. If the world learned this and treated people accordingly, it would be a much nicer place. Yelling incoherently at people is not the same as re-educating them.)

“dot TXT” Twitter accounts

NaNoWriMo participants, fanfic authors and bloggers are all pretty brave to put their work out there for public scrutiny, so how do you think they might feel about having extracts of things they have written or said quoted out of context, posted to Twitter and then retweeted to all and sundry? Yeah. Cut that shit out. On the subject…

Public shaming

Twitter users like “@fart” spend an awful lot of time trawling the social network for examples of things like “ungrateful teens” at Christmas, retweeting what is apparently their most offensive tweet and then, as a bit of frantic backpedaling, encouraging their followers not to harass these people. (I’m aware @fart isn’t the only one, but he’s certainly one of the most well-known.) Sites like BuzzFeed then collect together these tweets and post them as evidence of “first world problems” and other such bullshit. An example was here, but it has since been removed by the author, perhaps partly as a result of this article on Slate.

Public shaming of people for things like this is a horrible way to behave that makes you little more than a bully — especially in cases such as this, where we see that all is not necessarily as it first appears. Call people out if they are genuinely being publicly offensive, sure, but don’t hold them up for ridicule.

Tumblr

Back in 2008, I posted this short entry in which I lamented the fact I didn’t really know what Tumblr was for or why anyone would want to use it. Now I know: it’s for telling the world how awful white people, men, and white men are. The second a white person says something stupid, you can count on there being a Tumblr for it within a matter of minutes, which runs whatever “joke” there was well and truly into the ground, often setting world records for how quickly it can make grumpy people like me want to set fire to anyone who makes such a reference.

White straight cis male guilt

Much of the above leads to white straight cis male guilt. (If you don’t know what “cis” means, it is an abbreviation of “cisgender”, which is where an individual’s self-perceived gender matches their sex, and the opposite of “transgender”. I had to look it up, despite the number of people who are now using it regularly, often in an attempt to make themselves look super-socially aware.) Being a white straight cis male is not anything to be ashamed of, but from the number of people who preface pieces of work by seemingly apologising for being the person they are, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. The white straight cis male viewpoint is just as valid as the black gay transgender female perspective, and nothing to feel guilty about.

The only thing you should feel guilty about is not giving viewpoints other than your own the time of day, regardless of your ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, sex and any other factors. You can give respect to viewpoints other than your own without diminishing the relevance of your own contributions.

Variations on that Keep Calm and Carry On poster

If I never have to see an “amusing” poster that says “Keep Calm and [something that isn’t Carry On]” again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. Indeed, if I never see a piece of merchandise that has the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan on it again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. For those who were unaware, the original poster was put out in very limited quantities in 1939 to raise the morale of the British public in the face of the rise of the Nazis, and was subsequently rediscovered in 2000, at which point it exploded and was everyfuckingwhere. Ironically, the reaction on seeing a “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster is now a crushing sense of distress at the state of the modern world rather than a feeling of increased morale.

Data limits

We’re living in the future. We really are. We carry around gizmos in our pocket that are straight out of Star Trek, and yet our usage of them is artificially limited by mobile phone companies’ desire to squeeze as much money out of us as possible. That didn’t happen in Star Trek.

Negativity towards new tech

The new consoles that have been released recently — 3DS, Vita and Wii U — were all met with negativity upon their initial release. The situation with 3DS has improved somewhat, but Vita is still struggling a bit, and it’s too early to say with Wii U so far. These are all great bits of kit that, in many cases, don’t deserve the beatdowns they get. In 2013 I’d like to see a much greater focus on the things that these systems do well, and things that people who have bought one can appreciate, rather than endless Why Not To Buy One pieces.

Sales figures being equated to whether something is any good or not

People don’t like buying stuff that isn’t selling (see: Vita) but this doesn’t mean that those things aren’t actually any good. The Vita (sorry to keep harping on about it, but it’s a good example) is a gorgeous piece of kit, but people are ignoring this arguably more important fact because its sales figures aren’t very good.

Fact: pretty much everything I’ve enjoyed this year has been a “niche” title that hasn’t been designed to sell in massive quantities. Not everything has to be a blockbuster.

Unnecessary mobile social networking apps

If you’re considering seeking funding for a new mobile app that “lets you Like anything!” or is yet another Instagram ripoff then just stop. Now. No-one is going to use your product for more than five minutes. Before you design your app consider whether or not the world really needs it or would at least find it somehow beneficial. If the answer to either of those questions is “no”, then reconsider what you are doing.

Blind reposting

This has been a particular issue on Facebook this year. People see something that they think is amazing (like that supposed Morgan Freeman quote on the school shooting) and then blindly reshare it to their Facebook friends without checking to see whether or not it’s actually true. It subsequently spreads and spreads and spreads, because very few people along the way bother to fact-check it. When someone does fact-check it, discovers it to be bollocks and says so, they are often lambasted. “It does no harm,” people will say. “It’s a nice quote, does it matter who said it?”

Well, perhaps not in the case of a thought-provoking quote misattributed to Morgan Freeman, but when you see the massive virality of scaremongering posts accusing, say, Red Bull of containing a chemical that causes brain tumours, that’s when you can hopefully start to see where the problem lies.

Let me introduce you to Snopes.com. If something sounds suspiciously like bollocks, it probably is, so check it out on Snopes.

____

I could go on but I’ve already written nearly 1,500 words so far. I think if all of the above just went and vanished in time for the new year, I’d be happy for maybe a few days at least. Then something new will undoubtedly come along to irritate me, and I can write another post like this on December 31, 2013. See you then.

(Actually, I’ll see you tomorrow, but you know.)

Oh, and happy new year for later, I guess.

#oneaday Day 900: Gravity Rush Wrap-Up

I finished Gravity Rush on Vita tonight. I was rather disappointed to note it’s a game that gets significantly worse the further you go rather than better. That’s not to say it’s not worth playing, however — more that it’s clear roughly 75% of the way through that the team simply ran out of ideas.

Gravity Rush is a joy to play initially. Once you get your head around the strange gravity-flipping mechanic and realise it’s different from a conventional “flight” system (you can’t really steer while “falling”, for example — you have to stop and then start “falling” in a different direction) it’s a lot of fun to swoop around, run up walls and leap down onto things.

The thing is, the whole gravity-shifting thing seems somewhat underused. There aren’t any particularly clever puzzles through the game that require you to run up walls or on the ceiling or anything, so after some time you begin wishing that protagonist Kat could just fly like a proper superhero.

This problem is compounded when we get to the dreadful aerial combat, which coincidentally is the reason the game’s “fun factor” takes a significant nosedive when on the home straight. I mentioned this a few days ago, but it became the cause of significant teeth-gnashing frustration as the game progressed. Allow me to explain.

When floating in the air, Kat is able to launch a “gravity kick” move by aiming the on-screen reticle at something and then holding the Square button. She then swoops towards the thing you pointed at, hopefully causing damage. Fair enough.

The trouble with this is that a lot of enemies, particularly later in the game, are only vulnerable in specific weak points. If said weak point is on the far side of an enemy, Kat will simply plough into said enemy and do no damage whatsoever, usually putting herself in harm’s way. (This isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of late-game enemies also have the ability to fire bullets at Kat, which the player has to dodge by swiping on the touchscreen.) A lot of late-game combat simply becomes a case of launching Kat at enemies from a distance and hoping she hits them — because more often than not, they’ll simply dodge out of the way before impact, and it’s honestly difficult to tell whether or not the game actually “locks on” to these enemies or not. (I believe it is supposed to, though you could have fooled me.)

By far the worst thing, though, was the “Special Forces” DLC that came free with the “special edition” of the game I got — it was the same price as the normal game for a limited period, so I figured there’d be no loss in getting it.

Oh man. If ever there was an argument for DLC being tacked on, pointless, moneygrabbing shite, this is it.

It contains just two missions, both of which are immensely tedious “fetch and kill” quests, and the latter of which incorporates a totally unreasonable time limit in which to accomplish your objectives — which, by the way, aren’t marked with navigation pointers unlike in the rest of the whole game. The latter mission also makes heavy use of the game’s idiosyncratic “throwing” system, whereby Kat can pick up objects in her gravity field and then fling them at things. The trouble is, this mission requires Kat to fling things precisely, but the game regularly decides that you actually wanted to aim at that enemy a little to the left of where you were actually pointing when you pressed the “throw” button. In a non-time sensitive situation, it would have been helpful to have this quasi-“lock on” facility when throwing things; when attempting to fling water towers at fires, however, it’s a pain in the arse.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t finish the DLC because it irritated me so much — thankfully, it’s possible to cancel out of the missions once they’ve started and simply proceed back on with the main story. As a matter of fact, the second mission in the pack soured me so much on the game by making its flaws so abundantly apparent that it significantly impacted my enjoyment of the finale which, on reflection, wasn’t terrible.

Gravity Rush isn’t a bad game. In fact, it’s a very good game, and a fine showcase of the Vita’s capabilities and unique features. But with a bit of work it could have been an amazing game. It looks fantastic, it has an endearing main character and a wonderfully entertaining core game mechanic, but it simply falls to pieces at the end with a string of unimaginative fetch and kill quests. These just make you want to get to the end so you don’t have to play any more, not because you want to see the end of the story (which, incidentally, leaves a whole lot of frustratingly unanswered questions).

It may sound like I’m being unduly harsh on this game and perhaps I am. I did like it overall, and I’m glad I played it. If you own a Vita, you should play it too.

It’s not perfect. It has potential, though, and that’s quite exciting. The possibilities that a Gravity Rush sequel might offer are very intriguing indeed. For my money, I’d like to see more creative use of the gravity mechanic for puzzle-solving, less aimless open world flying around, less combat (or at least combat that isn’t so incredibly irritating) and a story that wraps up properly.

That’s that for now, though. Next up is Persona 2.

#oneaday Day 896: Gravity Rush

I’ve been playing a fair ol’ bit of Gravity Rush on the Vita recently. My feelings about it are somewhat mixed, but on the whole it’s a very good game, and certainly one of the most impressive handheld games I’ve ever played.

Of all things, my least favourite thing about it is the name. “Gravity Rush” is not the name of an epic, sprawling, visually sumptuous adventure. “Gravity Rush” is, to me, the name of an iPhone game — perhaps an Angry Birds Space ripoff — or an obscure downloadable console title at best, perhaps. (Or perhaps I’m just associating it too much with Gravity Crash on PSN, which is nothing to do with Gravity Rush.)

That aside, though, there’s a lot to like.

For the uninitiated, Gravity Rush is ostensibly an open world… platform game, I guess you’d call it if you had to pin it down to an established genre, but to pigeonhole it thus is to do it a gross disservice. It’s a platform game. A racing game. A mindbending puzzle game. An air combat game. And plenty of other things besides. It actually has a surprising amount in common with underrated open-world gem Crackdown, of all things. Oh, and it was designed by Keiichiro Toyama, who true game geeks will know is the creator of the Silent Hill series. According to Wikipedia, Gravity Rush was the first game he ever wanted to create, but was only able to bring his vision to fruition recently.

In Gravity Rush, you play Kat, a young amnesiac girl with red eyes, blonde hair and surprisingly dark skin for an anime-style character. Kat is also clad in an outfit best described as “bizarre”, and is accompanied by a black cat. Oh, and she can shift gravity at will with the assistance of said black cat, allowing her to “fall” in any direction she pleases, stick to walls, skid along the ground and do gravity-defying flying kicks.

Kat is far and away the highlight of the game. Despite her hackneyed amnesiac introduction, she quickly proves herself to be a fun character to play with. She’s a bit dizzy, she’s confused, she’s obsessed with her own appearance and appeal to the opposite sex, and she’s easily distracted. But despite these flaws, she has a noble streak — she wants to do the right thing and use her powers to help people, despite not really understanding where they came from or what they’re for. As the game progresses, the residents of the city where the majority of the game is set go from fearing her strange powers to respecting and appreciating her talents.

Gameplay in Gravity Rush is mission-based, but it’s up to the player when they want to trigger each subsequent mission. Between missions, it’s possible to tool around any of the unlocked city areas collecting gems (which can be used to level up Kat’s abilities), talking to residents to gain a greater understanding of the strange world the game is set in and taking part in “challenge missions.” The latter are very difficult timed tasks of various kinds — some might see Kat having to defeat as many enemies as possible in a time limit, others see her racing through a series of checkpoints, perhaps with some limitations on her abilities in place. Each challenge has three tiers of rewards, with increasing numbers of gems available for completing these tricky tasks by more impressive margins.

This may all sound relatively unremarkable so far, but it’s the excellent way that Gravity Rush makes use of the Vita’s distinctive capabilities that make it interesting. The “gravity shifting” mechanic is a prime example. By tapping the R button, Kat floats up into the air; tapping it again causes her to “fall” forwards according to where the screen is pointing, regardless of which way is “up”. The specific direction she falls can be controlled using the Vita’s right analogue stick, but a surprising degree of precision can be attained by combining the stick controls with the tilt sensors in the Vita. If you’re feeling completely un-self conscious, you can completely control the direction of the camera in these floaty bits by tilting and rotating the Vita, but that would be both impractical and undesirable for most people, so the combination of stick and tilt works very well.

Similarly, when Kat uses her “slide” move (accomplished by pressing and holding on the bottom two corners of the touchscreen), it’s possible to steer her by tilting the Vita side to side and jump by “flicking” the device. You can also “drift” in a Wipeout style by releasing one corner of the touchscreen as Kat goes around a corner.

A more subtle use of the Vita’s capabilities comes in the comic-style cutscenes that punctuate each mission. Tilting the device causes the perspective on the comic panels to shift slightly — unnecessary, but cool — while swiping with a finger advances to the next panel, just like in an iOS/Android comic reader app. These little touches arguably don’t add much to the experience, but they certainly don’t hurt it, either.

The game is a joy to navigate — gravity shifting and “falling” through the skies towards your destination is thrilling every time, and the world is an interesting, beautifully-designed environment to explore — but things do fall apart a little when it comes to combat. On the ground, Kat is limited to a not-particularly-effective kick attack as well as a useful “dodge” move achieved by swiping on the touchscreen. In the air, Kat can do a “gravity kick” manoeuvre where she “locks on” to an enemy then flies through the sky with high heel outstretched, with more damage being done if she “falls” on the enemy from a greater distance.

This is all very well and good and would be absolutely fine were it not for the fact that every enemy is only vulnerable in specific weak spots. Crash into an enemy anywhere other than their obvious glowing weak spots and you’ll do no damage. Early in the game this isn’t an issue, because the weak spots are in easily-accessible locations, but later enemies have multiple weak points all over their body and often thrash about, making it difficult to hit them. One boss in particular will have you flinging your Vita in frustration as it seemingly always dodges aside just as you get lined up perfectly. None of these challenges are insurmountable, but it does sometimes give the game some rather artificial-feeling difficulty spikes, which is a bit of a shame.

The game’s considerable charms (mostly in the form of Kat and the interesting, mysterious story she becomes embroiled in) outshine its flaws, however — at least to me. I’ve been playing it quite a bit today and I’ve found it an engrossing, immersive experience. I think quite a bit of that is due to the fact it’s a handheld game, which surprised me — traditionally, I’ve regarded handheld experiences to be less immersive, not more — but Gravity Rush draws you in like few other games I’ve played recently, and then doesn’t let go.

If you have a Vita, be sure to grab a copy. If you don’t have a Vita, it’s certainly a great example of what the system can do. Is it a “killer app” for the system? Perhaps — it’s certainly not perfect, but I can’t imagine it working quite the same on, say, a console. The touch and tilt controls are excellently integrated into the more traditional button-based commands, and the whole thing feels like it was designed specifically for the Vita rather than envisaged as a console title with Vita features shoehorned in later. The gorgeous cel-shaded graphics, heavily influenced by a combination of French comics and anime, also make it one of the most distinctive-looking games I’ve seen for a long time.

If nothing else, it’s a game I’d certainly like to see a sequel to in the future, so let’s hope it enjoys some success.

#oneaday, Day 881: Vita Killed Mobile Gaming for Me

I wanted to expand on a few things I talked about in my Vita post yesterday, specifically with regard to the differences between mobile (i.e. smartphone/tablet) and handheld (i.e. dedicated game-playing system) gaming.

A single day with the Vita has been utterly refreshing. I’ve played a number of games on the system, including Everybody’s Golf, Lumines Electronic Symphony, PS mini Velocity, Frobisher Says! and a couple of augmented-reality titles. Frobisher and the AR titles were free, Velocity was about 3 quid (PS minis are Sony’s “app-tier” games — in fact, many iOS and Android games are ported to the PS minis catalogue) and the other two are “full-price” titles (though Everybody’s Golf currently sells for a very reasonable 8 quid on PSN right now). In every instance, I was able to start up these games and enjoy them without being nagged to buy additional content or “Get More Coins!” even once. There were no exhortations to share things on Facebook or Twitter (though PSN can automatically share Trophies to Facebook) and no demands on the player that detracted unnecessarily from the immersion factor of the games in question.

This was the most striking thing about the whole experience. It’s practically a given that a mobile phone game will have some form of “Pay To Win” button these days, usually in the form of the ability to purchase in-game money, items or even experience points using real currency. These are usually positioned as “timesavers”, preventing players from having to “grind” to earn these things in the first place, though the fact is that the games themselves are very often designed in such a way that grinding (or paying) is necessary to progress. The game is designed to fit the business model, in other words.

Now, let’s look at Everybody’s Golf as a case study here. In Everybody’s Golf, you earn points through play. Skilful shots, sinking the ball under par and winning tournaments nets you varying amounts of these points, which can be used as a cumulative expression of your skill and the currency through which you unlock additional content in the game — characters, costumes, equipment, courses and other bits and bobs. In other words, the better you are at the game, the more quickly you can progress at unlocking stuff. This is a simple “carrot and stick” approach, but it provides a powerful motivation for the player to actually work hard to improve their game — particularly when coming up against an apparently-notorious difficulty spike partway through the single-player component of the game. If the player was simply able to drop a few quid on purchasing additional points (which, thankfully, is not an option), all meaning of the content they acquired using these points would be lost. The unlocked characters, the new costumes, the new equipment — none of it would be a trophy of the player’s achievements any more. Instead, it would simply be something that the player had thrown money at. Not only that, but the player’s cumulative score would cease to be an accurate depiction of their skill and play time. It would simply become just another meaningless currency — one with an exchange rate with real-world money.

This might not sound like a massive issue but the difference is profound. When playing a mobile phone game, the near-constant presence of “shop” buttons or “Get More Coins” interface elements makes it abundantly clear to the player that they are making use of a service rather than enjoying a creative work for art’s sake. That questioning feeling — “am I being screwed while I play for free? Should I pay for some coins?” — is ever-present in the player’s mind. In the most egregious cases, developers even make the “cash shop” option glow or flash on screen to deliberately distract the player and draw their eye to it. (This happens in free-to-play PC titles, too.)

Now, I will point out at this juncture that I am not condemning this business practice as “wrong” necessarily — when you release your game for free or a ridiculously low price on the App Store or Google Play, you need to take steps to ensure that you at very least break even. Rather, I am saying that it has had a significantly negative impact on my personal enjoyment of mobile games of late. I find a game which doesn’t ask me for more money after installing to be a pleasant surprise these days, rather than the norm. It wears you down after a while, particularly when you play as many iOS and Android games as I do — it is, after all, my job — and when I sit down to play a game just for fun, I simply don’t want to be bugged by the “business” side of things.

Everyone plays games for different reasons. Some play games as simple timewasters while they’re in a boring meeting, sitting on the toilet or waiting for a bus. Others use them as a high-tech equivalent of fiddling with a pencil. Others still want to compete against their friends, or express their creativity, or as a social outlet, or… you get the idea. There are probably as many reasons as there are people.

I play games purely for enjoyment and entertainment, usually in substantial, continuous sessions. Games are my primary form of recreation — where some people watch movies or TV, I play games. As such, in most cases, I’m not in it for a few seconds at a time — I’m there for an hour or more at once. During that time, I want to be immersed in the game experience without interruptions, particularly if I’m playing a story-heavy game. I do not want to be reminded that I’m playing a game if at all possible — unless it’s built in to the experience in an entertaining, self-aware sort of way — and I certainly do not want to be reminded that making games is big business. I know this. I read all about it most days. I do not need to be reminded of it during play. Because there is nothing more immersion-breaking for me than exhortations to “Share this with your friends! Buy more coins now! Play again tomorrow for bigger daily rewards! Try our other games!” Even popups demanding that I rate an app 5 stars “now” or “later” have a negative impact on my enjoyment of a title.

This is where the Vita has provided the most pleasant surprises of all for me. Across everything I have played, I have been left alone to simply enjoy the game for what it is. In some cases, where competition is an inherent part of the game (like in Lumines), I am informed of my friends’ high scores, but I’m not invited to brag to them. I’m certainly not confronted with half-finished games sporting interface elements that just say “Coming Soon!” and big flashing buttons to “Add Cash”. It’s been a blessed relief.

Couple that with the fact that the Vita games I’ve played so far are all deeper experiences designed to be played for longer periods at a time rather than five-minute timewasters, and a lot of the anxiety-inducing sense of ADHD that the diversity of mobile gaming offers is gone. I had to give up playing asynchronous iPhone games with friends because I found that keeping up with them was genuinely stressful. It felt like work, and it wasn’t fun any more, so I stopped. I am sorry to any former Draw Something or Hero Academy players, but once something stops being fun, there’s no point dragging it out unnecessarily.

All this may be painting an unnecessarily negative view of mobile gaming, but that’s not the case at all — this is purely a personal response with regard how I want to spend my own free time. These ADHD games have a place and a massive audience — much larger than the audience the Vita currently boasts, as it happens. There’s a lot of money to be made through “cash shops” and “get coins” buttons, so I can’t blame publishers and developers for wanting to capitalise on this, whatever my own personal opinions on the matter.

Alongside this, there are some genuinely good games on iOS and Android that don’t fall into these excessive monetisation traps — though interestingly, even Epic’s Infinity Blade, one of the most impressive and supposedly “hardcore” games on iOS, now boasts the facility to purchase in-game currency with real cash, as do otherwise-excellent titles like Hunters 2. Equally, some free-to-play games — like the excellent Pocket Planes I talked about a couple of days ago — leave the decision of whether or not to pay entirely in the player’s hands, and are generous enough to make the game perfectly playable to those who do wish to play for free.

A single day with the Vita, though, has been enough to convince me that dedicated handheld gaming most certainly still has a place, and I’m more than happy for it to be a part of my life. I can see myself leaving the vast majority of iOS gaming behind — board game adaptations and Pocket Planes (until it gets boring) excepted — in favour of the deeper, more rewarding, less skeezy-feeling experiences that Vita titles offer.

And let’s not even get started on how fucking nice it is to have buttons again. Or how nice it is to have an online store that is not filled with endless regurgitations of the same FarmVille formula with zombies/fantasy kingdoms/monsters/pets attached. Or… I could go on. But I won’t.