It all seemed too good to be true, and as we began to find out more about Sony’s marketing strategy, the costs began to rise. Rumours that the Vita had little to zero internal memory were confirmed by Sony, and that they would be releasing a proprietary memory cards which you would need to buy in order to do pretty much anything on the handheld. Alarm bells started to ring, as proprietary usually means ten times the cost of its market equivalent. With the 32GB memory card priced at $119.99, the rose-tinted glasses began to slip, this £230 bargain was quickly becoming a £300+ investment.

This is a scary prospect, not only because of the recent massive price-drop Nintendo has given the 3DS, but also because the current generation of home consoles is not much more expensive than the largest Vita memory card. As I just noted, I was one of the people who bought a 3DS day-one and I was deeply disappointed by the quick drop in price, lack of software support, and sudden back-tracking by Nintendo. As an apology I have been given 20 old games I don’t play while other people can pay less than half of what I did for the console. I’d rather have the £100 in my pocket Nintendo! Now Nintendo have also realised that a second analogue stick is a necessity, and have released a gargantuan peripheral called the Circle Pad Pro, in order to compensate those who have the first-generation 3DS. (I predict the next iteration is right around the corner.)

As you can probably tell, I have been hurt by my experiences with the 3DS and that is having an effect on my Vita contemplation. Of course there will be the inevitable price-cut/second generation hardware, this doesn’t bother me, but in years gone by, this would be at least a year after the initial release.

Now, it is happening within the first three months, or few weeks if you look at the Vita’s Japanese launch, where sales have continued to plummet, forcing retailers to lower the price of the console by as much as 20%, according to a GamesRadar report discussed in IGN.

If you just read all of the above, you would probably think I hate the Vita. Our very own Richard Gwilliam also discussed the troubles Vita could have in a diminishing market of dedicated handheld gaming when smartphones and tablets are becoming the big-sellers. But the reason why I am having this debate is that I think the Vita is a phenomenal console. Having the chance to spend some time with it, and play some of the amazing launch games made me realise how much I want one.

There is nothing inherent about the console itself that makes me not want to buy it. It’s merely the logistics. £300 is a lot of money. Based on the 3DS and Japanese sales, the price will probably drop within the first 3 months, and I’d be paying way more than I should for a memory card. But what it comes down to in the end is that I love games. The Vita certainly has them in spades. I’ve always wanted a console-like experience on the go, and that’s the Vita’s home run swing. I want two analogue sticks, Vita has them. Plus with the innovative front and back touch controls, there is the potential for a wider marketplace which could offer everything from blockbuster titles to 69p apps.

It is a big investment, but I’m am such a weak-willed person that even if I avoided the release-day urge, it probably wouldn’t be long before I went out and bought one. So, today, I pre-ordered my Vita, as well as an overpriced memory card, and Little Deviants, which I thoroughly enjoyed in the little time I spent with it.

I’ll make sure to keep you posted on my thoughts on the Vita once I’ve spent time with it, and if anyone else has pre-ordered a Vita, let me know what your impressions are of the console once you’ve tried it for yourself.

Expert Opinion:

I had seen convincing footage of quantum levitation a previous YouTube video which was doing the rounds in 2011 so I wasn’t initially suspicous of this being fake at all. Also being a big fan of the wipEout games I really wanted this to be real. But there were a number of triggers that broke the illusion for me:

1. The grey track – The way this was shadowed was a dead give-away. Anyone who has rendered grey objects in a 3D modelling program with ambient occlusion would recognise the way the shadows look. In some shots you can see white trim to track edge against the shadows below. This is probably a compositing issue where theres a gap in the alpha, with the white colour of the table showing through.


Look for the white rim around the outside of the track

2. The smoke – It can be seen to render on top of track parts that it should be under at certain times. For example, at 0.51 the smoke goes over archway. At 1.02 the smoke is on top of track wall and at 1:14 again on corner, smoke under the wall appears over it.
   

   The smoke trail goes right through the track

3. WipEout font – At 0:12 there is a great cross section drawing of the track which had the words wipeout:quantum at the bottom using the wipeout font. This isn’t a standard font you have lying around on your computer.


Here is the wipEout font

4. Ship placement – At 0.45 the way the ship is placed on the track looked very weird.


It's like he's not really holding the ship

If you get really picky then there are lots of other clues in the video to show that this is not real. There is some poor fake `Engrish` which doesn’t match how a Japanese speaking person would normally misspell english. Why were the nametags blurred out? That doesn’t really make sense. Also why is someone taking notes on a clipboard while the track piece is being shown? Were they trying to make it look all sciencey.

One thing I really did like was the seemingly hand-drawn wipEout text on the table, that was a very nice touch. Still, it’s a lot of fun and a great idea for a toy one day once they really work out how to do it. Based on this video, that might not be too far away.

There you go. Lots more evidence pointing to the fact that the video is fake. Adweek also thinks it’s fake. Still, I can’t wait to play wipEout 2048 on the PS Vita next month.

I also chatted with some of the wipEout 2048 developers on twitter about the video. You can read their responses here.

Update 21st Jan 2012: This video has now been confirmed as fake on the WipEout 2048 Facebook page.

WipEout 2048 is released on the 22nd Feb 2012 in US and Europe and on the 19th Jan 2012 in Japan for the PS Vita.

With the Wii U promising to underwhelm with its revolutionary touchpad controller that only one player can use at a time, hi-definition Miis and another round of iterations of the exact same first party games (plus Raving Rabbids Mad Dash Touchpad Excitement!) I’m not sure I could be less excited. Microsoft and Sony throwing down their gauntlets via a mess of pre-rendered game footage, a badly mixed dubstep soundtrack and a thousand million Halo fanboys cutting their wrists as Halo 4 becomes a new platform exclusive barely registers a blip on my need to know radar.

Nintendo Wii U Controller And Console

I am interested in backwards compatibility. The Wii U is confirmed, which is hardly surprising given it’s a GPU upgrade and a touchpad. The Playstation and Xbox brands fumbled this last time around – the 360 adding a paltry representation of its back catalogue over time and the PS3 actively removing components that enabled such features. With both platforms having incredibly healthy installed user bases and wonderful back catalogues, do we once again get to abandon all that which we have purchased before? Doesn’t that seem incredibly distasteful in this new age of frugalism we live in?

I am interested in ownership rights. How will the rights to the masses of digital media across each platform be transferred across? Through the Wii Store, XBL and the PSN gamers have spent a small fortune on digitally distributed content and DLC. While it’s linked, in part, to the backwards compatability question it’s much more integrated and important than that. In my mind, the necessity for gamers to abandon their back catalogue of physical media based games and associated DLC is a painful one that impacts the concept of micro-transactions and expansions post-release. The necessity for them to abandon their back catalogue of digitally distributed titles titles in full will kill that channel dead. Why would I ever buy anything again if I know the manufacturers won’t support it in the next cycle?

I am interested in the storage solutions they’ll employ. This is aimed mainly at Microsoft and the Xbox 720 Skateboarding, given the extortionate prices associated with the hard drives on the current iteration. If I can’t get cheap and widely available USB solutions to store my backwards compatible installed games, DLC and digitally distributed titles on then I’m gonna get pissy and not buy your console. Yeah I know, piracy blah blah. That horse bolted a long time ago, stop punishing me for other peoples actions.

I am interested in motion sensor support. We know the Wii U is pretty much the same again, but what will Sony do? I can’t believe they’ll stand by the Move. What will Microsoft do? A fully integrated Kinect sensor has to be the way to go – anything short of full nex-gen support kills that add-on for this-gen in my mind.

I am interested in reliability. Both the PS3 and 360 have had issues, though the RROD had it by far the worst. What are MS doing to address this? How can they guarantee that I don’t need a 3 year guarantee on my console just to make sure it gets repaired when they deny any mass manufacturing issues?

I am interested in dates. Wii U probably hits next holiday season. I’m guessing that the 720 and PS4 will hit towards the tail end of 2013 which will have an amazing knock-on effect. The 360 still retails at the best part of £150 for the fully fledged slim. The PS3 still goes for more than that. These new consoles could lead to a massive and sudden drop in price on both.

I don’t expect any of this.

The new track is called Rockway Stadium and it joins Queen’s Mall, Empire Climb, Sol, Unity Square and Metro Park in the list of tracks that have been unveiled so far.

Here’s a video showing me tackling a class B speed race event on Rockway Stadium from season 2. Class B is equivalent to Rapier speed in previous WipEout games. Debbie and I talk you through the ship selection screen, weapons, skill-cuts, the HUD and photo mode.

WipEout 2048 will be released on the 22nd Feb 2012 for PS Vita.

Here’s a video of me playing the Unity Square track from season 2 of the game. Debbie and I talk you through the HUD, skill-cuts and XP system.

WipEout 2048 is released on the 22nd Feb 2012 for PS Vita.

With that in mind I handed it to my brother, Marcus and his 6-year old son, Flynn to see what they thought of it.

Flynn’s Review:

There are loads and loads of levels that need unlocking and you play spy games, battle games and racing games. You can choose from lots of different cars like Finn McMissile, Francesco, Mater, Holly and more.

In the races I was quite good and in the battle races you got to shoot bullets. The one with the ramp is a really good one but that’s not a battle race.

Finn McMissile could jump in one of the spy games and he had a turbo engine and fire came out the back and made you go super fast.

I think Cars 2 is awesome, fantastic and brill.

Marcus’s Review:

Flynn was so eager to play this game that he managed to damage the slider button which opens the UMD on his PSP. So there I was at 7:30am on a Saturday morning surfing the net trying to find out how to fix it. Luckily it was a fairly simple fix and we were soon able to get the door open and insert the disc. Once we’d gone through the software update process Flynn was finally able to start playing.

He’s an avid Cars fan so was really pleased with it and loved being able to play as Finn McMissile and also as Francesco, his two favourite characters from Cars 2. He got so engrossed in it that it was difficult to get a review out of him, which says a lot in itself.

One week on and he’s still playing. Reviewing it as an adult you’d comment on the relatively simple graphics and the strange grandstand camera view you seem to be stuck with. The gameplay is fairly basic too but then this game isn’t aimed at adults.

It successfully couples the premise of car racing with the notion of developing spy car skills, although you can still play some more straightforward races. You also win badges for attaining different skills, unlocking levels and characters from the film along the way.

Try to imagine Austin Powers aimed at kids in the guise of an anthropomorphic cartoon car honing their spy skills and you’ve about got it.

Summary:

It’s kept Flynn interested and it is still in the PSP a week later. What more could you ask for?

CARS 2 is out now on PSP, Wii, DS, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

It’s apparent that Uncharted 3 continues Naughty Dog’s incredible ability to produce games that look jaw-droppingly stunning. The quality of graphics and technical prowess on show is just amazing. My in-game stats showed that I spent over 1:30 hours standing still out of the 9:30 hours I took to complete the whole game. I’m surprised the figure is so low as I must have stopped at least 3-4 times per chapter simply to gaze at the beautiful graphics.

It’s not just the level of graphical detail and the lighting effects that are so impressive but also the variety of environments. You have hot, dusty, crowded Syrian levels with their bustling bazaars, a tropical and fiery (literally) French Château and dark and gloomy London amongst the places that you get to explore.

I don’t want to spoil bits of the game for you, so I will just say that the water effects are the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in a videogame. From a technical, graphical and gameplay point of view, Naughty Dog have modelled and harnessed the power of water in a way unrivalled by any other developer. You’re probably thinking what the hell is he talking about, but once you’ve played the game you’ll see what I mean. Trust me. You are in for quite a ride.

One of the many strengths of the Uncharted series is its ability to make you feel like you are taking part in an epic adventure, particularly through the use of cut scenes to develop the plot. In Uncharted 3 these are better than ever. The motion capture, facial detail and animation on show is utterly fantastic and it is complemented nicely by the acting.

You can clearly see the familiarity, companionship and rapport between all the characters. Moments of sadness, pain, tenderness and playfulness are apparent from the way they act. In the case of the main roles, these are actors that have been working together off and on for nearly 4 years and it shows on screen. Especially with Nathan and Sully. Here is a father-son relationship that has been developed over the previous two games and takes centre stage in this third adventure. In stark contrast to the abject tedium of Metal Gear Solid’s cut scenes, Uncharted’s sequences are always engaging and beautiful to watch.

The gameplay on offer is the same shoot, run, cover, avoid grenades, locate hidden switches/items from the previous games. The only major change is to the hand to hand combat system. Drake is now a lot more punchy. Right from the start Drake has to fight his way out of trouble. I would often kick the crap out of enemies if I was running low on ammo or running straight at them with fists flying just for the hell of it. It is incredibly satisfying to punch the lights out of a guy whilst at the same time stealing his gun.

One of the new enemies is called The Brawler. His name is a bit of a giveaway as he can only be defeated by punching and kicking him into unconsciousness. Even with all the fights and brazen gun battles – of which there are many – there is scope for the occasional stealth take down. It’s not quite Metal Gear Drake but it makes a welcome distraction.

Uncharted 3 is not a perfect game by any means. The overall pacing of the game is terribly inconsistent, ranging from fire-fights that made me want to throw my controller across the room in frustration to some seriously dull moments. I can think of one entire chapter that should have been a cut scene rather than some aimless walking from A to B with the occasional button press.

The reliance on trial and error to progress through certain areas was another annoyance. The nature of these particular sequences pressure you into making split-second decisions which most of the time will result in you falling off a ledge, missing a hand hold or jumping into an abyss. It was almost as bad as playing the Amiga game Another World in parts.

The game also suffers from being too over the top – much more so than in previous games. Whilst spectacular, the various environmental effects interfere badly with the game. At times Uncharted 3 was like trying to play a Michael Bay movie. The massive explosions and shaky camera played havoc with my aiming and after a while got quite annoying. Fortunately, these moments were short lived as the relentless fast-paced nature of the game meant I didn’t have time to dwell for long in any particular location.

Uncharted 3 is a without doubt a technical and cinematic masterpiece. I never ceased to be amazed by the graphics, the amount of action on screen and movie-quality cut scenes. This is the best looking PlayStation 3 game ever. The major set pieces – cruise liner, cargo plane – are truly spectacular but even with all this action, at its core Uncharted 3 can’t match the quality of gameplay found in Uncharted 2. The game feels unbalanced as you are hustled through an array of stunning locations and set pieces. I simply wanted more time to explore and enjoy the world that Naughty Dog have expertly brought to life rather than being yelled at my companions to get a move on.

The single-player campaign is a breathless adventure full of action that never lets up until the end credits are rolling. It is great fun to play and even with its flaws, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a game that should be in every PlayStation 3 owners collection.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is released on the 2nd Nov 2011 on PlayStation 3.

Richmond said “Jeremy Yates our lead animator is a surprising number of mocap moves for Drake because he’s almost the exact same size as Nolan [North]. So any time where Nolan either sick or might get hurt we’d chuck him [Yates] in the suit. So there are definitely moments where Jeremy is in the game.” I love the fact that Naughty Dog were prepared to risk their lead animator over Nolan when things got a bit hairy.

Richmond himself also found himself on the motion capture (mocap) stage. He said that “I played a bunch of the secondary roles on the mocap stage but not in the suit. I would just stand in like and someone would take my place. So if we needed like 8 guys, I’d be one of the 8 guys and someone would switch and become me but I’d be standing there and not in the game.”

As far as hidden items in the game, Richmond said “There are lots of textures that are in-jokes with the company. Like PSN IDs, last names or faces. All kinds of things. There’s lots of those.”

You can also read about Richmond discussing the recent Harrison Ford Uncharted 3 trailer here.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is released on the 2nd Nov 2011 on PlayStation 3.

He said “I have. It blew my mind. Yesterday we were in Italy and one of the guys from Sony had loaded it up on his phone and we watched the 6 minute one. I was very skeptical. I don’t think he playing it. This is like Harrison Ford, he’s like 70 years old right? But then as I was watching it, it was like, he’s actually playing the game, hitting the buttons. He’s actually into it enough that he’s having a hard time talking at the same time. That made me think he’s actually playing cause they are asking him questions and he’s looking at the game doing stuff and like trying to respond at the same time just like you would if you were actually playing. That was really cool. I was like ‘wow, Harrison Ford’. Just that fact he’s playing the game.”

There a spoiler in the video, if you watch and listen carefully. Richmond explains “There’s this moment at the end where he’s playing the cargo plane sequence and you fall out of the plane. You hear him go ‘Oh, I’m dead.’ He says that, like ‘I’m dead.’ They don’t show what happens as we haven’t ever shown that because we don’t want to spoil it for the players but you can hear what happens. Then just see this big smile on his face, it’s totally genuine and my heart melted. I was like ‘OMG, Indiana Jones is smiling looking at Uncharted’. Amy [Hennig] wrote me and said ‘Dude, this is the best thing ever.’ It’s so flattering to see something like that and see a guy like that be enthralled by something we did is really, really nice.”

You’ll see more from this interview later on this week, where Richmond talks about the things that Naughty Dog have hidden in the game for players to discover.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is released on the 2nd Nov on PlayStation 3.

WipEout games have featured many different gameplay tweaks like the recharge lane in wipEout 2097. Now you’re splitting up the weapons in wipEout 2048 so the yellow pads on the track give you offensive weapons and the green pads give you defensive weapons. Is this going to make it into future games do you think?

Stuart Tilley: I think the people that play the game can let us know about that. I think it makes it fresh. When you’re doing a wipEout game and there have been a lot of them, you need to retain what’s great about wipEout – really fast eye-bleeding racing with high production values. You need to give it a freshness you know.

The balance that we have gone for on this one is it’s more about wing to wing combat racing than just surviving the track. So within that we have made the tracks wider and smoother to allow you to do that and actually allow you to go faster than in previous wipEout games. As you are dicing with the other ships it allows us to layer in some gameplay features to take advantage of that. Split weapons are a good example, green pads give defensive weapons and yellow pads give offensive weapons. It makes you actually think about it.

We’ve changed the way the shield weapon works. It sits in the weapon slot and you can choose to deploy it but if you leave it in the slot – which means you can’t pick up another weapon – it will auto deploy if you get hit by something. So you have to decide, do I use it? I want to, but I’m only in third place but if I get rid of it I can get a missile and take out the second place player out.

We have a similar thing with what we call our skill cut. They are like short cuts but they are really tough to execute perfectly. They are narrower and twistier. So if you’re down in second or third place with a couple of corners to go you’ve got to make a racing decision. Not a decision if you can survive till the end with enough shield energy but about the right strategy to win the race. Sometimes you’ll hit it and get a glorious victory and you’ll barrel roll all over the line and everyone will cheer your name and sometimes you’ll stuff it into the wall or drop into the water and end up coming fifth or sixth.

This game is definitely balanced more towards the dicing and the fighting rather than the more lonely experience of just getting round and setting fast laps. That’s what we hope anyway. We have a lot of fun playing it multiplayer in the office so I’m hoping other people will.

How sensitive is the voice activation for firing weapons? Could I lean over whilst someone else was playing and say “fire weapon” and it would?

ST: Yeah, people could nerf it if they felt the need to. You can analyze it for words so it’s not just a noise so if a car drives past you it won’t drop all your weapons. It’s an interesting way to use the microphone in the PS Vita. WipEout 2048 also supports the new PlayStation party feature so there will be voice chat within the games as well which is good fun in multiplayer. Yeah, well we’ll use it [microphone] for a couple of things like firing weapons and see how people go with it.

Can you tell me about other PS Vita features that WipEout 2048 supports like Near [which allows users to leave virtual gifts in real-life locations]?

ST: We are doing a couple of things with Near. One of the cool things we do with our unlock system you can view your ships with augmented reality so there is a museum of collectables that you can see in AR. You will be able to gift them through Near so you will be able to unlock stuff for other players. You will be also able to set race challenges like I finished this track in this time and you can drop that as a Near challenge which people can pick up as they go past. You can see how many people pick it up and how many beat your time.

Can you tell me about the team making wipEout 2048?

ST: We are up to nearly fifty people finishing off the game, our peak size at the minute. We have got some wipEout veterans on the team. There is one guy who has been there since the Psygnosis days and worked on them all the way through. Sixteen years of service, I think. We’ve got guys who have worked on the PS1, PS2, PSP games. Most of our studio has worked on at least one wipEout game. I’m a bit of an exception. I’m the new boy in the camp having come from my Rollcage heritage. It makes it really handy I think. There’s a lot of experience to draw on because we’ve done from similar things before and allows us to be really efficient. We are actually able to generate a much bigger game than a new team would be able to do.

What technical challenges did you face bringing wipEout to the PS Vita, as people are used to 60fps wipEout HD/Fury?

ST: You know it wasn’t too bad to be honest. The PS Vita is a really powerful machine so we managed to get up and running quickly. Every machine is different. Xbox 360 is different to PlayStation 3 but they are still great in their own way. It was a case of readdressing the balance of what we could do with it [PS Vita]. It doesn’t necessarily have the polygon throughput of the PS3 but then you have a lot of stuff you can do with the shaders and even the anti-aliasing on the shadows is a lot better and more efficient to do on PS Vita as well. It’s a case of rebalancing it and building stuff in a sensible way to take advantage of the PS Vita.

We are quite lucky as Sony did a great job this time when the PS Vita development environment came along. It was a lot more user friendly to work with so we managed to get the game up and running really quickly and allowed us to get in a making the fun game stuff. We are talking weeks rather than months. Without meaning to be overly positive its been really good for development and we haven’t had any major technical hurdles. We are looking at our new version of zone mode at the minute and what really cool effects we can do for that so that’s going to be a good one for us.

What about including a track editor?

ST: We did a livery editor back in the day on the wipEout Pulse website. Track editors are so difficult. Gamers have done a really good job with LitttleBigPlanet and ModNation but they’ve built from the ground for that to be a big part of the game. I don’t think we will ever go there. Never say never but we won’t go there with this version of wipEout certainly. It takes a lot of tweaking and balancing to get it just right. Our art guys are very particular in the way stuff looks so for the minute we will keep control of that.

Is photo mode still there?

ST: Yep, photo mode is there and it has all the post-processing effects that the PS3 version has.

What about a new PlayStation 3 wipEout game?

ST: We like making wipEout games. I hope one day in the future we get to make another one. I’d love to do another one for PS3. What that will be and when that will come, I really don’t know. But we will do our very best to make another one for people and find a new and interesting way to take it.

With wipEout 2048 being a launch title we are absolutely blazing in on it and the guys are working a lot of hours to get the game done in time so our focus is on that and when finished we will see what our future holds for us.

WipEout will definitely ride again.

Thanks for your time.

It’s great to hear Tilley asking the wipEout community for feedback on the gameplay changes in wipEout 2048. With Studio Liverpool’s vast experience in making wipEout games it would be very easy for them to step back from the community and create the game behind closed doors. After meeting four of the team behind the game including one of the senior designers, they are some of the most approachable and knowledgeable developers I’ve met. WipEout is in very safe hands.

You can see more wipEout 2048 action in the Gamescom 2011 trailer which includes footage from two new tracks – Sol and Queens Mall. We also have Tilley demoing the Empire Climb track at E3 2011 using the touch and tilt control system.

WipEout 2048 will be a launch title for the PS Vita.