Sony’s new handheld, the PS Vita, is set to continue the company’s trend of making the most technically impressive hardware possible with a price tag to match. It a risky strategy with the huge overheads on development, but in a slumping economy and phone gaming eating into the Vita’s market, I am worried that my two hundred and thirty pound investment will all too quickly turn into little more than an attractive paper weight.

Huge screen, numerous ways to interact and diverse launch line up, the Vita is for gamers; but how many of us are there?

Even at thirty-two years old I find myself getting over excited at the prospect of a new toy. Opening a new game still fills me with delight, and a new console has me itching with anticipation. But as I have grown older I have found the come down from my joy becoming ever more severe, with the realisation of what else the money could have been used for quickly eroding my enjoyment.

It is this emotional rollercoaster that has me scared for Sony’s new handheld, the PS Vita. I can feel my anticipation building as I climb towards its release date eager to claim my pre-order. But there is an unshakable feeling somewhere at back of my mind, and I can feel myself preparing for the backlash from my elation.

Perversely I have no doubts about the Vita itself. Having now used one I can say with certainty that it certainly lives up to my expectations. It’s solid well-made form lives up to Sony’s high standards, feeling sleek and comfortable in my hands. Dual analogue sticks, while small are ergonomically placed even for my large hands, while the front and rear touch panels are easy to reach. The systems gorgeous five-inch OLED screen compliments this wonderful form factor, allowing games to be rendered with a clarity I couldn’t have imagined without seeing it. Such a display would be wasted without the graphics to back it up and the Vita doesn’t disappoint here either, its quad-core processor enabling games that are comparable with some of the best home console releases.

Wonderfully stylised, Escape Plan is just one of the titles to make use of Vita's front and rear touch functions.

What has me scared is the market the Vita is coming into. It was less than a year ago that the 3DS launched to a less than riotous response, forcing Nintendo to make a dramatic cut in the system’s price. Speculation about the 3DS’s slow start is rife, but ultimately it boils down to price, demand and competition, factors that of course the Vita is also up against.

Continuing the comparison with the 3DS, the Vita is in a stronger position. There is an intangibility in advertising 3D, a promise of something that cannot be shown. Vita is a considerably more concrete in its promises, with far better graphics, connectivity with the PS3 and a fantastic launch line up of games to name but a few.

Perversely however the majority of the handheld market isn’t currently made up of traditional gamers. It is ubiquitous devices that dominate mobile-gaming, multifunctional items that we carry with us. Sony and Nintendo are no longer tussling with each other but with the iOS and Android systems for domination of people’s thumbs when on the move. Already in peoples pockets these phone and tablet devices have a huge advantage in terms of their accessibility for people. They negate the need for players to buy a dedicated machine, providing bite-sized games for players who are only looking for a distraction rather than a more substantial experience.

Beautiful, and inventive Gravity Daze is just another of the launch titles I hope to get my hands on.

It is the implications of all this that scares me, not that the Vita wont live up to my expectations but that it wont live up to Sony’s or publishers. I was a huge proponent of the PSP, and indeed still am. But its slow decline was something of a self-fulfilling prophesy with poor sales (in the West at least) leading to poor development support of the platform… which in turn lead to poorer sales. Seeing the system sit idol as publishers turned away from it in favour of more profitable options was difficult and it gives me pause again now.

I am convinced of a place in the market for the Vita. It corrects all of the PSP’s mistakes and provides a serious mobile gaming platform that really has no rival. What I am not convinced of is that the hole it is intended to fill will be big enough for everyone who wants to make profit from it. With the system’s powerful graphic power requiring high development costs and competing against none traditional gaming devices with low overheads, Sony are going to face a struggle getting enough systems into peoples hands to ensure continued backing. But I for one hope they do because the possibilities it offers, and because I would like the high I get off this purchase to last.

Will you look at that, I miscounted (lazy and innumerate always a good combination) and this is the final Gamescom catch up post which has been delayed from sometime in October. After this the plan is some up to date content for the site, and maybe doing some of that audio work that I have been threatening. Thanks for sticking with me, I promise to try and make it all worthwhile. 

It is nice to have a business area. Having a space to sit and write, take notes or just having people with enough time to answer your questions, is not vital to providing prompt coverage but it certainly helps. Experiencing it for the first time, after years of writing on my lap or in a dingy pressroom, I was especially appreciative.

There comes a moment however, when being surrounded by all of the business people and jaded (or at least analytical) press starts to have a negative affect. Sure, being shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other sweaty gamers in a two-hour queue does not sound like fun, but it has an excitement and energy that the business area lacks. Hit the halls and everyone is there to see the game they love. They aren’t waiting for hours because they have to; they do it because they are so excited for their favourite game that they want to.

This was just the corridor between halls, all of which heaved with sweaty bodies of excited gamer.

At my first TGS, when I covered the show just for DoFuss, I was the same. I waited for hours to see Resident Evil 5, and still have the bandana to prove it. There was no schedule and everyone was as excited as me to be in waiting patiently, talking to other fans of the series.

It only takes half a day surrounded by people who have to be at an event for work to forget the intangible excitement and energy that is ever present in the main halls. When everyone you talk to is able to list of the next four games they are going to see (complaining about how they aren’t really interested in three of them), it is easy to forget the passion that got us all in to writing in the first place.

For the right game everyone gets that same gleam back in their eye (as I am sure the Warner Bros. PR rep noticed as I begged to see Lollypop Chainsaw) and the energy that that produces is almost intoxicating. But to really feel that pulsing excitement getting out into the crowds is needed, and that’s what the games below are. Titles I was interested in and went out to find on the show floor, partly because I had no appointment for them, but mainly because they were games I wanted to experience with other series fans rather than annalists.

Dark Souls

Perhaps my disappointment in the short demo of “Dark Souls” is for the best. After all my expectations when I first played the PS3 exclusive Demon’s Souls (one of my favourite games this generation), were low. Maybe my hopes needed to be tempered before the games launch this October. Yet I cant help but feel that some of the changes being made to the format will diminish this new title.

I am now very happy to report that Dark Souls turns out to have been far better than I feared at the time.

Ridge Racer Unbounded

Ridge Racer Unbounded does not feel like a Ridge Racer game, it keeps the speed and excitement but brings element from games like Split/Second to make it something new. Arcade racing is not currently an overcrowded genre, so maybe there is space for it, but in the short time I played I found myself at odds with the handling which seemed an uncomfortable mix of real and arcade, at least with the car I chose.

Ridge Racer's release is now on the horizon so it will be interesting to see if all the changes being made will work.

Resident Evil: Revelations

Resident Evil: Revelations is one of the reasons I was so gung-ho about purchasing my 3DS, and my short time with the demo went along way to reconfirming my faith. Now my fears are squarely focused on story and an overly linear path letting the game down. It certainly looks the part, now all I can do is wait for its release early next year.

FInally the game I bought my 3DS for is out, now I just have to get my hands on it.

Silent Hill: Downpour

“Silent Hill Downpour” seemed intent on pulling me in with one hand while pushing me away with the other. Phrases like ‘this will have no ties to the earlier Silent Hills’ worried me as I got the feeling they were trying to distance themselves from the superb psychological horror series, while ‘we are drawing inspiration from Silent Hill 2′ dragged my attention back fast enough to give me whiplash.

It will be fun to see if the new European developer can capture the vibe of this classic Japanese series.

Skullgirls

One unexpected treat at Gamescom was Skullgirls, an upcoming one-on-one fighter from American developer Reverge Labs. Sat in Konami’s area you could be forgiven for thinking the game originated in Japan, with it loose grip on reality and huge beautifully animated sprites. But on closer inspection reveals a style that draws as much on the silver age of Disney as it does on Dragon Ball Z.

Skullgirls is getting a lot of well deserved attention at the moment, keep an eye out for this exciting downloadable title.

Coming from the comparatively down and dirty TGS, Gamescom’s attitude to press had a great many advantages. There was one disadvantage however, which was that a great many games I DIDN’T get to play, that I was only allowed to watch. Of course Tokyo had its own fair share of ‘game theatres’ for upcoming games still early in development but with no appointments I rarely saw them.

On only one occasion, early on the first day of a TGS did I ever attend one of these demo reels, ushered in by an over enthusiastic Japanese PR member before the lines formed. Yakauza 4 was the title and I realised quickly how little I was going to glean from the experience. Watching someone else play and worse a montage of tightly produced footage, revealed little of what the game would be. None of the intricacies of play could be seen and coverage was reduced to bullet points as bland as a bad press release.

Finally getting around to posting three posts that have been on my desktop for months, this is the first of them.

Of course for me in Japan the ‘theatre’ experience ran in to the double issue of the presentation being in Japanese. Struggling to keep up with (or understand at all) what was being said was an issue. This at least I assumed would be better at the English speaking Gamescom (strange as it was in Germany). To an extent it was more useful; I understood the narration and games were active played in front of me rather than just shown off in a flashy sizzle reel.

Issues only arose at the end of a demo when without fail we were was asked, “Are there any questions?” There were, inevitably, from a room full of press and bloggers eager to report all they could back to their audiences yet with no real feel for how the game was played. The problem was that really each event was a highly practiced exercise in controlled information flow. Nearly all questions were met with a “we aren’t talking about that yet” to the point that part of me wondered why they ever opened the floor up to questions.

I know why of course, because these were rooms filled with enthusiast sites alongside mainstream media. Diehard fans always ask something that can’t be answered but mainstream media may want to clarify larger overarching points for their uninformed (larger) audiences, rather than the minutia of hit detection or balance.

Every side played their role beautifully, but it is hard to please two such different masters. Almost without fail however I found myself in a room filled with enthusiast bloggers. So as questions about armour sets and shots to centre mass filled the room, I was left feeling awkward as the response came back again and again, “no comment”.

Below are (some of) the games that I saw bet never got to ‘touch’. Interesting to a point, and displayed in ways far superior to a simple rolling demo, but still lacking.

I could easily have believed that it was TV coverage.

F1 2011 (Playdevil)

I have to be honest here, I have no real frame of reference for F1 2011. Developed by Codemasters the game is, by all accounts, as close to photo realistic as I have seen. With many years developing racing games under their belt, and now three iterations of the very well received F1 licence, it should come as no surprise that the 2011 release of the franchise is looking good.

I feel I should be excited to get my hands on this, and the demo looked great, but somehow I'm not feeling it.

Metro: Last Light (Playdevil)

Demoed on the PC Metro Last Light looked amazing. Shadows and light played beautifully over the textures and the whole aesthetic remained as confining and evocative as ever. Alterations being made to the stealth also seem to fit well with the experience, but as a fan of the original I find it hard to ignore the possibility that improved combat, and a heavy reliance on it, will rob Metro Last Light of the desperation that I used to feel when fighting the horrifying mutants of future Russia.

Heavy Metal crossed with Zelda, I will be playing this... but I need to finish the first one first.

Darksiders 2 (Playdevil)

With such a short hands off demo it is hard to comment on just how many of the developer’s promises will bear fruit. The series unique style certainly seems to have endured, with the added pleasure of the artists having more freedom in the more fanciful landscapes and customisation of Death. Combat also still looks like it will retain the original’s high standards, with changes simply offering a slightly faster pace to the action.

Darksiders 2 (Gamepeople)

Darksiders 2 appears to be expanding the original in all the right ways. Where a faster pace to the already fluid combat looks like a simple upgrade, the extra freedom given to both the character customisation and story structure will be the real draw.

Hello there all. Hope you had a good break, got through some of your gaming backlog and are ready for a new year. Personally I am not ready for 2012 at all. The last few months of games really took it out of me, with games that demanded my attention long into the night thanks to both review deadlines and unhealthy addictions. A bad excuse for near four post-less months here at DoFuss, but it is really is the only excuse I have.

In fairness even this is not a “real” post, more a sorry to you all for stagnant state of the site recently. Even during the busiest times I would usually have tried to maintain some kind presence here but with my work for other sites, job hunting and the odd bits of work picked up in the last few months of 2011, DoFuss was left to suffer. The really strange part is that for months I have had three posts sat on my desktop (all now woefully out of date) just waiting for an edit before posting, but I still never found the time to edit them.

Happy New Year, and sorry about the last four months....

In the last few days however I have had the kick required to get me focused once again. It was a small thing but sometimes that really is all it takes. Simply getting back on to Twitter a little more actively and having an interaction with other gamers made me remember why I write here, and more importantly that when I get it right (something I admit I don’t always manage) I can be pretty good at video game commentary. Disheartened feelings of not yet having made the inroads I had hoped for into a gaming career dispelled by a few re-tweets.

Now I know what you are thinking, this is another of my declarations of renewed vigor that will last a week or two before I fall once again in to bad habits, another New Year’s resolution with as much chance of making it past Easter a whisky-filled, deep-fried, chocolate egg in Glasgow, but it isn’t. My efforts this year will by necessity be focused on studying, losing the obscene amount of weight I have put on since my return to the UK and most importantly finding work. 2012 will not see a massive promise to post daily or even weekly… instead I am going to aim for fortnightly with real content (not just links to my other writings). This will hopefully be joined by some experimentation in the world of AudioBoo, where I hope to add quick thoughts from time to time on games that have inspired me (for better or worse).

So here is to 2012 and another great year of games. Those missing few posts will finally be edited, the best of 2011 will of course be posted and all these titled documents filled with ideas on my desktop will be fleshed out in to something at least resembling an article.