My Vita stuff has started to show up; everything but the system itself at this point, which supposedly will land in my mailbox on Friday. So at this point I have the games, (WipEout and Uncharted) headset, memory card, and case. So, since I'm bored. I'll give a bit of an "impressions" on these items, some gut reactions if you will.
Memory card: Jesus these things are small. Seriously. Smaller than my pointer fingernail. I'm glad that these are apparently hard to put-in/take-out of the Vita itself, because I'm seriously afraid that I'd lose this if I had to take it out a lot. The packaging for it, however, is overkill. This damn near microscopic card is surrounded by almost 6 inches of dual layers of thin cardboard, along with a plastic insert to hold it in place. I'm sure that environmentalists will love that.
Case: I went with Sony's travel pouch, mainly because it looked pretty nice, had room for accessories, and was fairly cheap. The pictures, until recently, made it seem smaller than it actually is. Having the thing in my hands, it's almost more the size of a camera bag. Surprising, but not unpleasantly so. My only worry is that the system might shift around inside of it, but considering this case is mainly going to be sitting inside my laptop bag, it's not a huge concern.
Headset: Again, I went with the official Sony headset, mainly because I liked the design of them, and I've had good luck with Sony headphones in the past. Having used them for about a week and a half, I can say a few things. They sound surprisingly good; clear, sharp sound, decent base, no tinniness to them that I can detect. The cord is a decent length, and thick enough so it doesn't just wind up on it's own. The earpieces themselves feel pretty solid: hard plastic, metal ends. The PlayStation logo on the tip of the metal ends are shiny and cool-looking. The removable ear pieces, however, are a bit flawed. They come with three sizes: Large, Medium, and Small. The Large and Small sets fit those descriptions, for sure. The Medium, however, should be called Large Minus Two Millimeters. There's not a easily noticeable difference between Large and Medium, and since Large doesn't fit in my ear, and Small doesn't stay in either, Medium is my only route, and it's a bit tight. After about an hour or so, pain starts setting in. It's something I wouldn't have complained about so much, except I also use these headphones for listening to my iPhone, which I sometimes do for several contiguous hours.
Games: Obviously I haven't played these yet, so I can't speak to the quality of the games themselves. (The rest of the internet will fill that role nicely.) I can say, that opening the Amazon box, I was afraid that I hadn't received the games, but flyers about the games. The cases are small. I had seen comparison pictures online, of course, but it's hard to actually judge the size of something based on a picture. That being said, the case size surprised me; they're about 1.5 times the size of a deck of cards, width wise. The game cards themselves are pretty tiny as well; just a hair bigger on the surface than a SD card, but about half the thickness. Again, I'm afraid that I'd lose these, which is why I'm glad the case I bought has a few slots to hold game cards. This also goes to show that Sony really wants folk to buy games digitally; you can't trade in or sell a digital game, but at least you don't have to worry about losing a tiny card.
So, the waiting continues. Hopefully USPS is correct on that delivery date, but this being Alaska, one never knows. Here's hoping.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
School, Games, and SOPA
School is back. My sleep schedule, however, is fairly well screwed from a long night of trying not to vomit on my bed. So my brain is pretty well fried, going on about one and a half hours of sleep before I'm expected to be awake and functioning. So, yeah. Fuck. Classes this time around are mostly degree-related courses, so I'm looking forward to it and all, I just need to keep my brain in a semi-functioning state. This may go badly.
The holidays came and went, and thankfully I was able to procure enough in the way of cash and gift cards to fully pre-order a PS Vita, some games, accessories, and a copy of Star Wars The Old Republic. TOR is taking a good chunk of time, and for good reason: it's one of the most solo-friendly MMOs I've ever played. I'm all for gaming becoming more of a social gathering; it's a great step forward for the medium, and it can be a fun experience to partake in. However, I've never been a great participant in this phenomenon, either in a competitive or cooperative setting. I've always been a fairly solitary person, so interacting with other humans in general puts me on edge, either in person or using a virtual analogue. It's not just because I don't want someone on the other side of the country/planet to know my approximate skill level. (Though there is that.) Enjoying gaming is, for me, akin to enjoying porn. It's not something I'm ashamed of, just something I prefer to do by my lonesome. Also, headphones are a necessity.
SOPA is something else that came and went. Personally, I'm glad. It's a piece of legislation that would've affected most of the sites I visit on a daily basis, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, news sites, etc. It's amazing. After reading the bill, it's pretty obvious that it was some jackass in power wanting to make friends in higher places, particularly in Hollywood and record labels. Providing greedy people more ways to control the people who use their products is not the way to move an industry forward; providing great services and benefits to those customers is. Piracy is not an issue that's going to go away because you restrict access to a few sites; honestly, it's not going to go away completely, period. The way to fight piracy is to make buying these products easy and hassle-free, while providing great incentives for paying customers to continue paying. The main example of this strategy in action is iTunes. Love it or hate it, iTunes dealt a huge blow to music piracy, while giving customers an easy and cheap way to buy music they love, without having to go through a bunch of bullshit that record labels had been forcing people to do for quite a while. Bigwigs like movie studios and record labels had so much control up until a decade or so ago, they thought that they'd be able to sit back and let money flow into their coffers. They did this for so long, they didn't really notice (or didn't care) that the way their customers wanted to access and use the things they had legally purchased had changed. People want access to their stuff in more ways, some of which don't work in the bigwigs' financial interests. Their reaction? Evolve with their customers, as well as the medium that they represent? Not so much. Legislation and restriction methods (read: DRM) that basically punishes people who legally obtained their products? Now you're on to something, Kim Jong.
It may not be dead, but SOPA is definitely on life support. I was skeptical about the blackouts that Google and Reddit had announced, but when Wikipedia blacked out as well, my hopes raised significantly. Never underestimate the rage of millions of idiot college students trying to access Wikipedia to answer questions for their papers. When the bill gained about 18 opposing senators over the course of 3 days, I actually was hopeful. And when it was announced that the bill was put on an "indefinite hold," I actually stood up and cheered. Freedom for consumers won out, which is kind of a rarity in these days, sadly. This needs to happen more often.
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The holidays came and went, and thankfully I was able to procure enough in the way of cash and gift cards to fully pre-order a PS Vita, some games, accessories, and a copy of Star Wars The Old Republic. TOR is taking a good chunk of time, and for good reason: it's one of the most solo-friendly MMOs I've ever played. I'm all for gaming becoming more of a social gathering; it's a great step forward for the medium, and it can be a fun experience to partake in. However, I've never been a great participant in this phenomenon, either in a competitive or cooperative setting. I've always been a fairly solitary person, so interacting with other humans in general puts me on edge, either in person or using a virtual analogue. It's not just because I don't want someone on the other side of the country/planet to know my approximate skill level. (Though there is that.) Enjoying gaming is, for me, akin to enjoying porn. It's not something I'm ashamed of, just something I prefer to do by my lonesome. Also, headphones are a necessity.
SOPA is something else that came and went. Personally, I'm glad. It's a piece of legislation that would've affected most of the sites I visit on a daily basis, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, news sites, etc. It's amazing. After reading the bill, it's pretty obvious that it was some jackass in power wanting to make friends in higher places, particularly in Hollywood and record labels. Providing greedy people more ways to control the people who use their products is not the way to move an industry forward; providing great services and benefits to those customers is. Piracy is not an issue that's going to go away because you restrict access to a few sites; honestly, it's not going to go away completely, period. The way to fight piracy is to make buying these products easy and hassle-free, while providing great incentives for paying customers to continue paying. The main example of this strategy in action is iTunes. Love it or hate it, iTunes dealt a huge blow to music piracy, while giving customers an easy and cheap way to buy music they love, without having to go through a bunch of bullshit that record labels had been forcing people to do for quite a while. Bigwigs like movie studios and record labels had so much control up until a decade or so ago, they thought that they'd be able to sit back and let money flow into their coffers. They did this for so long, they didn't really notice (or didn't care) that the way their customers wanted to access and use the things they had legally purchased had changed. People want access to their stuff in more ways, some of which don't work in the bigwigs' financial interests. Their reaction? Evolve with their customers, as well as the medium that they represent? Not so much. Legislation and restriction methods (read: DRM) that basically punishes people who legally obtained their products? Now you're on to something, Kim Jong.
It may not be dead, but SOPA is definitely on life support. I was skeptical about the blackouts that Google and Reddit had announced, but when Wikipedia blacked out as well, my hopes raised significantly. Never underestimate the rage of millions of idiot college students trying to access Wikipedia to answer questions for their papers. When the bill gained about 18 opposing senators over the course of 3 days, I actually was hopeful. And when it was announced that the bill was put on an "indefinite hold," I actually stood up and cheered. Freedom for consumers won out, which is kind of a rarity in these days, sadly. This needs to happen more often.
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