February 20 to March 5 - Issue 51 - @swm_magazineT H E M A G A Z I N ETABLE OF CONTENTS:Playstation Vita enters the race, can't shift gearsVita Review: Super Stardust DeltaVita Review: Lumines: Electronic SymphonySonic Generations reviewSonic CD reviewBattle Royale February 2011 VITA EDITION *New!*VITA ENTERS THE RACE, CAN'T SHIFT GEARSWilly:The 3DS broke a sales record, it reached 5 million in sales in Japan. However, it was dead on arrival in March 2011. With an exaggerated $250 price tag (the same price as the far more powerful Vita, to be released the following year) and a lineup without a true system seller, sales plummeted so much that Nintendo publicly apologized for their system. They created a new campaign to make the 3DS desirable to gamers, releasing games people wanted to play, securing future exclusive games (such as Monster Hunter), and lowering the price of the system by $80; the end result got the system to sell from a paltry 3 million worldwide in March to 15 million by December of the same year.This sudden surge by Nintendo did not help the Vita. What was once a far better value than the 3DS now has to fight an uphill battle to win over gamers in Japan. It launched in Japan with only 325 thousand units sold, and falling to 74 thousand the next week. By the 9th week, it was only selling 14 thousand units.Many have debated what went wrong with the Vita launch. What Nintendo got wrong with their 3DS launch was obvious; people simply did not know the 3DS was not a next-gen successor to the DS, and they had no reason to buy it with such a large price tag and without a game the general audience could get behind (Street Fighter IV and Ghost Recon was not going to do it). The Vita however, is a slightly different story. It was about to launch at the same price as the 3DS with more powerful hardware, but the last-minute dramatic drop of the 3DS price suddenly made the Vita's price harder to stomach. Hidden costs such as expensive proprietary memory cards that are required to save data are also damaging the appeal of the system, with a 16 GB card taking you back $60 USD, and a 32 GB one costing $100 USD.With the Vita now releasing worldwide this week, we have yet to see how it will fare outside Japan. However, it still leaves Sony with a big problem: the Vita is failing in the only market where the PSP was a true success. SONIC CDDarkspineslayer:Platform: iOS devices under review, also on PSN and XBLASonic blasted out of the gate in June of '91, back in the heyday of Super Mario, and when now third party sega could afford to fund a console all their own. The blue blur had the 90's attitude, and eventually rose to go toe to toe with then undisputed king, Mario. Advance to 1993, and the CD add on for the Genesis was in dire need of a killer app. Enter Sonic the Hedgehog CD, a title that took the hedgehog on a little trip through time. It wasn't enough for the floundering Sega CD, and the game became somewhat of a cult cIassic. Fast forward to 2011, and the game is getting new life on downloadable platforms and not only outpaces expectations, but leaves them in the dust.The premise of Sonic traveling to Never Lake, to observe the mysterious, time manipulating little planet, only to find it under the control of Dr. Eggman is altogether irrelevant to the game as it was every game in its day. It does however tie into the biggest difference between this game and the rest of the original series is an element of time travel.As a player, you can ignore it completely and play through the game as its given to you, but those who want to secure the best ending need to either hunt through the stage in the past to locate a robot making machine to make the future a better place, or secure the time stones through the always devious special stages in order to remove Eggman's hold on time. Neither path is particularly easy, but both are satisfying when you finally locate that machine or grab that last time stone. The platforming is handled by the ever tricky d-pad and button overlaid on top of the game screen, and usually the lack of physical feedback becomes the console gamer's kryptonite. This is still tricky at first, but easy enough to get into the rhythm after a few stages. Aside from the occasional slip of the thumb, gamers will find themselves rocketing all over with ease soon enough.Not content to simply port the original code to the new mobile platforms, here we have the game running on a completely new engine. The game runs like Grease lightning at all times and the engine change affords the ability to loop the Music tracks properly, use the Sonic 2 spin dash, and even introduce Tails as an unlockable character for the first time. This, along with achievements, and two distinct soundtracks to switch between make this the definitive version to get.Not to be one to give the impression that all is candy and rainbows in Sonic Land, their are a few issues that niggle at players at the worst times. Aside from control glitches that usually stem from lack of feedback, it doesn't always play nice with multitasking and you may return to your game after a call to find the sound gone. Some of the later level design borders on torture and the time attack mode forces you to exit to the menu and re-enter the stage instead of giving a simple restart button. Granted most of these complaints will disappear depending on whether you decide to play this on a different platform, but they are issues for the iOS crowd none the less.Sonic CD provides any mobile gamer with a ...
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