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I've taken a little bit of a break from the Nintendo DS and am back to playing
my modded PS Vita. I was just telling my brother: I think the Vita is secretly
one of the best valued pieces of technology I've purchased. It wasn't cheap
when I got it -- I think I picked it up for ~$220 CAD while it was still "alive."
I engaged with it OK for a while; mostly picking up indie games but one or two
high profile AA or AAA games. It did fall out of interest for quite a while -
to the point where I had it listed for sale on Craigslist. Thankfully, there
were no takers and I wound up stashing it away for a bit.
Over the years I've picked up a lot of games from the PSN store, then as the
system grew out of favour with Sony and all official support died, I started
looking for used games. Used physical games never truly became cheap with the
Vita, but you could still get games for "cheaper-than-retail" prices on eBay.
I picked up a few titles this way; but overall I still wasn't engaging with the
system a *lot*.
At some point I wound up soft modding the Vita, but this was the temporary mod
that needs re-application after reboot. So if you run out of charge, you run out
of soft-mod. I managed this for a little while with some GBA games on there; but
at some point the system ran out of charge and I didn't feel like figuring it all
out again. This was sometime when I was buying games for it off of eBay, so I
was still getting something out of the system; and continually hounding PSN for
interesting discounts that never came.
Relatively recently I decided to tackle the task again. I did the soft mod and
followed the guide to make it permanent. I picked up a 128GB SD card and I've now
loaded it up with PSX, PSP, Vita and GBA games. I have just shy of 8GB free
space remaining now. I have gotten *so* much use out of this system since this
last mod. I had a PSP and a nice handful of games for it back in the day. With
that system the games actually went on sale for cheap at the end of its lifecycle,
so I was able to pick several of them. I wound up gifting all of that to my
nephew, and I've been interested in revisiting the system ever since. Playing PSP
games on the Vita is a joy! The ergonomics of the Vita are way better than those
of the PSP, and you get more options for tuning how the system renders the games,
and you can map functions to the right joystick, too!
I'm so happy with the Vita now. It really is a power house for this kind of
emulation and the fit and finish of the system is of very high quality, so the
whole experience is very, very good. I strongly recommend you also mod your Vita
if you have one.
So what have I been playing on the Vita lately? Much to my surprise, racing games!
I used to play racing games quite a lot when I was younger, but I never considered
myself a "racing game fan" per se. I have fond memories of Automobili Lamborghini,
Extreme-G, Top Gear Rally and more from the N64. Over time I focused more and more
on simulation racing when I did partake in Racing. I was an Xbox owner, so games
like Project Gotham Racing and then Forza really influenced my racing game selection.
Now as I've become older and I have responsibilities and dependents, my available
resources to dedicate towards gaming are severely diminished. As a result, I strongly
prefer handheld gaming where I have my own screen, I can pause and resume at any
time and games are often designed with shorter play sessions in mind. I've also
somewhat discovered for myself an appreciation for arcade gaming in general;
specifically for how it fits into this mold I've shaped for myself.
OK, enough preamble. The games I've been playing are:
- Ridge Racer
- Wipeout Pure
- Wipeout Pulse
- Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
- Gran Turismo
These are all PSP titles, and I am enjoying them all. I've been playing Ridge
Racer the most, but oddly enough I think Outrun 2006 offers more. The challenge
in Outrun is higher.
Wipeout is interesting. I had been playing Vector class, but Venom is where it's
at. Vector feels way too slow and I find it difficult to control. Bump up to
Venom and everything moves more quickly and the game feels more natural to play.
I figure Outrun and Ridge Racer are pretty similar, since they're based off of
racing cars on a road and feature insane drifting and boosting. Wipeout has
hover vehicles and weapons; so the feel is quity different. I generally prefer
drifting and boosting; but I have been having fun with Wipeout as well.
Gran Turismo is just a whole other beast. I've been enjoying it well enough; but
I haven't played it much. The pace is much slower and more technical. We'll see.
I think I'll be heavily biasing towards the arcade racers just for sheer enjoyment.
Published on February 18, 2021