Help! My Vita Won't Turn On/Off...

Imagine the following scenario:


You have just purchased, downloaded and installed a copy of the full (£29.99) version of the Unit 13 game onto your lovely new PS Vita. You have almost completed your 'basic training' in the game, and are looking forward to undertaking a co-op mission with friends, when suddenly, your Vita screen goes  completely black.


To your delight, you notice that the PS button is still glowing, so you know that the console must still have power somewhere, right? Panicked, you try to press the on/off switch, but nothing happens...

It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, doesn't it? Nevertheless, this is the very scenario which we were confronted with at Mini Gamers HQ recently, and it took our best research to get the console right again, so we thought that we would write this post just in case any of our fellow PS Vita owners experience the same thing.

Now, we should be completely clear in stating that Mini Gamers is still unsure as to what exactly prompted the console to suddenly cut out. We certainly don't want to imply that the Unit 13 download contributed to the failure in any way - at least not without firm proof.

However, it is true that many PS Vita forums have been awash with complaints that the Unit 13 demo version, (not the FULL version which Mini Gamers was playing,) has indeed contributed to some pretty nasty PS Vita failures recently.

Nevertheless, as yet, there is very little evidence at this stage to suggest that the full version of the game is capable of this kind of glitch, and most gamers who purchased the full version seem incredibly happy with it - as well they should, because the little that we did experience of the game, was simply awesome!

As always, the most important thing to do in any crisis is to remain calm. After searching online for answers, Mini Gamers discovered that there is a quick and easy way to get your PS Vita working again after this type of crash. Of course, we cannot guarantee that this will work for every situation, but here goes:

1) if your PS button is still glowing, you need to perform a HARD RESTART. To do this, simply hold down the power button for approximately thirty seconds, until you see the PS button stop glowing.

2) The console should now restart in the normal way. The following Safe-Mode screen will be displayed:

3) Select Option 1 to restart your console. The PS Vita should now operate normally.

Please note, if you feel that your PS Vita database may have become corrupted in some way, then it may be easier to select Option 2 instead. This will restore the PS Vita database before restarting - this is NOT the same as 'resetting' the console, and won't affect things like messages, camera images, or saved data, but may take several hours to complete.

It may also be worth noting that Safe Mode can also be started manually by holding down the Power button, R button and the PS button at the same time until the Safe Mode screen appears. Then select the option you require.

HAVE YOUR SAY...

 

Have you ever experienced a PS Vita console crash before?

Do you know why it occured?

If you have any comments to make about the PS Vita's performance or wish to give or seek advice from other blog readers about this issue, please leave a comment in our comments box below. We'd love to hear from you...

Modnation Racers: Road Trip Review [PS Vita]

Yes, those cute little Mods have returned to the race track. This time however, they are racing on a whole new handheld system, so how does the new PS Vita version of Modnation Racers, called Modnation Racers: Road Trip, compare to the original game?

Those of you who are familiar with the original game will know that it was heavily-centred around content customisation, meaning that everything from Mod characters, Tracks and even Karts could be upgraded and customised with various outlandish and wacky designs.

The content customisation is still a huge feature of this game, but has been given the typical PS Vita overhaul that one would expect, so that the rear touchpad and front touchscreen are used in order to complete the desired effects.

Now even your karts can be customised with either a quick tap, or a gentle swipe of the finger across the screen, which seems to make the whole thing a lot less time-consuming than in the original game. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? We'll let you decide that for yourselves.

Tracks can be created simply by drawing the desired shape on the front touchscreen, which definitely enhances the ease with which new designs can be brought to life in the game.

Weapons have also been given an upgrade in this sequel, and can be upgraded to a maximum of three levels to make them even more powerful. Moreover, there are a total of seven different controls layouts to try. If the button combination you are currently using seems a little awkward, try using a different layout - you won't be disappointed.

As with the PSP game, there are Quick Race, Multiplayer and a Single Player Career Mode to complete, all with various challenges to test your racing skills. However, whilst the Quick Race mode works well on the PS Vita, the Career and Multiplayer Modes do seem a tad disappointing.

For a start, the Multiplayer in this game seems to be focused on time trial races instead of the ability to compete against friends in an actual, non-timed race. This is disappointing given Sony's plans that the PS Vita be viewed as a socially-centred handheld (a feature which has already been strongly utilised by other launch games).

Furthermore, the Career Mode does not seem to feature an actual playable storyline at all, but instead consists of different racing challenges designed to improve player's skill and accuracy on the race track, which is quite frankly a hollow and tiresome exercise, which it is necessary to complete if players which to unlock all of the customisable items on offer.

In conclusion, Modnation Racers: Road Trip on the PS Vita did not turn out to be everything we had hoped it would be. The customisation features are definitely brilliant, and the touch controls really do make the process a lot easier than in the previous game, especially when designing new race tracks.

However, if this game featured a better Multiplayer campaign and a proper storyline in Career Mode, it would have been an undisputable winner.

If you fancy a casual racing game with quirky characters, and no complicated campaigns, then this is definitely the game for you. If, on the other hand, you want a racing game with a solid Career Mode and good storyline, this game will most likely leave you feeling empty. Overall rating: 7/10.

PS Vita Review: What's So Good about the Playstation Vita?

It has been a bit of a sombre launch for Sony's latest console, with only two of GAME's stores choosing to open at midnight last night for those a hundred or so gamers who were desperate to get their hands on a PS Vita before the official UK launch.

Nevertheless, despite an apparent lack of interest,  Mini Gamers was determined to get to grips with, what could potentially be a very interesting piece of gaming technology. So, what's so good about the PS Vita?

First Impressions:

The PS Vita is definitely a lot thinner and lighter than its predecessor, with a sleek finish on the outside. We immediately notice several new additions to the usual PSP-type design. Small, round silver power and volume buttons at the top of the console, add to the stylish feel of the console, and a lit up 'Home' button, featuring the Playstation logo is found on the left hand side.

Furthermore, the usual UMD-slot has now been replaced by a nifty cartridge slot. However, unlike the 3DS, whose cartridge slot is open and easily accessible, the PSV's new slot is covered (a bit like a mobile phone's charge slot) and proved quite tricky when we eventually placed our first game cartridge into it. However, after a bit of practice, we were fine.

The initial menu screen seems a lot sharper and brighter than ever before, and features many items which were not available on the PSP. Many of these new features (such as 'Near' and 'Party') are to do with the concept of multiplayer and social online interactions, which is also a heavily-promoted feature in many of the PSV's software titles.

PS Vita Home Screen: LiveArea

The main screen of the PS Vita interface is called: Live Area. From this menu, players can interact in online social forums, check the progress of any current downloads and access games and game information.

The best thing about this area is that it is entirely controlled via touch. For example, to select a game, players only need to tap on any icon with their fingers. To close an open Live Area application, simply peel the displayed 'page' away from the screen. This is both stylishly accomplished and very futuristic.

Welcome Park:

Our first introduction to the new features of the PSV were via the console's Welcome Park, this interactive tutorial proved very useful in showing us all the varied touchscreen or tilt aspects of the new console, and also gave us an opportunity to earn some interesting trophies.

Trophies:

For those of you who haven't got a PS3 console at home, the concept of trophies will be brand new to you. Basically, for every game that you play on the PSV, you will be awarded certain trophies for different achievements. For example, in Everybody's Golf, you can unlock a trophy by simply competing in the Daily International Tournament just once.

This gives added incentive to play PSV games, furthermore, the details of your latest Trophies can then be shared with your fellow PSV gamers via the 'Near' social interaction application if you wish.

AR Cards:

When the Nintendo 3DS first came bundled with its own set of Augmented Reality Cards, we were totally bowled over by the sheer quality of them, that was until we managed to have a look at Sony's PS Vita collection of wide-angled AR Cards.

Although the cards are quite plain in appearence and certainly less colourful then the yellow and black 3DS cards, they can be used with standard PS Vita games such as Reality Fighters (see screenshot above) and also come with its own set of AR Mini Games, which can be downloaded for FREE from the PSN Store.

The first set of  PS Vita AR games are Table Football, Cliff Diving and Fireworks, which is not actually an AR game in and of itself, but can utilise the AR technology to create stunning real-life backdrops for the virtual firework displays.

Sony also intends to create more free AR software for PSV users in the future. This brilliant Youtube trailer shows the range of AR Mini Games which should become available over the next few months:

Downloading:

Our next stop was to check out some PS Vita goodies from the PSN store. Here we also noticed that Sony's promise to have EVERY PS Vita core title available for download was being fulfilled. Every launch title was definitely available for download, as well as some PSN exclusive PS Vita titles like Escape Plan, which was available for download at the stunning price of £9.99!

Nevertheless, Mini Gamers wanted to really test the PS Vita's downloading prowess, so we opted to download a couple of films instead. Normally this would have taken around two hours on a standard
PSP console, so we were pleasantly surprised that it only took around twenty minutes on the PS Vita!

The best thing about the PS Vita's downloading process though, was that we could check the progress of the download in the main LiveArea, but were able to continue playing our new games and exploring the console while the download was taking place. This was never possible on the original PSP console as was a really refreshing aspect of the new handheld.

Software:

Mini Gamers will be looking at some of games available for the PS Vita more closely in the coming days, so we won't dwell on any specifics here, but we do feel the need to mention how sharp and clear the graphics were in the games which we tried. The games appeared to be of Home Console quality rather than that of a mere handheld.

Furthermore, some of the finely-tuned Vita only controls really led to some quality gameplay, such as the ability to trace a pathway for Nathan Drake with our fingers in Uncharted: Golden Abyss, but that's another story...

Conclusions:

The debate over whether the PS Vita is a good or bad console continues, but our first impressions of the device is that it is both gaming-centred and socially-orientated meaning that it creates its own exclusive community where people can now play their favourite handheld games not in isolation, or with a sparse collection of friends,  but together, through a solid worldwide network, online.

The PSV has a lot of good aspects to it, such as a touch screen interface, sharp, quality graphics, fast downloads and multimedia functionality, which are all fantastic qualities for such a tiny handheld to possess, but which are somewhat shared by other handhelds (3DS) and gaming tablets (iPad 3) in the current entertainment market, which may help explain why the PS Vita has not yet managed to achieve dominance in this field.

However, the PSV has been able to offer some great gaming titles during its initial launch, and this has also been enhanced by a fully-working download service and Internet Browser, which was something that the Nintendo 3DS was unable to do for several months after its initial launch.

All in all, the PS Vita is most definitely a next-generation handheld, and it offers a range of fun and interactive ways for PSP fans to play the latest range of top-quality Sony games, without needing to fork out for an expensive PS3 console.  This handheld definitely deserves some respect. Overall rating: 10/10.

PS Vita Launch Titles: What titles will be available from Day One?

It is now less than a week until the official European launch of the PS Vita, which should hit the shop shelves on the 22nd of February 2012. However, if you haven't decided which PS Vita title you should choose first, our exploration of some of the initial launch titles should help you.

The official UK launch titles are as follows:

Asphalt: Injection

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II Plus

Dynasty Warriors Next

FIFA Soccer

Little Deviants

Lumines:Electronic Symphony

ModNation Racers: Road Trip

Michael Jackson: The Experience

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus

Reality Fighters

Rayman Origins

Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen

TOUCH MY KATAMARI

Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Virtua Tennis 4

WipEout 2048

There does seem to be a good mix of different gaming genres across the seventeen different core launch titles, with a further five titles said to be exclusively available for download from the Playstation Network Store on day one of the launch.

The five exclusive downloads are:

Escape Plan

Hustle Kings

Plants VS. Zombies

Super Stardust Delta

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack

(*may be subject to change) 

Many of the launch games - Everybody's Golf, Modnation Racers: Road Trip, Wipeout 2048, (to name but a few) are sequels of prior PSP titles, which means that they are likely to have a big fan base when they hit the shelves, depending on whether or not the PS Vita console itself happens to sell the required units that Sony has predicted.

Moreover, many of these games feature new controls which are designed to demonstrate the PS Vita's new abilities. For example, in Everybody's Golf, whose previous versions have always proved extremely popular, the rear touchpad of the console is used to measure the distance of the ball to the next hole, and the front touchscreen can be used to reposition the ball before 'teeing off', or even rustle the leaves on the trees, or even make your character speak to you.

There are also exciting rumours concerning the game's multiplayer abilities, which suggest that as many as up to thirty competitors will be able to compete against each other during online play,  claim that a daily tournament will be available, and even hint that there will be a social forum available online for those players who wish to discuss the game, however, these details are still largely unconfirmed at present.

Nevertheless, with the PS Vita continuing to perform badly in the current Japanese gaming charts it is clear that Sony will have its work cut out to make its new handheld as popular as the original PSP console.

Some members of the gaming community are citing the high price of the console and its memory sticks as the main reason for its lack of popularity, whereas others say that ceasing the production of UMDs in favour of a new NVG cartridge format makes the PS Vita incompatible with existing PSP games, which has thus led to less interest from current PSP owners.

Whatever the good or bad points of the PS Vita console, it is an interesting addition to the handheld gaming scene and represents an important move away from handheld gaming as a solo activity and towards a more social handheld gaming experience.

Please remember to check out our PS Vita hands-on review once the console launches in Europe on Wednesday.



PS Vita UK Trailer Launched

Sony have launched the official European PS Vita trailer. The trailer features the brand new slogan: 'The World is in Play,' and features people in almost every walk of life (from beauticians to train commuters etc,) taking part in movie-style scenes that seem to show them in a variety of videogame genres, all claiming to be part of a world which merges the boundaries of gaming and real-life.

The expensive one-minute trailer shows a definite move towards a more cinematic form of videogames marketing, as first seen in the early nineties, and also shows Sony's commitment to advertising their latest handheld.

The trailer is part of a multi-million pound advertising campaign, which Sony hopes will help to promote the PS Vita throughout Europe. In America, Sony is reportedly spending over $50 million to promote the console.

The PS Vita is focused not only on ordinary videogaming, but on Social Networking and social gaming, which is very strongly implied in the trailer. It is only a few days before the PS Vita's release in Europe on the 22nd of February, but it is already shaping up to be an interesting gaming device, even though there is no way of knowing whether the handheld device will be successful in the current gaming market. Only time will tell...

Don't forget to check in with Mini Gamers after the 22nd of February for our full hands-on review of the PS Vita!

PS Vita Minis: What's In Store?

With only a few weeks to go until the launch of Sony's PS Vita console, Mini Gamers decided to take a sneaky little peak at the interesting collection of mini games that will come preloaded on the day of the PS Vita's launch.

The mini game selection has been carefully compiled under the rather sweet title of the PS Vita 'Welcome Park' [*translated from the Japanese, and may be subject to change] and is designed to show off and guide users through different aspects of the PS Vita, as well as challenge gamers in a variety of different tasks.

One of the first games in the Welcome Park, is called Digit Chase. The idea is that players use the PS Vita's rear touchpad, touch and multi-touch functions in order to pop virtual 'bubbles' that will appear on the screen.

This may sound simple, until the bubbles start overlapping and numbered bubbles with the same number start to appear, causing the player to work his/her fingers around the different touch sensors of the console at rapid speed. In addition, the game is timed and keeps track of the players best time.

Once they are through with the bubbles, players are treated to a moving carousel of numbers to try and defeat and another numbers game involving the Rear Touchpad, but we wouldn't want to spoil the surprise... All in all, quite a fun little game.

Sound Loop will appeal to the musicians amongst you - or at least it tries to. Record a sound-clip, using the console's in-built microphone and it will be placed as a little looping orb, which circles the centre of the screen.

Moving the orb around to a different position will affect how often the sound-clip is replayed, and with a bit of practise, the 'looping' effects can be used to create rhythmic beats, similar to those found on a DJ's mixing decks.

Players can choose to change the backing music with the simple tap of a button. We have to say though, this one will probably send even the most hardcore DJ Hero fan a bit 'loopy' by the end of the game. Not a particular favourite.

Snap + Slide is the first of two camera-themed games in the Welcome Park. The objective is simple: Snap an object using the PS Vita's in-built camera, and this game converts the image into a delightful little sliding titles game for players to complete.

Players can choose to use either the front camera or the rear camera in order to obtain a suitable image. Furthermore, the player can decide exactly how many tiled pieces the image will be broken into, thus altering the difficulty of the game. A good reinvention of a classic puzzle game.

Skate Axis helps to introduce the Tilt Sensors, which we predict are set to become an important component of many future PS Vita gaming titles.

Players must control a tiny skateboarding stick figure. The idea is that players must tilt the console to either the left or the right in order to successfully avoid several ball-shaped obstacles that appear to block the skater's path.

Each successful dodge is rewarded with a number of points. This is a fun mini game, and very innovative. Definitely worth a try (or even several tries) in our opinion.

 Hello Face is another game which uses the PS Vita camera functions to its advantage. In this game, players must snap a picture of anything that looks like a face (teddy bear,Smiley-based fridge magnet, etc) and the 'face' will appear on the screen in the shape of a transparent cube, and then the game will add slightly animated features to it, such as large cartoon eyes, and the face will appear with various phrases and quotes, depending on the picture it is based on.

This game is very creative, even if it does border on the 'slightly trippy' side of life. This is definitely another Welcome Park success.

In conclusion, the PS Vita Welcome Park is an interesting and varied collection of games, which will be very useful for all those cash-strapped gamers who cannot afford the main launch games at the moment.

Plus, all of the mini games featured in the Welcome Park have unlockable trophies and rewards, so there is even more reason to replay this set of interactive tutorials.

 So there you have it - details of the various PS Vita mini games that you can expect to find when the console launches in the UK on the 22nd of February 2012. We hope that you have found it useful.

Keep checking in with the Mini Gamers blog for more news of this handheld console in the weeks leading up to, and after, the UK launch. We promise you all an in-depth review of this apparent 'Next Generation' console.