Ouya's Unsung Strength: Multiplayer For Parties 54
An anonymous reader writes: "Ouya, the Kickstarted, Android-based gaming console, had a much easier time selling people the idea of a mini-console than selling people on the console itself. Once people got over the excitement of seeing an indie console break into the market, they asked, 'Wait, why would I want to play Android games on my living room TV?' Almost a year has passed, and we're finally seeing an answer to that question: party gaming. It's one thing to play a console against your friends online, but when you get a bunch of people in the same room, most console games are too deep and complex to just pick up and play in a fun, semi-competitive way. The person who owns the fighting game is going to mop the floor with everyone else. Mobile games, on the other hand, are often incredibly simple, and Ouya forces every game to have a free trial, so you can easily weed out the ones that aren't good for groups. For example: 'In Hidden In Plain Sight, your character is one ninja lost in a sea of CPU-controlled ninjas with exactly the same texture. In the first few seconds, you have to walk left, right, up, down, anything that will let you understand which of the characters on the screen is yours. Once you've got that, you have to figure out your opponents. Any move that doesn't look like it's performed by the AI could give you away.'"
This exists (Score:1, Insightful)
it is called nintendo
what in the fuck ? (Score:4, Insightful)
NES, SEGA, SNES -- simple, fun games that have been playable at parties for 30 odd years now.
Or the WII -- which is pretty much tailor made for this kind of stuff.
have we really gone full circle with "everything old, is new again"
Re:what in the fuck ? (Score:3, Insightful)
But this allows you to use a whole new device instead of the thing you already have!
Re:what in the fuck ? (Score:0, Insightful)
But.... but... but.... It's teh Open Sores!!!!!
Reinventing the Wii (Score:4, Insightful)
'In Hidden In Plain Sight, your character is one ninja lost in a sea of CPU-controlled ninjas with exactly the same texture. In the first few seconds, you have to walk left, right, up, down, anything that will let you understand which of the characters on the screen is yours. Once you've got that, you have to figure out your opponents. Any move that doesn't look like is performed by the AI could give you away.'
Yeah, there's a Wii U party game disc that has about a dozen variations on this; along with a dozen variations on a dozen more mini-game archetypes...
http://www.nintendo.com/games/... [nintendo.com]
Not to rag on the Ouya, but if this is the Ouya's niche, they're taking on Nintendo on their home turf, without Mario, Metroid, Zelda, or Pokemon... not even a Pikman or Skylanders to back them up.
The Ouya's about half the price after you get some extra controllers relative to a WiiU with a few extra wiimotes. But the value proposition of the Wii U is far greater... not to mention unlike the other current gen systems... they kept back-compat with the original Wii.
Some people think split screen is obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what in the fuck ? (Score:3, Insightful)
mods console.
complains that mod broke functionality.