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[El-Suave]

Played some more, got 6 Invizimals by now, leveled some of them up and took one to the next step in evolution upgrading it from the pup form you capture them in.
The game is really fun so far - most importantly it works perfectly. I wasn't so sure since my experience with Eyepet is nice but not ideal (you simply need too much room and specific light conditions). This augmented reality game works much better. When you're looking for a coloured space to capture the Invizimals on, thankfully it doesn't need to be very big - a matchbox sized patch of the required colour is enough.

You need the card when battleing but the surface doesn't matter. At first I thought that requiring the card during the whole game was unnecessary, but now they've introduced mechanics that need it because the game needs to know where your PSP is relative to it. Again, they're actually working and they're fun.

The FMV's continue to be fun, they even have some where they wouldn't have needed any.

The only downside so far is that the AI seems to be pretty dumb - there are some attacks that are useless against certain types of Invizimals and your opponent does them repeatedly despite them not being successful.

After some more time with the game I like it even more, I'm really quite impressed with it. Keeps me from playing LBP and Jak & Daxter.

 

[Takao]

El-Suave, your impressions sound really good. Damn you SCEA! If you had brought over the camera by now I'd maybe have some hope. But nah, to Play-Asia I go...

 

[Takao]

Oh man, I've gotten back into this game and wow, it's insanely awesome. As El-Suave mentioned the FMVs are hilariously awesome, and the concept of catching, and battling the monsters with the camera works nearly flawlessly. I do agree with him in that the AI is pretty stupid, but meh.

It apparently was a success for SCEE, according to the developer's website it did well in Europe. So I wonder what's keeping SCEA on announcing it?
It was rated by the ESRB in like October, yet it has yet to have a formal announcement given. I wouldn't mind playing local multiplayer with friends (I haven't tried online multiplayer yet).

 

[Complex Shadow]

No go, then no go. Go should've had a built-in go camera for on the go.

whoa whoa whoa . . . whoa. the go dosen't have a built in camera, not even a really bad one? this is new's to me.

 

[Takao]

whoa whoa whoa . . . whoa. the go dosen't have a built in camera, not even a really bad one? this is new's to me.

Nope, the Go is just a regular PSP in a new shell with a smaller screen, bluetooth connectivity, kind of in-game XMB, and a 16GB hard-drive. For the price tag they put it at ($250), they could have easily have put a camera in it, which would have pushed more development for the peripheral, but meh.

 

[CamHostage]

(No camera) the Go is just a regular PSP in a new shell with a smaller screen, bluetooth connectivity, kind of in-game XMB, and a 16GB hard-drive. For the price tag they put it at ($250), they could have easily have put a camera in it, which would have pushed more development for the peripheral, but meh.

Biggest mistake of the PSP design post-launch, IMO. There's a whole lot that can be done with ARG play as in Invisimals, Sony could have mastered this years ago. I've also seen some impressive gameplay integration of using a camera for controlling or augmenting parts of the game, such as in the cellphone Metal Gear game. (Heck, there were awesome demos done with the Gizmondo that proved it to useful technology.) With Richard Marks' R&D group and the EyeToy brand name behind it, great things could have been done with a PSP camera. And that's not even talking about the multimedia and networking features (video Skype?) that could have been done with a PSP camera that fits exactly with what Sony was trying to do here.

That was a mistake, and so was no mic for online play. So few games would use it that I'm not sure the support would be better, but my time with SOCOM FTB online in the backyard was one of my favorite multiplayer gaming experiences ever. By the time they built it in, it was too late.

This system has been such a rollercoaster ride of love and frustration. I use mine every day, but I can understand everybody who won't pay it any notice too. Hopefully Sony is taking notes for next time... hopefully Nintendo has learned a bit from Sony too, because the 3DS sounds pretty cool but I don't use my DS nearly as much as my PSP and I'd be perfectly happy to see my interest shift.

 

[Takao]

So I just went online via Infrastructure Mode. There's servers for the United States, and Canada, so... As for the battle, I faced someone in Spain, and I got mauled. He defeated my Invizimal like it was nothing. The thing was, he actually destroyed my Invizimal once I lost. That Invizimal was no longer playable and I had to catch another one of them. That's pretty bad if you train your Invizimal up only to have it get destroyed.