There are two parts of this post. The first is my obsession with white consoles. I’m not sure why, but when I picked up my PS4, I specifically got the Destiny edition because it was a white console. Then, months later, when I traded in my 360 for an Xbox One, I was determined to have the Master Chief edition because it was white one too. And then I wanted the white Playstation Vita, which is slightly harder to come by because it was a special edition released with Assassin’s Creed: Liberation (released in 2012). The white PS Vita sells for exorbatant amounts of money on Amazon and ebay.
I got my white PS Vita, btw, by shopping craigslist regularly and I found some guy selling one for a reasonable price. I don’t regret it for a minute.
One of the reasons why I wanted it was for the ability to play the PS4 from bed in the other room. The other was to play slightly better quality games in bed (there’s a trend, I’m noticing).
The thing I wasn’t anticipating when I picked up a few games for the Vita, was that they were slightly “dumbed down” versions of the full-sized games.
What the hell?!?
I understand that sometimes there’s a need to lower the graphics because the device doesn’t have the same computing power as the bigger console, but there are games where the content is significantly different than the full version on other consoles. Most specifically are the LEGO games.
I know there are some bad reviews on Borderlands 2 for Vita because the graphics had to be diminished so severely as to make it playable, but even then it lags and has problems playing online, making the port less than desirable. But the LEGO games are simpler than that. The graphics are not intensive, which is nice because it looks and plays the same as it does on the console. But while playing through Harry Potter: Years 5-7, when I would get stuck or was hunting for something for 100% completion, I noticed that any gamefaqs or tutorials did not apply to the Vita version of the game. Upon futher digging I discovered that there were whole sections of the game just removed in the Vita version.
Look, I don’t make games so I don’t know what it takes to port a game from one version to the next. But I have a hard time believing that leaving in all of the content for a LEGO game is “too hard” or “too difficult” or “too much” for a Vita game. Cause, like, those are basically SD cards.
Why do gaming companies do this? I feel like this would be similar if the PC version of a game was vastly different than the console version (in terms of content). Or if the PS version is different than the Xbox version. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I always understood why the DS/3DS games were a little different, but the Vita?
What’re your thoughts on cutting content from the full version of a game for handhelds?
This post is part of the #Blaugust series.