After today's news that many retailers had quickly sold out of the "revolutionary" Ouya, it seems that I was one of the lucky ones to get my hands on this cheap little gizmo that has high hopes of tackling the big boys on the block, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. For those of you interested in the console, but still on the fence about getting one, or if your local Target store managed to sell out before you could grab one, below you'll find some of my first impressions on this new console.
- Unboxing...
Sliding off the Ouya's cardboard sheathe and decorative bit of orange plastic bearing the words "and so begins the revolution," the first thing that strikes you is just how tiny this console is. At about 2 cubic inches, you can easily hold this thing in the palm of your hand, and it's perhaps the first system that's both outweighed and outsized by the controller. There are AC adapters bigger than this thing. It's definitely a sleek little thing, all sharp edges and shiney bits of dark plastic. I'm hopeful that the old addage "good things come in small packages" holds true with this.
- The Controller...
The controller has a decent weight to it, but seems a bit bulkier than what I'm used to. The bottoms of the controller's "handles" don't taper off to an as smooth finish quite as quickly as the 360 or PS3 controllers. More "stubby," really. It sports fairly tight analong sticks, and has the exact same shape layout as a 360 controller, but easy enough for most gamers to pick up and figure out. There's almost a valley of sorts created by the angle of the shoulder buttons, which will probably take some getting used to.
Instead of offering a battery pack or wire to keep the controller going, the Ouya controller has an interesting spot to hid the batteries. The left and right handles can be easily pried off, and it's there that your double A's belong, no spring loaded covers seen in so many toys or TV remotes.
The touch screen can be a little clumsy to use at first, but its far better using it to navigate the web browser than fiddling with the d-pad or analog stick. It's not as responsive as the touch pad seen on most laptops, but workable.
- Setting Up...
By no means am I a tech guy, so I loathe the idea of fiddling about due to an inherent fear that if I screw it up, I probably won't be able to fix it. That was one thing I loved about the HDMI option for the 360 or PS3, it required an easy change to your TV/monitor's video settings, and a single plug, and you're all set up. Upon unboxing the Ouya, I was happy to see that an HDMI cord came standard. I think most gamers have made the jump to higher end televisions, and most TV's today support HDMI, so points for that.
But the cable itself is only a miserable 3 feet long, making your desired placement for this thing somewhat impractical at times. With certain tv's (such as my own), the HDMI input is on the side, and God help you if your tv is set up in such a way where the wall outlet, power strip, or whatever you used is on the other side. The power cord for the Ouya isn't much longer, so the chances are good you'll have some wires criss-crossed over other wires. A small complaint, but an issue nonetheless.
Installing the Ouya is a breeze. It seems a bit lengthy, but awful memory retention give me no real basis for comparison, so I could just be talking out of my butt. Besides, there's a nice bit of entertainment as you're entertained by humorous messages in place of the standard "loading," phrases like: preparing to televise the Revolution, tasting rainbows, being awesome in space, bending genres, etc.
The video signal had a tendency of dropping out randomly, but the issue seemed to go away once I used a different HDMI port. I suppose it was a problem on my end, but looking at various message boards, it seems as though other owners are reporting having similar issues.
My biggest issue I had with the Ouya is that I had to monkey around a bit with the settings of my TV in order to get sound from the games. Initially, the only time I could get any sound was when I selected some of the basic tones from the default notifications menu. Again, this seems to be a problem that others are experiencing, and the same methods I took didn't always work. Even after fixing the issue, there still seems to be a bit of an audio delay. This is a big strike against the system, as playing something like Dub Wars, folks are seriously losing out. Suggested audio settings in the game's manual would be a big help for this, but are not provided. From my limited experience, I will say that the audio seems to work fine, provided your TV's is not set for "Game Mode." Go figure...
There was also a small issue connecting to my online network, but it was quickly resolved. Again, this is crucial as an online connection is basically the only way to do much of anything, provided you'd rather just transfer files back and forth from a SD card.
I'd be willing to look the other way on some of these issues if this was a real "working out of the garage," kind of deal, but if you recall, the Ouya set a Kickstarter record, managing to not only make their original $950,000 goal in the campaign's first 24 hours, but an additional $50,000 on top of that by the end of the day. By the time the campaign was over, they had brought in over $8 million, so they certainly had the capital to figure this out before launching. Still, it's early yet, and the kinks could likely be ironed out with an online update.
- The Library...
This is supposedly one of the Ouya's biggest strengths, as every game the system has to offer is either free, or has a demo available. But at the same time, that's also one of its weaknesses. With the Ouya still in its infancy, a lot of the games aren't quite as polished as perhaps they would be had they been developed to bigger name consoles. Upon starting up certain games, you begin with the BUY NOW prompt already selected, meaning you can rack up a big bill very quickly if you're not careful. This isn't the fault of the Ouya team, but rather, the game's developers, so be careful.
A great number of games/apps offered by the console are ones you've no doubt seen on Facebook, Vector and Chrono Blade spring to mind. I've only jumped into a few of the games that greet you after following the main menu's "Discover" prompt, and played some noteworthy titles, but none of them have yet to really grab me. The Xboxes have their Halos, and Nintendo its Marios, but there's yet to be a true exclusive for the Ouya. Square Enix put out a remastered version of Final Fantasy III, but that's about as close as it gets.
Again, it's still early, and there's potential with this new console, but in all honesty, it's not necesarrily a bad thing if you've yet to pick this up. A $100 sure is a great deal for a video game system that does great things, but it sure can sting if it doesn't. It's still too early to judge this as a success or a failure, but I'll keep plugging away on this thing. Next, we'll go more into depth of what games are offered by the console, how well the emulators and roms work, and possibly into the system's hackability, provided I can find my tiny set of hex keys.