- Compatible with PSTV
- Runs on firmware 3.36. Doesn't require an update.
- Comes bundled with a single player version of the Disney Infinity base. (one round slot one hex slot only)
- Base is bluetooth and has a non-removable battery. It recharges with an included micro-USB cable.
- Version shipped is 1.0.0.
I've played 2.0 on every console so I was hoping for a solid ARM port of the mobile version (minus the touch controls). Unfortunately there are are couple of major issues:
- loading times are WAY too long (minutes instead of seconds)
- framerates are poor - roughly 15-25fps depending on what you're doing and how much is on-screen.
- stuttering occurs whenever textures/models are loaded from the memory card
Graphically it's actually pretty good. There are no video options to disable unwanted effects for fps though... Also - I have a sneaky suspicion that internally the game renders lower than native resolution. (maybe others can comment on this)
I'm hoping a future patch improves the game because I can't see this selling well. It's possible that the game takes advantage of firmware 3.50+ features which might help the performance but I haven't tested that.
The Vita release was odd. It came out immediately AFTER the 3.0 announcement and retailed at $59.99 when all the other console starter packs were slashed by $20. GameStop was forced to offer a free Ironman/Black Widow playset with the Vita purchase because of this. (In the US GameStop had an exclusive for the game)
The Vita was the only platform (that received 2.0) that wasn't mentioned in the 3.0 announcement.
If you have any specific questions let me know. Everything from the console version is included. I've been able to crash the game multiple times on the other systems in places so when I get the necessary toys I'll test the Vita version to see how it compares.
(update 1)
Another major annoyance is menu lag while in a Toy Box or Game. (Spending skill points and buying toys is very laggy) Navigating the main menu screen is much more responsive giving me another impression that they were hitting some strict memory limits.
Here are some specific framerate examples (upperbound is conservative):
- Hall of Heroes with all characters level 20 (statues not yet activated) ~ 5-10fps.
- Toy Box Introduction vehicle tutorial race ~10-15fps.
I had a chance to do some leveling and spark mining with levels made on the PC. (Most consoles can't handle levels made for the PC without some slight modifications being made) Ignoring the framerate the Vita actually showed it had better memory management than the Xbone (with latest updates applied). Over a twelve hour period it kept chugging along without locking up or crashing. The controller did become unresponsive but the base remained connected (mining continued uninterrupted). I had to put the PSTV into suspend mode with the power button to restore the controller. The game picked up right where it left off - no lost levels or sparks (that's good). FPS was in the single digits but that was expected.
In terms of spark earning the Vita version is on par with the current gen consoles. This means it's score is average - above the mobile versions but well below the PC port. A quick estimate at my current rate is about 1,000,000 sparks in under 48 hours (unattended).
(update 2)
1.0.1 update is out (under 30MB) addressing performance and stability. I really haven't noticed a significant change in performance although admittedly I'm focusing on the playsets right now. They might have fixed something in the other modes.
Hall of Heroes and Hall of Super Heroes both contain everything on the console including the bonus star wars toys and hidden areas. The two Tron statues that were PC exclusive are not present. (Quorra and Sam Flynn now have a physical release for 3.0 and while the statue models might be there there's no way to tell if these two would be an exception to the compatibility rule.)
Completed the Avengers playset. Nothing really out of the usually. There are uneven production qualities throughout. The cutscenes are usually (and are initially) rendered by the in-game engine. Towards the end of the campaign they started to switch over to video which you can easily spot due to the heavy handed compression they chose. Poor fps near the end at the foot of Starks tower when everything starts to ice over.
I'm about halfway through the Spidey playset. Cutscenes at the beginning were video and I spotted two that contained encoding errors (noticable glitches in the video). That should never have made it past QA. There's an interesting game crash in the campaign which boots me back to the live menu. I'll post a screenshot of that later when I've completed the game. The Spidey playset seems buggier than the Avengers. I've found a glitch with overlapping geometry that I haven't been able to replicate in the other one even though they share many of the same assets.
Spidey framerates are especially bad (single digit bad). I think it's because of the number and complexity of the enemy models. It's occurs primarily whenever you're attacked in the city (which is almost always) making the experience less than enjoyable.
If you've ever tried to play a modern(ish) PC game on a notebook with integrated graphics you're probably familiar with what this experience is like. The game is simply demanding more resources than the hardware can handle. Considering how well the mobile versions run I'm a bit disappointed by the team that did this. There may have been factors out of their control but ultimately it's their signature on it..
Some clarification on the sparks I mentioned before.. Leveling a character from 0 to 20 (using the same toy box level) takes roughly:
~ 13 minutes on the PC (experience boost only*)
~ 40 minutes on the Vita (experience boost, power disc boon**)
* experience boost is granted as you take ownership of characters placed on the base. Mine is above 125%.
** some power discs increase spark drop quantities or modify their drop rates/radius
I was able to try the game on a 3.50 PSTV. I saw no difference compared when on 3.36. The game does not appear to take advantage of the extra memory that was released in the current firmware.
(update 3)
Added some commented screenshots below. Changed the title to reflect that I have only tried this on a PSTV. (feel free to comment if you have it for the Vita)
I finished the Spiderman and Guardians of the Galaxy playsets. Crucially there are missions in both of these that are borderline unplayable and should never have made it past Q&A. All of the first person shooting missions are affected by this. There are several of these in the Spiderman campaign including the final fight with Green Goblin. In Guardians of the Galaxy the shooting is stationary (you're not flying around a city) but the fps and controller lag are incredibly even worse. You press a direction on the controller and a half second to up to TWO seconds later you see the corresponding action. (All the while you are shooting moving objects with a cursor - requiring precision..) These missions were not fun at all on the PSTV. It was not uncommon for the framerate to drop below 5fps - and that is in addition to controller lag.
I started the Toy Box Games and completed all of 'Escape from the Kyln' (except survival mode). I'm almost finished with 'Attack on Asgard'. The other two are 'Stitch's Tropical Rescue' and 'Brave Forest Siege'. In 'Escape from the Kyln' the largest issue is slowdown caused by the number of enemies on the screen and long-view camera angle. It's *just* playable. An issue in 'Attack on Asgard' (which is a tower defense style of game) is controller lag; I've fallen in lava many times running from point to point when I shouldn't have. Load times however are the biggest problem in the two Toy Box tower defense games. If you die during the game you need to physically put a new figure on the base to continue. The problem is that it takes about 30 seconds (upwards to a minute) for the character's textures and geometry to appear in game - all the while with you stuck (literally) watching your spawn effects while the enemies continue unchallenged in the background. 'Attack on Asgard' is fun but I've lost many battles because of this. Controller lag leads to death - death leads to loading which then results in a loss. It's just stupid. The game should pause until the character's assets are completely loaded.
Most of the cutscenes are real-time but for some reason (even on the consoles) the endings are pre-rendered videos of in-game engine rendered scenes. The Vita appears to be using one of the console's videos (not sure which) ((take a look at the Avenger's final boss battle below for an example)).
I've been checking out some of the reviews that are gradually being posted. There's one clown on YouTube trying to pass off PS4 footage of the game in his Vita review. The screenshots below are the real thing.
Most of the reviews I've read have all been for the handheld. Someone was able to try it on both the Vita and the PSTV and is reporting that the PSTV suffers from worse framerates. That's in-line with what I've experienced. The ARM port for the phones was able to dynamically adjust the UI to match the rendering target screen (an attempt at consolidating their codebase). This feature is also present in the PC version (accidentally rendered the UI at mobile resolution in a past update that has now been fixed). It's likely the Vita version contains the same code. What this means is that instead of the game rendering at a fixed 960x544 and allowing the built-in Vita scaler to handle the upscaling the game engine itself is probably interpreting the display as the rendering target and trying to do it on it's own (at least on the PSTV). I tested this theory by lowering the output resolution from 720p to 480p and can confirm there was a slight gain in fps. This is a clearly a bug. The game is advertised as being 'PS TV Compatible' but it's clear that it was not tested as well as it should have been. 5-15 fps DOES NOT a console experience make.
There is currently no digital version of the game on the PSN store available to purchase. (PS3 & PS4 owners have this option but Vita owners do not - even though all three platforms require a base to play). This breaks the 'digital release with retail on day one' promise that Sony made with the Vita's introduction. I was *hoping* that the Vita memory card could help improve load rates (especially if the game card used cheap memory) but we may never know.
Should have an update or two later.
(update 4)
Added pictures of disassembled base for those interested.
Screenshots:
(cutscene - real-time render. texture are somewhat washed out)
(noticeable fps drops when flying)
(draw distance is pretty good)
(severe slowdown on final boss - especially when he spawns enemies)
(video codec compression example. note the texture and lighting difference - it's console video)
(spiderman playset glitch allowing impossible mesh overlap)
(another draw distance example )
(severe slowdown and control lag in these missions. less than 5 frames a second at points)
(boss mission)
(guardians of the galaxy tutorial mission)
(almost impossible to complete due to framerate and controller lag)
(forced loading dock door that hides loading behind the scenes - also in consoles)
(guardians draw distance example)
(guardians final conflict)
(loading screen - with a newly added progress bar to watch. can take several minutes to load sometimes)
(special toys are all present. this is a completed hall of heroes. behind the speeder is the door to the genie's treasure room)
(game breaking error. happens in spidey, guardians, toybox)
(disney infinity base - opened)
(without plastic housing)
(top board)
(bottom board)
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