Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/22/review_ouya_android_games_console/
We see ya, Ouya, you tasty Android games console gear
But you won’t leave Sony and and Microsoft quaking to their controllers
Posted in Personal Tech, 22nd January 2014 10:04 GMT
Review The Powers That Be at El Reg originally asked me to take a shufty at the Ouya gaming box when it first launched in the middle of 2013. I demurred. It seemed obvious to me at the time that the success or failure of this Kickstarter poster child would depend entirely on the enthusiasm with which game makers and the wider developer community clasped the Ouya to their respective bosoms.
Ouya: compact console
Six months after release it is a different kettle of fish - there has been ample time for everyone concerned or interested to get their act together and their ducks in a row. The question, then is: Is the Ouya worth 99 quid?
For just shy of 100 notes you get the stylish and dinky little Ouya box, which comes complete with USB, Micro USB, HDMI and Ethernet connectivity, a power supply, an HDMI cable and a conventional-looking PlayStation-style controller.
I’ve heard people slate the controller for being cheap and nasty, but once you’ve got the batteries (supplied) slotted into each of the two hand grips, it feels solid and weighty enough and does the job with little discernible pause or lag. It’s not the best games controller I’ve ever used but nor is it close to the worse. Extra controllers will set you back around £37 a pop which is wee bit steep when you consider that a swish Sony DualShock 4 can be yours for £50.
There’s a trackpad on the controller for navigating the console’s UI
Usefully, a small black area in the centre of the controller is a touch pad. This makes navigating around with the Ouya’s underlying Android 4.1.2 OS so much easier than it would otherwise be.
The altogether higher quality Ouya box is an impressively stylish and small affair, though it looks like it's upside down. It’s powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor with 1GB of RAM. That’s the same hardware spec as the original Google Nexus 7 tablet. As a specification, it was a tad dated at launch and is now almost antediluvian. But all the games I played looked good and ran smoothly and it pumped out a 1080p video signal without any problems. It’s a very quiet device too, emitting barely more than a whisper even when the cooling fan was running.
The controller connects to the Ouya console using Bluetooth. If you leave it alone for more than five minutes, the connection is severed to save power. This can take a while to get used to and on several occasions it took a moment or three for me to realise it had stopped working. Connecting the Ouya to your Wi-Fi network and the controller - up to four are supported - to the console is child’s play and the work of mere moments.
Unobtrusive little Ouya at home in the Taylor household’s less-than-cutting-edge AV crib
There’s only 8GB of built-in storage, falling to around 5.6GB after the system has put its tanks on the lawn, but a software update last year added support for external USB storage which you can use to store media files or downloaded apps and games. Stuff a 64GB stick in the Ouya’s rear slot and you should never want for space.
The Ouya’s user interface now feels a lot less beta than it did at launch. Apart from just looking smarter, a double tap of the Ouya button on the controller while in a game now pulls up a system menu rather than just quitting play. It’s now all just a lot more user friendly than it was back in the summer, vital for something being pitched to the casual gamer rather than a machine aimed at the sort of chaps who spend whole weeks locked away in a dark room playing Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto and avoiding showers.
I certainly can’t accuse Ouya of neglecting its little box of tricks either. In the month I had my review unit, two new system updates rolled down the ’pike, each making the console just a little faster and easier to use.
Ports at the back: power, Ethernet, Micro and full-size USB, and HDMI
At launch, the Ouya got a bit of a kicking over the lack of games, deservedly so. There were fewer titles in the Ouya library than there are 20 pound notes in the wallet of my great-grandfather Hamish McTaylor, and many of those that were available were of questionable quality.
But six months on and things have taken a turn for the better. Looking at random for three games I’ve been playing on my Nexus 7 recently I found Neon Shadow was available as was Shadowgun, though Dead Effect was missing. But as Meatloaf said, two out of three ain’t bad.
Name of the game
Ouya’s website has a list of all available titles that run happily on the console, and if you want to know how many there are... go ahead and count ’em. There were 500 titles available as of the start of November, according to Ouya, and there are certainly enough in there to keep me amused for the foreseeable future.
Ouya’s main menu screen
And there are some good Google Play ports available including The Cave, Hero of Many, Another World and Ravensword: Shadowland to name but four. Another couple of titles worth a shout in this hack’s humble opinion are Meltdown and Reaper. All games come with a free trial so you can play before you pay, and prices are reasonable. Neon Shadow will cost you £1.99 while Shadowgun will set you back £2.99.
Browsing for games is helped by handy genre categorisation so you can dive straight into the selection of available FPS or RPG titles if those are so the sort of games that float your boat. The only genre lacking decent representation is racing games, with neither Need for Speed nor Real Racing 3 - or something similar - available. Other key Android mobile game titles are missing too, such as Dead Trigger 2 and NOVA 3.
In fact, there aren’t any EA titles in the Ouya library at all, and I couldn’t find any Gameloft titles either though it is listed as a supported developer. Of course with the Ouya being as ‘open’ as a platform can really be there ways around the lack of titles from the major software houses.
A reasonable - but not comprehensive - selection of shooters
As this thread on the XDA Developers forum shows, installing Modern Combat 4 is really not that much of a challenge, ditto getting the controller to play nice. Games aside, I installed Netflix and the Amazon Appstore in minutes and both work perfectly.
More seriously, the Ouya lacks any killer exclusive games, something to give it a Halo halo. Towerfall and Clark - a cracking little game that reminds me of Head Over Heels but channelled via WALL-E - are two noteworthy titles from the rather small selection of Ouya-only games currently available. That catastrophe that was Ouya’s Free the Games Fund initiative has a lot answer for when it comes to the lack of exclusive titles. How much trust you want to place in this is a matter for you, but Ouya lists a fair number of titles due on the platform over the next couple of years in a Coming Soon section.
If the games that I have been playing are anything to go by, the adaptation of titles from a touchscreen to controller interface has generally been successful. Shadowgun played for all the world like a shooter designed for a control pad from the off. Some games like Hero of Many and Sine Mora actually benefit from the transition because your finger no longer obscures the view.
Sideloading the Netflix app worked a treat
I didn’t encounter any graphics glitches during my gaming though that may have been a matter of good luck with my game selection. No problems to report when it came to network gaming, other than me getting my arse handed to me on a plate by more competent opponents on a regular basis that is.
Of course the big problem, the elephant in the room, is the absence of the Google Play store. This means that if you want to play a favourite mobile title on your telly you have to buy the game a second time. It also means that the Ouya’s ecosystem is destined to always appear a minnow when compared to Google Play’s whale. Sideloading the Play Store won’t get you anywhere, but it’s certainly doable as you can see here. On a more positive note, there is a small but growing number of non-gaming apps available, including ports of XBMC and VLC which together turn the Ouya into a nice little media player.
I also have to flag up a concern I have that the Tegra 3 underpinnings of the system may prohibit new games written, or being written, for the latest fire-breathing Qualcomm chips with 2GB of RAM used in newer Android devices from ever being ported to the Ouya. That said, I can’t see the Ouya being disconnected from the Taylor household’s telly anytime soon so maybe there’s life in the old Tegra 3 dog yet.
Once the batteries are in, the controller feels solid and weighty enough
The Reg Verdict
Is the Ouya competition for the likes of the PS4 and Xbox One? No, don’t be silly, of course it isn’t. It’s not even competition for the PS3 and Xbox 360. But for the price it’s still not a bad little box of tricks.
The range of games is good and there are now a couple of decent media player apps that expand the box’s capabilities. The hacking possibilities are very broad. The added support for USB storage is another big bonus. More importantly, it looks like support both from the makers and from developers is reasonably healthy - meaning the ownership experience should get more rewarding as time passes.
Would I have recommended one to a friend at launch? No. Would I now? Just about, yes. It’s just a bit of a shame that - even taking the UK’s VAT rate into consideration - the price isn’t closer to £80 here in Blighty. ®