OUYA reviews

[Jeff Strong]

So what's the verdict on the OUYA as a console in general? From what I've seen, it's sort of neat for simple games, but I'm still pretty surprised that people donated almost 9 million dollars for it.

 

[Lord Boron]

I don't have one, but I'm hearing mixed review. It has potention, but it's not there yet. Everyone seems to think the controller sucks. I still want to get one though for emulation.

 

[netizen]

If the comments on the kickstarter page are anything to go by then i'd guess that the response to the OUYA has been less than warm.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console/comments

 

[Jeff Strong]

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people are bummed, based on those comments. I wonder how the 12 dudes who donated over $10K feel.

 

[Lord Boron]

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people are bummed, based on those comments. I wonder how the 12 dudes who donated over $10K feel.

That's one expensive console..... Although if you have that kind of money to throw around for a kickstarter, you can probably just shrug it off as you drive around in your Lamborghini.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I think people's expectation levels were out of line with what an Android-based console could deliver.

 

[Heretic]

Nice little emulation machine i guess

 

[Lord Boron]

I haven't seen any in the stores. I'll probably have to order it online.

 

[Pete]

i got one on retail launch june 25th it's really cool for certain things, it's also a let down for certain things. My biggest request for pinball arcade on ouya is please please please add a vertical rotate option. It's really easy for allot of us to rotate our tv's or projectors and I like the vertical views so much more, also the vertical view makes it easy to see the stuff on the table. pinball arcade isn't the best on ouya but i think vertical display would fix the muddy textures a little, on my android tablet with tegra 2 it always looks better vertical. The biggest let down for my about ouya is it doesn't play videos yet. I though the one thing ouya would definitely beat xbox360/xboxone & ps3/ps4 at would be playing videos in terms of being able to play pretty much any file type, but as of right now there is no video player on the ouya, xbmc isnt out yet and no official word exist if it really will be, just an 8 month old non-promise. and "side-loading" it is tricky to figure out and once you finally do xbmx is way to glitchy to use on ouya. They have this thing called plex and that is all. Plex isn't what i would call a video player it's a streamer, for example it can't play a video off a thumb drive all it can do is stream video from your computer to the ouya which is using your computers resources to do so and depends on a good network connection to work, also it's lowered quality than watching a real blu-ray hd movie plugged right into your tv, most may not even realize this but believe me streaming is not like watching the real thing. unfortunately ouya's wirless internet adapter is very bad, possibly the worst wireless adapters i have ever used as it refuses to connect to my router most places in my house whereas every other device i have has no issues. Even if you set plex up and got it working which is a *****, you still are out of luck if you wanted to do something like take your mini console which is so happily portable sized over to a friends house to watch a movie file on it, your gonna need to spend at least 20 minutes setting up his computer to work with it. Emulation is great on the ouya, seriously awesome and it's worth it for that alone. But somethings are weird, like GSNES is a great snes emulator but why do i need to connect to the ouya network over the internet to load a saved state? seriously if your not connected to the internet and you try to load a saved state (that you didnt need internet to save) it says "cannot connect to the ouya network". that terrible programing, how many games require you have to have an internet connection to load a saved game? it almost feels like they are watching you big brother style with that. The controller is pretty bad, luckfully you can use a ps3 controller and it works great for most games. I think some great and fun games could be made for the ouya, but it's going to be probably till the ouya2 comes out till they really have a decent line up of games built up. If the system continues to release year after year I think the ouya 4 or 5 might have the power of an xbox 360, wait for that one, ha.

 

[Pete]

also i'd like to note that so far the pinball arcade season 1 is the only thing ive have purchased on the ouya market, hopefully something else will release soon, even with my bashing of the system i do like the little thing and am hopful someone can come up with something awesome for it

 

[superballs]

Ouya is still very much in it's infancy. It has potential to be great but it soinds like it really needs to shape up in some regards

 

[StarDust4Ever]

One major bummer for me regarding Pinball Arcade was that I downloaded and purchased all of the available tables prior to the official launch update that went live the day before the June 25th launch date. People who owned a Kickstarter Ouya console had access to the store prior to the launch update and did not have the option to purchase season passes. I could have saved at least $20 bucks by getting the Season 1 pass, and another $20 bucks if I'd had the opportunity to buy the Season 2 pass. I was already up to Table Pack 14 with the update, so the opportunity for savings was gone. Another minor gripe is that the Pro mode Operator's Menu, as well as the extra balls / num balls selections on the Gottlieb EM tables, are not accessible without touch pad access. This means if I want to play TPA with the PS3 controller (because the stock Ouya controllers tend to be laggy in all but the most sterile network environment), I need to change the Operator settings with the Ouya controller, then exit the software and hook up the PS3 controller for lag-free gaming. 95% of the menu screens work with buttons so I don't understand why the Operator's menu and the extra balls settings can't be accessed with buttons as well.

The Ouya has some weird design quirks. For starters, the backer consoles had some major controller issues which were later fixed. Secondly, the Ouya wireless is not that good. The controller and console use aluminum plates around the sides which act as a Faraday cage by blocking RF radiation. This metallic surface acts as a shield which reflects radio waves much the way a mirror reflects light.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
Secondly, I have disassembled my Ouya and found that the Ouya's motherboard has a tiny chip mounted antenna which is roughly one centimeter in length. The bluetooth/wifi chip transmits at 2.4Ghz so for optimal results, a quarter wave wire antenna would need to be 3.1cm, or roughly 1.25 inches, and for best results a dipole antenna would be 2.5 inches from tip to tip (center tapped). But instead, an integrated antenna a small fraction of the optimal size was used. As much as I would love to mod this part, since it would probably get better reception even with two pieces of wire sticking off the motherboard to form a guetto-rigged dipole, my microsoldering skills aren't very good and I would risk destroying the Ouya's only means of communication with the outside world. Lastly, the Ouya controller is extremely prone to interferance, often making the controller totally unresponsive. My fiance lives in an apartment complex with over twenty wifi networks occupying the 2.4 Ghz band, and that is wifi only, not counting Bluetooth, cordless phones, and other devices. My Ouya works fine and is mostly lag-free at my mom's house in the suburbs, but it was unusable at my fiance's place. Wii/Wii-U, PS3, etc do not share the same performance issues, even in a congested network environment. I'll soon be installing a custom acrylic case so it won't act as a glorified RF shield anymore.

PS3 controllers will provide a much better connection to the Ouya with less input latency, but there is no touchpad support. Also once you sync multiple controllers to the Ouya, it is currently impossible to reassign them to a different player. For instance, suppose I have a PS3 controller synced as Player 1, then I connect an Ouya controller as player 2. Now I attempt to open a single player game that needs touchpad support. I exit game, back up to the home screen menu to power down the PS3 controller. Now I'm left with Ouya as player 2. I power down Ouya controller (player 2). No I have no controllers synced. If I attempt to pair the Ouya controller, it connects as player 2 again. For some reason, the Ouya still thinks the PS3 controller is player 1 even though it's no longer connected. Accessing the controller sync page will show there's nothing connected for player 1, yet even if I disconnect all controllers and wait 30 seconds for the controller sync page to automatically pop up with no controllers, pressing the sync button on the Ouya controller only reconnects it as player two. It's ludicrus. The only workaround to rearrange the controller order is to power off the console using the top button, and reconnect with the controller I want to use as player 1. Additionally, you cannot use the menu to power down the console. That only puts it to sleep, where the slightest disturbance, even cycling the TV inputs, will wake it back up. You've got to get up manually and use the top button to completely power off the Ouya. And you can't use the controller to wake the system either, you've got to get up and press the top button.

Yet with all the ridiculous design flaws in software and hardware, I really love the Ouya. It's just so awesome and carefree. The Ouya console just gets better with every update. The free-to-try store model is brilliant because I never have to risk wasting money on a game that sucks. And I'm sure every console gamer on the planet has at some point sunk $60 into a game only to regret it after five minutes of play.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Interesting:

http://kotaku.com/ouyas-latest-scheme-tries-to-crowdsource-its-console-e-1093639720

 

[brakel]

I played an ouya over the weekend. A friend of mine was a kickstarter backer and he brought it over to my place for us to check out while I upgrade is PS3. I was way underwhelmed. Everything on it looked like PS2 graphics at best including TPA. TPA was the most polished of the half dozen games that we tried.

 

[Ryan Routon]

yeah not surprising considering the hardware. It does a lot better than I had anticipated though. Whatcha gonna do.

 

[superballs]

Bad boys bad boys...

 

[StarDust4Ever]

Still worth it in my humble opinion, especially if you don't have an android or apple device, and you want to get table packs on day one and play them with a real game controller. Farsight should really consider icade and pinball controller support for TPA on apple and android.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Still worth it in my humble opinion, especially if you don't have an android or apple device, and you want to get table packs on day one and play them with a real game controller. Farsight should really consider icade and pinball controller support for TPA on apple and android.

icade is supported in the iOS version.

 

[brakel]

Still worth it in my humble opinion, especially if you don't have an android or apple device, and you want to get table packs on day one and play them with a real game controller. Farsight should really consider icade and pinball controller support for TPA on apple and android.

Oh, yes. If someone wants a cheap way to get TPA and don't have another device then this is a viable alternative.

yeah not surprising considering the hardware. It does a lot better than I had anticipated though. Whatcha gonna do.

My knock was on the hardware not on TPA.