My Ouya arrived!

Hi everybody!

I know I promised some posts, but I finally received my Ouya and I had to write an article about it for CJP, so I have been testing it out. What do I think about this little box?

Everything that was in the box

I was one of the Kickstarter backers who expected their Ouya by the beginning of April this year, but the release got delayed until end June. Since I was at a festival, I only picked it up at the post office 3 days ago, and was unpleasantly surprised I had to pay another 28 euros (about $36) import taxes. Sigh...
Anyway, I went home, immediately connected it, and started testing out some games.

Maybe a little word on the hardware first. As far as I could tell, the games ran smoothly, so performance-wise, it's quite good. The controller feels okay, only the shoulder buttons feel a bit cheap and the joysticks seem to have a larger dead zone than Xbox360/PS3 controllers, but for most games it still controls fine. It also has a touch pad, but that one doesn't work well. Didn't need it yet though.

Now the games! A few that we enjoyed were:

• Vector
  A game about parkour. Simple but not easy, beautifully animated. And completely free! :)
  
• Knightmare Tower
  Quite original and highly addictive. You are launched into the air and must stay afloat by hitting monsters. With the loot you collect, you can buy upgrades. You can keep playing the game for free, but then the upgrades are locked to a max level. $4 to unlock.
  
• BombSquad
  Fun party game with a lot of different modes. Mainly you need to defeat your opponents with bombs. You can pick up upgrades like mines and freezing bombs. Try it out for 1 hour, after that, you'll have to pay $5.
  
• BombballVery nice looking and sounding eSport game. You have to shoot the ball in the opponents goal, but there are some pick-ups you need to keep in mind. Fast-paced and fun! Comes with 10 multiplayer sessions, $3 to unlock.
• Ice Rage
  Just a fun ice-hockey game, like you'd expect it to be. Different characters have different abilities. Free version has 3 daily multiplayer sessions, $3 to unlock.
  

Some other games worth checking out: Super Crate Box, League of Evil, Shadowgun... I probably missed a few, but these sprang to my mind.

I really like the try-before-you-buy, especially because some games are not really fun. I think Ouya still has a long way to go, but there surely is a lot of potential too. I wonder what the future will bring.

I bought the Ouya in the first place to develop on, so next week, we'll give it a try! :) We still need to discuss what we'll make, I'll keep you updated. ;)

Until next time!
Marcia