The Playstation Thread

[Jinsai]

I like it, it's not the handheld to end all handhelds but it's pretty bad ass. I got it at launch for under $200 cause I had a bunch of Best Buy certificates/gift cards, not sure that I would've dropped the full price on it. Not a ton of good games out for it right now. I played Uncharted Golden Abyss for 5 minutes before I remembered that I don't like those games, it does look amazing for a handheld game though. Unless you really want to play some games that are already out or some that are coming in the near future like Resistance or Gravity Rush(which looks awesome) then I would say waiting for a price drop would probably be a good idea unless you have some money to burn. There are some pretty good PSN games for it though, Plants vs. Zombies and Super Stardust Delta are both awesome, and I've heard Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack and Escape Plan are great but I haven't gotten around to checking them out.

I like my Vita, but the games I've liked the most on it so far have been Japanese imports. Tales of Innocence R and Ragnarok Odyssey have been a blast.
They'll probably never bring out Tales of Innocence in the US, but Ragnarok Odyssey is coming out in August. Other than that, I've really liked Uncharted, Super Stardust, Tales from Space, and Rayman Origins (which is fantastic on the little screen). The Vita version of Plants VS Zombies is a little frustrating and it glitches out when too many zombies come on the screen (really!!!). I'm trying to get into Ninja Gaiden, and it's been rough. I've been meaning to pick up Disgaea 3 and Escape Plan.

The downsides: You still can't play PS1 classics on it. More than half of the PSP games I'd already bought on the PSN are still not compatible with the Vita. For me these are MAJOR downsides, and if I'd known about this before buying it I might have hesitated. I'm happy I got it either way though, and I've been playing it a lot. Another issue is the button/stick layout. It seems fine for most games, but with playing Ninja Gaiden and Mortal Kombat I've run into some issues... namely that the left analog stick is a little too close to the D-pad, so it gets in the way. This is a big issue for fighting games imo. On that same note, trying to push X and Square together at the same time can prove to be obnoxious because (similarly) the right analog stick gets in the way.

The biggest problem with the Uncharted game is the unnecessary inclusion of EVERY gimmicky feature the Vita has to offer. The motion and touch controls are mostly useless, and it's fine generally because it usually allows you to use the normal button controls. But then, you're constantly running into lame mini"games," like "here dust off this shovel" or "tilt the device so Drake doesn't fall off the log." This kind of shit seriously ruins the momentum of the game, and occasionally it's just frustrating. The game is otherwise great, looks fantastic, but then there's this aspect where it feels like it's a tech demo for the Vita. At least it didn't require you to use those ridiculous AR cards.

Can't wait for Persona 4 Golden to come out, and I'm interested to see how Resistance is, vita Little Big Planet should be great, and Gravity Rush looks amazing. I'll probably pick up the US version of Ragnarok Odyssey when it comes out here, especially if I can sell the JP copy for enough to buy the US one. More games I'm excited about are New Little King's Story, Dragon's Crown, Final Fantasy X HD, Metal Gear Collection, and (eventually) Ys: Celceta no Jukai. I'll probably pick up the new Sly Cooper game for it.

Netflix is nice to have on a portable device, and the screen is great. The AR cards are a terrible idea.

Still, I'm more into niche games than most people. I'm not sure there's as much on there to keep people as occupied. They need to get some more announcements in at E3.