Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: An Honest Opinion

I know, this has been out for a while. I was planning on reviewing it back in the week it was released, but my acquisition of my Playstation Vita took this game out of my sights for a while. Better late than never, though, right?


Celebrities and games generally belong on opposite sides of a brick wall, or, even better, in separate, tightly locked vaults. Whenever someone with a minutia of (pop culture) fame gets it into their head to make, star in, or otherwise influence the creation of a game, it never really turns out. The voice acting usually sounds phoned in, (though there are exceptions to that) , or the concepts are total rip-offs (think 50 Cent, Bulletproof or Blood on the Sand), or the games aren’t really anything more than average, (in the case of John Woo’s Stranglehold, though how much input he had in that is still a matter for debate, I think). Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning had a different power behind it, though. With the name of an industry giant, Ken Rolston, of Elder Scrolls III and IV fame, talented artist Todd MacFarlane, and well-published fantasy writer R.A Salvatore behind it, Reckoning had huge potential. The problem is, it never really realizes it.


I know, that’s my entire opinion given away in one shot, but I was really disappointed by that realization. I’ve been following the development of Amalur closely, and despite the indicators that it was going to be something less than advertised, like the heavy focus on the combat system, and the screenshots that looked as though they could have been pulled from any fantasy game of the last decade, I had high hopes. I want to  state outright that I didn’t wholly dislike Reckoning. It’s just that it’s unerringly average. There’s nothing that it does that really creates a name for itself, which means that it’s somewhat unmemorable when all is said and done. In a market packed with RPGs, good and bad, that’s just not something you want to happen. I feel like I’m dancing around the point a bit. Bear with me, please.


Right off the bat, Reckoning falls into a fairly big pitfall. This is actually something that Yahtzee, that fully ramblomatic game critic over at The Escapist, mentioned in his review of Two Worlds II, but it’s extremely valid, especially here. In a good Japanese RPG, the game world is fairly restrictive when you start. You follow the path the game lays out for you extremely closely, getting a feel for the story, characters, and world that you’re in. It’s only later that you’re given the freedom to explore more thoroughly, and by that point, you’re usually pretty invested in the story: you know what’s going in the world you’re in. Western RPGs, though, (The Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 in particular) often open up the entire game world from the get-go. You can explore the world almost in its entirety without ever cluing yourself into the plot, and that actually takes something away from the game. The world a game is based around loses some of its charm when its only a backdrop for you to kill and loot on. It’s only with a story that a world can truly come alive. I was nearly level 15 in Reckoning before I realized I hadn’t done a single story quest since emerging from the tower at the beginning of the game. That can sometimes be a point in a game’s favour, if you’re driven to explore the world, but in the case of Reckoning, it was more because of a lack of direction. Yes, I knew that I was supposed to go and speak to Agarth, but I didn’t know why. The world had opened up before I was given time to care, and as such, I never really did.

It's hard for me to care when my character has a perpetual look of complete indifference.

Part of the problem is a fairly un-engaging opening act. You wake up in the Well of Souls, the first successful resurrection  in a gnome-run project to try and eliminate the permanency of death, to give the mortal races of Amalur equal footing in the war against the immortal Fae. It also features the only example I found of the player’s character expressing any emotion: a look of horror and disgust on their face as they wake up on a pile of bodies. Anyway, turns out some Fae are attacking the Well for some reason, so off you go trying to escape while taking the typical action-RPG active tutorial about the types of weapons, armour and magic you can use, to let you figure out which you prefer. The thing is, there isn’t a whole lot established in this scene. Even when you reach the gnome in charge of the well, whose name I’ve totally forgotten, he only gives a couple of very vague inklings as to what’s going on. Part of the reason for this seems to be to keep the player hooked, and invested with finding out what happens next, but the problem is, you’re not given enough information to get invested. It’s possible to get the player involved while revealing very little, RPGs do it all the time, but Reckoning fails to give you that little bit that hooks you into the story, and as such, when you emerge from the Well, you don’t care enough about the character you’re playing to motivate you to learn more about him. When I finally began doing story quests, it wasn’t because I wanted to know what was going on, it was just because I knew that I had to progress through the story eventually. There was absolutely nothing driving me to keep playing, other than my continued efforts to try and like the game a lot more than I found I was.


I’ve been ragging on it kind of hard, but it isn’t all bad. A lot of the monster designs are actually really cool. The Brownies are my personal favourite, just because they look like an odd cross between a lawn gnome and a teddy bear, with wicked sharp teeth. It gives the first few hours of play a nice feel, because in addition to fighting bandits, wolves, bears, and spiders, (in typical action RPG form), you also fight the aforementioned Brownies, boggarts, Ettins, and an array of other creatures that keep the fighting interesting. The problem is, the game doesn’t really keep this up, and after a short time in any area, you’ll have seen all that there is to see. This means that by the time you reach the end of the game, there aren’t really any monsters left to surprise you.

Although sometimes they just flat out refuse to attack you. That's pretty surprising.

The environments you fight these monsters in don’t really hold up, though. They look like they could have been cut and pasted from World of Warcraft, (actually, EverQuest is more likely), or even Fable. There’s a lot of trees, rivers, and caves around. It is quite large, but it’s very sparsely populated. Whether it’s true, or just idle rumour-mongering, I’ve heard that Reckoning was originally intended to be an MMO, (and that there is actually an Amalur MMO in the works), and, even if it isn’t true, I can see why people would think this. The environs are so big, you’d expect to see other players running around, pulling mobs, farming materials, or even ganking the lower level players. But no, it’s just wide open, empty space. The monster population is large enough that you do have distraction from the monotony of running from place to place, but I feel like there should have been more villages, towns, and NPCs around. It would have made the world feel more alive. And maybe, just maybe, it would have made it possible for the world you're in to feel like the actions of you, the Fateless One, actually have some impact. For all their touting about how your decisions could alter everything, you never really see an example of this. I'd like to see a choice I make lead to a destroyed village, or a new one popping up somewhere, or something. Just make me feel like I have an impact on the world, and I'm not just there as eye-candy. Even do what Bethesda does with their games, and have people mention your accolades in ambient dialogue: I just want to feel like something I did had weight. But Reckoning never gives you this feeling, and suffers all the more for it.


I know I haven’t touched on the combat yet, even though that’s one of the game’s biggest selling points, so here it is: yes, the combat is quite fun. I decided that the best way to see whether or not the combat was actually up to snuff was to forgo specializing in more than one area: it’s easy to say your combat system is complex if you’re forcing the player to switch between swords, bows, and magic. So I stuck with the ‘Might’ tree, levelling up my melee abilities, and the game still tosses enough abilities at you to make combat flow very well, even if you just plan on sticking enemies with the pointy end of a sword. Given that the combat director formerly worked on fighting games, the fluidity of the combat is no surprise: it’s like a simplified fighting game system pushed through a filter to make it fit in a fantasy setting. It’s certainly an improvement over the combat in other RPGs, but it’s not enough to carry the game on its own. Confusingly, the games Reckoning system, wherein you slow down time to dispatch nearby enemies and gain an experience boost, actually negates the need for the combat system a little bit, as you can use it to take on bosses without a problem. Yes, you can choose not to, which would technically balance out that particular criticism, but it still points to the notion that the system probably should have been balanced a little better: when the only thing you have going for your game is the combat, implementing a system that then eliminates the need for that combat seems somewhat counter-intuitive.


As for the side-quests themselves, most are pretty common stock: kill this, collect this, find this person, go to this cave to find this person but they turn out to be dead so you grab what's on their corpse and take it back to the quest giver who never seems all that torn up that the person they sent you after is dead. What I did like about the faction quests in particular is that all the runarounds they sent you on were linked. It's not like the Fighter's Guild or Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls IV, where only the last handful of missions have a greater story arc to them. The problem is that since the choices you make don't have any ultimate effect on the world, most of the side-quests feel kind of pointless, and the well-connected story arcs of the Faction quests just lose any impact.

Some of them become a game of follow the yellow indicators on your map, as well.

There are a few buggy moments, too. The camera sometimes has trouble following you, and will often disappear behind walls during a cinematic, or simply break completely during combat. That second didn’t happen often, but it does happen, and in this day and age, a buggy camera should be inexcusable. For the most part, the bugs are small enough as to not get in the way of the game, but because I was trying so hard to like it, their presence was infinitely more noticeable.

There's no excuse for my character not being centred in the screen. Or for the head of that warhammer to be floating...

I know I’ve been kind of hard on it, but that’s purely out of disappointment. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is by no means a bad game: it’s just a lot less than advertised. The fantasy world it takes place in is, for the most part, quite generic, and the story is in no way engaging. There’s just no way to become invested in the events or characters of a story if they all of their dialogue is delivered stiffly through fairly immobile cinematics. The landscape is nothing new, and will be totally familiar if you’ve played an MMO, or any single player fantasy RPG at any point. The combat system is as engaging and visceral as promised, even if you choose to specialize totally in one area and don’t mix and match the three styles, but it’s not enough to carry an entire game. At the end of the day, it’s just a generic fantasy RPG with one innovative gameplay mechanic that simply doesn’t sell it. There was a lot of potential here, and I hope they get another crack at it, but as far as Reckoning is concerned, it’s just too thin. If you’re a fan of action-RPGs, you’ll probably enjoy it, but even then, I wouldn’t recommend buying it at full price. It’s a shame: this was one of the few original IPs I can name being released this year, and I really wanted to like it more than I did.

The Playstation Vita: An Honest Verdict

So, we've come to it, my friends. The official North American launch of the Vita begins (in my time zone) in roughly four hours, and I know a few gamers are eager to get their hands on one, so I'll just jump right into it: do I think you should buy one?

First of all, I want you to know that over the course of the week, I've been playing mine quite a lot. I'm through Uncharted completely already, and have completed most of both Rayman and Escape Plan. I've also been playing a lot of Dissidia, which was a PSP title I always wanted to try that I decided to download onto my Vita. I know it inside and out. I've had to do a hard reset (holding down the power button for 20 seconds) twice over the course of the week because the system froze up, once while playing Uncharted, and once while it was supposed to be shutting down. As soon as I head back to school, I'll be looking into to this to see if I need a new model, but I haven't come across that many accounts of the same happening to others as of yet, and honestly, my PS3 freezes sometimes, and my 360 did too. I'm not hugely worried about it, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention it to you. Keep your receipt handy, should you decide to buy one.

I talked about the 'new hardware honeymoon period' as well, and I have to say that, if that's what I'm experiencing, it's still not over. The Vita remains just as sleek, shiny, and easy to use as it did when I first got it, with one minor addendum: I did notice that I tend to hold it funny, so my left hand starts to hurt a bit with extended play, but that's only with really extended play, and realigning my grip always solves it. Again, this is something somewhat personal, but I want to throw it out there as a possibility. The hardware is good, but it's like dual analog control when it first surfaced: it's something you have to adjust to.

Having enjoyed the games I've been playing as much as I have, I have no qualms about recommend the system based on the software side of things. The launch lineup, as I've said a million times over the last week, started strong, and only looks to be getting stronger. Gravity Rush, Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus, Disgaea, Mortal Kombat, all these are titles I'm looking forward to picking up within the next month. I don't know if the release lineup will continue as strong as it started, but I have high hopes that this is a pretty good indication of what's too come.

I think that sums up my synopsis pretty well. So, my final verdict? Here it is: if you were considering buying the Vita already, I give you a hearty 'go for it!' I can guarantee you'll find something to love, some feature to enjoy, some game to play that will make you glad you bought it. If the intention was already there, don't hesitate.

If you were looking into a handheld system, not sure whether to buy a 3DS or a PS Vita, I would give the Vita a tentative edge. I can't say for sure, since I don't have a 3DS, and it really comes down to what kind of gamer you are, but we've seen what Nintendo handhelds are like before. They did it with the Gameboy, the Gameboy Advanced, and the Nintendo DS. At this point, Nintendo doesn't really have any surprises to offer in the handheld market. Sony, however, got off to a shaky start with the PSP. I don't think that truly showcased what they wanted their handheld system to be, and it seems like they're eager to rectify that with the Vita. The pre-launch week was certainly a good indication of that. So, if you're stuck, not sure which to pick up, I'd urge you to strongly consider the Vita. It's a little pricier, but I believe that it has the potential to be the stronger handheld system given a little time, even if it won't ever match the 3DS in sales.

If you weren't considering the system, then you have a reason. Maybe you're not looking for a handheld, have a problem with Sony, find it too pricey, don't believe it can succeed, whatever. If you weren't going to buy it, nothing I personally can say is going to change your mind. What I will say is that it is definitely worth considering. Whatever your reasons are for not wanting it, I'm sure there is some aspect of the Vita that still interests you. And should the prices on it and its accessories drop to the point where you begin to consider it, then I would buy it. Or at least make friends with someone who has one so that you can decide for yourself. Anyone who enjoys playing video games or just likes technology can find something about the Vita to love, I'm sure.

So, there you have it. My opinions on the Vita itself, and the games that I've picked up for it so far. Now that all that's done with, I really don't know where I'll go next, but I'll think of something. Until then, peace out, internet.

Rayman: Origins: An Honest Opinion

Ubisoft have sank kind of low in my personal opinion over the last few years. I enjoy the Assassin’s Creed series, but what with them releasing one every year for the last three (or is it four?) years like clockwork, I’ve started to grow a little tired of them. They rebooted Splinter Cell into something not quite Splinter Cell, and released a slew of odd minigame collections for the Wii featuring the Raving Rabbids. But alongside those last was Rayman, a character with no arms and legs whom I absolutely adored when I was younger, and so when I learned of the existence of Rayman: Origins, I was instantly pumped.


Rayman: Origins is an old school, side-scrolling platformer, which, aside from the Mario games, and a few indie releases like Super Meat Boy, have been unfortunately absent from the current gaming market for a long time. It follows Rayman and his friends as they venture through the Glade of Dreams, trying to right the chaos that is happening there. There’s actually a bit more to the story than that, including something about the Land of the Livid Dead and some Bubble Dreamer whose having nightmares, which is the cause of all the crazy stuff that’s happening, but for me to tell you about that, I would be indirectly lying. I wasn’t actually sure of the story of the game for most of it. What I knew was that Rayman and his pals managed to wake up some weird people who lived underground, and they got all pissed off, locking Rayman and friends up in cages. I went to the game’s Wikipedia page to get a better idea of what exactly I was trying to accomplish, and came across all that stuff. So, right away, not a huge amount of points in the story department, but, I mean, old school Mario never had anymore story than ‘rescue Peach from Bowser.’ I can’t even remember the story that Crash Bandicoot had. And Super Meat Boy was all about rescuing girl from evildoer as well, so platformers and story aren’t exactly like cheese and crackers, if you get what I mean. In a platformer, it’s the intuitiveness of the level design, the ease of controlling your character, and the collection of arbitrary objects that keep you coming back, and as far as that’s concerned, Rayman: Origins shines like a diamond in the rough. Well, more like a diamond in the almost non-existent, I suppose.

First and foremost: it's got sex appeal, which is a must in games these days. Apparently.

There are five main worlds to unlock in Rayman: Origins, each comprising of a theme that all the levels within that world are based off of. One world is based heavily on musical instruments, so in the levels, you find yourself bouncing on drums, jumping on birds that represent notes on a musical staff, and other thematically related gimmicks. Another is an arctic world, but within the glacier walls, you see frozen fruits, and the water resembles fruit punch (minus the piranhas swimming around waiting to devour you), and some baddies skate around holding up serving trays, so I guess it’s representing the inside of a very confused refrigerator? Regardless, the level design in Rayman is truly exquisite. If just skating through the levels, not bothering to find all of the hidden goodies, you get into an amazing flow as you run, jump, swing and float through the levels. It all has a very organic feel. You know instantly after jumping whether or not you’re going to make it, and exactly how many floating Lumes you’ll manage to hit on the way. The controls are incredibly tight, so getting Rayman to do what you want is never a problem, which, in a platformer, is absolutely imperative. I opted to use the d-pad more often than the analog stick, simply because it felt better to me, but both work equally well. When searching for the hidden goodies in each level, the platforming gets a little trickier. It’s at this point that you have to be extremely precise in the timing of your jumps, and know the levels inside and out. Total completion of Rayman: Origins would require a certain familiarity with each of the levels, one that would only come from repeated playthroughs of each. The levels are enjoyable enough to play that playing through each more than once wouldn’t feel like much of a chore, though, and the frequent variations in play-style: going from classic platforming to sections that are more heavy on swimming to shoot-’em-up sections on the back of a mosquito, make sure that your interest will be held.. The game just flows so well as to easily stand up to multiple plays. Dying doesn’t result in anything but a quick fade to black: there’s no musical cue, no lives to lose, and no eventual ‘Game Over’ screen to break your concentration, or frustrate you to the point of not wanting to play anymore. This allows some of the later levels to get slightly harder without pissing anyone off: there’s no real penalty for dying, save being thrown back to your last checkpoint, which allows you to jump back into the action extremely quickly. This is, however, where the one glaring problem with Rayman shows through. The checkpoint system can, at times, feel extremely arbitrary. There’s no real indication of when you’ve hit a checkpoint, and sometimes they aren’t at the places that feel logical for them to be at. This makes some sections incredibly annoying, and you’ll probably get extremely familiar with certain sections of the game’s last few levels as you try and get through them. There also aren’t any checkpoints in the levels where you’re chasing down the treasure chests (you’ll have to play it yourself to see what I mean), and while it makes sense, given that these levels are extremely brief, but I can guarantee you’ll know most of them backwards and forwards before you manage to complete them. But because of the level design, how well they flow, and how tight the controls are, what could be touted as a major problem becomes little more than a minor gripe. Platforming is enough of a joy that replaying certain sections ad nauseam is never a huge issue.

Yeah, that's a lemon wedge on top of an anthropomorphic fork. No, I don't get it either.

The game is also bursting at the seams with charm. It’s almost the polar opposite of Escape Plan: bright colours and cheery music are on full display here, and with the Vita’s stellar screen, it makes everything a joy to look at. The odd voiced gibberish of the characters may get annoying to some if you hear too much of it, but I personally didn’t find it to be too much of a problem. Even the enemy design manages to be bright and cheery, despite the fact that part of your goal is to balloon the baddies before bursting them, so designing them so well seems almost redundant. As much as I love Mario, that fact that his has been the only platformer on the block for so long, and that the graphical style of the games never deviates much from the style started with Super Mario 64, save some graphical upgrades, of course, made me love Rayman even more. It’s just brighter, and seems happier than Mario has done of late. Maybe I’m just growing out of the phase where I can love Mario anymore, but given the choice between any Mario game over the last few years, and Rayman: Origins, I’d pick Rayman every time.

Mario doesn't feature bad guys swelling up in indignation when you hit them. Or maybe pain. I think it's pain.

Of course, this isn’t the version you played on console back in November, nor the one you’ll be playing on PC come next month (if Wikipedia is to be believed). This is the Vita version, and with that comes some expectations. In actuality, the Vita version differs very little from the console version. The visuals and audio are just as good on the handheld as they are on the home consoles, which was to be expected, but is still nice to see. The Vita’s hardware comes into play very little. You can touch the screen to select menu options, or pop bubbles with Lumes in, or enemies that you’ve ballooned, and you can pinch-zoom to bring the action closer, which is handy, becomes sometimes, Rayman gets really small, but as far as making use of the Vita’s hardware goes, that’s it. I think this was a wise move on Ubisoft’s part. Trying to implement too many of the Vita’s features could have ruined what is an otherwise classic platformer, but this was clearly foreseen, and happily avoided. I haven’t played the console version of the game, but apparently ghost mode is Vita-exclusive. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: ghost mode lets you speed run through some of the game’s levels, and then post your time on the Playstation Network. While this is a cool addition, it comes with a pretty big price: this is the closest thing to a multiplayer mode that the Vita version of the game comes. Yep, Ubisoft opted not to put in the 4-player co-op mode featured in the console version of the game, which is a huge shame, seeing as the Vita is capable of multiplayer. I guess most of the fun of playing this game co-op would be sitting on the couch with your buddies, but I still would have liked to see something on the Vita, aside from just the ghost mode. It’s a shame, but it’s one of the few knocks I have against the game.

It's kind of multiplayer. If you run the ghost trials enough, you end up playing with yourself.  ... Not what I meant.

Rayman: Origins on the Playstation Vita is a platforming gem in miniature. It retains the beautiful art and upbeat audio of the original, maintains a tightness of controls that is admirable, even in its necessity, and is one of the best showcases of how fun running and jumping can be that I’ve played in recent memory. The uneven checkpoint system and lack of multiplayer are the two biggest gripes I have with the game, but the otherwise superb quality of the game mostly makes up for it. I would assume this goes without saying, but if you have the console version, you really don’t need to re-buy the game. The only thing you’d be getting is the ghost mode, and since it comes at the cost of the 4-player co-op, it’s not really worth it. If you own a Vita, though, and you’re looking for a platformer to take on the go, I really don’t think you’ll ever see something that tops Rayman: Origins. It’s bright colour palette, excellent level design, and varied play-styles make it a game Ubisoft would have to try very hard to top. 

Escape Plan: An Honest Opinion

Fun Bits Interactive are a new studio on the block, and Escape Plan is their premier title. Produced by Chris Millar of Fat Princess fame, I immediately expected Escape Plan to feature a similar style of quirky humour to that game, but was also slightly skeptical. Fat Princess, while enjoyable, wound up being a little simpler than advertised, and, I always felt, suffered for that. But Escape Plan looked interesting, and I'm all for supporting new developers, so I decided to give it a whirl.


Escape Plan is another of the Vita’s launch titles, and in deference to the trend I’ve been following so far, it is not, actually a cartridge-based game. This is a $15 downloadable title, available on the Playstation Store, but exclusive (so far as I know), to the Vita. The fact that budget downloadable titles are already available for the platform means that Escape Plan gets some points in the bank automatically, but that doesn’t mean it gets a free ride. Luckily, it doesn't need one.


The story is quite simple: the two main characters, Lil, (the small, skinny one), and Laarg, (the rather rotund one), are stuck in a prison/laboratory/factory of some kind, completely at the mercy of their captor, Bakuki. To escape this dastardly villain’s grasp, you need to navigate Lil and Laarg, (sometimes together, sometimes separated), through the game’s many rooms, solving puzzles in order to reach the next room safely. In constructing these puzzles, Escape Plan takes advantage of both the front and reach touch capabilities of the Vita, in addition to the tilt sensor, and solving the puzzles often requires a combination of these features. While the game’s concept is the very definition of straightforward, and the puzzles themselves often have deceptively simple solutions, it is the way Escape Plan actually uses the hardware that makes it one of the Vita’s earliest gems.

The main villain totally looks like he's wearing most of a hockey mask. ... Jason?

As far as controls go, tapping, swiping, pinching and tilting pretty much make up your entire retinue of motions. To get Lil or Laarg to move, you swipe across their bodies in the direction you want them to move, and then find a way to make sure they get to the door without ending up squished, sliced, gassed, or otherwise dead. But Escape Plan manages to make use of these extremely simple gestures in creative, and rather fulfilling ways. There are some levels, for example, where a pipe running through a room will be leaking gas, and making Lil or Laarg walk through the gas will kill them. To get them by safely, you use your finger to block the hole in the pipe, and stop the leak. In other levels, you’ll have to get the characters’ to breath in helium, in order to inflate them and reach higher levels. In order to deflate them, while propelling them forward, you pinch them between your fingers using the front and rear screens. It’s the little things like this that not only make Escape Plan fun, but offer a glimpse at just what developers could do with the Vita. Using the touch screens doesn’t have to be a grand gameplay feature: it can be subtle and simple, and still feel remarkably gratifying. I actually had a lot more fun playing Escape Plan, with its simpler touch controls, then I did playing Little Deviants, which may use the Vita’s features more thoroughly, but also involves almost too much investment. Escape Plan is a game I would (and have) played while travelling on a bus or a train, since it uses the Vita’s features in a way that wouldn’t draw instant attention, as Little Deviants would.

You can also use sheep to help you solve puzzles. Or to land on when you're jumping from a high place.

But it’s not just the fact that Escape Plan is an early title that uses the Vita well: it’s presentation offers it a huge amount of distinction from a lot of the games that have hit the market recently. With its monochromatic graphical style, Escape Plan is actually easily the best looking of the Vita games I’ve played. It has a stark contrast to both what you expect from a Vita game, as well as what other Vita games are doing, and as such stands out remarkably well. I know I don’t usually talk about music much, unless it stands out because of how offensive it is, but the music in Escape Plan is worth mentioning because of how good it is. A lot of the tracks are well-known classical scores, which couple extremely well with the game’s stark visuals. If there were ever a game that gave credence to the whole ‘games as art’ argument, it would be this one. There’s just so much charm to the game, and that shows itself well within the games visual/audio department, but also in its tone.

Yes, Lil is drifting past giant razor blades. Though he doesn't have any facial hair, so I don't know... Oh.

The prison/laboratory/factory you’re trying to escape is a dangerous place. There are all sorts of traps and murderous devices waiting to behead you, squish you, dice you, or otherwise render you unable to leave due to your being dead. It’s extremely morbid, on one level. But while it’s definitely gruesome, there’s an inarguable humour to the game as well. I mentioned earlier about deflating one of your helium-filled characters by pinching them. What I didn’t mention is that the deflation comes via a fart. Yes, childish humour in some ways, but like the use of the Vita’s functions in the game, it’s also very subtle. Lil and Laarg’s deaths also present themselves as humorous, albeit in a ‘I really shouldn’t be amused by this’ kind of way. I mean, they’re dead, right? You shouldn’t be laughing at it. But when they die, (as long as they didn’t just choke on gas, or get hit by a dart), they explode into a puddle of black goo. Whether you die by falling a long distance, being squished or being cut, the splatter is always the same. It just adds an element of levity to dying that I don’t think anyone would be able to properly explain. Lil and Laarg both feature numbers on their stomachs, as well, and the numbers correspond to the amount of times both characters have died. There’s something about that that’s subtly humorous as well. If we’re giving awards to Escape Plan, it would have ‘Best Style of Humour’ locked in for it’s subtly morbid presentation.

29 on the jersey equals 29 deaths. Just so you know, it's kind of like golf: you want the lowest number possible. I just had trouble a few times.

I can’t really say a whole lot more about Escape Plan: it’s a puzzle game with mechanics that are extremely simple on the surface, but are used in very creative ways. It’s stark black-and-white visuals and classical score give it the best presentation that I’ve seen, not just on the Vita, but on any game in a long while. The tone is light, the humour subtle, all covering a slightly gruesome centre, but the juxtaposition of it all just offers the game even more charm. Of the Vita games I’ve played so far, Escape Plan definitely comes with the highest recommendation. At only $15, you just can’t go wrong with this game. If you have a Vita, you need Escape Plan, even if you’re not normally a huge fan of puzzle games. I can almost guarantee that you’ll still find something that you absolutely love about the game that would justify the purchase. If you don’t, then maybe you’re playing games for all the wrong reasons. As the first title of Fun Bits Interactive, Escape Plan shines. I am extremely interested to see what they come up with in the future, and would put money on them becoming an extremely strong developer for the Playstation Vita.

Little Deviants: An Honest Opinion

Continuing on with my (roughly) week-long, pre-official launch look at the Vita - culminating tomorrow with my final opinion on whether or not you should consider the system - is my honest opinion of Little Deviants, another launch title for Sony's fancy new handheld, developed by Bigbig Studios, who I've never heard of before, but apparently developed a few other handheld titles, like Pursuit Force and MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, and Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice, and... well, according to Wikipedia, that's it. I've never played any of those, though, so I was curious to see what Bigbig was bringing with Little Deviants.


The story, as near as I can figure it out, goes something like this: the Deviants are flying through space, being chased by the Bots. The Bots shoot down the Deviants, and they crash land on this strangely blocky planet. The Bots land there as well, and use some strange laser to raise the blocky planet’s dead to help them do something to the Deviants. Kill them? Capture them? Not sure. Anyway, it basically comes down to the Deviants (aliens), versus the Bots and the Dead’uns (Robots and zombies). Aliens vs. robots and zombies, huh? Sounds like the plot of a Z-list horror movie. But it’s nothing so gruesome. Basically, the point of the game is to help the Deviants rebuild their ship, and you do this by playing one of thirty mini-games. Yep, you heard me right: Little Deviants is a mini-game collection.

I didn't think cubes could float through space very easily. I mean, have you ever seen one?

Now, before you sigh and shake your heads, giving the Deviants up as a lost cause, I’d like to point out that Deviants is by no means simple shovel-ware. The mini-games are constructed solely for the purpose of utilizing the Vita’s unique features, and in that regard, it actually succeeds quite well. Some games utilize the front screen, some the rear screen, some the cameras, the microphone, the tilt sensor, it’s all used at some point within these games, and for the most part, it all works quite well. Using the tilt-sensor to guide Goopher the Deviant as he plunges from a plane through a series of rings in the sky is, for some reason I’ll never be able to explain, actually quite fun. And using the microphone to hit the right pitch to allow the Frostal Deviant to send a musical note to smash a bottle flying towards him will definitely draw attention to you on the subway. The games aren’t hugely unique in their use of the Vita’s features, but they still use them well.

It looks like fun, until you realize that if you don't get enough points, Goopher doesn't deploy his chute...

That doesn’t mean all the mini-games are fun, though. I found the game that has you using the rear touchpad to ‘distort the landscape’ and help your Deviant roll around collecting keys to open up exit portals is more annoying than anything. I just found it somewhat hard to control the Deviants this way, even if the actual distorting of the landscape was quite easy. Likewise, there’s a game that comes off (to me at least) as a cross between Pac-man and Bomberman, where you’re using the tilt sensor to roll your Deviant through a maze of corridors trying to pick up all the little clocks. This game works the way it was intended to, but I just found it kind of boring. Yes, that particular gripe is hugely opinionated, but it illustrates a key point: when you’re game is just a collection of mini-games, you better make sure that every game is equally engaging, and Little Deviants falls a little short in this regard.

It looks like I'm no good, but I swear, it's hard to use the rear touchpad, and press 'start' and the 'PS' button at the same time.

Running in tandem to that is the fact that some of the ‘30’ mini-games are just rehashes of the same game, only made slightly harder. The ‘Rolling’ set of games, the one I mentioned that involves ‘distorting the landscape’ has at least three different renditions, and the Pac-man-Bomberman-style game has at least 2. I say ‘at least’ because I haven’t yet unlocked all of the mini-games: I found repeating the same game I played earlier, just in a different environment with different styles of enemies, hampered my enjoyment of the game somewhat. It got to the point where I had to play the third rehashing of the ‘Rolling’ games, or a game involving using the tilt sensor to platform-jump that I found extremely tedious to progress further, and I just called it a day.

You know it's not the best design choice when you can clear a game by holding the system up to a radio.

That’s really all I can say about Little Deviants. It’s a mini-game collection meant to showcase the Vita’s features. The quality of the games is somewhat unbalanced: some being really fun, other being rather un-enjoyable, and a rather shameless recycling of a few of the games, knocking the ‘30’ mini-games down to somewhere between 15 and 20, if I had to guess. That said, I personally can’t hate on the game too much: it came as part of the First Edition Bundle, so I definitely didn’t pay full price for it. Plus, it’s not really bad, just mediocre. If I was a bit younger, I would probably enjoy it a lot more. The colours are bright, the Deviants, Bots and Dead’uns are all pretty cute, in an odd alien-robot-zombie kind of way, and the music is pretty uppity. I feel like I’m just a little out of the intended age-range for that game. That said, I still enjoy playing Mario Party, and that’s been around since I was a small child, so it is possible to make this kind of collection appealing to older players. Little Deviants just doesn’t. If you want a game that showcases the Vita’s features, and are old enough to buy it, I’d recommend picking up Uncharted: Golden Abyss over this. The only thing Deviants uses that Uncharted doesn’t is the camera, and, I mean, it’s a camera. Although that’s probably one of the cooler features of the game: one of the mini-games uses the cameras to put whatever location you’re in as the backdrop. I gave it huge props for that: it was cool to see little aliens and robots flying around, all superimposed on my bedroom surroundings. But, still, a camera is a camera. You know what they do. I just can’t bring myself to suggest buying Deviants instead of one of the Vita’s other launch titles. If you, like me, have the chance to get Deviants for free, or at a pretty huge discount, then sure, by all means. It’s a pretty fun distraction, and you may even enjoy it more than I did. But judging it as a game, and not simply a tech demo of the Vita’s features, I just found it to be a little bit wanting. 

Uncharted: Golden Abyss: An Honest Opinion

Uncharted: Golden Abyss is one of the most highly anticipated launch titles of the Playstation Vita, and is the first portable entry in the venerable Playstation-exclusive series. More than just a launch title for the Playstation Vita, though, Golden Abyss also serves as a demo for most of the fancy features the Vita offers.


I’m almost hesitant to start this way, since, given everything you’ve heard about the Vita to this point, this should come as no surprise, but Golden Abyss looks good. It’s not on the level of Uncharted 2 or 3 - two of the best looking games of this console generation, in my humble opinion - but it certainly equals, or maybe even surpasses, how Uncharted: Drake’s fortune looked. By now, you know what to expect from an Uncharted game: Nathan Drake looks every bit the rugged, smartass hero we’ve come to know and love from the console iterations of the franchise, the jungles look lush, the ruins… ruined. It all comes together in a very nice package that you can take with you wherever you go. The hit here is that Golden Abyss doesn’t branch out a whole lot in terms of environment: you spend the entirety of the game looking at the jungle, crumbling ruins, there’s a dilapidated base that the revolutionaries call home within the jungle, it’s all very same-y. I know that Drake’s Fortune didn’t exactly span a whole lot of terrain, either, but Uncharted 2 had cities, villas and tundra, and Uncharted 3 had it’s cities, villas, and desert. I just felt I wanted a little more in terms of environment from Golden Abyss: something that truly showed how diverse the Vita could be. Then again, this is a launch title, and asking a launch title to push the limits of a console, even if it’s a handheld, is just the slightest bit ridiculous.

Overlooking the jungle... which is pretty much all you see for the entire game.

Golden Abyss differentiates itself from its console brethren just the slightest bit by having huge breaks in the action. I felt like I was spending a lot more time traversing the jungle, and navigating the crumbling ledges of old ruins than I did  gun fighting, which came off as strange, because the console Uncharted games always felt like they split the two focuses a little bit more evenly. I’m not exactly complaining: I feel that Uncharted is at its best when I’m trying to find out how to reach that out-of-the-way ledge, as opposed to when I’m crouching behind a crate and firing at bad guys. Then again, when the game does do the gun fighting action-y bits, the sequences feel a little lengthier than the action sequences in the console games. I wonder if this is just Bend simply trying to figure out their own way to structure the Uncharted experience to fit a handheld, travel-oriented game: a ten to fifteen minute traversal scene, a ten minute gun fight, a twenty minute traversal scene, so structured to give you ample opportunity to quit the game during a lull, so you don’t restart when you’re in the middle of navigating a ruin, or in the midst of a heated battle with thugs. That would be understandable, but as I’ve been playing Golden Abyss more or less like a home console entry in the series, it means the game is constantly switching focus, and sometimes it becomes extremely jarring. There’s a scene, for example, where you work your way into the depths of a ruin, looking for a big old something. It’s about twenty minutes to a half-an-hour to make your way into the ruins, wherein you see barely a glimpse of baddies. Once you find what you were there for, though, the bad guys start pouring in, and getting out of the ruins again basically becomes one long, twenty minute gun fight, with only a few smatterings of traversing the environment in the mix. Granted, there aren’t many moments in the game that have such a jarring and noticeable shift, but there are minor ones throughout, and as a result, there are times when the game seems to have trouble finding its flow.

Then there are the times when you're shooting and climbing. I call this 'cheating.'

When it does hit its flow, though, it’s very clearly an Uncharted title. Golden Abyss takes place before the events of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, but I think they could have technically set it anywhere (as long as it wasn’t after the events of 3), and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. The story, as far as I could tell, has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the events that have occurred within the Uncharted series. Take out the budding romance with Chase, (come on, that's not a spoiler, it's practically required), and there is absolutely nothing about the story that could continue into the console Uncharted games. Once again, you play as plucky, rapier-witted adventurer/treasure hunter Nathan Drake. For this adventure, he’s called into a Panamanian jungle by an old friend, Jason Dante, to investigate some strange statues/symbols that have popped up during a dig. Unfortunately, though, the dig is taking place near the base of a local revolutionary militia, and, as always happens in Uncharted games, something’s gotta give. What’s odd about Golden Abyss’s story is the way it’s structured. The first chapter takes place in the present, and shows Drake jumping and shooting his way through some ruins, (as per usual). The thing is, (and this really isn’t a spoiler, so don’t hate me), it clearly shows Dante as having betrayed Drake. It then jumps back several weeks to when Dante first asked Drake to investigate the jungle with him. The problem here is that, since you know that there’s a betrayal in the works, you find yourself just waiting for it to happen. I actually didn’t feel like the game had started properly until I got to the point where Dante’s betrayal actually occurred. Now, Drake being betrayed is like the sun rising and setting: it just happens. There’s always some manner of betrayal in Uncharted games, so it never really comes as a surprise, but that it is so blatantly implied at the beginning of the game comes as a bit of a shock. In addition to a backstabbing bastard, you also have your standard female fare, this time coming in the form of Marisa Chase, an archaeologist working alongside Dante in the jungle. From the very get-go, it’s clear that while Chase is a strong character in her own right, she never quite hits par with Elena, or Chloe. Chase also plays the role of the ‘I-know-a-whole-lot-more-than-I’m-telling-you-at-the-moment,’ character, which is never anything but obvious, as she often evades questions with ‘It’s a long story,’ which basically screams, ‘I’ll tell you later, and make it a bit of a plot point.’ She also refuses to use a gun. Given that AI support in Uncharted’s gunfights has never been much, this doesn’t come as a huge hit, but it’s very surprising to meet an character in this series who’s not comfortable touting a firearm. She never really explains why, either, though there are a couple times when it seems like she’s about to. I think what most of the stereotypical and somewhat flat characterization comes down to is that Bend isn’t quite up to the same snuff of storytelling as Naughty Dog is. Drake and Sully, who are the only two characters from the console Uncharted series to appear in Golden Abyss, are both the same sarcastic, wisecracking characters they’ve always been. So given a template to work from Bend can clearly emulate the characters already established, but the stumble a bit when creating their own. While Dante’s motivation for betraying Drake is always pretty clear, (he’s a money-hungry bastard), the other big baddy, leader of the local revolutionary militia Guerro, is never given much of a motivation for trying to reach the treasure before Drake, other than a vague mention that he’ll use it to further fund his revolution. If the whole ‘revolutionary’ aspect of the story was more fleshed out, this would probably work fine, but since the revolutionaries serve as little more than opposition for you, it just manages to feel flat.

Wait, wait, wait... Who are these militia types? And why are they shooting at us?

The biggest problem with the story/gameplay flow aspects of the game is the lack of any grand Uncharted moments. Think the opening sequence with the train in Uncharted 2, or the sinking ship in Uncharted 3. Huge moments like this were lacking in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, but as that was the series’ first entry, you can’t really fault it for that. But we’ve come to expect grand moments from our Uncharted games, and Golden Abyss doesn’t really manage to deliver. There are a couple moments that seem like they could’ve been big: at one point, you’re escaping a ruin while it collapses all around you, which in itself screams Uncharted, but these few moments are never capitalized on. Were this another handheld system, this could easily be overlooked. But I know that the Vita could’ve easily handled one of those big moments, if they would have been added. I wanted that little bit more out of Golden Abyss because I know it could’ve given it, if it had the chance. It isn’t a problem big enough to make me dislike the game outright, but it could have given the game so much more ‘oomph.’

Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiimber!

So Golden Abyss looks like an Uncharted game, plays like an Uncharted game, minus a few flow issues and a lack of grand moments, and, less a bit of a characterization problem, clearly has an Uncharted story. If those alone were the merits on which to judge this game, I’d be done. But, it’s a Vita title, and, as I said, serves as a bit of a demo for what the Vita can do. Forcing these features into a game, though, could very easily ruin it.


But the addition of the Vita’s features doesn’t feel forced. In fact, it feels as though the game was built around those ideas. The front touch screen serves several roles. When climbing, you can use your finger to trace the route you want Drake to follow, and then sit back and watch him move. I think most gamers will, for the most part, use the analog stick and buttons to climb, to make it feel more authentically Uncharted, but the fact that the option is there, and that it works as well as it does, is still really cool. 

Using you finger to make Drake climb: for those days when pushing the analog stick is just too much.

You can also just tap on your screen to swap the weapon you’re holding with a weapon on the ground, or to throw a grenade, of which, by the way, there seemed to be a very scant amount. The front touch screen is also used in the game’s puzzles: you have to rub a piece of paper to take charcoal rubbings, turn combination locks, piece together torn paper, and so on. These features serve to showcase just how well the Vita’s touch screen works, as you shouldn’t ever have a problem completing these tasks.

How he does this without tape, I have no idea.

 The rear touchpad can be used for climbing ropes, changing the zoom on your sniper rifle or camera, and rotating objects that you then have to clean off by swiping your finger across the front touch screen. Again, the rear touchpad works extremely well, and I found I actually preferred to use it to climb ropes, rather than just pushing up on the analog stick.

Front screen and rear screen working in tandem: it's actually quite touching.

The tilt sensor is used to keep Drake balanced while walking across narrow bridges, but I did have a problem with this feature. The tilting itself works very well, but instead of having to keep Drake balanced while he’s walking, when you’re crossing a narrow bridge, oftentimes Drake will just stop in the middle, and you’ll have to use the tilt to make sure he keeps his balance, and then keep walking. Having him stop on the middle of a log while you’re crossing a river just comes off as abrupt, and I think the feature would have served better if Drake had kept moving while you tilted the Vita to have him keep his balance.

In hindsight, I suppose moving and keeping your balance may be pretty tough.

Aside from this, the tilt sensor can also be used to aim your gun. What I found personally was that while tilting to aim a pistol or an AK just didn’t work, while you had a sniper rifle, sometimes nudging the reticule over that extra smidge to rest on a target’s head was easier if you just tilted the system a little, rather than trying to brush the analog stick gently. There are all sorts of little moments that the game uses to take advantage of the hardware it’s using. One of my favourites was when I had to hold the Vita up to a light source to make symbols appear on a piece of paper. It’s things like that that make this game actually feel at home on the Vita, as opposed to simply the handheld entry in a console series that most people will wait until it’s ported over to the console to play, (the PSP entries of God of War come to mind, here).

Of course, if you don't have a light source handy, you're kind of screwed.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss is not without a few faults. There are no grand moments to speak of, some of the characters feel a little flat, and the story isn’t constructed nearly as fluently as its console counterparts. But all of that can be completely overlooked when you realize that you are playing an Uncharted game, pretty much a full console experience, in the palm of your hands. Golden Abyss shows off what the Vita can do graphically, and how well its touch and tilt features can be added into a game, without making the game feel as though it is forced to use them. There just isn’t really any other way to put it: if you’re an Uncharted fan, or, hell, a Tomb Raider fan, or a fan of action games in general, and you own, or are planning on buying a Vita, Golden Abyss has to be in your collection. It’s an extremely strong launch title in a launch line-up that looks to be full of strong titles, and simply shouldn’t be missed by anyone who owns the Vita.

The Playstation Vita: An Honest Opinion (Of the Software)

In the second of my group of opinion pieces running up to the Vita’s official launch, I’m going to be going into detail about the system software. I know, I know, you all want to hear about the games, but games are not the only thing that make up a system. The preinstalled features of the system are just as important as those you have to run out and buy separately. I gave my introductory bit in my hardware run-through already, so I’ll just jump straight into it, shall I?


The first thing you notice when you jump into the Vita is that, instead of the XMB, (XrossMediaBar), which Sony used for the PSP, the PS3, and it’s brand of televisions and DVRs. It uses a new touch-based interface known as ‘LiveArea,’ it keeping with the theme they started by naming the handheld the Vita, (which is the Latin word for ‘Life’). It’s actually surprising how well the interface works. Each LiveArea screen only holds so many application icons, and you swipe up and down to change which screen you’re viewing. Even the lightest and shortest of flicks in the upward or downward direction will serve to change the screen. Like the touch screen interface of a tablet or touch phone, you can add and remove applications to the LiveArea at your leisure, and each screen can be coloured individually of the others. While that isn’t a hugely important feature, it does mean that you can customize your Vita to your heart’s content, and though not a reason to buy in itself, is hugely appreciated. Similar to the up-and-down swipes, running applications exist in separate LiveArea screens to the right of your application screens. At anytime, you can press the PS button to return to the LiveArea, and flick your finger to the right to return to your list of applications. When you want to return to your application, just flick your finger to the left and tap the ‘continue’ button. If you want to close a running application, you hit the PS button, and drag your finger from the top right of the screen to the bottom left, and literally peel that application’s window off the screen. It’s also how you bring the device out of standby mode. It’s all streamlined, and works very well. There’s also some very cheery music that plays in the background. I suppose that might get annoying after a while, but at this point, it still makes me very happy. My biggest problem with the LiveArea interface, and I recognize that it is a fairly minor gripe, is that every application has a little splash screen and ‘start’ icon after you start it. You can’t simply load up the application. Now, this is fine for running games, but sometimes it just gets excessive. Want to view your Friends List? Tap the ‘Friends’ application icon, and then the ‘start’ button on the splash screen that comes up. Same with the ‘Settings’ menu. Or the ‘Maps’ application. Even your list of trophies. Though it’s not exactly interfering with anything, I still found it to be excessive. As I said, games are fine, but the ‘Settings’ menu? Come on. My other problem is that you have to load up an application to view your friends or trophies. I feel that those could have existed as different LiveArea screens, maybe connected to the notification bubble at the top right of the screen, but no. Again, not a huge deal, but it’s a design choice that leaves me scratching my head.

A LiveArea screen. My LiveArea screen. No copying. Totally trademarked. I own that colour.

My other big problem with the system software - and this will be no surprise to anyone who has used it on the PS3 - (perhaps the PSP, too, but I never used the feature on that portable) is the web browser. I don’t know what it is with Sony, but they cannot seem to do web browsing properly, outside of their laptops. The browser itself shares a similar look and feel to the PS3 browser, but at the time of it’s launch, and the subsequent writing of this piece, it is not compatible with Adobe’s Flash Player. That’s right, no Youtube videos for you, at least at the moment. I assume that this will be corrected extremely quickly, because given how pretty that screen is, watching videos seems to be one of the things it was made for, but Sony doesn’t seem to have taken that into an account. It’s a baffling decision to be sure, and a bit of a letdown to boot.

My two biggest problems: the web browser and the splash screens. Together. Oh, no...

Some of the other software features I haven’t been able to use: the use of the ‘Party’ and ‘Group Messaging’ applications are predicated on you having friends with Playstation Vitas, and at the moment, I’m the only person I know that has one. So I can’t talk about those features. But there are a few, I think, that are worth mentioning.


The ‘Welcome Park’ application is one of the first things the system suggests you try the first time you boot it up. Basically, it’s just a collection of short mini-games that familiarize you with all the fancy things the Vita can do: touch controls, multi-touch, rear touch, tilt controls, the cameras, the microphone, all these are showcased in ‘Welcome Park.’ The touch/multi-touch game has you tapping on bubbles with numbers in them, clearing them but touching them in ascending order; the tilt game has you controlling a little man on a skateboard, avoiding the bubbles that are falling; one of the camera games has you take a picture, and then it scrambles it into a puzzle, which you then must solve. This group of games even have their own trophies to unlock. While at it’s core, ‘Welcome Park’ is little more than a collection of extremely basic tech demos, it was still a really cool idea to introduce a simplistic place where the Vita’s features are showcased. The thing is, I can see ‘Welcome Park’ having the most appeal for the non-hardcore crowd: the people who bought the Vita because they’d like to play games while they travel, but who don’t play console games a whole lot, and I don’t see this system appealing to a wide range of those people, at least not yet.

Above: Welcome Park. Which features no benches, but there are no small children, either.

Another neat little preinstalled application is ‘near.’ ‘near’ basically does one thing: it uses your location data to tell you other people nearby who are playing with a Vita. It tells you what the people it finds are playing, and it’ll even tell you how far away they are. Basically, your Vita can become one of the best tool for stalking people you’re ever going to find. Given that it hasn’t officially launched yet, I didn’t find too many people. In my university town, from my house, there was one other person playing, (Welcome Park, if you’re interested), and according to the Vita, they were about a kilometre away. I felt that was a little too much information, but whatever. It’s a cool feature. Unfortunately, I just left for my Reading Week, and at home, there are no people nearby with a Vita. A little sad, but not surprising. ‘Near’ will also tell you what your friends are playing, and where they are, if you have any friends on your Playstation Friends list that own a Vita. Apparently, if you share your online ID, you can also make ‘discoveries’ in games. I have no idea what that means, because I’m not sharing my online ID at the moment, but I’ll be sure to let you know in the future.

near: It's the Vita's handy-dandy stalker app!

Content Manager is the application that handles transferring files from your Vita to your PS3, your PS3 to your Vita, your Vita to your PC/Mac, or your PC/Mac to your Vita. Basically, Content Manager is how you get videos and music onto your Vita. It also lets you backup files, a feature which, given the limited sizes and price points of the Vita memory cards, will be infinitely handy. Personally, I know that my 4GB card won’t last long, so the ability to copy downloaded titles onto the PS3 in order to free up memory on the Vita is going to be extremely helpful. The interface is fairly simple: the PS3 was given the needed features in an update in January, so it’s all ready to go. When you plug your Vita into your PC, it downloads the Content Manager program that you need, and then your ready to go. It’s quick and it’s simple, but that’s to be expected. It’s almost a necessary feature, and if it were overly complicated, that would be a problem. The only gripe I have with the system is that when you plug your Vita into your PS3, a little message comes up that says something to the effect of ‘the copying of files is handled from the Vita system.’ At this point, you load up the Content Manager on your Vita, and away you go. But, if you hit circle the make that message on your PS3 go away, the Vita won’t connect to the PS3. I didn’t know this at first, so it took me a couple minutes to figure out why I could connect it to my PC, but not my PS3. Once I realized, though, it was a bit of a face-palm moment. This isn’t a big deal, but I can see it giving a few people brief moments of trouble, in the same way it did me. It just seems so stupid. But again, that’s the only real problem with the Content Manager, and it’s a rather small one at that. I doubt most of you will be as silly as I was.

The Content Manager: It lets you manage content. That's really all there is to it.

A feature actually brought onto the PSP, but (from what I’ve heard), that never worked as well as it should have is Remote Play. Now, I don’t know the full extent of the Remote Play feature on the Vita: there’s a video of someone using Remote Play to play Killzone 3 on their Vita, but you definitely can’t play all PS3 games that way. I tried Final Fantasy XIII-2, but it didn’t work. What I did find Remote Play useful for was playing PSOne games on my Vita. For some reason, PSOne games you download onto your PS3 can’t be transferred to the Vita. So, I used the Remote Play feature to play a bit of Final Fantasy XI and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on my Vita in my basement, while my PS3 sat on the 3rd floor of the house in my bedroom. I thought that was really cool, but I don’t know quite how far the Remote Play feature is going to go. It works, yes, and from what I’ve managed to find, it works better than the PSP’s same feature did, but other than being kind of neat, I can’t say how much it will serve.

Remote Play: Despite what the picture shows, it still works with an old-school, fat PS3.

The other applications that are preinstalled on the Vita are pretty straightforward: the PS Store opens the Playstation Store, where you can buy PSV and PSP games; the Trophies app lets you see the list of trophies, either on the Vita, or if you’ve linked it to your existing PSN account, all trophies associated with that account; Settings lets you tweak the system settings; Maps is Google Maps, but on the Vita, etc. etc. Couple other things I want to mention, though.



The first is that by pressing the PS and Start buttons together, you can take a screenshot of just about anything. That’s how I managed to post all the pretty pictures that came along with this piece: they all came straight off my own Vita. I found that by accident, but it does mention it somewhere. I think it says it while you’re using the camera, but I really can’t remember. Either way, it’ll make it really easy for me to post pictures alongside my reviews of Vita games, without having to resort to lifting pictures other websites have taken, like I’ve resorted to in the past. I wish the PS3 did the same.


The second is the battery life. I forgot to talk about this yesterday with the rest of the hardware stuff, but I figured I’d better mention it now. Plus, it kind of fits here, since you need battery power to run the system software. Anyway, it’s not bad. I managed to get about 5 hours out of mine, with the screen set to whatever the default brightness is, and my headphones plugged in with the volume at various levels. I don’t know if using the system’s speakers would drain the battery faster than using headphones, (I can’t see why it should, but as I said yesterday, I’m no hardware guru), but it might. If you were to dim the screen all the way and mute the system, I would guess that you could probably milk between 7 and 8 hours out of the battery. These are huge guesses, by the way. That I managed to get 5 hours in the first place could be a total, inexplicable fluke. But if I am right in my guess, that’s not bad. 5-8 hours is a pretty substantial chunk out of most trips you’ll take, so if you’re looking at this as a console to travel with, as far as battery life goes, it’s not too shabby at all.


So, aside with some minor gripes with the browser, the insistent splash screens, and the somewhat silly problem I had with the Content Manager, the system software works. ‘Near’ and ‘Welcome Park’ are cool additions, Remote Play has quite a bit of potential behind it, and Content Manager is, so long as you don’t have a mental hiccup, like I did, very easy to use. The rest of it is all straightforward. The interface is friendly, and works well, and the ‘peel away to quit application’ thing still hasn’t gotten old. All in all, I think Sony probably made the right choice by changing from XMB to LiveArea, at least as far as the Vita is concerned. There are a few silly design choices, true, (like the splash screens I mentioned, and the friends and trophy lists being separate applications), but all in all, I like what they’ve done. It complements the sleek hardware design of the system extremely well, as far as I’m concerned.


Okay, that’s all the mundane stuff out of the way, I swear. I’ll post my first Vita game review either later tonight or early tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that. Until then, I’m going to go play around with my Vita a little more, and see if that ‘new hardware honeymoon period’ is over yet.