PSVita - first impressions
PSVita - first impressions
Out of the box, the PSVita handset looks very nice. I’m glad that portable gaming has picked up on the fact that smaller and smaller devices & screens are not the way forward; the large screen of the Vita is a major improvement over the PSP and certainly over the 3DS, which to my eyes is tiny by comparison (OK you can argue the 3DS has 2 of them, but still 3.2” vs. 5”? No contest). Anyone who has used an iPod touch, iPad, or any smartphone lately will be right at home with the Vita’s screen. A solid glass feel with excellent response to the lightest touch, with some very nice ‘gestures’ for completing actions such as swiping away an open app you no longer want open, and the up/down to move between the “Home” screens containing the app links feels nice given the landscape layout of the screen.
Holding the device is comfortable, though for those with smaller fingers it might become a stretch to reach all of the touch-screen on the front without significant movement of the whole hand as opposed to just the thumb - a drawback of the larger screen, but a worthwhile trade in my opinion. The touch-back (can’t really call it a rear touchscreen as it is not a screen!) seems equally responsive, though I can foresee accidents in games occurring from resting fingers on the back of the device in the wrong place. Time will tell I suppose.
The image presented by the screen is crisp, clear and nicely bright - by comparison it made the colours on my HD-TV screen look quite dull! Again this will vary in games, no doubt, and the brightness will likely need to be reduced for many things as the white would become overpowering. Still, deep colours and high-quality black means it’s very easy on the eyes in terms of both physical hardware and the screen output graphics. On that subject, the graphics are not HD, but are somewhat comparable to the PS3 - still impressive for a 5-inch screen held in your hands.
Dual analogue sticks have become a standard for most console gamers now; these days the thought of having only 1 thumbstick is pretty horrific to say the least, so it’s good to see them on the Vita and in a comfortable position, unlike the horrific placement of the sticks on the PS3 controller (at least in my opinion). There is also a D-Pad on board too, not sure why but no doubt some games and/or menu systems will make use of it.
I’m not going to mention internal components like the CPU or RAM, they are there to do what they are doing and are fit for purpose, enough said. However the lack of internal memory for game and download storage is a drawback, providing Sony with the wonderful option of overcharging you for a ‘special’ Vita SD card, meaning more cash you have to hand over before you can make best use of your system. For a £300+ device, I find this almost spiteful, I’m sure they could have kitted it with at least 1Gb of internal storage without fuss - hell, mobile phones come with 2Gb+ these days!
Battery life, well, it’s a handheld device that is throwing out fully rendered 3D in twice the resolution of the PSP (remember it’s not HD though!) so battery life isn’t going to be a strong point. 3-5 hours is the estimate, which to me means I would just be getting into a good session on Uncharted and the juice would run out; to others, that could mean playing for a week without charging if it’s only a ‘lunch-hour toy’. Still, when devices like tablets can kick out 8+ hours while playing games and surfing the web, I expect more than an average of 4 hours from a £300+ device.
Camera, well, at 0.3 Megapixel you aren’t going to be using your Vita to take stunning sunset photos, but then why would you? Cameras are almost just an add-in to devices these days, something that would be bemoaned if it wasn’t there and made little use of when it is. Still, there is the potential for augmented reality and some game integration down the line.
Backwards compatibility; or rather the lack thereof. The Vita has absolutely no backwards compatibility at all. All those PSP UMD’s you’ve stocked up on? Well keep that PSP charged because you’ll need it if you want to play / watch them still. Oh sure, you can get a digital copy of some PSP games for the Vita, all you have to do is purchase them again. Disposable income, anyone? Sony is only sticking to its practices though, and we saw the same with the PS3 not playing PS2 games, a fact which we’ve all gotten over by now…haven’t we? Sony primarily wants us to be playing Vita games on the Vita, which is what it’s for really.
Regardless of how great the screen is, or how well the dual-touch panels work, a handheld gaming device is only as good as the games that you can play on it. So far I have only seen Uncharted being played, but it look fairly impressive. My girlfriend is firmly in the category of “casual” gamer with handheld gaming being her personal favourite, and it didn’t seem to take long for the combination of the dual sticks, buttons, touchscreen and rear panel touch controls to all come together to create one multiple-choice method of controlling the game, which looked graphically smooth, stunning and sure beat the leaving daylights out of anything Nintendo could hope to achieve with their handheld efforts of late.
Now more than ever, the handheld gaming market is split between so many platforms and devices; 10 years ago there were a few companies vying for a small handheld market consisting of 8-bit graphics powered by AA batteries - today every manufacturer of mobile devices is part of the struggle.
Sony and Nintendo are the big ones who release devices geared primarily towards gaming, but chances are that most of you reading this have a mobile phone, Windows tablet, iPad or similar device close at hand that can perform many of the things the Vita can - in fact there are existing phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 that have 8Mp cameras and true 1080p HD screens, outperforming the Vita in both areas.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the Vita isn’t impressive. It really is. But it’s too early yet to tell if it’s going to be a real winner. The list of games available currently I would deem decent, and while there are upcoming titles that I look forward too, many of them are remakes (or should I say “remasters”) of older games such as the Oddworld series & Final Fantasy X, while the new games such as “Super Monkey Ball Vita”,”Marvel Pinball”, “Top Darts”, “Fish On!” and “Super Chess” leave me aghast and wondering how long we will have to wait after launch before another decent title pops up.
Finally, while it was only released in the UK yesterday, there are already a few holes that the development team of the “Vita v2.0” should seek to fill. The lack of any built-in internal memory to store games really should be addressed. The output of the screen needs to be upped to true HD - we know it can be done, it already has been. Depending on the lifespan Sony expect from the Vita line, supporting 4G would be a good move (yes, the UK is behind in its adoption of the super-fast mobile internet connection, but it’ll be here soon).
And for God’s sake, someone please invent a better battery to power these things!
