The PlayStation Vita is the $250 $200 handheld that either the world desperately needed or needed not at all. It could go either way in this era of rampant cell phone gaming, where many games are played with nary the press of a button or flick of a stick.
The Vita (reviewed here) gives us a $200 handheld machine with sticks, touch panels, lots of buttons, a fully-downloadable game library (optional; you can buy many of the games in physical stores), lots of online features and, oh yeah, graphical horsepower like we've never seen before in a gaming handheld.
Cool. So what must you play on this thing? Start with these games.
Update 8/21/2013: Vita price drop officially announced! Sony dropped the news at Gamescom yesterday, to the welcoming arms and ears of probably many gamers. If you were waiting for just this kind of news to hit before making your handheld hardware purchase, now is the time to check out what games you'll want to get started with. We've made a few adjustments in light of the recent events, swapping in Hotline Miami, Rymdkapsel and Thomas Was Alone in place of Hot Shots Golf, Lumines and Where Is My Heart. Take a look at our new list below.
Update 11/12/2012: The quality of titles available for Sony's handheld keeps getting better so we're refreshing the list of what we think are the best games for the PlayStation Vita. New to the Bests for Vita are: Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Need for Speed Most Wanted and Persona 4 Golden. Games that fell off the list include Mutant Blobs Attack, Wipeout 2048 and Escape Plan. They're still good but their replacements are just a wee bit more impressive.
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=3]Assassin's Creed III: Liberation[/h]Sure, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation brings the massive open-world architecture of Ubisoft's hit franchise to a handheld. The 18th Century New Orleans looks great, too. But, the best thing about the Vita game is how it evolves the franchise's formula to accommodate new heroine Aveline de Grandpre's gender and biracial background into the plot and story. (Read our review.)
A Good Match For: World travelers. Yeah, Aveline switches between French and English in Liberation, but it's her guises that let speak her slip into different strata of society. Unlike other AC protagonists, Aveline can change into three personas with unique abilities. She can start worker revolts as an undercover Slave, bribe guards as a high-society Lady to get into secure locations, and wield the most weapons as the secretive Assassin.
Not For Those Who Want: A rock-solid play experience. Liberation is clearly pushing the limits of the Vita and Ubisoft's new Anvil engine. Problem is, it always feels like that's the case. This game is still an experience worth having but glitches and occasional crashes might mar your time with it.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]FIFA Soccer[/h]Soccer. Football. Whatever you want to call it. It's the console-style FIFA game that people love, with the added feature of the best implementation of the Vita's rear touch panel.
A Good Match for: Sports fans, fans of sports games, whose other options at Vita launch are this, golf (see below) or a forthcoming baseball game.
Not for Those Who Want: Sports games that sync with their home games. This one does not.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Gravity Rush[/h]Gravity Rush is a delight, an open-world adventure game built around a truly new-feeling mechanic. The protagonist Kat is able to re-orient gravity, letting her fall in any direction. It's something of a mix between falling and flying, and it makes the game a uniquely disorienting, highly enjoyable experience. Combine those mechanical smarts with a wonderfully imaginative, fun story, lush visuals, gorgeous art design and a dizzy, grand soundtrack and you've got a real winner for the PSVita. (Read our review.)
A Good Match for: Crackdown and Infamous fans, people who like their games to look and play differently, jazz-heads.
Not for Those Who Want: Familiar mechanics, deep and involved combat.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR][HR][/HR]
S
[h=2]Rymdkapsel[/h]Rymdkapsel is a real-time-strategy base-building game with a Tetris twist. It's also all touch-screen, but don't let that worry you. It's still superb on Vita. The game's Swedish developers call it “meditative space strategy.” It’s simple. Place odd-shaped floors of different colors on a plane in outer space. Command little rectangular men to farm on or work in these spaces to generate resources to build more spaces and feed more workers. Rally the little men to defend the base against alien invaders every so often. Survive and repeat.
This is a minimalist game, a stripping down of the real-time-strategy genre that went baroque with the visually and technically complex top franchises StarCraft and Company of Heroes. Rymdkapsel makes its more ornate competitors feel needlessly garnished. (Check out our app review.)
A Good Match for: Gamers looking for a portable real-time-strategy game. There ain't much to choose from, and this one has the bonus advantage of being good.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want a lot of action or complexity. This is a mellow game with a single unit-type and a handful of rooms to create. Players won't be progressing through complex skill trees.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=3]LittleBigPlanet Vita[/h]LittleBigPlanet has found a great fit in the touchable, tiltable PSVita—while the game's platforming is as goofy yet imprecise as ever, the level creation tools get a new life on Sony's handheld. It's easier than ever to get creative thanks to the Vita's touch screen, and with the number of tools made available to players, your only limit is your imagination. This one deserves a spot in any Vita library. (Read our review.)
A Good Match for: People who like to make things, people who like messing around with things others have made.
Not for Those Who Want: A precise, challenging platformer, or a game with a lengthy single-player story.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=2]Hotline Miami[/h]It should not feel this cool to brutally murder people, but that may well be Hotline Miami's entire point. The top-down killfest would be fun with the sound turned off, but the astoundingly good soundtrack elevates things to a different, more disturbingly stylish level.
The game made a big splash on PC, and for a while, mouse-control seemed like the only worthwhile fit for its brand of extremely fast, unforgiving action. But Hotline Miami works surprisingly well with the Vita's controls, thanks in part to the ability to tag enemies for locked-on shots, which lets you plan each room-assault with a bit more precision. Groovy, disturbing, disgusting, and worryingly satisfying, Hotline Miami is one of the Vita's most potent, darkly enjoyable games.
A Good Match For: Fans of exploitation cinema, old-school twitchy action fans, perfectionists, sociopaths.
Not A Good Match For: The weak-stomached, those who don't like violence, people who want a forgiving game and/or hate electronic music.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: PlayStation Store | Wal-Mart
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=3]Need For Speed: Most Wanted[/h]Through some type of digital alchemy, Criterion has managed to take the full console version of Need For Speed: Most Wanted and bring it to the Vita, with only a few graphical concessions. The only concession is that it only allows for four multiplayer racers instead of eight. All that and it (theoretically) ties in to your EA account and allowing you to earn Autolog points on the go. Whether played as a companion to the big-screen version or taken on its own, Most Wanted is the Vita's strongest racing game, and a great showcase for the tiny handheld's not-so-tiny power. (Read our review of the console version.)
A Good Match for: People who like to drive really expensive cars really fast.
Not for Those Who Want: A game that's about anything other than driving really expensive cars really fast.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=3]Persona 4 Golden[/h]Japanese high school never seemed so much fun. Persona 4 Golden, a remake of the critically-acclaimed PlayStation 2 role-playing game, combines a social simulator and a hardcore RPG with surprisingly addictive results. Take midterms in the morning, eat steak with your girlfriend on the roof for lunch, then head to the mall after school to fight off shadow monsters in a dangerous world that exists inside televisions. Just another day in Persona 4's Japan. (Read our review.)
A Good Match For: RPG fans who want something different than the standard fantasy or sci-fi fare, or Persona fans looking for a good excuse to replay the fourth one.
Not For Those Who Want: Something short. Persona 4 Golden will take you something like 70-80 hours to beat—and that's before you start New Game Plus.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Rayman: Origins[/h]We loved this cartoony, musically-amazing side-scroller on the PlayStation 3 so of course we love this shot-for-shot port on the Vita. (Well, shot-for-shot of the singleplayer.) We can take this one with us. And hug it. So maybe we love it even more.
A Good Match for: People who enjoy running from left to right while sometimes hopping, i.e. fans of Super Mario, Sonic and all good side-scrollers. This one is fun and a beauty.
Not for Those Who Want: Black and white. (See: Escape Plan.)
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=2]Sound Shapes[/h]Is it a game? Or is it a musical instrument? This side-scrolling platformer mixes art, music and level design into something more than just a game, but does it matter? It's awesome, and that's what counts. As players make their way through the levels, the "coins" they'd be collecting in a Mario game instead cause musical sounds to begin to trigger, and the more of them they collect, the more complete the backing track becomes. With levels creatively designed around tunes from Beck, Deadmau5 and Jim Guthrie, the music never gets old, and the levels never do either. Pack that in with a level-creator that works well with the Vita's touch screen and lets you build your own compositions, cloud-saving that allows cloud saves to the PS3 version, and you've got a musical game that's not like anything else out there.
A Good Match for: People who love platformers, music fans, anyone who is into indie games, people who like creating things.
Not for Those Who Want: A story in their game, complicated mechanics, a game they can play on the bus without headphones.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=2]Super Stardust Delta[/h]It's a twin-stick arcade shooter. On a portable gaming system. That has twin sticks. This is a descendant of Asteroids, Space Invaders and so many other games that were just about shooting down space enemies to earn a high score. But this one has the visual fireworks to make it one of the most dazzling handheld games ever. (This game is download-only; read our review.)
A Good Match for: People with two thumbs.
Not for Those Who Want: ... a storyline, an adventure or anything else you wouldn't expect from an arcade game.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
S
[h=2]Thomas Was Alone[/h]Remember back when people thought a game needed realistic graphics with flashy characters to successfully convey a story with real heart and soul? Thomas Was Alone is proof that we were incredibly stupid back then. Using nothing more than colored quadrilaterals, indie developer Mike Bithell created a challenging puzzle platformer that tells a story much larger than what you see on your Vita screen. Through clever narration and intelligent level design that's one part obstacle course, one part character development, Thomas Was Alone has a warmth and depth that adds gentle curves to the sharp edges of its four-sided heroes. (Check out our review for the PC edition.)
A Good Match For: Platformer and puzzles fans with a healthy imagination, folks who think they're so clever.
Not a Good Match For: Those who can't relate to a platforming hero unless it has eyes, sunglasses and a sassy attitude.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]NOTE: This list will be updated if and when we discover better games. We will only ever list 12 games, at the most. And, in the case of the Vita, we will give this list another pass this week to incorporate some of the best downloadable PSP games
RelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelated
More...
The Vita (reviewed here) gives us a $200 handheld machine with sticks, touch panels, lots of buttons, a fully-downloadable game library (optional; you can buy many of the games in physical stores), lots of online features and, oh yeah, graphical horsepower like we've never seen before in a gaming handheld.
Cool. So what must you play on this thing? Start with these games.
Update 8/21/2013: Vita price drop officially announced! Sony dropped the news at Gamescom yesterday, to the welcoming arms and ears of probably many gamers. If you were waiting for just this kind of news to hit before making your handheld hardware purchase, now is the time to check out what games you'll want to get started with. We've made a few adjustments in light of the recent events, swapping in Hotline Miami, Rymdkapsel and Thomas Was Alone in place of Hot Shots Golf, Lumines and Where Is My Heart. Take a look at our new list below.
Update 11/12/2012: The quality of titles available for Sony's handheld keeps getting better so we're refreshing the list of what we think are the best games for the PlayStation Vita. New to the Bests for Vita are: Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Need for Speed Most Wanted and Persona 4 Golden. Games that fell off the list include Mutant Blobs Attack, Wipeout 2048 and Escape Plan. They're still good but their replacements are just a wee bit more impressive.
[HR][/HR]
[h=3]Assassin's Creed III: Liberation[/h]Sure, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation brings the massive open-world architecture of Ubisoft's hit franchise to a handheld. The 18th Century New Orleans looks great, too. But, the best thing about the Vita game is how it evolves the franchise's formula to accommodate new heroine Aveline de Grandpre's gender and biracial background into the plot and story. (Read our review.)
A Good Match For: World travelers. Yeah, Aveline switches between French and English in Liberation, but it's her guises that let speak her slip into different strata of society. Unlike other AC protagonists, Aveline can change into three personas with unique abilities. She can start worker revolts as an undercover Slave, bribe guards as a high-society Lady to get into secure locations, and wield the most weapons as the secretive Assassin.
Not For Those Who Want: A rock-solid play experience. Liberation is clearly pushing the limits of the Vita and Ubisoft's new Anvil engine. Problem is, it always feels like that's the case. This game is still an experience worth having but glitches and occasional crashes might mar your time with it.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]FIFA Soccer[/h]Soccer. Football. Whatever you want to call it. It's the console-style FIFA game that people love, with the added feature of the best implementation of the Vita's rear touch panel.
A Good Match for: Sports fans, fans of sports games, whose other options at Vita launch are this, golf (see below) or a forthcoming baseball game.
Not for Those Who Want: Sports games that sync with their home games. This one does not.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Gravity Rush[/h]Gravity Rush is a delight, an open-world adventure game built around a truly new-feeling mechanic. The protagonist Kat is able to re-orient gravity, letting her fall in any direction. It's something of a mix between falling and flying, and it makes the game a uniquely disorienting, highly enjoyable experience. Combine those mechanical smarts with a wonderfully imaginative, fun story, lush visuals, gorgeous art design and a dizzy, grand soundtrack and you've got a real winner for the PSVita. (Read our review.)
A Good Match for: Crackdown and Infamous fans, people who like their games to look and play differently, jazz-heads.
Not for Those Who Want: Familiar mechanics, deep and involved combat.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR][HR][/HR]
[h=2]Rymdkapsel[/h]Rymdkapsel is a real-time-strategy base-building game with a Tetris twist. It's also all touch-screen, but don't let that worry you. It's still superb on Vita. The game's Swedish developers call it “meditative space strategy.” It’s simple. Place odd-shaped floors of different colors on a plane in outer space. Command little rectangular men to farm on or work in these spaces to generate resources to build more spaces and feed more workers. Rally the little men to defend the base against alien invaders every so often. Survive and repeat.
This is a minimalist game, a stripping down of the real-time-strategy genre that went baroque with the visually and technically complex top franchises StarCraft and Company of Heroes. Rymdkapsel makes its more ornate competitors feel needlessly garnished. (Check out our app review.)
A Good Match for: Gamers looking for a portable real-time-strategy game. There ain't much to choose from, and this one has the bonus advantage of being good.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want a lot of action or complexity. This is a mellow game with a single unit-type and a handful of rooms to create. Players won't be progressing through complex skill trees.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=3]LittleBigPlanet Vita[/h]LittleBigPlanet has found a great fit in the touchable, tiltable PSVita—while the game's platforming is as goofy yet imprecise as ever, the level creation tools get a new life on Sony's handheld. It's easier than ever to get creative thanks to the Vita's touch screen, and with the number of tools made available to players, your only limit is your imagination. This one deserves a spot in any Vita library. (Read our review.)
A Good Match for: People who like to make things, people who like messing around with things others have made.
Not for Those Who Want: A precise, challenging platformer, or a game with a lengthy single-player story.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Hotline Miami[/h]It should not feel this cool to brutally murder people, but that may well be Hotline Miami's entire point. The top-down killfest would be fun with the sound turned off, but the astoundingly good soundtrack elevates things to a different, more disturbingly stylish level.
The game made a big splash on PC, and for a while, mouse-control seemed like the only worthwhile fit for its brand of extremely fast, unforgiving action. But Hotline Miami works surprisingly well with the Vita's controls, thanks in part to the ability to tag enemies for locked-on shots, which lets you plan each room-assault with a bit more precision. Groovy, disturbing, disgusting, and worryingly satisfying, Hotline Miami is one of the Vita's most potent, darkly enjoyable games.
A Good Match For: Fans of exploitation cinema, old-school twitchy action fans, perfectionists, sociopaths.
Not A Good Match For: The weak-stomached, those who don't like violence, people who want a forgiving game and/or hate electronic music.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: PlayStation Store | Wal-Mart
[HR][/HR]
[h=3]Need For Speed: Most Wanted[/h]Through some type of digital alchemy, Criterion has managed to take the full console version of Need For Speed: Most Wanted and bring it to the Vita, with only a few graphical concessions. The only concession is that it only allows for four multiplayer racers instead of eight. All that and it (theoretically) ties in to your EA account and allowing you to earn Autolog points on the go. Whether played as a companion to the big-screen version or taken on its own, Most Wanted is the Vita's strongest racing game, and a great showcase for the tiny handheld's not-so-tiny power. (Read our review of the console version.)
A Good Match for: People who like to drive really expensive cars really fast.
Not for Those Who Want: A game that's about anything other than driving really expensive cars really fast.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=3]Persona 4 Golden[/h]Japanese high school never seemed so much fun. Persona 4 Golden, a remake of the critically-acclaimed PlayStation 2 role-playing game, combines a social simulator and a hardcore RPG with surprisingly addictive results. Take midterms in the morning, eat steak with your girlfriend on the roof for lunch, then head to the mall after school to fight off shadow monsters in a dangerous world that exists inside televisions. Just another day in Persona 4's Japan. (Read our review.)
A Good Match For: RPG fans who want something different than the standard fantasy or sci-fi fare, or Persona fans looking for a good excuse to replay the fourth one.
Not For Those Who Want: Something short. Persona 4 Golden will take you something like 70-80 hours to beat—and that's before you start New Game Plus.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Rayman: Origins[/h]We loved this cartoony, musically-amazing side-scroller on the PlayStation 3 so of course we love this shot-for-shot port on the Vita. (Well, shot-for-shot of the singleplayer.) We can take this one with us. And hug it. So maybe we love it even more.
A Good Match for: People who enjoy running from left to right while sometimes hopping, i.e. fans of Super Mario, Sonic and all good side-scrollers. This one is fun and a beauty.
Not for Those Who Want: Black and white. (See: Escape Plan.)
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Sound Shapes[/h]Is it a game? Or is it a musical instrument? This side-scrolling platformer mixes art, music and level design into something more than just a game, but does it matter? It's awesome, and that's what counts. As players make their way through the levels, the "coins" they'd be collecting in a Mario game instead cause musical sounds to begin to trigger, and the more of them they collect, the more complete the backing track becomes. With levels creatively designed around tunes from Beck, Deadmau5 and Jim Guthrie, the music never gets old, and the levels never do either. Pack that in with a level-creator that works well with the Vita's touch screen and lets you build your own compositions, cloud-saving that allows cloud saves to the PS3 version, and you've got a musical game that's not like anything else out there.
A Good Match for: People who love platformers, music fans, anyone who is into indie games, people who like creating things.
Not for Those Who Want: A story in their game, complicated mechanics, a game they can play on the bus without headphones.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Super Stardust Delta[/h]It's a twin-stick arcade shooter. On a portable gaming system. That has twin sticks. This is a descendant of Asteroids, Space Invaders and so many other games that were just about shooting down space enemies to earn a high score. But this one has the visual fireworks to make it one of the most dazzling handheld games ever. (This game is download-only; read our review.)
A Good Match for: People with two thumbs.
Not for Those Who Want: ... a storyline, an adventure or anything else you wouldn't expect from an arcade game.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]
[h=2]Thomas Was Alone[/h]Remember back when people thought a game needed realistic graphics with flashy characters to successfully convey a story with real heart and soul? Thomas Was Alone is proof that we were incredibly stupid back then. Using nothing more than colored quadrilaterals, indie developer Mike Bithell created a challenging puzzle platformer that tells a story much larger than what you see on your Vita screen. Through clever narration and intelligent level design that's one part obstacle course, one part character development, Thomas Was Alone has a warmth and depth that adds gentle curves to the sharp edges of its four-sided heroes. (Check out our review for the PC edition.)
A Good Match For: Platformer and puzzles fans with a healthy imagination, folks who think they're so clever.
Not a Good Match For: Those who can't relate to a platforming hero unless it has eyes, sunglasses and a sassy attitude.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the PlayStation Store
[HR][/HR]NOTE: This list will be updated if and when we discover better games. We will only ever list 12 games, at the most. And, in the case of the Vita, we will give this list another pass this week to incorporate some of the best downloadable PSP games
RelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelatedRelated
More...
