I'm not quite sure what my main reason was for buying a Vita, exactly.
Let's go back a little bit. I'm 22 years old and have been a gamer for around 20 of those years. I got my first handheld in 1994, the Game Gear. Then later, I picked up the Game Boy Color when it came out in 1997. I loved those two handhelds as a kid, playing Pokemon, Streets Of Rage 2, Sonic 2, James Bond, Super Mario Land, etc until I could play them no more. I was a handheld junkie. Eventually the newer generation happened, and I thought "hell yes, I'm going to get a PSP." So I did. I saved up a bunch of money from my quaint job mowing lawns and bought it on launch day. I watched Spider Man 2 on its big screen, and couldn't help but notice the 3 dead pixels and scratch staring me in the face right out of the box. I was disheartened, returned it, and got another one with 2 dead pixels. I thought "whatever, I'll just live with them" and continued trying to love the thing. I played some Coded Arms and other games that came out around launch, and played the thing about 5 times before I eventually threw it in the closet. I was unimpressed, and at that point I had kind of given up on handhelds. I stuck with my PC gaming and light console gaming up until 3 days ago.
I'm a composer and sound designer who is starting to work in the game industry and figured 'well... I should probably know the market and keep up with it beyond just quick looks and the like. Guess I should buy a Vita' and did.
I've been using it for 2 days now, and have probably put in somewhere around 10 hours with the system over those few days, and I feel as though I can honestly say: This thing is fucking great.
The massive, vibrant screen is astounding. I really love seeing the depth of colors it can produce - it's staggering. No longer do I feel the need to precariously put my my laptop beside my bed to watch movies and the like anymore, the Netflix app and sharing my movies between the PS3, PC and Vita works perfectly. I haven't tried out Youtube or anything like that yet, or GB for that matter, but if those work then I'm completely set for a bedtime media device.
The games have been great, too. I bought 2 fairly cheap games from PSN (I also got the 32 GB memory unit) just to get a feel for how the thing plays games and how it feels under the fingers. I bought Super Stardust (haven't really loved that one yet, but its visuals are astounding) and Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!!! (Amazing and super fun game, one of my favorites that I've played in a very long time). They feel great, the controls are awesome but the only issue I have is that I have really big hands (long fingers) and sometimes I feel a little cramped after about 45+ minutes of gaming at a time. I'm sure it's something that'll feel better once my hands get used to the position, but people with big hands be ready for some discomfort at first. Once you settle in, though, it feels great. The touch pad on the back feels intuitive, taking a hand off to use the front touch is great and the dual analog sticks feel solid and are really responsive.
I'll leave this post here for now, but the short version of all of this is: I was caught completely off guard. I came in with very tempered expectations, expecting disappointment again but have just found my new best friend when it comes to laying down in bed, taking planes, riding trains and for curing boredom during downtime. I'm looking forward to having this thing around during PAX East to see how many people I pick up using Near, too!
If you're looking for a new portable device to both keep you entertained and give you a satisfying gaming experience, I can honestly recommend the Vita. I really hope the game library picks up, right now it's kind of similar to the 3DS during this point of its life cycle, but I'm hoping that once LBP and Persona 4 The Golden come out that this thing will really start to shine =)
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