Viva la Vita

I love the PlayStation Vita. I think that it is currently the best handheld gaming system out there. Now this isn't to say that I don't like the Nintendo 3DS, I do love my 3DS, I just love my PSV more. Now there are many reasons for my love of the Vita, and I'll detail that love in the coming paragraphs.

The advantages of the second analog stick

One of the main problems that plagued the original PSP was the lack of a second analog stick. The second analog stick in most games is used for camera control, so that meant that all PSP games had to either have fixed cameras, or weird camera controls. The best example for the awkward controls example is God of War: Chains of Olympus. In the original God of War the right analog stick wasn't used for camera, but was used as a dodge function. So without the right analog stick the game had you hold the L and R buttons and then use the left analog stick. This is particularly annoying since holding the L button is used to lock on, and holding the R is used for magic. This meant many a time when you dodged in random directions, or even towards a boss, when you wanted to cast magic. Or even casting magic accidentally when you just meant to dodge. 

So the return of the second analog stick is already a great thing, but it also sees the return of the second L and R buttons. The PSV has both a touch screen in front, used to cycle through menus and occasionally in gameplay, and a touch pad in the back. The touch pas acts as both L2 and R2, meaning that you can play a wider variety of Playstation Network games that require both. This also means that you can play PS1 games without having to constantly bring up the menu to change the LR buttons to the L2R2 buttons. There is also an options menu that you open by pressing a finger to the front touch screen and swiping down, which allows you to change all of the key bindings.

Putting the Cart back on the horse

Now one thing that initially drew controversy about the PSV was the lack of backwards compatibility. And trust me, I was right there with everyone, backwards compatibility is an important aspect of modern gaming, as it helps to soothe the initial lack of games at launch. This is the reason was upgrading to the Wii was easier for a lot of die hards to achieve. You could just replay all of your old GamCube games until the new installments of your favorite series was released.

Now Sony did themselves a disservice by not explaining that the reason was that the new console wouldn't be using the old UMD format. Let's just put this out there, UMD sucked. There wasn't a lot of storage space, and the damn things were to easy to break. The slightest push in the wrong place could brick a game beyond repair, something that is just inexcusable in today's market. But now Sony went back to a cartridge format, with little SD cards that hold the games. Firstly this is good because it doesn't cost a lot of memory to store a game save anymore. But this also makes them harder to break and longer lasting. Now this combined with the use of the touch screen brings the comparison to something that Nintendo would've produced, but with one small caveat...

Effective use of its potential 

Now don't get me wrong, I love my WiiU, I plan to have the next installment of this defend Nintendo's latest. But the PSV has a touch more grasp on what it can be used to do, rather than having its potential being its selling point. The WiiU gamepad could be used to revolutionize the way that game's are developed, or it could just be used as a port machine, which frankly I would prefer at this stage so that I don't have to purchase the incoming disasters of MyBox or PS4, or to use their other names $$$$. But right now no one is doing anything that wouldn't have been doable without the Game Pad.

The PSV is doing slightly more in terms of capturing its potential. Most recently the game Soul Sacrifice used the PSV touch screen to cycle through menus and the pages of the in game tome. Assassins Creed 3: Liberation uses the touch screen to change weapons. Disgaea 3 uses the back screen as another form of camera control. Basically what I'm getting at is that the developers that are playing with the PSV aren't simply doing the same thing over and over. They are using it for different purposes depending on the game.

Greater possibilities on the horizon

Considering the outstanding graphics quality as well it could be used to break the stigmas on portable ports of console games. It could actually have a similar experience to the original console port, which Sony is trying to make possible. The number of exclusives that have PS3 to PSV cross-play options is actually pretty large considering how recent the announcement that it was something the company wanted to focus on was. With a little more tweaking Sony may even be able to make it so that if you purchase the console version you can play it on both, with some kind of streaming service.

Obviously some are going to say that this is kind of naive thinking, but I believe that I have a solution. If you cross-play the game, some of the content is only available on the console port of the game. This encourages purchase of the more expensive console version but allows play on both. This also encourages online play, since it could allow people to play online regardless of which version they bought. I would love to buy a portable Blazblue, if I could also play online against the larger console player base.  

Conclusion, and preview...

Basically I think that the PSV is a fantastic piece of hardware, that I love to death. But more importantly the system represents the 'good' future of the industry. Where the social aspects of the games are there, but they ultimately serve the games. Not the games serving the social aspects, that's the wrong way. And on that note next time I would like to refer you all to the only next-generation game console that seems to want to actually be a games console.