I was skeptical back then, and I am skeptical now. But that is all about to change. Before I get into all the juicy details of what the PS Vita does let me start about by saying the packaging was very promising. The simple flip box “a la Taco Bell” presentation really made its unboxing feel like its something else. Now to fast forward a bit, I took it out, plugged it in for a quick charge, fiddled around a bit with the earphones and manual, and an hour later was the moment of truth.

[quote]I recall when the PlayStation Portable was first released.[/quote]

First thing I noticed, which of course I should have noticed a whole lot earlier, were the Dual Analog Sticks. If anyone can recall the old PlayStation Portable, then you’ll probably remember its fiddly analog stick. It felt like a tack on, and served very little purpose in my opinion, if not to make gamers appreciate the increasingly unpopular D-pad. But these new babies are the epitome of what Dual Analog Sticks should look like on a portable gaming console. Protruding, robust, control
Switch it on, and you’ll notice the second greatest feature, the display screen. 5 inch OLED is bright… and I mean bright. The contrast, colour, brightness, saturation, and all other technical settings I can’t pronounce are in perfect sync. The screen is not reflective nor does it have a glare effect, which are both pluses in my books.

After staring at in awe for a couple of minutes came the real user experience. The PlayStation Vita dashboard is reminiscent of the Sony dashboard. Application icons for each option, and feature which is cool in a way. The 3D fisheye effect makes the whole manipulation a real treat. Plus being that it is a Touch control supported I didn’t hesitate to try it out on the dashboard. Though it didn’t do it justice, I still enjoyed the ‘page rip’ theme it had when closing applications; sort of like tearing a note of a post it pad. I had two games at hand, one being uncharted and the other escape plan. I knew Uncharted would be good by default since its already an established title. Escape Plan would really put the touch controls to the test, and let me tell you it passed with flying colours, The black and white themed puzzle game makes excellent use of both the front pad touch control and back panel touch control features. The result was amazing. It didn’t not fail at any front. You wanted to push a valve in (tap front), pull a lever (swipe front), push a box out (tap back), harass the character (pinch back); it all responded rhythmically well.

Sony PS Vita

Dual Analog Sticks

Sony PS Vita

Touch-Screen

Sony PS Vita

OLED Screen

Sony PS Vita

Six-Axis Motion

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Sherif

About Sherif

Sherif Salah is one of those guys that are born with the teenage gene for addictive gaming behaviour. Amongst his favourites are, World of Warcraft, Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid, and Grand Theft Auto. After dedicating a good portion of his life to WoW, Sherif decided to retire from it after renaming his real life Dutch cat Lich King. The whole essence of his being revolves around defending the trend of Gaming, and when asked about it he replies, “Gaming will never die… ask anybody who knows what they’re talking about, and if they don’t have the time to reply back its because they’re gaming”