Viva La PS VITA!
The PlayStation Vita is, without a doubt, my favorite console. Unfortunately, that’s not a very popular opinion. The Vita is a strange choice, mostly due to a failed branding effort by Sony and perhaps by the fact that most of its flagship games are existing indie favorites on other platforms.
The Japanese gaming giant promised a PS3 on the go, but what we got was something so much better.
The Vita was originally designed as a graphical powerhouse to handle detailed 3D games. This vision was achieved somewhat through a small handful of titles such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss, KillZone: Mercenaries and Freedom Wars. While that type of scope might hold a relatively broad appeal, the Vita just didn’t sell enough units to support that type of AAA game market.
As sales for the Vita dropped, so did support from high-end third party developers. The Vita is in such a rough spot, even Sony gave up on it’s vision for the handheld. When compared to the sales of the Ninetendo 3DS, the Vita is a failure. However, the handheld is not without it’s own fan base. That’s because the independent scene has absolutely flooded the Vita with an over-whelming amount of awesome niche titles!
Last year at PAX East, I had a conversation with Rami Ismail from Vlambeer Games, he said “If you own a Vita, then you really care about games.”
If you like strange, quirky, artistic and hardcore indie games, the Playstation Vita has nothing short of an amazing lineup. That is, provided you don’t already play indie games on PC or certain major consoles. That’s really the main caveat here. The Vita doesn’t have much in the way of exclusives, but rather acts as a way to catch up on some of the best of PC games. If your anything like me, you’ve got a huge Steam Game Library that you haven’t event touched. As it stands right now I have 86 games in my Steam Library, only 22 of those are installed and realistically, I only play three of them. That’s because I hate being in front of a PC screen when I’m not at work. The Vita is my preferred way to play all of these games. As someone who likes going for walks and frequents music venues, having all of this indie gold in my pocket is a dream come true.
So without further adieu, here is my ever evolving list of awesome games on the PS Vita.
1001 Spikes
Broken Age
Cell Damage HD
Child Of light Ultimate Edition
Dive Kick
Don’t Starve
Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition
Dust Force
FreedomWars
Futuridium EP Deluxe
Geomitry wars 3
Gravity Dayz
Grim Fandango Remastered
Guacamelee!
Gun Slugs
Hell Divers
Hotline Miami 1 and 2
Little Big Planet
Lone Survivor
Luftrausers
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
Muramasa Rebirth
Nighoog
Ollie Ollie 1 and 2
Persona 4 Golden
PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F
Race the Sun
Ratchet and Clank Collection
Rayman Origins and Legends
Retro City Rampage
Rogue Legacy
Shovel knight
Spelunky
Super Meat boy
Super Time Force Ultra
Tearaway
Terraria
The Binding of Issac Rebirth
The Wolf Amoung Us (season 1)
Touch My Katamari
XeoDrifter
About the Author
Joe-Lou is an offbeat musician from Providence RI. His real job involves designing exhibits, but by night he does this stuff.
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