Let's Do Launch: The Vita

The PlayStation vita is the best console made by man, god, or some superior organism to both (like a bacterium) and throughout the five years I have owned it I often muse on how damn much I like the thing. Conveniently there’s a bloggers wanted about console launches out and about so I see little reason to not take advantage of it to bang on about this system even more-specifically my launch day experience. 

Made by amna umen

In 2012 I was but a high schooler nearing the end of my pre-college schooling, when I started seeing stuff appear for the Playstation Vita. The system quickly captured my imagination and as time went on I got more and more excited for the system-culminating in me waking up pretty early to stumble into my Walmart at around 6am in the morning to grab it before school started. At the time I was working at Wal-Mart (wouldn’t recommend it by the by) and decided to use my employee discount to grab the console. I recall wandering through the almost empty store, walking over to my way to the electronics section, and asking if someone could grab me a vita from the back. There was a moment of apprehension as the employee on hand wasn’t sure if they were in yet or if they had even gotten them-meaing that I wouldn't get my hands on the system that day, and would probably have to come in early again. This was then followed by me waiting for the employee to grab one after another posited they were probably in, which as it turned out they were. Thus I was handed the console and grabbed an accessories kit for it-including a 4GB memory card, a fabric holder for it that I affectionately called a sock, and a case to hold a few games and a memory card. I purchased it-still have the receipt lying around somewhere actually-for around 200 dollars if I recall and walked out of the store to drive to school.

After getting the system and arriving in my first class-it was a pretty lax class with me and one other guy working on computers at a very basic level-I was allowed to let it sit and charge up. I recall opening it for the first time-swiping the little sticker like lock screen thing, the calming delightful music, the little m&m shaped icons…it was just so endearing from the word go. It caught the attention of my other classmate and teacher, who looked over it a bit before we had to return to our computer work. I recall looking over it with my friends, toying around with holding the system and how its buttons worked, the feel of the sticks, the touchescreens, etc. I was pretty enthralled by the system and even now when I just hold the system I like the ergonomics and feel of it-brings a little smile to my face even now and the ergonomics of it are pretty darn satisfying. 

I remember some of my earliest games for the system as well, like Super Star Dust Delta with its fun arcade-ish style of meteor and jerkish robot destruction, Mutant blobs attack with its platforming based on eating stuff to get bigger and so on. I remember eventually grabbing Rayman Origins and being really enchanted with the music and fun graphics, with some really fun platforming complementing it and the touchscreen allowing the freeing of the little lums/popping of enemies. I remember playing Gravity Rush and enjoying it but having reservations, while being somewhat impressed with the size of the world and the gameplay flow being as smooth as it was. And I remember Golden Abyss which was fairly impressive but had some issues of its own, but was overall a good time and far better than the awful third one. Pretty much all of these games brought me enjoyment to varying degrees and showed off some of the cool stuff you could do with the system though it would take a while for a game to come along and demonstrate some of the neat stuff you could do by utilizing all of the vitas features-that being Tearaway which is "Charming: The game" for me. 

Even as the vita waned and now is pretty much abandoned by the people who made it-I’ve stated that all before, so if you want that sort of thing read this-it’s still kept a special place in my gaming system collection. It’s my favorite video game console and even 5 years on I have a lot of fondness for the thing. I’ve been on board since day one, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made as well as being the best launch system I could have asked for in terms of the system itself. 

- “If you don't like bacteria, you're on the wrong planet.” ― Stewart Brand

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