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Sony’s new handheld dropped in Japan on Dec. 17 to relatively little fanfare. I had preordered, but it turned out to be completely unnecessary as the shops were well (over?) stocked with units. Our local electronics megastore opened early to accommodate the expected crowds, but when I got there at around 9:00AM there was only one dude in line waiting. Maybe I just missed the crowds. Dunno.

My impression overall is that the Vita is a nicely put together unit. Like the first PSP, the black high-gloss finish is going to annoy the fuck out of neatnick users with its propensity for attracting fingerprints. And now those fingerprints will be all over the screen too, since it’s a touch device. This is a price worth paying though, as the touch screen makes all the set-up functions, such as entering your PSN account info, infinitely faster.

The interface seems serviceable enough. Everything is represented in little round bubbles that, when tapped, dump you to a start page which requires a second tap to launch the desired app or function (even the “Settings” button). I find this vaguely annoying, but not deal-breaking. The set-up process, on the other hand, made me swear several times under my breath. It prompted me to enter my PSN account info, then informed me I needed to download an update before I could enter my PSN info. It had to make a temporary “trial account” to download the software update, and after that installed I got to re-enter my real username and password. This did not seem like the best way to go about things, but what the fuck do I know?

The games seem like typical launch fare. Uncharted stands out (to me at least) as the one worth getting excited for. I was worried that this would end up being some bootleg-ass Uncharted shit, but it’s not. Nolan North, and not some sound-a-like, does the voice of Drake, and really, that’s the only thing I look for in an Uncharted game. The touch mechanics work very well for climbing, but I’m not so sold on the motion control (rocking the Vita back and forth to make Drake swing on vines etc.).

The other games I picked up were Ridge Racer, Dungeon Hunter and (via download) Little Deviants. Ridge Racer, although very limited in scope (just 3 tracks, or 6 if you count the reversed tracks), is a nice looking game. They use the tilt-shift trick of saturating the colors and defocusing the background, so it feels like you’re driving through a miniature diorama most of the time. Dungeon Hunter is a game I am very conflicted about. On the one hand, I find Gameloft’s practice of ripping off other popular franchises to be, to borrow a term from the Motley Fool guys, slegal (slimy but legal) at best. On the other hand, it’s Diablo, and I like Diablo. Little Deviants, to my surprise, was a bit of a whiff. The colorful graphics are charming, and it certainly makes use of just about every single Vita feature, but some of the games in this minigame collection barely rise to the standards of those Punch-the-Monkey flash ads. At least one of the mini-games I tried out (zombie rasslin’) seemed broken and worked only sporadically, although I read and re-read the hints several times.

So, in conclusion, Vita: it’s a thing.