The PlayStation Vita is Sony’s next handheld gaming device, tasked with succeeding the PSP, which was a mixed bag of success. Sony are coming with a lot of bells and whistles for this one, boasting features including a 5 inch OLED capacitive touch screen, dual analog sticks, tilt controls, WiFi, optional 3G connectivity, front and rear cameras, and the new rear capacitive touchpad. Sony have also learned from past pricing miscues and have announced a reasonable $249 MSRP for the WiFi version, and $299 for the 3G model. Impressive sounding tech at a reasonable price. But how does all that stuff really work? We had a chance to go hands-on with the PS Vita at E3.

Our tour of the PS Vita included a number of short game demos designed to show off all the features of the handheld. First up was LittleBigPlanet, which has been adjusted to take advantage of the new controls. While you still had to deal with our usual concerns with LBP (floaty Sackboy, movement between planes), Greg and I both agreed that this felt like the best controlling version of the game that we’ve played. The touchscreen was used to drag certain objects around the level to help you progress to different areas. Tilt controls were used to move railed objects back and forth. The rear touchpad was used to make platforms pop out of the background for Sackboy to use. All in all, all the new inputs worked well and had their place in the game.

The rear touchpad feels smooth, and is likely glass.

Virtua Tennis 4 was next to show off how some games will be able to be played with just the touchscreen, should you choose that option. Movement was handled by tapping in a direction to have your player move there while strokes were handled by swiping up for top spin and down for back spin. The touchscreen was fairly responsive though a slight delay meant you had to anticipate a little bit versus reacting. Hopefully that’s something that will be refined a bit as development progresses. The screen itself was very responsive though.

The rear touchpad and camera were in heavy use for Little Deviants. What we saw combined marble manipulation and augmented reality elements. The first part involved using the rear touchpad to push the ground up to make your ball character roll towards a goal. I honestly didn’t feel it was 100% responsive, though for the most part it worked well. It certainly felt different than the usual tilt-style control for this type of game. After that, the camera was used to play an AR-style game where you shot enemies in the world to save your allies. While AR-shooters aren’t a new concept by any means, it worked and there’s still a little bit of novelty in seeing objects floating in the “real world.”

Sorry we don't have a screenshot from our playtime at E3, but I couldn't put the game down to take one.

Of course, one of the more anticipated games for the Vita is Uncharted: Golden Abyss. The game looks phenomenal on the OLED screen and the lush environments of Uncharted jungles really show off the screen’s capabilities. For gameplay, even though the PS3 version of the games uses it, for some reason I kept forgetting to use the second analog stick. I was told that this was a common occurrence in the demos they’ve done, though, likely because people aren’t used to having a second analog on a handheld. This game also takes advantage of the new control mechanisms as you can touch the screen to have Drake climb ledges an swipe a number of ledges to have Drake automatically climb across them. This worked really well and adds a bit of accessibility to the game, although you have the option to use traditional button controls too. Tilt controls were used to help aim while using the sniper rifle and also to set up a backwards ledge-to-ledge jump. In our demo, the rear touchpad was used to zoom with the sniper rifle. All the controls were pretty tight and the game played great.

As for an overall impression, the Vita feels pretty good in your hands. It felt natural after all of about a minute while playing. One of my concerns would be that there might be almost TOO many control options available. Depending on how developers utilize all the options, there’s only so much you can do with 2 hands and 10 fingers. If a game decides to fully utilize all control options on a regular basis, it has the potential to be overwhelming. However, if developers decide to give you options, or sparingly use other options while relying on one or two core mechanics, then the true genius of the Vita will be evident. I have some concerns about the responsiveness of the rear touchpad at this point still as it was not totally responsive when engaged at times. Hopefully this will be fleshed out more before release. Everything else is top notch and as it stands, this is an intriguing piece of gaming hardware and stands poised to give the Nintendo 3DS a run for its money this Christmas season, especially if Sony can line up a few more solid launch titles to go along with Uncharted.