Virtua Tennis 4
My penchant for tennis titles died alongside my arm on Wii Sports and I never reclaimed the love, despite the releases on HD consoles last year. These fairly casual sports titles are a blessing for mobile gaming, though, with the short matches and training sessions the perfect length for a tube ride into town. While a fairly similar version to its PS3 brethren last year, VT4 works better on Vita and is certainly more refined.
While you can easily get stuck into a serious game of tennis here, and there is plenty to master on that side of things, VT4 comes with several side games and Vita-specific modes that offer something different.
A two-player aerial game allows a pair of you to play on the same screen, while another mode takes you into the court in first person, with a full 360° view of the stadium while you play, moving viewpoint as you move the console. It's a bit gimmicky, but an impressive display of what the Vita has to offer.
The various mini games that crop up throughout the World Tour for training purposes can also be accessed on the main menu for high score bragging rights and you can challenge other Vita users to a match over Wi-Fi, hitting balls over the net... over the net.
Rating 80%
Price £35
More info Sega
WipEout 2048
Fans of the WipEout franchise will already know just how intense this game can be, but for those of you yet to be wowed, brace yourself for a serious adrenaline rush. This is one of the fastest, most intense versions I have ever played and my hands were tightly gripped to the sides of the Vita throughout.
In true WipEout gravity-defying fashion, the beautifully-designed vehicles hover along tracks and collect rockets, shields and speed boosts to complete a host of different level modes. It's fast, devastatingly furious and coupled with a frantic but fantastic soundtrack, a rush that's hard to pull away from.
Multiplayer puts the icing on the cake, competing against up to seven others from around the world. There'll also be cross platform playability in future with those who own WipEout HD Fury on PS3 able to race Vita owners over familiar tracks
Loading times could be better, but you'd expect that from a game so detailed. Overall, WipEout is a real testament to the Vita's qualifications as a portable PS3 and one of the best games currently available. ®
Rating 95%
Price £30
More info Sony
Ten... PlayStation Vita launch games
COMMENTS
Re: prices
You can't compare Skyrim though, there are plenty of full-blown PS3 titles with 8 hours gameplay that cost £40 too. Apparently less than half of gamers even complete a game, so epic titles like Skyrim are becoming an expensive prospect most publishers aren't willing to take a risk on unfortunately.
Re: Re: 95% (for two of them)...
Uncharted is fun but extremely short. 95% at that price with maybe 6-8 hours of gameplay? Nah.
95% (for two of them)...
...seems awful high. I can't for the life of me remember which other games have scored that high but I'm sure they must have been pretty special.. Perhaps I am mistaken though and the score is more common than I seem to think.
Re: # cost of games
600 minutes on Uncharted 3
Bit more than that.
You miss a lot on one playthrough, so do another run, then might as well do it on crushing. Not many trophies left so why not? And that is before doing the multiplayer. I think it took me well over 20 hours getting towards 30 to finish all on the single player, not got so much into the MP as Uncharted 2 however. I worked out Uncharted 2 has cost me about 10p an hour including all of the DLC.
Last game I played with only 1 whole play through was Rage.
