The sun is rising across the United States, and at retailers everywhere you can finally purchase the standard edition PS Vita. A large group of gamers have already gotten their grubby mitts on the first edition bundle a short week ago. Should you pick one up today? Is it worth the price tag? Read on to find out.

My first impression with the system will always be that it is quite large. The 5″ display is nestled between dual analogue sticks, a d-pad, and the standard circle, square, x and triangle buttons. It’s about 1/8 or 1/4″ thicker than the PSP 3000 and weighs a bit more.

The weight is a direct result of the amount of hardware included.The front and back touch screen, quad-core processor, and advanced video processing make for a beefy unit. The back touch screen is being thrown around by Sony as a “game changer” or rather one of the systems pieces that make it a game changer. Depending on which game utilized it I found it to be more of a gimmick than anything.

Whether stroking the back to help Drake climb a rope, or tapping the back to push a robot off a cliff in Little Deviants the current utilization seemed a touch forced. Little Deviants used it in a creative way, and Uncharted utilized it in a non-obstrusive way, but I found myself using the analog stick to perform the same tasks with a touch more comfort.

Display:The display is gorgeous and the capabilities of the handheld are mind bending. The games are all visually stunning. Uncharted looks so close to a PS3 title I found myself wondering whether I’d ever turn on the console again. Everything was crisp, the water and lighting effects were rendering perfectly with no delay, and even the distance the games were rendering was up to snuff.

Touch Screen and OS: The touch screen is quick and responsive and the operating system on the console is a stroke of genius. The bubbly interface wouldn’t be my first choice for icons, however, the way it differentiates items to be launched and what’s currently running is perfect. The flawless multitasking is something to be envied by the mobile and pc industry alike. The Web-OS style cards, that are simply peeled away to close is another design stroke of genius. At any given point I’ll have 3-4 items running in the background and a game running. Generally I would leave NEAR, the Playstation Store, Maps, and any of the games I’ve been playing recently and the system runs as if nothing has changed. Jumping in-between a game and an app is simple and fast. Press home, slide to the app you wish to load, tap it and, voila app loaded.

Bluetooth: I’ll touch quickly on the bluetooth integration for the Vita. It’s amazing, there I said it. Full a2dp support allows you to pair any bluetooth device such as your Jambox, or any headset for that matter, and utilize it for in game chat during multiplayer or to simply give yourself a better sound experience. Jawbone LiveAudio and Uncharted: Golden Abyss = handheld bliss, just saying.

3G: Im a huge proponent of having data wherever, why ever, however. I can’t figure out tho, why spending monthly money to have data on this one is worth it. If you don’t have a smart phone or tablet, it makes total sense to have the Vita with you for maps and other application utilization. If you have a smart phone, then the need to utilize the 3g portion of the Vita goes away almost entirely. I have loved not worrying about WiFi when searching for a nearby person or quickly looking something up, but realistically I could get by without the data plan. Setting up the data plan through the device also lead to a huge headache, after 3 attempts I finally moved to my laptop and set the connection up through At&t’s main site. I realize that using the early access bundle not everything was ready for the full launch. But AT&T and Sony should have had their information together for the mobile site to ensure that the device was a quick set up. Once it was configured the data ran beautifully, it was simply the set up stage that caused tears of frustration.

The Price: You’re paying a bit of geek tax to purchase this guy on day one, and it’s worth it. The amount of hardware put into Sony’s latest handheld makes the value proposition very strong. The amount of titles available at launch also put forward a tempting proposition. You can walk into the store to pick up your handheld and leave with Uncharted, ModNation Racers and, Hot Shots Golf to provide yourself with hours of game play opportunities.

Battery Life: As with any device dedicated to gaming, the battery life is a tough battle. The 2100 mAh battery does a good job at keeping the system alive for about 4 hours of gameplay. My only complains are based on the lack of warning that you’re running low, and if the system powers down due to battery drain, it doesn’t give you a message or heads up at all. The screen goes black, and causes you to panic ever so slightly. When recharging it generally takes 30 minutes of sitting on the charger untouched before the unit will find life again.

Application Availability
This is probably the biggest frustration I had with the console itself. When shopping for Vita software in the Playstation Store, I found it frustrating how many items simply said, “not Vita compatible.” I understand that it is a different genre of code, and the game has to be built for use on the console, but I had hoped that Sony and developers would prepare for launch by making some of the SEN titles easily transferrable. On a positive note, I love that a huge chunk of the PSP releases are available in the Store for download, and will play on your Vita. I also hope to see growth in the “App” section of the Playstation Store. Currently the only application you can purchase for the Vita is the extended service plans of varying lengths, LiveTweet (thank god they released this, I was going to write an entire section bitching about the lack of twitter integration.) Flickr, and Netflix. These are 3 very important pieces of the application puzzle, but I hope to see more come. I’m impressed with how fast a Netflix application was brought to the handheld. This section has a bright future.

Summary:

Pros:

• Gorgeous display, beautiful graphics
• Quick and simple multi-tasking
• Easy access to the Playstation Store
• Well designed “mobile” version of the Playstation Store
• Quick development for applications seems to be bringing, “must have” apps to the store
• Bluetooth Integration all around is stellar
• Near Integration — People are actually using it!!!
• Great list of launch titles, and a bright future of more software releasing quickly

Cons:

• Rough 3g setup through the device
• No warning on battery drain shut down
• Wait time on charging when battery is fully drained
• small list of apps currently available in the store
• The Sony web browser is still clunky, I don’t know when they’ll get that running smoothly

Should you buy one? I say yes, this is the strongest handheld launch I’ve seen Sony do yet. There are actually titles for this one worth playing Hot Shots and many others will keep you grinding away for hours, while Uncharted gives you the blockbuster play you need. This system is worth the investment in this robots eyes.

The recent rumors were that Rocksteady, makers of Batman: Arkham Asylum and City, were possibly working on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. Now we’ve got a poster popping up at the 2012 Toy Fair (courtesy of toyark.com) that indicates the brand will be cross-promoting with IDW, current publisher of the comic, and Activision. Does this negate the Rocksteady rumors? Not necessarily. Activision is primarily a publishing house so it could mean they’re publishing a Rocksteady produced game. This could be good or bad news. If the game succeeds in any way, you can count on Activision to be rolling out annual sequels from whoever they can get to develop them as long as the license holds. On the other hand, those annual iterations will quickly suffer from oversaturation in the market and the lack of innovation caused by the high turnover.

Just in case that reference to Activision’s habit of over-releasing games went over your head, here’s a more blatant example. A listing for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 recently surfaced momentarily on Amazon’s French site. It was immediately taken down, but not before someone caught a screen shot. I’m not sure why they bothered to de-list it. It’s not like anyone actually thought this game wouldn’t be released this year.

As many players are winding up their 1,000+ hour Skyrim campaigns the talk of DLC is just getting started. Bethesda had what they call an “aggressive path” for Fallout 3‘s DLC, releasing five additional pieces at $10 each. For Skyrim they want to go in a different direction. According to Todd Howard, the “plan now is to take more time, to have more meat on them. They’ll feel closer to an expansion pack.” To fill the low times between add-ons they plan to release smaller, free content to keep you in the game. However, they’re still “trying to figure out what those things are.” Bethesda did show off a bunch of stuff recently at DICE that their developers came up with just for fun. Some of that may be included in one of these releases. So, dragon mounts?

If you’re in the market for DLC sooner rather than later, look to expand Assassin’s Creed: Revelations later this month. The “Lost Archives” expansion is scheduled for a February release at $14.99. The actual content hasn’t been revealed yet, but an achievement list was recently leaked indicating there will be at least one more Desmond mission. This is expected to be additional story content, not just a multiplayer add-on. Personally, I’d like to see them expand the ending. No story spoilers, but the final two missions are just about the worst possible way to end the Ezio trilogy.

Saints’ Row: The Third is also getting some DLC, starting today. “Gangstas in Space” is exactly what it sounds like, ridiculous. Then again, the whole game is ridiculous fun. You can enjoy this latest adventure for $6.99, or free if you’e got the Season Pass.

Another job posting may be another indication of an as-yet-unannounced game. This time Crytek has an ad through EA for someone to get game footage and other duties for the German “partner studio.” This is clearly not an official announcement, but the smart money is on Crysis 3. The developers have indicated that they would make a third if the second game did well. It did.

2K Games is joining the “free upgrade with preorder crowd” with Spec Ops: The Line. They’ve recently announced a June 26th release date, and if you preorder now you’ll get the FUBAR upgrade for free. Focusing on the squad-based multiplayer mode, this pack will get you double experience points in the first week of release, unlock the AK-47 weapon and Officer class at “rank one,” and give you plenty more accessories to customize your online character.

Despite continued denials about the imminent announcement of next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony, CD Project RED are clearly talking about their two new games for the systems. One of the two is a new IP, while the other is expected to be The Witcher 3. They are reportedly looking at a 2014/15 simultaneous release on multiple platforms. This seems to hold with the expectation of next-gen consoles coming sometime between late 2013 and late 2014. Despite assurances from Kaz Hirai that it won’t happen, I expect there will be some sort of announcement at E3 this year.

Then again, if Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo aren’t prepared to make the move yet (WiiU is catch up, not next-gen, sorry), maybe Valve will. According to Gabe Newell they may have to enter the console market to save the industry. Huh? He’s not saying they want to make consoles, or even that they could do it well, “it’s more we think that we need to continue to have innovation, and if the only way to get these kind of projects started is by us going and developing and selling the hardware directly then that’s what we’ll do.” The failure of the big three, according to Newell, is an outdated approach: “Internally developed proprietary graphics solutions on the consoles, they’re all gone – everything in the console space is coming from the PC now, and I think that we really need to see the same thing in terms of just general attitudes about platforms.” If anyone is qualified to talk about how gaming works in the PC world it’s Valve, the creators of Steam. This raises some interesting questions. Nobody expected Sony to compete with Nintendo when the first Playstation launched in 1995. We all thought Microsoft had lost its mind trying to challenge Sony’s dominance when they released the first XBox. So why shouldn’t we expect a Valve SteamEngine to come out in a couple of years with a completely redesigned distribution model? Make it a top shelf platform for indie developers and release Half-Life 3 as an exclusive and we could see an industry dominated by four home consoles. Especially if they can lower the retail cost of games in the process. Something to think about anyway.

If PS4, neXtBox, SteamEngine, and WiiU all came out this fall, how many consoles would you buy? Which ones would you get? Comment below!

A few weeks ago a jewel of nostalgia came to the Xbox Live Arcade and the Sony Entertainment Network in the form of the Simpsons Arcade game. For those of you too young to remember, this was one of the rare four player coop machines. I spent quite a few quarters back in the day playing this with my brother and any 2 other kids that would try their hand at it.

The story for the game is pretty simple, Smithers robs a jewelry store and runs into the Simpsons family. In turn a large diamond falls into Maggie’s mouth as a pacifier and Smithers takes her instead, it’s now up to the family to save her. You can play as any member of the family; and each member has their weapon of choice, there is minimal difference, it’s really just a change in skins. Other than the joystick only two buttons are used, jump and attack, simple enough. It’s pretty much a hack-and-slash all the way through fighting mostly common henchmen in suits, and a boss fight at the end of each level. Working your way through some common Springfield locations such as: Krustyland, Moe’s Tavern, downtown Springfield, and the Power Plant for your final level.

The game is much more fun with others, and can be played over PSN, Xbox Live, or local coop. Even after romping through the game, you’ll find yourself going back to play as a different character. If you complete the game with each character you unlock different options in the “cool stuff“, menu. The download also came packed with the Japanese version of the game, and various difficulty settings. The achievement list is varied and fun giving different styles of play and thing to do within the game.

I find this game well worth the $10/800 points, the 18 mb file size is shocking for such a quality title! I highly recommend downloading this one. It’s good for all ages and gamers alike. Similar games I’d recommend are X-Men Arcade and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games.

Editor’s Note: Wrath.O.Tron is looking to be a new bot here at Big Shiny Robot! and wants to come at us with a weekly Sunday column called “The Blue Key.” Here’s his first contribution. And I have to say, after I read this column, I went and downloaded the free alpha of Desktop Dungeons and will be purchasing the beta with no hesitation. –Swankmotron

Alright folks, here’s the rundown: Desktop Dungeons is an indie roguelike with an average session length between ten and forty-five minutes depending on your play style and the difficulty level of your current dungeon. Despite being a self-described “coffee break game” with such a short session time, it remains true to its roguelike roots. The alpha prototype build won the “Excellence in Design” award at the 2011 IGF awards, and also made Gamasutra’s top ten indie games of 2010, and for good reason.

That alpha prototype is free to play, and will remain free forever and ever. (Note: The rest of this column concerns the newer, beta version of the game.)

After all this praise rained down upon them, the small South African development team (the awesomely named Quarter-Circle Forward) deconstructed the whole game and started rebuilding it from scratch in Unity. If you like the free alpha version, you can gain access to the latest beta build right away with a pre-order of just 10USD. (There’s also a “Special Edition” for 20USD.) Since you access the beta through Unity’s in-browser player, you unfortunately have to be connected to the internet to play it. On the other hand, your stashed equipment and progress through the persistent upgrade system are cloud-synced.

Be forewarned: there’s a good chance you’re going to die—and a lot—before you figure out how the game ticks. Procedural dungeon generation means that every dungeon run is going to play out a little differently. You have to make careful use of very scarce resources if you’re going to survive the inevitable boss fight. The development team once said they didn’t want to give the player any easy decisions. There are potions, equipment, and spells to make use of, but you also have to ration the actual exploration of each dungeon. Tiles are revealed when the character steps into an adjacent square, and each revealed tile heals your health and mana—the amount depends on your class and level. The catch is, they also heal the monsters that populate the dungeon, so in most cases you have to beat a monster in a single engagement. (Unless you’re getting tricky, which you should be.)

Speaking of monster beatdowns, at present there are over fifteen classes, and every one has an entirely unique playstyle. It’s actually pretty remarkable how differentiated the classes are while still feeling well-balanced. Throw different race bonuses and various god-worship boons into the mix and things get really complex. Spells and stat-boosters are randomly dispersed through each dungeon, which forces you to be resourceful and adaptable—sometimes a wizard’s just gotta beat down a goblin without the help of a trusty BURNDAYRAZ (fireball) spell.

If the name of the above-mentioned fireball spell is any indication—and it is—you can see that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. The writing is full of genuinely entertaining absurdity, and the game’s artistic aesthetic plays into the cartoonish atmosphere. Watch out for the fearsome Goats. If you’re an indie game fan, you should also catch more than a couple references to other great indie games from recent years, the most prominent being the “Meat Man” monster. The art, by the way, is crazy stylistic and downright charming, and every race/class combination rocks a unique character portrait. These portraits and other visual design concepts are mostly the product of a shadowy figure known only as “Lurk.”

Sticking to its roguelike roots, the game is brutal and unforgiving. In harder difficulty dungeons, that means if you don’t play conservatively you’ll probably end up retreating with an empty swag bag. And nobody likes an empty swag bag.

A single dungeon crawl is fun, but what will keep you coming back is the persistent Kingdom system. The Kingdom is basically the game’s menu, it’s a sort of meta-game where you can stash useful items for later dungeons, upgrade buildings to unlock new classes and races, and later on you can even affect the layout of your next dungeon by adding extra shops, or more gold piles for example. A more dramatic example is the “Smuggler’s Den,” it snags a bunch of low level monsters and stat-boosters from around the dungeon and sticks them in a sub-dungeon right near your spawn point. Handy.

If all of this is still not enough for you—you spoiled jerk, you—as you progress through the game’s quests, you also unlock puzzle dungeons. These are non-procedural, preset dungeons where you must solve, you guessed it: puzzles. These are fun, challenging, and act as a palate cleanser besides being a nice, occasional change of pace.

I highly recommend checking out the alpha prototype, all you have to lose is a few minutes of your life—and if we’re being honest here, we all waste plenty of life-minutes on the internet every day, so it’s hardly a sacrifice. If you like it, the measly $10 investment is nothing compared to the hours of entertainment you’ll get out of Desktop Dungeons.

(About the author: Connor Cleary is a video game columnist and critic, a freelance web and graphic designer, and an aspiring fiction writer. He is a reviewer at GameShark and an occasional opinion and analysis columnist at Gamasutra. His writing archive is The Blue Key and his freelance design business is Four Stair Multimedia and Design.)

Darksiders II has been given a confirmed release date of June 26, 2012. Alongside that date, several pre-order incentives have been announced. GameStop will be offering the “Death Rides Pack.” That includes multiple side quests, the Maker’s Realm and Dead Plains locations, and Karn’s lost treasure (whatever the hell that means). Amazon‘s exclusive is the “Deadly Despair Pack,” which increases the speed of your horse, cutting down travel time in the open world. There will also be an “Angel of Death Pack,” presumably from Best Buy but no specific retailer or other details have been announced yet. It may also be the pack-in for new copies.

There does seem to be a little progress in the ongoing story of Psychonauts 2. After Notch used Twitter to publicly ask Tim Schafer how many millions he’d need, he actually got a response: thirteen. In the most bizarre case of corporate negotiations I’ve seen, Notch replied with a simple, “I can do that.” Notch also apologized to Schafer for letting the hype machine get so big so quickly, he hadn’t expected the internet to pick up the story in such a huge way. [Really, you didn’t expect the internet to overreact?] According to Schafer though, it felt like he “was being proposed to on the jumbotron at the baseball game.” According to Schafer, founder of Double Fine, they “had a lot of plot elements that were backstory in that game that we planned on revisiting in the future and tying it back in. We had a longer story arc planned for those characters. I have ideas to take them to a more international setting.” So what does this all mean? Not a lot. Negotiations for making Psychonuats 2 are still ongoing and nothing is confirmed until it hits the shelf, mostly likely in a few years if at all. In the meantime, Schafer appears to have a lot of respect for Notch and his succes story, and seems inclined to work with him, whether it’s this game or a different one. In a plea to the internet to calm down about the situation, Notch explained what still needs to happen:

“All I know is that IF the numbers work out and IF they still want to do it and IF they don’t decide to self fund a sequel by doing more crowd funding (which is honestly what I would’ve done if I were them), I would be most interested in doing this type of investment.”

Though he did say the $13 million number was significantly higher than he expected, he also mentions there are other investors that may be willing to join him. This type of investment, even this side of the gaming industry, is very new to Notch and he has no intention of fronting that kind of cash as a charity. His advisors will certainly be wrangling a contract that will make the risk pay out in the best possible way, though Notch himself has made clear he wants no creative control of any game that may or may not come from the deal.

In light of the growing resurgence of fighting games, especially from Capcom, and media’s latest penchant for reboots, it should come as no surprise that a trademark was recently filed for Darkstalkers, no suffix. The franchise has been dead since 2005 but it would be kind of nice to see the creepy characters rise from the grave. Is it too early to start predicting the exclusive bonus characters that will guest star? I’m guessing a few characters from Resident Evil and Abraham Lincoln.

It may be time to venture into that crawlspace, move aside the moldy box containing your Wii, peel the Tony Hawk Ride peripheral off of that plastic tote (what is that sticky stuff anyway) and dig out your guitar controllers from Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Oh yeah, hit up the store too because you’ll want batteries – you known those metal tube things that provide power to devices that can’t plug in to recharge. All this because JAM Live Music Arcade will be “coming soon” to PSN and XBLA. This will be the fourth game in Zivix’s franchise, with the others appearing on WiiWare and Mobile devices. Using the instrument controllers (or a standard controller if you prefer) you take on the role of music producer, mixing and remixing tunes to make your own songs. There will be over 30 songs included at launch (from Modest Mouse, Fallout boy, Rise Against, and more) and plenty of user created content to keep you playing. Still waiting to confirm pricing and release date, but you’ll read about it in VGQH as soon as I hear more.

You’ve got to be a seriously old school gamer to remember Karateka. You’ll remember Jordan Mechner as the mind behind the original Prince of Persia, which has garnered immense success in the 21st century with its Parkour-esque reboot. It looks like Mechner is going to back to the well of his gaming past as he attempts make Karateka relevant once again. The original game was an innovator in 2D animations, featuring a plot from every 1980’s game or martial arts flick: one dude with a black belt attacks a warlord’s fortress to save a princess. Look for the reboot later this year on XBLA and PSN.

It looks like Assassin’s Creed: Revelations will be getting more DLC. Rather than extra multiplayer maps and skins, this one seems to be adding to the story. Though possibly not the story you would expect. Revealed via a list of achievements/trophies, the clues point to additional Desmond missions. Whether this is more of the controversial first-person-platform-puzzle-solving or some sort of third-person Animus simulation (a la the Danger Room or Holodeck) is unknown for now. I’m a little torn on the current Desmond missions. They aren’t as bad as the addition of the Den Defense mode, but I’m not sure they’re really fun either. And the fifth one won’t load for me, it keeps freezing my PS3. In all, I don’t think I’ll be getting the DLC, especially since I plan to resell my copy of the game when I buy Mass Effect 3. If you still haven’t played it, you may want to wait a month as you’ll likely get this DLC for free if you pick up the recently announced Ottoman Edition. Much like Brotherhood‘s Da Vinci Edition, this will likely be a sort of director’s cut, including all of the DLC. This version should be available in March.

On another related note, Ubisoft has confirmed our expectations by announcing Assassin’s Creed III for release on October 30, 2012. Yves Guillemot, CEO, clearly expected some of the complaints already being voiced about this becoming a yearly title (a la Activision). According to Guillemot, “We will push the title a lot because it’s a fantastic product that the team has been working for three years. What we have seen is just fabulous.” Three years? That could be good or bad. That could mean they’ve been developing the game independently from the last two chapters of Ezio’s story, meaning it will have its own set of innovations. It could also mean they acted without feedback and they’ve run even further with the elements of Revelations that didn’t work. It’s still a fun series that I really enjoy. I’m really hoping this will conclude Desmond’s tale and finally answer a few questions about the mythology.

The special edition of Prototype 2 has been announced and detailed. The so-called Blackwatch Collector’s Edition is the typical batch of extras. For an extra $20 you’ll get a hardcover art book, soundtrack CD, 20% off coupon for the Prototype Merchandise store, Dark Horse digital comic (Prototype: The Labyrinth), free voucher for the “Colossal Mayhem” DLC, and the 55 extra pieces included for buying new. The game is scheduled for April 24, with the first DLC pack coming in May.

Apparently the latest attempts to move MMOs to consoles has been successful, as it’s become a model NCSoft wants to copy. With betas beginning in March and April for the PC version, Guild Wars 2 will be coming to XBox 360 and PS3 “at a later date.” The conversion will certainly take some time and will be affected by the commercial gaming season and other factors. I’d expect to see this as a December release, but sales forecasts are hardly my area of expertise.

Square Enix appears to be sticking to their guns on the Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC promise, as there’s more on the way. The Spacetime Guardian Outfit for Noel and Beachwear Outfit for Serah will be available February 21st. The next story DLC, “Sazh: Heads or Tails,” will be coming on February 28th. In this chapter you’ll be playing as Sazh from FFXIII in events parallel to the main campaign. At the completion of the chapter you’ll have the chance to add Sazh to your full party. Sazh’s add-on also includes two new games, Chronobind and Serendipity Poker, at the Serendipity Casino (available beginning in chapter two).

At long last, Journey has been given a release date. To say this game has seen extensive delays would be incorrect as it had never been put on a schedule by the developers, thatgamecompany. But this was shown off quite some time ago in what looked like a nearly finished state. I was intrigued immediately and have been following its progress, wondering if it would ever release. Jenova Chen has finally announced the “interactive parable” will be available for $15 from PSN on March 13th.

Capcom is cross-pollinating brands yet again. This time it will be Ryu of Street Fighter fame making an appearance in Asura’s Wrath through the latest DLC. What exactly this entails is unclear and the promotional screen shot is of no help. If anything, that makes it look like Asura will be appearing in Street Fighter IV.

One of the most mind-boggling glitches I’ve seen in a long time is being addressed by Monolith for Gotham City Impostors. Some buyers apparently couldn’t access the game immediately but that has since been fixed. Now it seems a large number of players have had their stats completely wiped out with no explanation. They are working to correct the problem but an ETA on the solution isn’t available. To add insult to injury, some users have actually purchased stat boosters to get an early jump and are now out real money in addition to the time committed.

That does it for this week. Check back Tuesday for more of the latest on your favorite hobby.