Vita Orbis - Vita Remote Play Impressions

It's no secret that the Playstation Vita's performance at retail has been disappointing until now, with sluggish sales and non-committal third parties leaving a large question mark over the viability of the dedicated, premium-level handheld console. Since the launch of the Playstation 4,  Sony has been keen to reposition the Vita from standalone tablet-killer to essential accessory for its bigger brother, touting its remote play feature that allows for PS4 gameplay in the palm of your hand as a linchpin selling point. The Vita has recently received a makeover in the form of a new, slimmer model that curiously eschews the original iteration's high end OLED screen in favour of an altogether more run-of-the-mill LED one, yet it weighs in at around the same price point. Critical reception is unanimous - despite Sony's protests to the contrary, the newer model's screen is noticeably inferior, meaning that now, while stock of the older model is still available, is the time to jump in for mobile-curious early PS4 adopters. 

The new, slimmer Playstation Vita

Both models are graphical powerhouses, with sufficient grunt to allow for visuals that shame any Android or iOS device in addition to Nintendo's 3DS lineup. Flagship platformer Little Big Planet Vita, looks almost identical to its big screen stablemates, with only the particle effects being noticeably compromised, and Killzone: Mercenary looks equally impressive. It should be noted, however, that not all developers have been quite as successful at coaxing the best from the hardware; Uncharted: Golden Abyss, for example, is marred by some severe aliasing that suggests it's been awkwardly upscaled to the Vita's unusual native resolution. As you may have gathered from the titles used to illustrate the above points, a large swathe of the Vita's modest software library is made of Playstation exclusive franchise spin offs. It does play an extensive range of indie games, PSOne Classics and PSP titles available from the Playstation Store, however, which may be of interest to recent converts to the Sony camp.

Remote Play was a doddle to set up, simply requiring an access code generated by the host PS4 to be input into the Vita to authenticate the connection. Immediately obvious, even when simply browsing menus, is a significant frame rate deficit compared to the big screen experience. The effect this has on gameplay varies from title to title - those aiming for the gold standard of 60 frames per second often feel quite sluggish, whereas others with altogether more modest performance ambitions are impacted far less. Image fidelity never exceeds that of a high quality YouTube video, with some minor artifacting and other visual anomalies occasionally blemishing an otherwise solid, if not outstanding image. 

Since the button layout on the Vita is not a carbon copy of that found on the Dual Shock 4, a number of workarounds have been implemented to ensure full compatibility. The Vita does not have any lower triggers, but it does have a large rear touchpad, so for most titles this is simply split in half and used in lieu. The problem with this approach is that it's frustratingly easy to touch these areas by accident, yet when you're pressing them intentionally, there's no physicality at all.  Furthermore, functions  that would be assigned to the pressing the control sticks in, something that again, isn't possible on the Vita, are reassigned to the touchscreen. This can undermine the ergonomics of a given title's controls somewhat, as previously easy  to execute button combinations become complex exercises in digit gymnastics.

Sony deny a PS4 and Vita bundle is in the offing, but the internet 

remains unconvinced.

It may be that using remote play over a faster internet connection than I was able to will yield better results, but my experience so far is that it's a nice feature that's certainly usable to settle an argument over who gets to use the main TV, but is by no means a replacement for the full fat experience. Furthermore, the compromises in terms of controls will undoubtedly put some gamers off. All that said, the feature is perfectly functional, which is on many levels an amazing achievement in of itself, and the Vita is a beautiful device worthy of any gamer's attention in its own right. PS4 gamers with an existing Playstation Plus membership that remain on the fence should also bear in mind that they'll get free titles for their Vita also, should they opt to purchase one.