Holiday Games Gift Guide – Playstation Vita December 22, 2012

The Holidays are coming pretty soon and I know that many of you may very well be opening up brand new gifts including a wide range of consoles and handhelds for the first time. However, with a new console or handheld comes the responsiblity to find some of the best games to get for it. The hope is to bring you a list of currently in print brand new games which are either some of the best for the platform or the best deals on the platform that you can easily pick up at the store for a reasonable price, pop it into your new gaming system and enjoy every second of it! So, in the time leading up to Christmas, I’m going to be posting a series of articles for each platform and handheld system currently on the market and tell you what are some of the must-have games for new console owners!

Well, keeping with the theme of covering the handheld consoles today, lets talk about the games on the Playstation Vita from Sony.

Assassin’s Creed: Liberation – A side story of the widely popular Assassin’s Creed series, this is the game that really pushes what can be done with this system graphically and features a whole new character, setting and storyline.  There are also some exclusive unlockables with this game for any players that have Assassin’s Creed III on the Playstation 3.  Twitch and I recommend getting the White Playstation Vita bundled with this game, as the $249.99 US WiFi model only bundle will practically get you this game and a Vita memory card for free.  If you can’t find any Vitas bundled with this game, the game alone costs $39.99 US.

Sound Shapes – The first downloadable title that I’ve included in the Holiday Games Gift Guide, I first demoed Sound Shapes back in E3 2011 and enjoyed it quite a bit.  It has a great soundtrack and addictive gameplay for such a simple game.  If you’re interested in picking it up, Sound Shapes is $14.99 US on the Playstation Store.  It is also on the Playstation 3.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss – This was the killer app launch title for the Playstation Vita and it just got a price drop.  I can’t think of any game I demoed on the Vita that captured all the cool features of the system’s touch screen better than Golden Abyss did.  It is so exciting to navigate Nathan Drake through all sorts of areas, and have the added effect of using the Vita’s touch screen and gyro sensors to climb, jump and shimmy from ledge to ledge.  Uncharted: Golden Abyss is $39.99 US.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories – The most recent release in the hugely popular Silent Hill series from Konami, this game brings a lot of new features to the table, and many of them are perfect for the handheld.  This game features a unique cooperative campaign you can play with your friends, giving you the chance to work together to solve challenges in the Otherworld.  It also allows you to fully customize your characters, giving you the chance to put your own personal stamp on the character you are playing as.  You can get the game for $39.99 US.

So there we have it for the Playstation Vita, some unique platform exclusives you should have no problem finding brand new in stores.  Stay tuned this weekend, as there is still one more platform that we haven’t discussed yet in the Holiday Games Gift Guide, the Xbox 360.