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There’s not many game reviews out there for the PSVITA so I thought I’d contribute with my impression of Uncharted: Golden Abbys.
I’ve finished about 40% of the game and if it wasn’t for a huge game design mistake I would have been able to play it a lot more on my flight from Japan.
There was a “puzzle” demanding a bright external light source. Don’t they know we like to play in the dark?
I haven’t played the game a lot and already at 40%. So far it’s been like a tutorial where the game always hold your hand and is extremely linear. Though the series always been linear it hasn’t felt like it before.

Gameplay

There isn’t much of challenges in this game. Where should you go? Follow another character.
How do you get there? Press shiny objects on the screen and Drake will auto jump between obstacles.
Shoot enemies. OK. A nice touch when aiming is that you can also tilt your PSVITA for that extra precision.
So what do you do then? Not much, but looking at the PSVITAS pretty screen.
Sometimes you also get an auto triggered “puzzle” just there to extend the playtime with some boring things the game forces you to do before you can continue. Half of the time I didn’t even get the context.
You can also photograph certain objects to get some bonus.. I don’t know. But you already have a photographed template for it doesn’t make sense you want to photograph it again.

Graphics

Looks like a pretty PS2 game that could have been on a iOS device, not near the PS3 series. Everything feels very down scaled and the characters rigid.
Though it’s nothing wrong with the graphic it would been nice to see something new on a new piece of hardware.

Sound

The music feels a bit reused and sometimes misplaced. Like when you get an awesome chase soundtrack when nothing is going on in the game.
The voice acting is good and fits their characters. Drake feels humanly and you want to help him. On the Japanese version you can also choose Japanese voices with English subtitles which is great for practicing your Japanese. If you can stand the characters then. They felt unfitted and I just wanted to shoot them.

Conclusion

To wrap it up it so far feels aimed to someone who haven’t been playing Uncharted before and is mentally handicapped. It’s nothing wrong with doing games for mentally handicapped, but I hope Naughty Dog does the the next entry.
What are your impressions of the PSVITA games so far?