The first five months of the Playstation Vita’s lifecycle have been a bit rocky. While I’ve been thoroughly satisfied with mine, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the software lineup has been a little hit-or-miss. After a strong initial launch, the release list of Vita titles has been a bit spotty–Gravity Rush and this week’s Sound Shapes being a couple of notable standouts. A number of solid looking titles have been announced or at least hinted at, but few have been given concrete release dates for game-hungry Vita owners to look forward to. Thankfully, LittleBigPlanet PS Vita is now officially slated for a September 25th launch in the U.S. and if my limited time with it is any indication, it’s shaping up to be the next great flagship title for the Sony’s handheld.

The preview build of LittleBigPlanet PS Vita that I went hands-on with contained the first chapter of the game’s all-new story levels. Just like its predecessors, this new incarnation uses its story mode to tell a whimsical tale full of bizarre characters–this time set in the circus-themed land of Carnivalia–while simultaneously teaching platforming basics, layering on new play mechanics, and showing off impressive examples of what can be achieved using the in-game creation tools. In this regard, not much has changed, really. You’ll still watch some silly cutscenes, you’ll still venture into the occasional mini-game bonus level, and you’ll still play through a series of platforming stages before reaching a more challenging boss stage. From a technical standpoint, I came away quite impressed with just how familiar it all felt. Everything from the visual fidelity to the controls felt almost identical to LittleBigPlanet 2, a commendable feat in itself, considering the disparate hardware and the fact that a different developer crafted this new handheld iteration.

The primary means by which LBP PS Vita distinguishes itself is through the use of touch-based controls. While touch controls in other Vita games have often felt gimmicky, everything here seems to feel natural and make sense. The “popit” and other onscreen menus are easily navigable via swipes and taps, but the most interesting bits are the in-game touch elements, some of which feel like spiritual successors to elements from the PS Move DLC for LBP 2. Special blocks in the environment can be dragged and dropped from one place to another, grabby wheels can be spun around with a single flick, and obstacles can be pushed into the background or even popped back into the foreground with a tap on the back of the Vita. Taking your hands off the controls to touch the screen certainly has the potential to feel cumbersome, but it never became an issue for me during my relatively short time with the game.

The niceties afforded by touch controls also carry over into the level creation mode. The game’s capable, yet approachable toolset is just as robust as its console brethren. It still presents a rather large learning curve, but manipulating the tools can now be done more naturally with touch controls. The ability to create stickers by taking photos of real-world objects is still included, only it’s even more convenient now with the Vita’s built-in cameras. Between the new touch gizmos and the added ability to store saved data, it’s even possible now to create the types of games you might find on a modern smartphone. The preview included one such game called ‘Tapling’ which tasks the player with controlling a rolling blob and tapping the screen to make it leap from place to place. It’s comprised of eight distinct levels, all tied to a level select screen which keeps track of which levels you’ve played even after exiting out to your pod and returning again later.

The only downside I’ve noticed so far is a lack of backward compatibility with levels created in previous games in the series. I was so impressed by this new handheld version’s prowess that I was honestly a little bit surprised to learn I’d be unable to play levels that were created in LBP 2 in it. I’d imagine there are technical explanations for why that is, but I haven’t been able to think up any of them on my own yet. It obviously still remains to be seen how fervent of a community LBP PS Vita will garner, but if the recent news of the seven-millionth level being published is any indication, I doubt there will be any shortage of user-generated levels to play once Vita owners start to dig in.

LittleBigPlanet PS Vita launches on September 25th in North America.

Editor’s note: While Pure Chess is available for both PS3 and PS Vita, this review focuses on the Vita version.

I’m a big fan of Hustle Kings, specifically the asynchronous message play multiplayer found in the Vita version of the billiards game. When I heard that the same development house, VooFoo Studios, was working on a Chess Game with a similar mechanic, my interest was immediately piqued. While the chess pieces in Pure Chess are just as gorgeously rendered as the beautiful balls in Hustle Kings, the “play by mail” functionality just doesn’t quite deliver the same oomph.

That’s not to say Pure Chess is a bad game – far from it. The chess board, the pieces, and the background environments are all quite well rendered and the accompanying music is comfortable and innocuous without ever becoming annoying. These inoffensive tunes come from four different genres – which the game refers to as “classical”, “jazz”, “chill”, and “nature” – and each genre can be individually toggled on or off. The menu system is straightforward and simple to navigate with either touch or buttons.

My biggest complaint about the game is really more of an unavoidable reality of the nature of the game of chess. My most-anticipated feature was the asynchronous multiplayer, where one player makes one move, then sends off a PSN message to their opponent saying “your turn, dude”. Upon receipt, whenever that may be, the opponent does the same and the cycle repeats until the game is won. In Hustle Kings, this process is fun and engaging because any time you sink a ball, you’d get to take another shot. Likewise, you’d get to watch the replay of your opponents shots before taking your own.

Here in Pure Chess, every single turn is always a one-move affair, making the whole thing somewhat anti-climactic once you’ve gone through all the trouble of loading up the game and checking your messages. If you leave Pure Chess running on your Vita in perpetuity, it’s not so bad, but if you play other games (or use Facebook, or Content Manager) and quit out of Pure Chess, the entire process just ends up feeling a bit too cumbersome for moving a single chess piece. I’m still glad that ‘play by mail’ is in the game, as it is definitely a welcome feature, but the Vita’s one-game-at-a-time structure and the basic rules of chess combine to create conditions that are slightly less than perfect for asynchronous play. A real-time multiplayer mode could have made for a more seamless, albeit lengthy, experience, but no such mode is found here.

Those issues are hardly VooFoo’s fault though. They’ve done a bang-up job of making a really solid chess game. The tournament play provides a nice challenge, as do standard one-off exhibition matches against AI. A tutorial mode is included that teaches everything from basic rules all the way up to advanced tactics. I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I even learned a couple of more obscure rules that I wasn’t aware of, like “castling” and “en passant”. If you’ve got a friend or loved one around, there’s even a pass-and-play mode for playing 2-player matches locally on one Vita. The included ‘bonus games’ work like a puzzle mode of sorts and can be quite the brain teaser. You are presented with a particular placement of pieces and are tasked with finding the solution to reaching a checkmate in a certain number of moves. They aren’t a radical departure or anything, but the added variety is welcome.

All in all, Pure Chess is a great chess game, but the lack of a true real-time multiplayer mode and the inability to initiate an asynchronous match with a stranger hold it back from being a truly exceptional one.

Title: Pure Chess [PS Vita, PS3]
Developer: VooFoo Studios (Twitter: @voofoo)
Publisher: Ripstone (Twitter: @RipstoneGames)
Release Date: 5/29/12

Pure Chess official website

Score: 4 out of 5

Recommended if you like:

* chess, duh
* smooth jazz

Highlights:

* Learning what “castling” was
* asynchronous play, though a bit clunky

This review is based on the PS Vita version of Pure Chess. A copy of the game was provided to VGH by Ripstone.

For more info on how VGH approaches game reviews, please read our reviews philosophy.

The PlayStation Move controller has always held quite a bit of promise in my eyes. The combination of better-than-Wii Remote accuracy with high definition, more powerful hardware has teased me with thoughts of what could be, but the reality of what we’re given has almost always let me down. Though I’ve often appreciated the optional Move support bestowed upon many PS3 titles, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that the existing crop of Move-specific games has been predominantly underwhelming. Sorcery breaks that pattern. Although it may not usher in a huge flock of new motion control supporters, Sorcery is easily the best PlayStation Move game to date.

Sorcery wastes little time getting to the spellcasting. Players assume the role of Finn, the young, brash apprentice to an older, more powerful sorcerer named Dash. While his mentor is away, Finn and his talking cat companion poke around the tower and stumble upon a magic wand and a mysterious potion. After fumbling around with basic spellcasting in the yard for a bit, the two venture off to the realm of the dead, provoked by an underhanded dare from Finn’s feline friend. Mistakes are made, secrets are revealed, and before you know it, Finn and Erline find themselves tasked with saving the realm from a powerful evil queen.

The fantasy-themed story and settings are a bit familiar feeling, but the relationship between the two protagonists keeps things interesting and helps to propel the exposition forward. Their playful, back and forth banter is genuinely funny. It rarely reaches laugh-out-loud levels, but the jabs and one-liners they lob at each other kept a grin on my face throughout much of the game’s duration. In fact, all the voice work in the game is fairly well done, even if the dialogue itself tends toward stale at times. Interstitial storybook sequences advance the plot between playable sections, an increasingly common characteristic of first-party Sony titles lately. It meshes well here, in Sorcery’s fantastical world.

Magic wielding is the central mechanic of the entire game, with everything from opening chests to repairing pathways involving some form of motion gesture. Thankfully, they all feel natural in execution and work to help increase the feeling of immersion. Playing with the Move controller in one hand and navigation controller in the other, I never grew tired of waving my wand to one side to remove a large obstruction from Finn’s path. Of all the game’s varied gestural controls, combat-centric spells comprise the bulk of them. They are easy to execute, requiring only a simple flick of the wrist, but difficult to master, partially due to the lack of an accurate on-screen point of reference and partially because you can curve your shots and aim at any point in the environment. There’s enough of an auto-aim assist that you’ll rarely find yourself in a tight spot because of input issues, but it can trip you up when you intend to shoot at one enemy and end up shooting at another. As long as you keep firing, you’ll eventually whittle away every last attacker, so I never found the slightly vague targeting to be much of a hindrance.

The problems with gesturing don’t really rear their head until you’ve spent a decent chunk of time with the game. Casting spells never really ceases to be fun, but since many fights essentially become flail fests, I’d sometimes feel my wrists suffering from flick fatigue. I was playing Sorcery under a reviewer’s time constraints, so this could be less of an issue for the average player who sticks to playing in shorter sessions. The pacing of the game’s structure does build in a little bit of breathing room for your wrists between encounters. Though the repetitive motions will likely grow physically tiresome, the actual act of switching between and casting spells remains fun and intuitive.

Progression in Sorcery is strictly linear, with the player traversing from area to area, fighting off groups of enemies, and solving light environmental puzzles in between. Treasure chests hide in the nooks and crannies, so venturing slightly off the beaten path is encouraged at every turn, but you’ll never deviate too wildly off course. A handful of specific segments have Finn imbibing a polymorph potion and shapeshifting into a rat or bird. These sequences exist merely to move you along from one area to the next, but the animation is fun to watch nonetheless. Boss battles occur at the end of each major area and are well thought out, with each requiring that you use your available spells to determine and exploit weaknesses.

New spells and upgrades provide a rewarding feedback loop and a tangible sense that the young apprentice is becoming more powerful as the game presses onward. Blasting pots and statues along the way will provide Finn with gold, which can used to purchase strange ingredients and bottles, which in turn are used to craft potions that enhance his various skills and abilities. An alchemy system makes mixing up these concoctions more interactive, complete with a fun mixing mini-game, but since each new potion requires that you combine the requisite three ingredients, you’ll ultimately spend far too much time in the menus preparing the countless concoctions. By the game’s end, my Finn felt nearly unstoppable thanks to numerous health, defense, and mana upgrades I’d chosen to unlock along the way, a fitting evolution for a tale about a young mage realizing his previously untapped arcane abilities.

Sorcery is the inaugural release from The Workshop and that shows through in a few weak spots. The game looks and sounds great, sporting lush, colorful graphics courtesy of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine but there is some small degree of tearing and an occasional dip in framerate. Once in a while, I found myself momentarily hung up on the corners of some geometry in the environment too. The camera feels a bit lackluster at times, as the only way to manipulate it is to snap it in place directly behind Finn at the push of a button. With the Move controller used exclusively for spellcasting, they’ve done the best that they could and while the camera tends to autofocus on enemies, I’d sometimes stumble to find my bearings when dealing with larger groups of baddies. None of these issues were showstoppers, but they were minor annoyances that pulled me out of the fantasy temporarily and detracted slightly from my overall enjoyment.

It’s been a long time since Sorcery was first unveiled at Sony’s E3 2010 press conference, before the Move itself was even launched. Looking back, that demo seems more like an early prototype, given the end result. Most of the concepts are there, but implementation seems to have been retooled for the better. The extra time has clearly worked in the game’s favor. There’s no replayability to speak of, once you’ve completed the game’s roughly six-hour story, but you’ll have fun the whole way through. As a game, Sorcery is good. As a PlayStation Move game, it’s great. It could arguably be played with a traditional controller, but to do so would miss the point entirely. Sorcery is the flagship experience that the Move should have launched with – a shining, albeit slightly flawed example of what can be done with Sony’s answer to motion gaming.

Title: Sorcery [PS3]
Developer: The Workshop
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Release Date: 5/22/12

Buy Sorcery: Amazon

Score: 4 out of 5

Recommended if you like:

* Third-person action games
* Celtic mythology, magic
* Talking cats

Highlights:

* Drinking a polymorph potion for the first time
* Freezing an enemy, then shattering them
* Wielding the game’s final and most powerful attack spell

This review is based on a retail copy of Sorcery, provided to VGH by Sony.

For more info on how VGH approaches game reviews, please read our reviews philosophy.

From what I’ve gathered, Austin-based Lightbox Interactive had two headlining goals when setting out to create a follow up to Warhawk: to further evolve the already excellent multiplayer-focused groundwork they’d already laid and to also add in a single-player campaign, which Warhawk lacked, in order to further flesh out the new title. While Starhawk offers some of the most satisfying online play I’ve experienced in recent memory, the quality level takes a bit of a nosedive when it comes to the campaign.

When you first fire up the game, you’re greeted by the game’s protagonist, Emmett Graves. (Well, technically, you’re greeted with a 450 MB day-one patch and a 2 GB+ mandatory installation first…) Like Warhawk before it, Starhawk is a third-person shooter, complete with both ground and air vehicles. Unlike its predecessor, Starhawk features a full single-player campaign. The tale follows Emmett’s exploits as a rift salvager, a hired gun of sorts, cleaning up lucrative rift energy mining sites that have been overrun by Outcast, dangerous tribes of mutated former-humans. Cutscenes are implemented as animated comic panels (a la Infamous) and while this gameplay-comic-gameplay loop did pull me out of the experience a bit, it did at least eliminate any perceived loading screens between chapters.

Between the space-western motif and the interesting character designs, the narrative first seemed promising, but ultimately ended up feeling like a squandered opportunity, hampered by stiff, underdeveloped characters and a paper-thin plot. Occasional hiccups with dialogue audio – most notably some skipping during cutscenes – only further mar the overall experience.. Functionally speaking, it all ends up feeling mostly like an introductory tutorial wrapped in a story and although it fails to captivate, it does do a serviceable job of familiarizing players with the various weapons and vehicles found in the game.

While battling it out on the ground, Emmett is able to call in building structures from his trusty sidekick Cutter, in orbit above the planet’s surface. This imaginatively named ‘build and battle’ mechanic carries over into the multiplayer modes and forms the crux of what makes the online multiplayer so successful. Rather than having vehicles and weapons spawn at set locations on the map, they’re all tied to in-game structures which can be laid down virtually anywhere that there’s space for them. Need a rocket launcher? Call in a supply depot. Need a jeep? Have a garage dropped onto the field. The sound design is spot on too, with structures plummeting to the ground and taking shape with appropriately chunky effects. The ability to construct automated turrets and walls brings an almost tower defense-like element of strategy to Starhawk and makes for some immensely refreshing gameplay.

To keep things from getting too crazy too fast, these structures all must be purchased using rift energy, which you only collect while you’re located within the boundaries of your base. An overall 32-building limit per team helps keep things in check as well. Even without a defined character class system, the various systems allow players to organically develop a role that jibes with their play style. Builder, defender, ace pilot, flag grabber; none of these are ratified roles, but they’re all options available to the player. A skills system further enhances this by giving players the ability to earn an augmentation that suits them. Skills must be unlocked by first completing a related objective. While some might feel that this means that better players are rewarded with bonuses that enhance their abilities, I find that the skill effects are so narrowly focused that they don’t dramatically alter the balance. LightBox has clearly put an immense amount of thought and care into balancing all these disparate elements and it absolutely shows. Hawks are devastatingly powerful, but easily defeated by a determined foot soldier with the right tools. An energy shield can be constructed around your valuable buildings, but it can also be swiftly destroyed by a tenacious hawk pilot. Aside from the tanks, which can occasionally feel a bit too powerful, everything else in Starhawk feels pretty well-balanced. Between their past track record with the community and how active they’ve been since the game’s launch, I’m confident that they will continue to improve the balance even more in the coming months. It’s also worth mentioning that they’ve already announced that all future map packs for the game will be free, in an effort to avoid splintering the user base. In today’s DLC-saturated market, you don’t see that kind of thing often and I commend their decision to do so.

Though my time spent with Starhawk thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out a couple of minor gripes. For one, there is a ton to learn in the game. Much of it came naturally to me, having played Warhawk in the past, but there are plenty of things that still weren’t well-explained. For example, the skills system requires that players complete a certain objective before they’re allowed to spend points and unlock a given skill. The descriptions of some of these objectives state that the player needs to earn a particular medal, but the definitions for these medals are nowhere to be found, as far as I could tell. I’m not a fan of the constant hand holding that’s often done in modern games, but pointing the player in the right direction a bit would be nice.

While I found matches to be well-balanced much of the time (especially when teammates are communicating with headsets), it would be nice to be able to assign waypoints on the fly. There are on-screen indicators for things like flags and capture points, but it would be handy to be able to designate certain locations or structures with a user-defined indicator, especially for those players who aren’t making use of voice communication.

Starhawk features a co-op mode, where up to 4 players defend a rift mining rig from waves of enemies. I’m always up for a good horde-style co-op mode and I like Starhawk’s in theory, but in practice it was just far too difficult. I teamed up with 3 friends and gave it a shot, but after failing to pass even the second wave we decided to throw in the towel after the fifth or sixth failed attempt.

Starhawk as a whole is a fantastic experience. Even with its subpar campaign and minor bugs, the positives outweigh the negatives by a mile. I may not have been enthralled with the campaign, but I’d rather have a mediocre one that none at all. It also serves as a welcome tutorial for multiplayer, where Starhawk truly excels. Very few games can rival the level excitement of playing on a full server, with teams battling out to take each other’s flags or gain control of zones. The unpredictability introduced by the build and battle system elevates what could have been just another team-based shooter into the marquee online experience of this year.

Title: Starhawk [PS3]
Developer: LightBox Interactive (Twitter: @DylanJobe)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
(Twitter: @PlayStation)
Release Date: 5/8/12

Buy Starhawk: Amazon

Score: 4 out of 5

Recommended if you like:

* Flying, driving, building, battling
* Warhawk (duh)
* Free future map packs! (Kudos LightBox!)

Highlights:

* Jetbikes, jetpacks, hawks, oh my!
* Transforming from a bipedal mech to space fighter
* Dropping my spawn pod on an enemy’s head
* Dropping a building on an enemy’s head
* Getting chased while on a jetbike, flag in hand, all the way back to base and just *barely* capturing the flag before getting killed

This review is based on a retail copy of Starhawk, provided to VGH by Sony.

For more info on how VGH approaches game reviews, please read our reviews philosophy.

StarDrone Extreme is a bit of an oddity. Hailing from Eastern European indie house Beatshapers, it’s pitched as a “high-speed action thriller with a mix of arcade action, pinball, breakout, physics and collect-the-objects”. That’s a pretty wordy bit of marketing, so let’s just classify it as a “flinging” game to keep things simple. StarDrone originally hit the Playstation 3 last year with Move support in tow with little fanfare to relatively mixed reception. Now, the slightly tweaked StarDrone Extreme has made its way to the Playstation Vita.

In the game, you indirectly control a constantly-moving spaceship by tethering it to nearby beacons, releasing the tether, and flinging the ship into the desired direction. In each stage, you’ll be picking up collectibles and trying to keep up your momentum – and thereby your multiplier – and finish in the shortest time possible in order to earn a higher score. It’s simpler in practice than it first sounds, but if you’re feeling confused, just watch the trailer below and you’ll get a basic understanding of how it plays.

In the original PS3 iteration, this tethering mechanic was controlled by pointing the analog stick toward a beacon and holding a button or by using the Move controller to point toward a beacon and holding a button. Evidently, “extreme” is marketing-speak for “touch controls”, because the different input method is the only discernible major difference between Extreme and its predecessor. In the Vita version, you use either the touchscreen or the rear touch panel and tap to tether to nearby beacons. Both options work pretty well, but I found myself favoring the rear panel if only to avoid partially obscuring the screen with my large, manly hands. Although I had no real problems using the touch controls, I was a bit disappointed to find that traditional stick and button controls weren’t even an option. It just seems like an odd choice when the original PS3 version already had it in there.

The entire package tends to feel a little bit bare bones, but these are some really sturdy bones. The controls are solid and responsive, the visuals are interesting without being overwhelming, and the short length of the stages make for great pick-up-and-play action on a portable platform. The game also supports cross-continuous gameplay, insomuch as you can upload your save data to the cloud and pick up your progress on the PS3 version, and vice-versa. Beatshapers recently even lowered the price of the PS3 version of StarDrone, further easing the ability to placeshift your game progress.

StarDrone Extreme may be just a fling, but it is a fairly unique entry in the arcade-style score chasing genre. While it didn’t exactly set the world on fire the first time around, Vita owners absolutely should give this new iteration a whirl. This is exactly the type of the game that the platform so direly needs right now – fun, bite-sized chunks of gameplay in a very reasonably-priced package.

Reviewer’s note: Upon release, StarDrone Extreme featured a 99-cent in-game purchase that would allow the player to skip levels. Some people seemed to take exception to this idea and Beatshapers has since made the level skipper DLC free.

Title: StarDrone Extreme [PS Vita, downloadable]
Developer/Publisher: Beatshapers
Twitter: @Beatshapers
Release Date: 4/17/12

StarDrone Extreme official webpage

Score: 4 out of 5

Recommended if you like:

* score chasing
* Fast-paced arcade games

Highlights:

* Cross-platform saves
* Really inexpensive! ($4)

StarDrone Extreme was provided for review by Beatshapers. It is available from the Playstation Store on PlayStation Vita for $4 and its predesscor is also available on Playstation 3, also for $4.

For more info on how VGH approaches game reviews, please read our reviews philosophy.

The awesome folks over at Ronimo Games were nice enough to send along a PSN code for Awesomenauts. Since I actually got the game for free via PlayStation Plus, I thought I’d pass it along to one of our lucky listeners or readers.

Just use the widget below to put yourself in the running for the game (or, if you’re a PlayStation Plus subscriber, just download the game for free and give it a whirl!). Keep your eyes on the blog in the coming days for my written review.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I couldn’t think of anything particularly relevant to discuss in today’s Weekend Hangover post, so I just randomly decided to honor Resident Evil’s infamous green herb and its mysterious healing properties. The kind botanical friend first appeared in the original Resident Evil and the series has never managed to shake it since. It’s made a token appearance in every creeper-filled Capcom joint ever since. Any dope will know that you’re bound to take some hits, so it’s critical to take breaks between shot-gunning sessions and apply the herb as needed. If you don’t keep an eye on your health, you could very easily end up cashed. Anyway, don’t forget to share VGH with your buds!

But enough about green herbs. What games are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’ll be zoning out to:

Randy Dickinson (@randy_wrecked): I had access to a nearly-free copy of Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention for the Vita and, despite warnings from people on Twitter who apparently know my gaming tastes better than I do, decided to pick it up. I’ll be giving it a whirl this weekend.

Also: have I mentioned that Saturday is Record Store Day? Support your local music snobs/stores!

D.J. Ross (@metaly): After getting over the hurdles (both figurative and literal) I was experiencing in Bit.Trip Runner (as I mentioned on this week’s episode), I’ll be spending more time with the rest of the games in Bit.Trip Saga. Also, in spite a few dubious design decisions, Runner ended up winning me over in a big way, so I might even spring for the HD version on Steam to see how it compares. (You know a game must be special when, rather than simply starting a second playthrough, you end up buying a second version of it.)

The Diablo III beta is also open to everyone this weekend, but at this point I think I can wait for the full game. Besides, at some point I have to play Mass Effect 3.

Matt Kernan (@mkernan): With Mass Effect 3 completed (I loved it!), I’m planning to focus some time on Fez and Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Whenever I’ve got just a few minutes to spare, I’ll probably jam through a couple levels in StarDrone Extreme.

I’m also having some friends (and their kids) over to play Kinect Rush, a Pixar-themed joint. Not really my cup of tea, but I got it for free via a House Party promotion. We’ll probably let the kids monkey around with it a bit but ultimately switch to playing other, more entertaining games.

Paul Sandhu (@spaulsandhu): Apparently I’m playing Kinect games at Matt’s house this weekend? When/how/where did this happen? O_o

Today is 4/20, so I thought it would be fitting to present you with a list of 4 games that can be had for under $20. This idea came to me naturually and I totally didn’t borrow it from anywhere else. I’ve intentionally stuck to disc-based console games that have dropped in price over time, as downloadable titles are typically less than $20 in the first place. All four of these are excellent games that I had a wonderful time with, each for different reasons, and they all offer a pretty decent chunk of content at a low price.

Bioshock
The original Bioshock was creepy and hauntingly beautiful. If you’ve never played it before, you should really correct that right now. In hindsight, it has its flaws, but I was incredibly enthralled in the atmosphere and story when I first played it.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Rocksteady proved that superhero games based on licensed properties could be amazing. The brawler-style fight mechanics were easy to do, but slightly more complicated to master and turned fighting into something almost akin to a rhythm game. Nothing’s more satisfying than watching the caped crusader pull off that final punishing blow in slow-motion at the end of a big fight.

The Orange Box
Half-Life 2 is one of the best games ever made. It’s kind of a no brainer that when you toss it, the two follow-up episodes, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 all into one package, what you end up with is an icredible gaming experience for an excellent price. Now that you can get the entire thing for $20 (or less), you have no excuse whatsoever to have not played these games.

Just Cause 2
Very few games allow the player to leap out of a helicopter mid-flight, free fall toward the ground, then latch onto something with a grappling hook at the last second. Just Cause 2 lets you do that and tons of other ridiculously unrealistic things, which is why it was so damn fun to play. I’ve yet to play another game whose grappling-hook-and-parachute-based locomotion comes anywhere close. Oh, and the in-game world is freaking enormous too.

Now… if instead of 4 games for $20, I was looking to spend a full $420 on upcoming games, my list would look more like this:

Starhawk
Dragon’s Dogma
Far Cry 3
Borderlands 2
Bioshock Infinite
Assassin’s Creed III
Halo 4

Ugh… I better start saving.

If you’ve got a favorite game that can be found on cheap these days, drop us a note in the comments!

We here at VGH aren’t exactly known for our patience. The people behind indie darling Fez were kind enough to send over a code for the game, but Randy and I both had ants in our pants and had already gone ahead and bought the game. Our impatience is your gain! We’re giving away our copy of Fez to one of you lucky folks. Head to the giveaway widget below and get yourself entered to win! We’ll be announcing a winner Tuesday morning, so get to it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sony has just dropped a new trailer for Resistance: Burning Skies which shows off the game’s 8-player online multiplayer action. I’m personally looking forward to getting my hands on it, as I’m really interested to find out first-hand how a first-person shooter feels on the Vita. Find out for yourself on May 29th when the game launches.