Game Info
GAME NAME: Little Deviants
DEVELOPER(S): bigbig
PUBLISHER(S): SCE
PLATFORM(S): Vita
GENRE(S): Mini-games
RELEASE DATE(S): 22 February 2012
Oh, look what we have here. A collection of mini-games designed specifically to show off all of Vita’s fancy bells and whistles. Those living in the sane world would have thought that something that just punts the features of the Vita should come bundled with the unit but that is unfortunately not the case.
Little Deviants stars a collection of cutesy monsters that have had their world invaded by a bunch of robots and it’s up to you to get rid of this intrusion. Each mini-game is unique to one of the hardware features the Vita has put forth and most work surprisingly well. Rolling Pastures has you using the back touch screen to deform the terrain and steer a ball-like creature around an obstacle course. Obtaining a key opens a warp hole that vacuums in all foes… and the entire stage once players make it to the warp. At first it’s a rather daunting task as you can’t see exactly where your fingers are positioned on the back of the unit but becomes second nature after some practice.
Bots Invasion sees players using the motion camera to aim at a bunch of robots swarming the world (which is created via the built-in camera) and can be shot down by pressing the L or R shoulder buttons. 3DS owners will be pointing out that Face Raiders, which is the EXACT same concept, came packaged for free with the 3DS.
Rotten Rumble is a great showcase of how Sony plans to link the touchscreen and the rear touch pad for future projects. An unfortunate Deviant finds himself inside a wrestling ring up against a bunch of Zombie Bots. By pulling on both the rear touch pad and touchscreen the Deviant is catapulted from the ropes to lay claim to any Zombie in his way. Some mini-games make use of the motion sensors to steer a vehicle while others will have you singing – or most likely humming or whistling – at a different pitch to activate an event.
There are well over 30 mini-games but at times these become repetitive as the Vita has only so many functions that can be combined to make a complete game. To show off everything the Vita is capable of Little Deviants never uses any of the buttons on the hardware, which is somewhat disappointing since we have smartphones that can do that. Other than achieving high scores and collecting art pieces to fill a gallery there is not much else to drag you back to a game that looses the ‘Oooh wow’ factor in a matter of minutes.
The Vita is unquestionably one of the better pieces of hardware Sony Computer Entertainment has released in recent years and Little Deviants shows that off, but it’s not something that will last you past three hours as you’ll move on to something with more substance. It’s a little deviant of Sony that they expect you to buy this in the first place.
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This review made me go look at the price of Vita games (paying full price for an average product always bugs me). I have no plan of buying a Vita but I like to know the price of most gaming-related products (I’m weird that way). Would not say the games are that badly priced, surprisingly, well the online prices aren’t bad, no idea about standard retail prices.
Wow, sounds like a terrible game, reminds me of Start the Party, only better.
Jason, Vita games are priced ‘okay’ I think. Some of the online games like Stardust and Escape Plan which look great are only R100. Sadly, some of the games are not worth the money at all.
Yeah, that’s always the case with some / most games. A quick online comparison shows me that new 3DS titles are more expensive than the new Vita releases, which does surprise me quite a bit. Now if only the console would drop a bit.
I think it depends on the game. If it’s a casual game it should be cheaper and if it’s hardcore they should adjust the pricing. Developers can’t tell us that Little Deviants took the same development time as Resident Evil Revelations. I’d glady pay the price Revelations is going for… not this.