I played a PS Vita yesterday at a demo kiosk for a while, and the first thought I had was “oh no, these buttons are too small.”

I don't own a smart phone, a tablet, an e-reader, a 3DS, or any other current high priced portable. I've thought a lot about getting an iPhone or at least an iPod touch, but the lack of buttons and a d-pad really bothers me. What I want is an iPhone with buttons and the Vita seemed poised to hit the spot.

But it hit me as soon as I held it what a let-down the controls are. The buttons seem tinier than the ones on the Gameboy Advance, and they're cramped. They actually make the DS buttons seem graciously large and spacious.

The D-pad is also novel for a Sony product in that the center of it isn't submerged under the plastic like usual; its so tiny that this wouldn't have been possible. Amusingly enough that may make it better than a typical PS d-pad.

The analog sticks are the second problem. You have no idea how tiny they actually are until you hold the device in your hand, but the sensation is ridiculous. Normally with an analog stick your thumb should be able to comfortably and assuredly rest on top of it to move it around, but since this one is too small for that it felt as if my thumb was always slipping off a bit and pushing it from the sides. It was far different than the 3DS circle pad, which is concave and captures the base of the thumb. The analog nub feel like some cute, non-functioning miniature made for a craft fair. I lack the experience to say they were uncomfortable or unusable, but the feel was discombobulating.

The nubs are also so close to the buttons that it seems difficult to avoid hitting them while pressing the buttons or the d-pad. Its as if Sony didn't give a damn about people with large hands (perhaps moving the elements apart would have affected the look). I can literally lay the top half of my thumb down across the analog stick and press all four face buttons simultaneously.

The irony of it all is the Vita otherwise felt satisfyingly large and substantial in my hands. The screen is wonderful. It's bigger than an iPhone- I'm not sure if I'd want to browse the web or read on it for long hours compared to a tablet but it probably has the nicest screen of any portable game system ever made. The touch controls on both the front and back are wonderful. The triggers were also nice.

But man its a shame that the traditional controls aren't rock-solid when the rest of the package is this expensive. How it is that two decades after the SNES and Saturn giant companies still have trouble with d-pads and face buttons?

Finally, after using my wife's iPhone for the past six months I can't help but notice how zippy it is to switch and start up apps compared to the PS3. Since the Vita has more system RAM than the PS3 I hoped that Sony would have focused on making the transitions quicker, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case. Every application took what felt like ten or so seconds to load before it even showed loading screens, and even then it was half a minute (at least) of credits and menus before the game started. For some reason the demo kiosk had sound disabled, which was really stupid, because if I'd at least heard music or something when the games were loading it would've made it seem more responsive. To be fair maybe the games I tried all took a bit longer to load than will be the norm (just like Infinity Blade takes longer than normal to load on an iPhone). Going back to the home screen from within an app was at least quicker than accessing the PS3's OS menu from within an app.

The Megaman from Megaman One's US box art will be in the upcoming fighting game Street Fighter vs Tekken.

Every few years it seems like Capcom re-imagines Megaman with a fresh design to make him hip and cool for the next generation (i.e. Megaman to Megaman X, Megaman X to Megaman Zero, etc etc). Honestly, they should go all-out and make a new series starring this new fat guy to appeal to older, out of shape gamers like myself, and let me write the script. Just listen to his voice-acting- this is the kind of cheeze I could watch all day.

Also in the game from the Namco side will be Pac-Man, who in order to keep the dumbness at parity will spend the whole time riding a robot for no reason at all. If I was Namco I would've gone with the following re-imagined version of Dig-Dug from Namco X Capcom:

Oddly enough all these characters will be exclusive to the PS3.

Playing Fragile Dreams reminds me why I originally liked the Wii and how few adventure games there are for the system.

In the game, you use the Wii Remote to point at the screen and direct your character's flashlight. Every time something of significance is illuminated, it may also make the remote's speakers produce a noise. For example, you spend a lot of time fighting ghosts which you can't see unless you hit them with the flashlight. But before they come into view, the remote speaker starts emitting the sound they make. The game is too lighthearted for it to ever feel scary but its a neat effect which makes you think about just how under-utilized the Wii has been as a real gaming device when it comes to hardcore, single-player adventure games.

Another cool feature is that whenever you want to get advice from your computer companion (the game's theme is desolation and loneliness, yet ironically the story instantly pairs him up with a talkative sentient AI) you can hold the Wii Remote “up to your ear” like a phone (i.e. simply point it up anywhere). This reminded me of No More Heroes, which was the last Wii game I ever played that felt fresh and new.

As the Wii finishes its run its sad to think how few robust adventure games there are like this that play to its strengths. Too many games (such as Mario Galaxy) were just the same as they would've been with a game pad, except they required you to randomly shake the remote instead of press a button. Sometimes there were embedded mini-games that briefly changed the controls to be totally different (a good example with Mario Galaxy were those stages where Mario balanced on top of ball and became controlled by the Wii Remote).

After Monster Hunter became popular and gave credibility to the “classic controller” (one of the most uncomfortable gamepads ever designed) it seemed like games stopped even pretending to use the Wii Remote as intended. No More Heroes 2 for example was ruined when they added compatibility for more traditional controls by removing all the neat touches that made the first game great. Then you also had the legions of games which opted to use only the Wii Remote as if it were a classic controller and added just enough BS that using a real gamepad was impossible (Punch-Out!, New Super Mario Bros, and Metroid : Other M to name a few).

Ironically, one of the best “Wii only” games was the port of Resident Evil 4, which played so well it was as if Nintendo had designed the system around it Mario 64 style.

I think part of the blame is owed to the fact the Wii Remote isn't as accurate as anyone would have liked. I heard the Wii Motion Plus improves it a bit, but what I'd really like whenever I'm playing most games on the Wii is to have an accurate way to point at the screen. Light guns have been around forever which achieve this so its frustrating in that classic Nintendo way what the Wii Remote doesn't. Its too bad that the Wii U is centered around using an over-sized, over-priced controller with a big screen on it (which can only be touched with a stylus) instead of further improving the Wii Remote since the potential of the original was never met.

This might be my favorite YouTube video ever.