As someone who could never quite get into mobile gaming, the PlayStation Vita continues to impress me. Perhaps that’s because the Sony handheld tries to do things a little differently, offering console-like features and experiences, but with a slight mobile spin. The latest game to exemplify this is Zipper Interactive’s Unit 13, a 3rd person tactical shooter which features a host of social features as well as online co-op.
The core of Unit 13 is its 36 missions, each averaging between 4 and 10 minutes in length. It’s the perfect setup for firing up on your lunch break, while waiting in the doctor’s office, or a quick mission before bed. The missions themselves offer a bit of a variety, whether you’re racing against the clock to accomplish objectives or trying not to set off any alarms in a covert op. The game balances these types of scenarios and mixes them with disarming explosives, rescuing VIPs, or assassinating targets. While there is enough variety in the missions themselves to make the gameplay feel fresh, the maps leave a bit to be desired as there’s a lot of recycling of areas going on between them.
It’s really quite impressive what the Vita can do, especially this early in its life cycle. The environments showcase a variety of lighting and texture details, with the player and enemy models looking as good as something you’d find on a console. Playing the game with a solid set of headphones yields some impressive aural results. The controls themselves work really well, utilizing the touch screen only when needed for things like reloading and interacting with devices in the game world, plus, ya know - dual analog sticks and all that jazz.
Unit 13’s focus is on quick play and high scores and it’s quite evident in the social features scattered through out its interface. A constant ticker shows you what your friends have unlocked or accomplished as well as leaderboards that let you filter by friends, overall or even people found using the Near application. This drives you not only to replay missions to better your score, but also to continue to level up the game’s six operatives. Doing so not only has its advantages, perfecting missions goes towards unlocking access to additional missions like assassination targets which add some meat to the game.
Leveling up operatives in Unit 13 allows you to unlock better gear and weapons. Each operative offers a speciality like being better at stealth or offering better resistance to damage. It’s something of a rarity, but playing as one operative actually unlocks items specifically for other operatives, almost forcing you to try out different characters in different situations to acquire all the best gear.
As I said, there’s a big focus in Unit 13 on social and online features and it all starts with the online cooperative mode. The same set of missions are available to play in co-op and for the most part they feel largely the same as the single player counterpart with a few differences.
The first are the level choke points which force both players to be present to move forward, this sort of keeps players tethered to one larger area at a time. It’s not really a positive or a negative, but it’s worth noting the gameplay element is there. The best part about the co-op play on the Vita is the use of the system’s built in microphone for voice chat. This makes it incredibly easy to coordinate assaults on enemies and time stealth take downs. What I really like about this vocal option is that you aren’t wearing a headset like on the consoles or PC, making the communication feel a little more natural.
There's some other gameplay elements that help separate co-op from the single player game. Player revival goes a long way to making some of the harder missions much easier, instead of simply failing on death, you can be revived by a buddy and continue along the way. I also found numerous tactical decisions during gameplay like flanking maneuvers and luring enemies into charges set by the other player as things that simply can't happen in a single player experience.
While I found the co-op play more satisfying, it won’t actually help you complete your single player experience. You’ll still earn experience and be able to level up your operatives, but you won’t be able to unlock any additional missions (save for the bonus stuff) by playing co-op. It’s not really a huge deal, but for missions you get stuck on in single player, it would have been nice to utilize co-op to complete them.
Even though Unit 13 is a really enjoyable experience from the gameplay perspective, the game does appear to have some serious technical issues. I’ve experience numerous hard lock ups of my PS Vita system since installing Unit 13, forcing me to do a full reset and even something called “rebuilding the system database” to get back in working order.
This early in the PlayStation Vita’s life cycle it’s really great to see some of the developers trying some new things that meld console-like experiences with on the go gaming. The game is just engaging enough in cooperative play to border on addictive, despite a few nuances. Unit 13 tries some new things that keep it feeling fresh, and whether you sit down to play a single mission at a time or ten, you’ll find yourself enjoying it the whole way through.