Gravity Rush

The Vita game with an irresistible pull

PS Vita wasn’t awash with big exclusives, and early efforts such as compacted takes on WipEout and Uncharted didn’t assert the handheld’s unique identity. It needed games that shifted the focus – original 3D adventures with the scale of a console title that felt tailor-made for the pocket machine. Enter Gravity Rush, where shifting is everything.

Gravity Rush was initially planned for PS3, in fact, but Sony Japan Studio reworked it to fit Vita, finding smart ways to cope with the hardware limitations. The visual style, inspired by the work of French graphic artist Jean Giraud (aka Moebius), does a lot of heavy lifting in open-world steampunk city Hekseville. Detail in your immediate surroundings contrasts with cel-shaded townsfolk and block-shaded backgrounds to resemble scenes from a graphic novel, supported by a story told through comic panels.