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With PlayStation Plus, a healthy selection of inexpensive downloadables, bargains to be found in the PlayStation Mobile section of its store, and frequent sales, the Vita already has plenty of cheap entertainment on offer for discerning gamers.
But, what about free fun? The kind of fun for which you pay absolutely nothing. Nada. Nichts. Zilch. You get the picture.
There's a bunch of that available for the Vita, too, actually, though these gratis gems are often hidden away, buried under multiple menus in the PlayStation Store.
It'd be really helpful, then, if someone could spend a bunch of time rummaging through the PS Vita Store for first-rate freebies, then publish a super-handy guide that lists all of the apps and games you can enjoy for zero pounds and zero pence.
Oh, wait! That's exactly what I've done. Check out the top 25 free apps and games for the PS Vita below. Enjoy.
Free games
PlayStation Home Arcade serves as a free portal for other Vita games, though it does come with a few freebies up its own sleeve, including Ice Breaker and WipEout 2D. It boots up bloomin' fast, too.
Ice Breaker is a Breakout clone. Pure and simple. So, break blocks with a ball using a bat at the foot of the screen. It handles nicely, and there are a few power-ups on offer to spice up the play. Nothing special, mind.
WipEout 2D, however... well, that's quite a different matter. A top-down take on the futuristic racer, this one's a good deal of fun. Four tracks, 12 teams, and some delightful Micro Machines-esque racing.
In the Bronze Award-winning Ecolibrium, you get to play Mr Scientist. How? By creating balanced ecosystems for a variety of odd animals. Oh, and by cloning flora and fauna until harmony is restored to various planets. One for The Sims crowd, according to our Vaughn.
By contrast, Frobisher Says! is something anyone can enjoy. As our Mike's 8/10 review mark would suggest. You'd be insane not to have Honeyslug's bonkersWarioWare-esque mini-game collection starring an unbalanced spoilt child on your Vita's memory card. Insane, we say!
Jump off a cliff and perform aerial trickery via AR card-based title Cliff Diving. On a similar augmented reality note, there's the Fantavision-alike Fireworks available, and stripped-down footie-fest Table Football.
In SunFlowers, you play the sun, shooting rays of light onto clouds, forming rain droplets, and helping a variety of adorable-looking species to grow. I gave it a Silver Award, and you should give it your full attention.
Treasures of Montezuma Blitz is a match-three puzzler. Yeah, because every games system on the planet needs another one of those right now, eh? The only problem with this one, mind, is that the dev's a bit stingy when it comes to the amount of times you can play it before having to wait or pay more money.
In case you didn't know, Halfbrick's smartphone classic Jetpack Joyride is now downloadable from PSN. If you've never experienced this brilliant - and ridiculously addictive - endless-runner before, rectify that situation immediately.
Bullion Blitz is a cross between Columns and Tetris. By downloading the game, you get the trial version, which only has Quick Play. Brilliantly, though, that's as much of the game as you'll ever need. A fun little puzzler, then. Just like the revampedLemmings, which also includes this kind of paygating and which is equally worth a look.
Welcome Park comes pre-installed on the Vita, and is designed to teach you all about the Vita's various bits of functionality. It's got a minimalist design, and it helps you get to grips with all the interesting input methods on your Vita. Plus, there are Trophies up for grabs for completing the mini-games quickly. Which is nice.
In Treasure Park, you construct puzzles and share them with mates and strangers as you go about your travels. Think 'Minesweeper on the move' and, well, you're halfway there.
Social media and more
There are plenty of free high-profile social apps for the Vita, too.
Skype, for example, enables you to chat with pals in distant lands (or next door - it's your call), while Facebook and LiveTweet are must-have downloads for any Vita-toting social butterfly. Plus, there's a dedicated foursquare app available, if that's your bag.
The two social apps for Vita that really float my boat, though, are YouTube andFlickr.
Put frankly, they're both elegantly designed; utterly engrossing; and populated with reams and reams of entertaining free content. And cats. Cats doing silly things. That aren't funny.
I'd actually go as far as to say that the Vita YouTube client is better than the one Google made for the iPhone. I know!
Flickr's app is just as impressive as the YouTube application, though your mileage will vary depending on whether you find scrolling through high-quality photos enjoyable. There are some super-talented people (and Jon Jordan) on this popular online photo-sharing service, mind, so if you're a wannabe Annie Leibovitz, it's well worth a look.
Free toys
Imaginstruments is one for the music buffs out there. You're given a limited number of beats in a stripped-down sequencer, and you can tinker with the pitch and tempo of the instruments. It is at best a distraction, but a neat one, nonetheless.
The maker of Travel Bug, meanwhile, would rather like you to check in with its app every once in a while. You know, to document your travels, earn Bugmiles, and stuff. You can actually redeem these Bugmiles for new clothing for your very own custom-made bug.
In Paint Park, you're given a blank canvas on which to draw. Yessss, and some tools to do exactly that. Not too thrilling, maybe, but I did manage to spend at least five minutes of my life drawing a pretty awful rendition of Pikachu. So, that's something, I guess.
t@g is about getting out of your house and leaving your mark on the world via digital graffiti. You'll need a 3G model Vita to demonstrate your Banksy-esque brilliance, dude. Ah, and some Bansky-esque brilliance, of course.
Finally, there's Wake-up Club, which is a really novel idea. With this app installed on your Vita, your portable console turns into an alarm clock. Not just any alarm clock, though. Via Wake-up Club, you compete with friends to see who can get up on time most regularly. There are even some Trophies to be earned, thus sweetening the deal. Slightly.
But, what about free fun? The kind of fun for which you pay absolutely nothing. Nada. Nichts. Zilch. You get the picture.
There's a bunch of that available for the Vita, too, actually, though these gratis gems are often hidden away, buried under multiple menus in the PlayStation Store.
It'd be really helpful, then, if someone could spend a bunch of time rummaging through the PS Vita Store for first-rate freebies, then publish a super-handy guide that lists all of the apps and games you can enjoy for zero pounds and zero pence.
Oh, wait! That's exactly what I've done. Check out the top 25 free apps and games for the PS Vita below. Enjoy.
Free games
PlayStation Home Arcade serves as a free portal for other Vita games, though it does come with a few freebies up its own sleeve, including Ice Breaker and WipEout 2D. It boots up bloomin' fast, too.
Ice Breaker is a Breakout clone. Pure and simple. So, break blocks with a ball using a bat at the foot of the screen. It handles nicely, and there are a few power-ups on offer to spice up the play. Nothing special, mind.
WipEout 2D, however... well, that's quite a different matter. A top-down take on the futuristic racer, this one's a good deal of fun. Four tracks, 12 teams, and some delightful Micro Machines-esque racing.
In the Bronze Award-winning Ecolibrium, you get to play Mr Scientist. How? By creating balanced ecosystems for a variety of odd animals. Oh, and by cloning flora and fauna until harmony is restored to various planets. One for The Sims crowd, according to our Vaughn.
By contrast, Frobisher Says! is something anyone can enjoy. As our Mike's 8/10 review mark would suggest. You'd be insane not to have Honeyslug's bonkersWarioWare-esque mini-game collection starring an unbalanced spoilt child on your Vita's memory card. Insane, we say!
Jump off a cliff and perform aerial trickery via AR card-based title Cliff Diving. On a similar augmented reality note, there's the Fantavision-alike Fireworks available, and stripped-down footie-fest Table Football.
In SunFlowers, you play the sun, shooting rays of light onto clouds, forming rain droplets, and helping a variety of adorable-looking species to grow. I gave it a Silver Award, and you should give it your full attention.
Treasures of Montezuma Blitz is a match-three puzzler. Yeah, because every games system on the planet needs another one of those right now, eh? The only problem with this one, mind, is that the dev's a bit stingy when it comes to the amount of times you can play it before having to wait or pay more money.
In case you didn't know, Halfbrick's smartphone classic Jetpack Joyride is now downloadable from PSN. If you've never experienced this brilliant - and ridiculously addictive - endless-runner before, rectify that situation immediately.
Bullion Blitz is a cross between Columns and Tetris. By downloading the game, you get the trial version, which only has Quick Play. Brilliantly, though, that's as much of the game as you'll ever need. A fun little puzzler, then. Just like the revampedLemmings, which also includes this kind of paygating and which is equally worth a look.
Welcome Park comes pre-installed on the Vita, and is designed to teach you all about the Vita's various bits of functionality. It's got a minimalist design, and it helps you get to grips with all the interesting input methods on your Vita. Plus, there are Trophies up for grabs for completing the mini-games quickly. Which is nice.
In Treasure Park, you construct puzzles and share them with mates and strangers as you go about your travels. Think 'Minesweeper on the move' and, well, you're halfway there.
Social media and more
There are plenty of free high-profile social apps for the Vita, too.
Skype, for example, enables you to chat with pals in distant lands (or next door - it's your call), while Facebook and LiveTweet are must-have downloads for any Vita-toting social butterfly. Plus, there's a dedicated foursquare app available, if that's your bag.
The two social apps for Vita that really float my boat, though, are YouTube andFlickr.
Put frankly, they're both elegantly designed; utterly engrossing; and populated with reams and reams of entertaining free content. And cats. Cats doing silly things. That aren't funny.
I'd actually go as far as to say that the Vita YouTube client is better than the one Google made for the iPhone. I know!
Flickr's app is just as impressive as the YouTube application, though your mileage will vary depending on whether you find scrolling through high-quality photos enjoyable. There are some super-talented people (and Jon Jordan) on this popular online photo-sharing service, mind, so if you're a wannabe Annie Leibovitz, it's well worth a look.
Free toys
Imaginstruments is one for the music buffs out there. You're given a limited number of beats in a stripped-down sequencer, and you can tinker with the pitch and tempo of the instruments. It is at best a distraction, but a neat one, nonetheless.
The maker of Travel Bug, meanwhile, would rather like you to check in with its app every once in a while. You know, to document your travels, earn Bugmiles, and stuff. You can actually redeem these Bugmiles for new clothing for your very own custom-made bug.
In Paint Park, you're given a blank canvas on which to draw. Yessss, and some tools to do exactly that. Not too thrilling, maybe, but I did manage to spend at least five minutes of my life drawing a pretty awful rendition of Pikachu. So, that's something, I guess.
t@g is about getting out of your house and leaving your mark on the world via digital graffiti. You'll need a 3G model Vita to demonstrate your Banksy-esque brilliance, dude. Ah, and some Bansky-esque brilliance, of course.
Finally, there's Wake-up Club, which is a really novel idea. With this app installed on your Vita, your portable console turns into an alarm clock. Not just any alarm clock, though. Via Wake-up Club, you compete with friends to see who can get up on time most regularly. There are even some Trophies to be earned, thus sweetening the deal. Slightly.
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