Little Deviants Review

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More of a tech demo than an actual game.

One the things I love about being a gaming enthusiast, is the anticipation of a new system. The sense of wonder is always intoxicating while talking about the possibilities with friends and fellow gamers. As the release date draws near, I am always reading up, researching the games and special features of the next generation gaming console. Upon every system release, there is what we like to call, the AAA title, the game that stands above all of the rest; a game that shows off what the system can do while, at the same time, is a finely crafted experience that makes gaming history. However, there is also another type of game during the launch of a new system, the “shovelware,” and as a prime example of this, I give you Little Deviants.

Little Deviants is a game created by the late BigBig studios for the new PlayStation Vita, and it is mini-game collection. The story of Little Deviants is presented in very short cut scenes that make the bare minimum of sense. Basically, it’s about taffy looking aliens that get attacked by some generic looking robots. Their spaceship crash-lands on a cube shaped world that serves as a template for the stages of the game.

It's like Marble Madness except not fun.


One of the cool things about the PS Vita is the inclusion of two analog sticks, however Little Deviants could care less about those and the face buttons. This game wants you to touch, rear touch, aim, shoot, and tilt your way to victory, using every other way to control the game besides the most precise way. For example, one of the series of levels requires the use of the rear touch panel in order to navigate a spherical Deviant to collect keys and exit through portals. If I had to use the rear touch panel on occasion, it would not be so bad. During this section, though, it is the only way to play.

Another mini game has you aiming an airplane by use of the tilt function. Every mini game in Little Deviants will have enthusiast gamers rolling their eyes due to over reliance of tricks and gimmicks. Even the AR segment of the game that uses the PS Vita’s camera to aim and shoot down rocket propelled Deviants felt soulless when compared to the Nintendo 3DS game Face Raiders.

Once you play though all of the main sections of the mini games, Little Deviants rewards you with a chance to play through them all over again, but with different Deviants. The repetitive nature of makes me think that a room full of suits, and not a group of gamers, developed this title.

Please, no encore.


If this game wasn’t meant for the core audience, then who is it aimed at? Could it be the child gamer who has rich parents and thinks that modern Nickelodeon is the best television ever? Or, perhaps, this is a title aimed at the iOS/Angry Birds crowd who are willing to spend another $250-$300 plus $30 on this game. I don’t think so.

Make no mistake; Little Deviants will never get a follow up. Games like these have served their purpose, and that is a quick buck upon the arrival of a new gaming console. Don’t get me wrong, there is some fun to had with Little Deviants, however the $30-$40 price tag hurts this collection of mini games. If they were on an iOS device, I might pay a dollar for one or two of them.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.
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1 Comment

  1. I agree with the score but I can’t agree with the final comments: “If this game wasn’t meant for the core audience, then who is it aimed at? Could it be the child gamer who has rich parents and thinks that modern Nickelodeon is the best television ever? ”

    I believe that many of the “core audience” have kids like me, and that they don’t have to be “rich” and still want to share their hobby with their kids, I bought this game mainly so that my son had some software he could use with the VITA I bought, and I believe MANY of us “core” gamers have kids already and Little Deviants is for now the most easy to pick’n play game for younger audiences.
    I don’t like the game very much myself, it’s repetitive and to “gimmick based”, but kids don’t mind with repetitiveness (believe me on this one!) and using the different controls are more magical to them then it is for us, while for us is all “technical thinks” like gyros and capacitive touch-screen and whatnot, for them it’s just cool and fun.

    The problem here is, as always, the problem Sony has to promote their games, I don’t think I ever saw a video of this game being played by kids, all I saw was booth-nerds showing of the rear-touch panel with the game.
    Sony makes fantastic games for younger audiences but for some weird reason rarely used kids to promote their games, we mainly see 20 to 30 years old people playing these kind of games, in some way I prefer that to watch disturbing showcases of robot-kids playing heavily scripted play-time on Kinect games at E3….

    But yes, this game is for kids, if someone bought a game with colorful little creatures expecting a hardcore gaming experience, that person has a bad human perception of things.

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