Tearaway (Vita)
By: Sony
THE bods behind LittleBigPlanet come over all touchy-feely, bringing their patented whimsy to the Vita with an experience quite unlike any other.
Milking the handheld's bells and whistles like a rabid farmer, Tearaway puts the underloved handheld through its paces by making full use of its camera, microphone, touch-screen, rear touch-pad and motion sensing.
And rather than a grab-bag of gimmickry, the result is sublime, mixing the art-school charm of LittleBigPlanet with technical wizardry that slaps your own grinning fizzog at the heart and soul of its world.
Much like the terrifying Teletubbies baby, thine own mug shines above Tearaway's origami landscape. Reaching this orb of ugliness is the ultimate goal of the game's envelope-bonced star as traditional platforming is mixed with achingly imaginative use of the handheld.
Not only does a live feed of your mush appear on screen, but the game's paperbacked protagonist can be aided by thrusting your fingers into its crinkly landscape. Prodding the rear touch-pad will cause digital digits to break the fourth wall while bridges can be unfurled and enemies vanquished by sweeping the screen. An unfettered celebration of creativity mixed with faux stop-motion visuals and a cracking folksy score, Tearaway literally pushes the envelope. It won't love you long time, but the four or five hours you'll spend in Tearaway's pulped fiction is well worth the budget asking price.
Vita game of the year? Hell, it may just be the best game of the year.
Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
By: Nintendo
IN PURE software terms, the wee 3DS has been the console to beat in 2013, and topping off a very good year is this sequel to SNES classic A Link to the Past. Treading the fine line between homage and sequel, Link Between Worlds features a new story and dungeons set in the same world as the seminal dungeon crawler. The usual series stalwarts abound, with hack n' slash combat, side quests and an incredibly involving experience with the Hyrulean hero along with the obligatory innovations.
Link can now turn into a flat 2D drawing capable of shimmying through cracks and along walls while there's a fundamental shift in the series' well-worn formula of parceling out gadgets, with players able to complete the dungeons in any order thanks to renting items at will.
A series-best soundtrack demands ear-bleeding headphones though the simple cutesy visuals wouldn't trouble the humblest of mobile phones.
Still, Yet Link Between Worlds proves how little graphics matter, and the venerable Nintendo seal of quality has never been more obvious with gameplay that's shot through with the sense of exploration and mystery that epitomised the best Zelda titles. With this and the Wii U's Mario 3D World, Nintendo are wiping their fun-stuffed bum with the so-called next-generation.