I hopped to this page as I reviewed Aperture Desk Job, which fulfills more or less the same role as Welcome Park on the Steam Deck and had me reminiscing. I was shocked to find out that Welcome Park is rated so low over here. It was just such a delight to play through when unboxing my Vita, waaaay back when.

Welcome Park was a free piece of software that came bundled into the PS Vita. It stood for a collection of minigames that used the Vita's many features. For instance, did you know the Vita featured a rear touchpad? A surprising amount of Vita owners did not, because few games used it and most of them were release window titles. BUT! If you played through the entirety of Welcome Park, you'd know that and more!

The minigames weren't really anything to write home about, but they were entertaining and fulfilled their purpose of introducing the console to its new user very well, and they even came with a not-trivial trophy list so you could hunt your first Vita 100%! No platinum trophy, but hey. Sony was a bit more stringent with those back then.

So yeah, I don't get why the app is so maligned -- it was a pretty nice experience, considering its purpose, and Sony did a good thing by bundling it with the Vita. It's just too bad they messed up the, uh

[checks notes]
[grows increasingly worried while flipping through an unending stack of pages]

...well, basically everything else about the Vita.

I can't wait until they remake this on Netflix as a True Detective knockoff staring Chris Pratt as a down and out detective who's been down on his luck ever since he busted that ring of "The Number Gang" cannibals who were obsessed with getting to his partner Johnny Nine. They never did catch their ring leader who killed and ate him tragically just before the bust, as none of the surveillance pictures truly captured their face, but Chris Pratt was awarded some ambiguous distinguished medal of copness and promoted at a long and gritty ceremony.

Haunted by the memory of his partner Nine, Chris Pratt confides in the only person who still gives a damn about him, Shelly, the new beat cop who has her own demons to deal with. You see, he used to see her skateboarding in the park, and she always seemed to have information on the stars of the local gang, but one too many hits to the head caused her to realize she needed to get a real job.

So she enrolled in the police academy. The two get a little too close and sparks seem to fly as Chris Pratt teaches Shelley the art of pressing the trigger just right to get the perfect shot. With Chris Pratt's help, Shelley finishes her exams with the fastest time.

After a particularly long night of investigating his old leads on the cannibal gang, he follows his new partner into a night club. We see scenes of discoteque lights and almost too risque for TV dancing scenes with music infused with echoes of Shelley's words, followed by Chris Pratt in Shelley's apartment after a night of too much fun.

While Shelley is in the shower, Chris Pratt knocks over a night stand while getting out of bed and on the floor finds an old picture frame and name tag to some motel Shelley used to work at. The name tag reads "S. Even" and the picture frame was of his old partner Nine. Queue the suspenseful music with a small hint of the shower running in the background as multiple camera pans stitched together rearrange to form Shelley with a knife and fork standing behind Chris Pratt and then fades to black.

As a tech demo to showcase what the PlayStation Vita can do, it's just fine.

The games showcase the abilities of the touch screens, tilt, camera, the tilt functions and the microphone. They are events with mini games with time trials and high score challenges.

The main problem is that Welcome Park is just too corporate. Astro's Playroom, the tech demo for the PlayStation 5, has a lot of charm and fun with odds and odes to Sony's gaming past. Welcome Park just has a menu with a small selection of games.

If you ever choose to play this, you will get bored of it very quickly. Playing Vita games will probably be a better option to see what the Vita can do.