Manufacturer: Thrustmaster

Colors: Tan (Uncharted: Golden Abyss Edition), Black

Release Date: 2/27/2012

MSRP: $29.99

While the Vita is only a couple of months old, there is a nice trickle of accessories coming out. The first thing you should do is protect your investment with screen protectors and cases. Soft cases are usually useless against drops, but hard cases aren’t. Thrustmaster has come out with a series of hard cases for the Vita, and it works just fine.

The case is made of hard black plastic with soft foam inside. The Vita sits perfectly inside, with two little areas at the bottom to lift it out. There are six slots on the foam in the top portion. These slots hold Vita games, but I found that they fell out if the case was jarred too hard. I also thought that maybe you could lift up the foam and store stuff underneath, but instead, the foam is glued in. There are two locking mechanisms on the front of the case that you slide in to lock and slide out to open. These didn’t seem to open up during test drops, but they may end up getting loose over time.

I found that the case wasn’t very attractive, and the whole Special Forces thing is pretty stupid. There is a fake plastic dog tag on the front to make you feel like this is an ammo case. It really feels like some sort of cheap toy you would hold your action figures in. The case doesn’t even look like an ammo case and needs some more aesthetics.

Overall, you buy this stuff to protect your Vita, and this does the job just fine. If you can look past the cheap looks and lack of compartments, you will have one of the best Vita hard cases on the market.