Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale - Long Name, Fun Game

Yes, that's a giant Chop Chop Master Onion kicking a Killzone Robot thing.

Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale has kind of been a thing that's on everybody's radar mostly because it's, well, a big ordeal as a game on a basic level.  Mascot fighting games aren't numerous in number and in fact is sort of a point of contention in what counts for the term, further thinning the numbers.  Regardless, the 'big boy' of the genre has been seen as Super Smash Bros. since it came out and few games have come out in the meanwhile, and fewer still that could hope to challenge for that title in the public eye.  So when PASBR was announced and showed off, there was a lot of eye-rolling and saying "Oh boy, a rip-off of Super Smash Bros., that's going to be pretty bad." and then there wasn't a lot of thought beyond that.  Yet there was some reason, I can't place just what it was, that compelled me to get it even though my time with the Beta was minimal and I walked away thinking it was 'alright'.  Having played it for the bulk of today, however, I am very, very glad that I put down the money for this game because it's certainly worth it.

Utilizing the Cross-Buy feature of the game, I've spent all my time with the Vita version of the game which is a wonderful, wonderful version of the game.  It's clear and good-looking and most importantly, the frame rate seems to be locked in the actual matches.  Maybe it was a trick of my eyes, but it seemed like one of the menus was cutting sub-30 for some reason as I went to customize one of the characters I played with, but it was only a "Blink and you'll miss it" deal and being outside of playing the game, it doesn't matter even one lick.  There are simply not enough positive things I can say about the port job that was done on this game and unless something drastically changes in the meanwhile, I daresay that it is quite nearly perfectly done.

As far as the game goes, the actual gameplay is rather fantastic as it's simple and accessible enough to pick up and understand in the span of a match and 'master' in as little as a few matches depending on the character, yet it's deep enough that there's strategy to it - not just slamming buttons.  That's what I enjoy the most, personally, because yes, slamming buttons does the job sometimes, but if you're not going to employ a little finesse then you're just wasting your time in my opinion.  Catering the the usual tenets of fighting games here, there are various types of fighters and they all rely on their own style to get you through.  Characters like Raiden and Cole (and his Evil version) are Strikers who exist to hit things in rapid succession in ways that are still not just mashing on buttons.  Then you have characters like Sackboy (yes, I've only played four characters so far, don't judge me) who aren't so adept in that and you have to rely more on trappings and the like.  Sackboy has a move that can drop a shock pad down that just waits there for someone to step on it.  He also has a move where he lays down a desk fan which pushes enemies in the opposite direction.  I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.

(Side note, Sackboy also knows how to German Suplex things with the Grabinator Gloves, no I don't know what the hell)

The way the game seems to work is that every character has an Arcade Mode which is actually a Story Mode which means you have an intro that sort of explains why they're in the Tournament (Think Mortal Kombat, but nobody knows what the hell is going on) and then they have a cutscene all the way at the end with a 'rival' which is a term used loosely.  Some Rivalries are awesome and amazing, like Cole vs. Raiden which is fucking perfect A++ would praise again, and some of them are....Evil Cole versus Fat Princess.  This is a perfect way to show off the light-hearted mood the game carries overall, even with the inclusion of some moodier characters like Raiden or Kratos, and I wholeheartedly support it.  If it tried to be too serious about it, it'd be a wholly different deal, but thankfully they avoided that pitfall deftly.  Following the Rival battle, you're immediately placed into the Boss fight against Polygon Man (which is, again an -awesome- idea) and upon winning, you're treated to a little outro that basically sums up what the character has derived from it.  It's certainly not story-intensive, but it also doesn't need to be, and what little is there is done well enough that I can't fault it.

If you need some examples, I can share a couple from my experiences today.  Cole hears of a gathering of powerful people and thinks they're Conduits, so he goes to investigate to find out their intention and also see if any of them will help him defend 'the city', which could be New Marias or Empire City, I don't know.  After beating a bunch of people, he encounters Raiden who is a little hostile and puts him out, beats Polygon Man and returns to 'the city' with the knowledge that he can protect it all on his own.  Sackboy hears of a world that's devoid of inspiration, of creation, and sets out to right that wrong.  He meets up with a Little Sister who thinks he's adorable and wants to keep him but her Big Daddy is less than impressed.  Sackboy puts him down, beats Polygon Man and returns to LittleBigPlanet with a wealth of new inspiration with which to further create and better LittleBigPlanet.  (Side note:  His intro and outro are narrated by Stephen Fry as per LBP games and it's wonderful.)  As I said, it's by no means story intensive, but I don't need a cutscene after every fight where Kratos ponders why he repeatedly stabbed PaRappa the Rapper in the gut and vows to get revenge on Zeus who is sending playthings after him or I don't even know, you get where I'm going with this.

The most important thing to take away from all this is that Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale is fun.  Incredibly so.  I'm sure nobody really assumed that was going to be a thing that happened, but I am here to tell you that it did.  It did just happen.  Beyond the Story Mode, there's also trials for every character to take which allows you to get a feel for them, as well as versus modes (I assume for local play mostly) and the online fare with ranked matches and the like.  And even beyond that, the game is lousy with unlockables which is to say there's a ton of them.  (That's a proper usage of 'lousy with', btw, I'm sure you knew that, but I wanted to make sure you also knew I wasn't being facetious)  Playing with a character ultimately earns you Rank Points that ranks you up for a win as well as for earning any Goal bonuses or the like (Win 25 Arcade Matches, etc. stuff like that) which increases your rank.  Each character can seemingly go to Rank 200 which I assume you might meet with -one- character that you -really- like if you're heavy into online stuff, but at the same time, it is -there- for you to aspire to with the others if you so desire.  Which means, in short, there's a whole hell of a lot of game there if you're interested.  And while I won't go to that extreme, I know that I'm going to have to actually ponder whether I want to play Persona 4 Golden or PASBR which is a decision I really didn't think I'd have to make last week.

Retro City Rampage has a Release Date!

I gotta be honest with you folks, as you all know I generally am.  I love doing this blog, you know that and I know it.  But some nights are just harder than others because it's an ever-shifting thing and one night, you can have something to talk about and others you have to kind of reach for straws.  Few things (several things, I'm lying) annoy me more than having one of those reaching nights and then there being something rather big announced after I've gone and scraped together a post of something after much searching and pondering.  I welcome the challenge, of course, but sometimes it just overstays its welcome, you see.  So I'm sure you can all imagine my reaction after last night's post about the Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Reward demo when not one, not two, not three, but eight different games either saw an unveiling, announcement or release date between last night and right this moment as I am typing this.  Eight games.  In a single night/day.  I have to tell you that I was very, very tempted to actually upend a table earlier at around the sixth thing I noticed.  Because what the fuck, man.

This is the veritable other extreme of the problem I have most times, which is usually only a problem I have around E3, TGS or a similar show:  Entirely too much to speak of.  You know how I roll - I pick one to a few things and usually can drum up about 3-5 paragraphs bare minimum about the topic, trying to bring in opinions, other information and the like.  I don't really like just saying "Here is this thing, here is some info, bam, there's a paragraph, new topic".  Yet it's on nights like this where it seems that I am almost tempted to do just that because how else am I going to cover everything aside from doing that -or- a friggin' essay-level News Dump?  That's the real question here and the answer is pretty simple - I'll talk about everything else tomorrow.  Mostly because I don't really care about the rest of it so much as I care about one of the things in particular, and that thing is Retro City Rampage, which finally has a release date of This Coming Friggin' Tuesday.  (October 9th.)

It's been a long time since I talked about Retro City Rampage which is pretty much what's been expected so far as anything related to the game has been, apparently.  Though I really can't blame anyone for it since the game is being made by one dude but for five different platforms entirely - entire teams of developers apparently can't always get the finer points of porting simple content between one system to another, so can you imagine trying to get the same game working on five different platforms by yourself?  Yeah.  Probably not.  Still, whether or not he's actually gotten the game up and running on said five platforms is up for debate as October 9th is only the release date for three of them, specifically the PC version and the PS3/Vita versions.  The PC version will be offered through three different venues alone, with Steam, GOG and the developer's website (which will give you a Steam or GOG key, your choice) but no matter where you buy it, the game will be $15.  However, and this is where you would put a drumroll if you were into that sort of thing, the PS3/Vita versions will be Cross-Buy!  Meaning for $15 through PSN, you'll actually be getting -two- versions, one for both PS3 and Vita no matter which you buy it through, so unless you are a super dedicated PC gamer, perhaps the wiser option would be something with a Playstation logo on it.  Just...saying.

Nobody really knows why it's taken the game so long to come out (aside from the common sense answer) and similarly mysterious is why it's only releasing on about half of the platforms it was announced for.  Specifically egregious is the lack of the XBLA version which, well, might just cause some problems for the game down the road.  We've all had a peek into the fairly restrictive guidelines that Microsoft has on XBLA releases, particularly the ones where the game cannot have released on another platform prior unless X, Y and Z are met which has only been 'broken' a mite few times.  Some whisper in the recesses of the dark corners of the internet that it's in fact Microsoft's guidelines and rigid structure that have caused the delay, where others go so far as to suggest that it's been delayed for months because they didn't want to slot it in for the Summar of Arcade (because of the exclusivity that goes along with it) which creates a problem on either side of things.  I'm not one to suggest rumors where it's unnecessary, but I could very well see either scenario, though not completely at the face value with which they're presented.  But still, the whole kernel of truth thing and such.

For my part, I....don't really care.  Yes, yes, I'm supposed to care and blah blah, but I'm going to get to play Retro City Rampage on my Vita Tuesday so I really don't care about much else to do with the game.  I certainly hope not releasing day one on XBLA won't cause problems for the dude with releasing on that platform and I similarly hope that it won't be remedied by 'platform-exclusive' content or support or the like, but that's all well in the future, I suppose.  What will happen will happen, but I wouldn't really expect the XBLA version to be 'the definitive version' whenever it comes out, if any of the rumors have even the slightest bit of truth to them.  That probably means that in three months, I'll be quoting this post as something awesome is announced as 360-exclusive DLC for the game or something, but whatever, I really don't care at the moment.  Still getting over the fact that this game is a thing I will be playing by week's end if I can tear myself away from everything else, as well as the fact that I have to write a post tomorrow about seven games.  Seriously, I said it already, but what the hell, industry?

Gamescom News Dump - Vita Edition

So, Sony's Gamescom presser was today and many people, especially myself, hoped that it would bring good tidings for Sony's latest handheld, though I imagine most were expecting not.  In a rare moment of catharsis, us expectant people were given quite a bit to hold onto, where the people expecting to be able to gloat were left with precious little ammunition to actually launch, leaving what they said rather sad, instead of something that could be arguably grounded.  Indeed, it was a good showing for Sony all around, as New IP after New IP were announced, including Rain and Until Dawn as hoped, though certainly not in the incarnations expected.  Regardless, they're PS3 games, which I will focus on tomorrow as tonight is the Vita night.  It is a night for me to celebrate for having something fairly unequivocally positive for the overlooked little handheld slice of gaming heaven.  These nights have not been as scant as you would have been lead to believe, but they have been too rare regardless.

Instead of starting with what is arguably the biggest bit of news to come from the conference, I'm instead going to focus on the above pictured game first.  That game is Tearaway.  It is adorable and magical.  No surprise, it is being made by Media Molecule, the folks behind the lovely and charming LittleBigPlanet series that you know I have a particular fondness for.  I had no idea that Media Molecule was actually working with the Vita and the knowledge that they were filled me with all sorts of glee, even before I saw Tearaway and it only amplified thereafter.  Because seriously, watch this trailer and tell me it is not magical because I posit that it is not only magical, but double-magical because not only is it very obviously Media Molecule doing what they do, but they're also doing something rather wonderful with the Vita's controls if you look at the trailer.  While a lot of people whinge about motion controls and the like not being utilized properly, I would posit that Tearaway uses them in all the right ways, screaming at your screen aside.

Tearaway puts you in the shoes of a little papercraft dude called iota, who has a very, very important message to deliver.  Of course being a world of fantasy and a video game, he faces hardships along the way and that is where you, the player, come in, though in more of a role than one would normally think.  Not only do you control iota, but at times your direct interaction with certain things, like the microphone or the touch screens has a very blatant effect on the world.  Touching the rear touch screen thrusts your finger into the world, as if the paper dimension, being as 2D as it is, exists purely between the two screens of the Vita.  You can use that finger to sweep aside enemies, switch switches or perhaps even offer something for iota to jump on for platforming puzzles if I'm not mistaken.  This is just what was shown in the little trailer, of course, so it's possible that there are all sorts of other uses.  Certainly, the front screen gets some love too as, at one point, you're tasked with cutting out a shape on the front screen in the shape of a crown, though it's pretty safe to assume that you do not -have- to conform to a crown.  I'll leave that one up to your imaginations.

There's no real information on Tearaway beyond what's in the trailer, but what is there will suffice for now, I suppose.  I would like if there was some sort of window in 2013 when this comes out (as I seriously doubt it'll make the end of the year), but January, to fill the LittleBigPlanet gap (Since LBP2 came out mid-way through that month) would be exceptionally nice, though I won't hold my breath.  With LittleBigPlanet Vita coming out next month, I can honestly hold off a little more than I could otherwise, since I intend on having that game in my Vita non-stop for a good clip after I get it.  Everything else will likely be put on the backburner after that unless there is something really big that I am completely forgetting, which is entirely possible since my blinders kind of go on when I talk about the Vita and LittleBigPlanet, so doubly so for LBPV.  Regardless, more magic is always appreciated.  For it is always magical.

So, with that out of the way, it should be said that the big news is that the next Vita Firmware update, 1.80, finally has a date for you to look for - August 28th.  That post doesn't specifically say the 28th, rather saying late August, but it was apparently stated as such during the conference, so barring delays, look for it then.  The post also does not specify whether a good portion of the back library will be supported from the get-go, or if it will be a gradual process as is the tail-end of the PSP back-log addition.  Many, many people will gripe if it is the latter and perhaps slightly rightly so, but this is not a simple matter of "Put data on Vita, wiggle fingers as it magically works".  It is an emulator, and as we have all discovered at times, emulators are not the most reliable of things and especially when it concerns something rather expensive like a PS3 or a Vita, you want to ensure that the testing it thorough to see that each game will not buckle under the stress of running it as well as some other applications, possibly.  Since that is a main feature of the Vita and all - running several things all at once.  And games tend to take a lot of resources regardless.

While PSOne Compatibility is the main point of 1.80, it's not the only point, of course, though it certainly overshadows the other things.  Possibly the next highest thing on the list is the Cross Controller ability which allows you to use your Vita as a PS3 controller, particularly for things that have specifically announced it like LittleBigPlanet 2 and Guacamelee.  I would assume, however, that it leaves the door open for other games to have some functionality patched in, should developers be so inclined to do so.  It is a brand new field, of course and so long as you can suffer the people whining about 'copying', then you'll likely be golden no matter what, even if it doesn't get supported wholesale.  One would suggest that what it -does- get will be pretty neat regardless, but we'll just have to see when something comes out.  Well...something other than LittleBigPlanet 2's functionality because no way will I be able to be unbiased there.

Also included in the 1.80 update is just some miscellany, nothing too big.  People have been complaining about -having- to use the touch screens to navigate the Vita's LiveArea, so it will include the ability to control the screens with the actual controls.  I'm not sure if this involves a cursor like arrow, highlighting or simply the ability to shift between screens with the controls where you still have to launch with your finger.  Or, you know, something else; it's hard to tell since I haven't thought about it and probably won't be using it.  Aside from that, you'll be able to import playlists from iTunes and other such formats, control the web browser with the back screen as well as the front should you so desire, and have slightly more options when watching videos downloaded onto your Vita.  And finally, Near might finally be fixed in a way that helps people like -me- who are stuck on wi-fi that is not near location data from Skyhook to actually use it.  I'd dig it.

There was all sorts of other Vita announcements worth mentioning today of course, so I'll go ahead and run through those quickly and get off here to go lay down or play on my Vita or something.  Worth mentioning right out is that a new initiative called "Cross-Buy" is officially a thing for all games (that come from Sony, at least) that will be on both the PS3 and Vita.  Say you're interested in picking up the new Sly game or the just announced version of Ratchet and Clank:  Full-Frontal Assault on the Vita, but you also want it on your PS3.  Using some simple math and averages, $60 for the PS3 version and $40 for the Vita means you're spending $100 on, essentially the same game (even though extra copies are always handled separately, etc. etc. blah blah, not getting into that argument tonight).  Well, with the Cross-Buy initiative, if you buy the game on the PS3, you're then entitled to a digital version of it for your Playstation Vita as well, free-of-charge.  It works one-way only, of course, as you can't opt for the cheaper Vita version and get the $100 value like that.  At current, only Playstation All-Stars, Sly Cooper:  Thieves in Time and Ratchet and Clank:  Full Frontal Assault are announced for the Cross-Buy initiative, but more games are on the way that will support it.

Beyond that and the earlier announcements, Call of Duty:  Black Ops Declassified finally got a gameplay trailer that looks strangely familiar.  Though why that is, I'm not sure I can put a finger on it....hmm.  Oh, right, announced today was the fact that the game was handed off to Nihilistic Studios to develop instead of Activision even using one of their own B-teams.  Which is...well, I won't even touch how annoying that is, because I'm sure you understand that it is very annoying and I shouldn't have to accentuate that.  Now, if you're wondering just why Nihilistic Studios and the game have have anything in common that would make it look familiar, let me go ahead and end that wonder right now and state it:  Nihilistic Studios was the developer behind Resistance:  Burning Skies which I said to be decent, but not great and this looks...well, very similar.  If Burning Skies was any metric to go by, then perhaps CODBOD (That's a thing now, I made it a thing) might not be the Call of Duty game that the Vita wants, nor deserves.  Here's hoping NS learns, though, but...well, don't expect it.

Finally, the last of the announcements is another First Person Shooter, but one that is decidedly -not- being developed by Nihilistic Studios, and I daresay that it shows.  Killzone: Mercenary was shown off and looks fairly impressive for assuredly being an early build of the game.  Killzone:  Mercenary seems to take its title a little literally, as apparently in the game you will not be fighting for the ISA or the Helghast forces specifically, at least, not for the whole game.  Yes, as a Mercenary, you'll be able to fight on both sides of the battle, doing whatever you can to earn money and weapons for taking out targets and/or just doing whatever you're asked of.  I'm not quite sure as to what level of control you'll have over your contracts and price tag, but fighting on both sides of the war seems novel enough.  And it doesn't look like ass or anywhere near it which might have something to do with using the engine from Killzone 3.  Certainly, if you're looking for a FPS on the Vita, this is the game you'll want to firmly plant on your radar.

So, that was about it from Gamescom.  I'd say that is a hefty bit of news, especially when you consider that that is literally just half of it, as there was all sorts of PS3 news going on as well.  I'll get into that tomorrow unless something comes up, but with any luck, I'll be able to just keep rolling with things.  But for now, I'm going to put a few extra touches on my Sound Shapes level and post it up on the community, provided it actually works as it did earlier, finally allowing me to play some community levels.  That....weren't exactly worth the wait.  But whatever, blah blah, fun news for the Vita everything is wonderful, magic is everywhere, etc. etc. etc.  Gonna be a busy rest of the year, assuredly, but that's just the way we like it.  Most of the time at least.