So We Kind of Have An Updated PASBR Roster

It was not that long ago when there was a little-reported leak from the Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale Private Beta, in which some code was pulled out that revealed eleven characters (some of which were already revealed) as playable characters, as well as showing off some stages in a very, very basic way.  From what I can tell, some of them might be just concepts, where some are a little more detailed and might be used for the Stage Select images.  At the time, I considered writing about it, but being just a leak (that was likely true, I mean, just look at the images through the links) meant that I wasn't going to give it a whole lot of weight and was instead just looking for other stuff.  On top of that, I just don't know how I feel about the game yet; I mean, I -like- it in concept alone, and I am a giant fan of Sony First Party games, but I feel like I can't get excited about it because the rest of the internet (or at least the places I frequent) just want to prattle on and on about how terrible it looks and circlejerk about Super Smash Brothers instead.  I find myself on the other end of "I like this, but it is apparently terrible if you listen to the people who yell loudest on the internet" deals quite often, and it just gets tiresome which is not something I care to deal with at the moment.

Now, the reason I bring it up, however, is because the leak has....almost very quietly been acknowledged to the point of "It's basically confirmed", which surprises me, really.  The statement from a Playstation Blog post,

"In addition, there was an unexpected and unintended leak in our beta that allowed fans to be able to see some additional content. We’ve enjoyed reading all of the fan reaction and are thrilled that so many of you are excited to learn more about our character roster and level mash-ups, however we are still in development and the leaked content does not fully represent the final product nor the incredible efforts that were made to make these elements truly spectacular." 

basically cements that what was seen is going to be in the game in -some- fashion (with 90% of the characters, I'm sure, simply being playable characters, but I have a few theories on a couple that comprise the 10% that I'll get into in a moment.)  So, with it being in that realm, I figured it was a good opportunity to point out just what the leak has promised, so I can sort of discuss the 'picks' as it were.  So as to not drag this out too much, I'll just go ahead and post the list from the above Joystiq link to get into it a little more:

• Dante from DmC: Devil May Cry
• Cole McGrath from the inFamous series
• Ratchet from the Ratchet & Clank series
• Raiden from the Metal Gear Solid series
• Sackboy from the LittleBigPlanet games
• Sir Daniel Fortesque from MediEvil
• Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken series
• Toro, PlayStation marketing icon in Japan
• Nariko from Heavenly Sword
• Jak from the Jak & Daxter series
• Spike from the Ape Escape games

The basic conjecture you can draw from this is that these characters are going to be in the game proper, as Colonel Radec, Fat Princess, Nathan Drake, Kratos, Parappa The Rapper, Sweet Tooth, Big Daddy and Sly Cooper are.  Of the list, however, are a few characters that have already been confirmed, like Cole McGrath (Hero version at least, more on that), Heihachi, Toro and Jak (with Daxter).  However, there are a few little special cases that need to be mentioned specifically.  First off is that Cole has only been shown off in the Hero version - all blue-white outfit, pristine, etc. - but the pictures offered a headshot of Evil Cole very clearly, which begs to wonder just how that will work.  Will he be an alternate character with a different moveset, or will it just be a matter of 'Costume' change, where it'll affect the color of the lightning and, obviously, his costume, but not much else?  It almost feels like  waste, I should say, to have two slots dedicated to Cole, no matter how much I like the character.  Still, he's very obviously there, and I can only assume that one version means the other will be in in some capacity.

Similarly of note is that, as stated, the Dante included is the one from the reboot, ala the one seemingly nobody cares for.  Regardless of that or not, it's not....really that Dante that built up the Playstation brand at all, but the original, silver-haired Dante that apparently was born out of talking about making Resident Evil 4.  This begs to wonder if DmC Dante is the only Dante we get or if we'll get to switch to the one we're all a little more accustomed to seeing; the one that more people seem to enjoy if nothing else.  It's not a big deal for me personally, of course, but I'm just looking at the bigger picture.  Which involves doing things that don't give ammo to the jackasses out there who will parrot off how much the game sucks whether or not there's anything resembling a grain of truth to it.  Or, well, it probably doesn't, but it's not quite as -easy- and you know what, I'll just stop there because you know what I mean.

Still, the rest of the list is pretty acceptable, I think.  Some old school representation with Sir Daniel and Spike, a little more new school but not done all the time with Nariko and arguably Sackboy, and then the rest are pretty stable in their own rights and were mostly guarantees.  Maybe not Heihachi, but this wouldn't be the first time he's on Team Playstation for a Fighting game after all, consider he was the Representative in Soul Calibur 2 way way back.  Still nobody from my predictions but that's not exactly surprising, except possibly that Crash hasn't been announced yet.  It's probably not -easy- negotiating with Activision over having him in, sure, but I don't see them keeping him (or Spyro) out of the game entirely.  I have also heard rumors that I can't source whatsoever that Lightning, not Cloud, might be the Final Fantasy representative which....again wouldn't surprise me.  Would disappoint me certainly however, given the, uh....'controversy' around Final Fantasy 13 where being "Playstation Brand" might come up.  Not that Cloud's game was -only- on Playstation, but it was certainly most notably on it.  Still, there's plenty of time before the game is announced, and new characters will officially be revealed at Gamescom, whenever that is.  Hopefully they won't only announced characters that have been leaked.  And hopefully the Gravity Rush stage is an indication that Kat is going to be one of the fighters in the game.  Time will tell!

My Thoughts: Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale Line-Up

Now that we know that the game is officially a thing, but it lacks a roster to look at just yet (likely an E3 reveal), it gives us all an opportunity to have mini-arguments about who should be in the game and why.  And there's obvious characters out there that will be in the game, even if it's just a rumor at this point (Cole, Drake and Snake, looking at you three) which we don't even need to talk about.  But without knowing just how big the official roster (minus DLC) will be, that gives us quite the bit of space to work with in terms of just who and how many people will make it in.  Clearly, I like to make baseless, terrible predictions about things, so you know I'm going to get in on this, and I hope I don't whiff too many of the ideas here, though I admit openly that some of them are going to be more "Wouldn't it be cool" versus "What I actually think".

Who:  Crash Bandicoot

Why:  He's friggin' Crash Bandicoot.  Many a person's first experience with a Playstation console, and, for a time, one of the 'Unofficial' Playstation Mascots.

 

Now, I know I just said I didn't want to go with the obvious characters but, unfortunately, Crash might not be as obvious (or possible) a choice as you might think.  As many of us remember, Crash started out as a game brought to us all by Naughty Dog (who remains as a second-party studio to Sony to this day) and saw four titles released under their guidance (the three main Crash entries and Crash Team Racing) before the series went off to other companies and eventually other platforms such as the original XBox and GameBoy Advance and the DS.  Despite that, I imagine that Crash is a character that is still solidly associated with Sony Consoles, which would make him a good choice.  To that end, I would like to remind everyone of the commercials that featured Crash in that sort of Playstation Vs. Nintendo spot at the very least, which I'm sure a lot of us remember, if we haven't been pointed in that direction before.  As an added bonus, looking over the summary on Wikipedia leads me to think that Activision might have the IP rights who, as we all know, also have another series that could do to see an inclusion in the All-Stars.

As for his fighting style, being that my knowledge of Crash is...er...rather limited and vague, I'm not too sure on just what he'd be like.  Punches and kicks as standards, maybe a fruit-throwing move to give him some range, and a headstomp as an aerial attack.  Of course, I think that the movesets will be more focused towards what finishers and/or specials they have than anything else.  To that end, a callback to Crash Team Racing is a must, where he hops into a rally car and, well, drives around, taking out anyone in his way.  Everything else could be something of a wash, so long as he has that friggin' car to drive over some people, especially since I do believe that Crash Team Racing is quite highly regarded by racing and Crash fans alike.  Even going so far as to be the better Kart Racing game even when put up against Mario Kart, though I'm not sure just how much actual competition is there.

Who:  Cloud Strife

Why:  Because Squeenix sells, especially anything with a connection to Final Fantasy VII.  On top of that, you'll find a lot of people who got into RPGs out there specifically because of the game, which likely makes it one of Squeenix's most popular commodities.

Taking advantage of the fact that Third-Party characters have been confirmed to be in the game, this is the one I'm throwing down as a 'should' if not necessarily one that I think will be in.  There's no real two ways about it:  Final Fantasy VII and the Playstation 1 as a result of that was a massive success, and despite there being a PC port of the game (Yeah, you might not have known that.  I have a copy....somewhere.) many still think of it as a Playstation-exclusive game.  It helps that, from Seven to Twelve, the Final Fantasy series was pretty much Playstation-exclusive and even still leans more towards the Playstation brand while throwing ports here and there at the DS and GBA.  Cloud, I think, would be a big boon for the roster of the game, which is my primary reason for the suggestion, as I know his inclusion alone would put the game on a lot of radars.  Though, even if not specifically Cloud, I'll be surprised if there's not a presence from Squeenix at all; that being said, my second guess here would be Tidus from Final Fantasy X which was, as we know, the first FF game to come on the PS2, insanely popular (sales-wise), and is the only Final Fantasy game that is getting a PS3/Vita Port.

Cloud's (or Tidus', depending on who they go with) movelist would be, likely, the easiest one to make out of many of the possible entries, considering that fighting is kinda what he does.  As well as the whole Dissidia thing, which, while they wouldn't directly take that move-list, there's a good chance you'll see a lot of influence from it.  The Special Attacks are similarly easy as they could just be Limit Breaks corresponding to the levels that exist.  Omnislash (or the upgraded version) would be the Level 3, whereas Level 1 one could be Braver and Level 2 could be any of the Level 2 or 3 Limit Breaks like Blade Beam or Finishing Touch.  I mean, it pretty much writes itself here, so if nothing else, it would be incredibly easy.  Also flashy, which helps the game's overall look as well, being that they're really going for the flashy aspect.

Who:  Alucard

Why:  Because of a little game called Castlevania:  Symphony of the Night that saw a whole lot of success on the PSOne.

This one......okay, this one is a bit of a reach, admittedly.  Maybe even a -lot- of a reach, but, like Cloud, I imagine Alucard's inclusion in the game would be a big boon to it, even if he's not the most noted character.  That my only real reasoning is because of Symphony of the Night on PSOne (later on, having been redone in the Dracula X Chronicles for PSP, also known as "The game where you have to play that other Castlevania game to get SotN") and its cult-hit popularity is a bit telling, and while I'm not an uber-fan of the game, a lot of people -are-.  Which means that you cannot tell me that you don't know anybody whose ears wouldn't perk up at the mention of Alucard being included in Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale.  He even fits the general bill of inclusion, what with being an "All-Star" that happened to be featured in a "Playstation" game that was, as a bonus, incredibly popular.  Stranger things have happened, after all!

Similar to Cloud, I imagine Alucard's moveset wouldn't be all that difficult to imagine and implement, though it might end up a little 'strange' if it goes as I imagine.  Considering the wealth of weapons that appear in Symphony of the Night that Alucard wields, different attacks could simply be attached to the more-known ones there, as well as some of his latent son-of-Dracula powers, like the whole Fireball thing.  Then again, those powers might be better served for the specials, depending on just which ones they're anticipating on using.  Being that I don't think Alucard got to make use of Item Crashes, that leaves that out technically, but who knows.  Even outside of that, the special moves don't necessarily need to be actually from the game in which the character is possible, so long as it's something the character would obviously be able to use in certain situations where a lot of power is needed.  Regardless, I don't think there's a lot of "Gee, what can he do" when it comes to Alucard, were he to be in the game.

Obviously, these are just my predictions, and I admit that I did try and go for the more "Hmm" choices (Crash aside) rather than the obvious.  I might do another post about the more obvious choices (as in, things that use First or Second Party Characters), but for now, this is good.  Seeing as we're this close to E3 without some good leaks, it might be a slow news week anyways, and whether I get Resistance:  Burning Skies tomorrow or not is not a guarantee.  Though I will be getting the Gravity Rush demo and will have likely played it at least twice over by the time I sit down for a post.  Hmm.  I guess we'll see!

Is "Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale" "Title Fight"?

Forgive the, uh....terrible image.

So, it's certainly been a while since we've heard word of it, but the rumored 'Title Fight' has made a resurgence and how.  For a quick recap in case you forgot (and don't want to read the provided post), 'Title Fight' is a proposed fighting game that features the 'stars' of the Playstation First-Party Line-up, which is quite extensive actually.  When it was initially rumored, there wasn't a whole lot of info beyond "Trust us, this is totes legit, here's a model screen of Sweet Tooth" as well as a list of five characters that were 'definitely' in the game so far when it was, assumedly, early on in development.  Those characters being the above mentioned Sweet Tooth, Nathan Drake, Kratos, Parappa the Rapper, Sly Cooper, Fat Princess, and Colonel Mael Radec.  Aside from that, the only real information on it was that it was being worked on by a studio called SuperBot Entertainment which, as you might notice, still does not have a Wiki-Page, presumably because they haven't released a game yet, which is a thing that is said on their own web page. 

SuperBot is hard at work on our first title, being developed for the PS3. As soon as more information is available, this is where you’ll be able to find it. Screens, videos, interviews, if it’s out there, it’ll be here.

If rumors that I can't source at the moment that are directly in this Joystiq Article that I am too blind to see are to be believed, then perhaps that site will update this coming Thursday with information for this game.  Because apparently there will be another reveal of a PS3-exclusive title that day, which makes planning for my Thursday very easy (or maybe Friday, depending on when it goes up).  Aside from that, the only bit of information is that the domain "playstationallstarsbattleroyal.com" is a thing that was just registered by Sony Computer Entertainment America which would put Title Fight's official name as, uh, "Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale".  Which is...just awful.  I mean, I really don't like to poke fun at names, and I honestly don't care, but come on.  While it is clearly on-point, something a little less long-winded (coming from me, that's a laugh) would have been perfectly acceptable.  'Title Fight' might not have been quite enough, but Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (PASBR) is just too much.  This is "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness" levels of too much wordage verbosity territory here.

Really though, as I said, the name doesn't matter and with any luck, that won't be the release name.  What really matters here is what the game is going to be like which, well, is completely friggin' nebulous at this point.  All we can figure on is that it's going to be a 'fighting game' which is about as realistically concise as a newspaper that's been soaking in bleach.  There are quite a lot of sub-genres and 'styles' that have been defined in the Fighting Game genre, so knowing that it's a Fighting Game is just as helpful as knowing it's a PS3 game - which is not very.  I -imagine- we can kind of guess that, being a fighting game in the same vein as Super Smash Bros. that it might take the same approach (I'd hope not a literal copy-paste), which narrows it down a little, but it's really hard to tell.  I'd rather it not be, like a super-hardcore fighter like MvC, SF, etc. because that just ain't my scene and I'd like to grab this if at all possible.

Really, there's not a whole lot else to state here other than this is kind of what the situation is.  The character list is potentially huge (though I imagine it will be small-ish in scope for this first bout(heh)) so the ones in the above image technically aren't that off (some of them are practically guaranteed gets, even), but I can't help but hope that we'll get some cross-overs from characters that aren't first or second party, if even just as a 'cameo' character (thus assuming they might not be available for a potential sequel).  The example I gave last time was Kiryu Kazuma and obviously I'm sticking with that (because of the Exclusivity), but even Ezio, since he's making the fighting game rounds (and Ubisoft is kind of in good with Sony) or like Solid Snake (Since he has also been in a fighting game before) would work.  There is a literal wealth of characters that could be in this thing if it is, indeed, a real thing, and I can only hope that Sony picks some good ones.

Reality Fighters - Less Real, More Interesting

So, the above image is pretty easy to identify and yes, it is exactly what you think it is.  That is Mr. Miyagi, built for a video game, with a Reality Fighters logo in the bottom right that suggests said game is, in fact, the previously overlooked Reality Fighters for the Playstation Vita.  That is the announcement that was made regarding Reality Fighters in the Playstation Blog today and to be completely honest, this is the thing that made me take notice of the game.  I'm not saying I'll buy it or anything, but it got my attention, so I'll be keeping an eye out when stuff for it comes out.  If there's a demo, I will likely download it because of this.  And I don't even really know why beyond it being something that's so -out there- that I can't help but not take notice of it.

In all reality (no pun intended) I don't believe I've even watched The Karate Kid (to be fair, I don't watch a lot of movies), so it's not like I have an attachment to Mr. Miyagi, or specifically Pat Morita, beyond thinking he was just a cool dude.  I just guess there's something to be said for having the guts to want something like this and actually go through with it, given that there are certain...issues involved with it.  Seeing as Mr. Morita passed several years ago, the usage of his likeness might be thought of as something approaching tasteless even if said usage likely has to be with the permission of his family.  On top of that, in his role of guide/sensei (fairly literally), there is a necessity for voice-overs which he is not in a position to do, meaning they had to bring in someone else.  That someone was Jim Ward who you have assuredly heard while playing several games.

I'm still not too sure on Reality Fighters itself as none of the video on it has been too flattering yet, but at the same time, the above model, which is the actual model I'm sure, looks miles away better than anything from them, so perhaps they were only showing off an early build of the game.  It certainly has the potential to be neat, with as much as it can do with alternate reality, and is likely aimed at being one of the more 'introduction to the Vita' games, since I believe it takes advantage of every single feature the Vita touts:  Front and back touchscreens, cameras, sixaxis, etc.  The problem I see is that it has a very deliberate casual air about it which is almost counter-intuitive these days.  You don't say "casual" and "fighting game" in the same sentence, since it's a very focused, very niche market if you think about it.  It's about on par with racing games, I'd say in the level of focus its market displays.  Having a lot of 'extra' equipment for the extra bit of an edge (Racing wheel, pedals for racing games, arcade stick for fighters) and the like.  Though with both genres, Nintendo's proved able to buck the trend and introduce casual with Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.  So perhaps I'm being a bit premature.

It kind of cycles between looking terrible and looking decent at the drop of a hat, and maybe it makes more sense actually playing it, but I really just don't know.  Only just a little bit of time until we find out for sure, but I'm not getting my hopes too high for it.  If nothing else, the customization looks like it's plenty of fun to toy around with, so I could definitely see myself playing around with it if I got the game for whatever reason.  Possibly on merit of it just being a Vita game and I'm going to want so many Vita games.  So many, you guys, you don't even know.

Mortal Kombat Announced for the Vita, "Oh, right, that", Says Mogs

Remember waaaay waaaay back before the Vita was the Vita and, in fact, before it was even the NGP?  When talks about it were mere whispers in the night and rumors of its prowess were sort of leaked by Netherrealm Studios who, presumably, had a prototype version of the device to work with?  I didn't.  I completely forgot all about it.  So when Joystiq featured an article with the box art for Mortal Kombat on the Vita, I had, initially, a moment of "Oh, wow, that's neat." followed directly by "Oh, yeah, I knew that already".  Because, well, I did, we all did.  We knew it because Netherrealm knew it and were a bit loose about everything since as we know, the Vita is indeed "powerful" and it is a thing that exists and is a thing that will run Mortal Kombat where the 3DS will not.

Regardless, Mortal Kombat for the Vita is definitely a thing and in quite a big way, honestly.  Apparently the game will feature, at the very least, the PS3-Exclusive Kratos and the other DLC characters released for the console versions, but is also fairly likely to include other bits and pieces of DLC such as the classic skins and the like.  Perhaps not a voucher for the Mortal Kombat movie through PSN, but, well, I think we'll manage.  Just saying.  On top of that, however, we're promised some new features that will, presumably, be exclusive to the Vita version for at least a little while, maybe, but nothing's really explicitly said or set in stone.  We'll just know when they announce it.  Or someone blabs about it.  Whichever comes first.

I admit that my interest, my vigor for Mortal Kombat spiked for a while there when the game was just being shown off, not released, and the Mortal Kombat Legacy shorts were Machinima's big Friday draws, and for good reason since they were pretty awesome or at least the first half.  Unfortunately, my excitement did die off quite fast, so much so that I actually forgot to finish watching Legacy.  Not like I -can't-, but I just haven't, which I guess is telling for the fact that I'm not really all about it at the moment.  Not maliciously or anything, of course, I just can't be bothered with fighting games as a base, and even something as iconic as Mortal Kombat has to do a lot to stir me.  That may change, however, since it seems that the Vita is the place to go with Fighting games - the current list includes BlazBlue, Tekken x Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom and Reality Fighters announced, with versions of Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur quite likely in my opinion.

Anyways, thanks to its successful resurgence, Mortal Kombat is a fairly big name again (Man, who saw that coming?) so this is a pretty big boon (no pun intended) for the Vita.  It's nice to have some fairly objectively good news about the system since the gaming media seems to like bashing anything non-Cell Phone Mobile Game (I said iOS initially, but that's not all of it) for months before it actually comes out.  Depending on the price and how much it packs in compared to its console counterparts, I might just pick this up as I was really quite interested in the game as I said.  That I never followed up on it is hardly a surprise, but hell, that's just what time does, I guess.  Makes you do things you never planned on doing, or makes things happen that you couldn't have expected to happen.  And that's....well, that's not cryptic code for other things going on at the moment at all, no siree.

For what it's worth, I should say that Mortal Kombat seems interesting for reasons beyond "It's Mortal Kombat!  Again!" and "It's Mortal Kombat!  But Shiny!", going so far as to say "It's Mortal Kombat!  With a -good- combat system!" and "It's Mortal Kombat!  With polish!".  (I'll stop typing It's Mortal Kombat! now.)  That is to say that it looks like it was a real labor of love to put the game together rather than the iteration of the series that had come out just prior in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe which was, well, a pair-up doomed to fail.  There's no conceivable way that Superman, for instance, could've been ripped apart or decapitated even before DC insisted that their characters not be treated as such, so not a whole bunch could've been expected from it.  Still, I imagine that Mortal Kombat is just going to be one of those things that you can't help but notice since it's very likely that you grew up with it.  (Even if you weren't 'supposed' to.)

Update!:  Well, it certainly didn't take long to get a little extra information.  Thanks to an interview with Ed Boon over at the Playstation Blog, there's a few things that've been extrapolated on a bit.  First off, and I think this is probably the most important thing to mention here, is that the game will be locked at 60 FPS, much like the console counterpart.  FPS is obviously a very important thing for Fighting Games, so to hear right out that they made sure on that, well, that's a good thing.  On top of that, it's been confirmed that all the content from the PS3 version (story modes, Challenge tower, etc.) will be on the Vita version alongside the new things, of which will include an entirely new Challenge Tower for the Vita, designed specifically around the things the Vita has to offer.  Touch Screen features, Accelerometer/Sixaxis, etc. will all have a place, minus the Rear Touch Panel.  The number '150' came up in relation to Challenge Tower missions, but I don't know if they're necessarily for the Vita-Exclusive one or not.  And, finally, there will obviously be Multiplayer for the Vita in both Ad-Hoc and Wi-Fi Infrastructure varieties, so fighting game fans all around the world will be able to challenge each other as if there were just a controller in their hands.