I Called It - Gravity Rush 2 Teased/Announced at TGS

Now, I'm not going to claim to be some sort of clairvoyant for seeing this one coming, but it needs to be said that, at every grumble about "oh no, Sony isn't committing enough First-Party to the Vita, blah blah blah", I said, without hesitation "you have no idea what you're actually talking about".  Or some variation of that, really.  And it all basically ended with "There's God of War coming in some fashion (likely beyond the HD Collection), Uncharted: Golden Abyss 2, hopefully an inFamous game and of course Gravity Rush 2.  Which will probably be announced at TGS, what with it being very Japan-focused and shit.  And Gravity Rush being a Japan-centric kind of game."  So, yes, I called it and I am going to gloat about that, because I don't even care whether or not I should gloat about it.

Anyone could see this coming, really - Gravity Rush was the title that was trotted out whenever the Vita was talked about, either because it looked amazing before it came out, or because it was amazing after it came out.  It did good numbers - it was never going to set the world on fire, given the hesitance to embrace the Vita by the community at large which is gradually shifting - but for what could have been expected of it, it did great, and being packed in for the Vita's first year of Plus made it accessible to everyone, thus ensuring it's a Vita game that's synonymous with the system.  So, a sequel was always expected, not just hoped for, and it was always going to happen.

The thing to wonder about now is just what's going to happen with it.  Absolutely nothing -about- the game was announced, just that teaser, so details could range from anything to everything.  The one thing that I almost worry about is whether or not the game is solely going to come out on the Vita.  One of the major whinging factors about Gravity Rush was that it was -only- on the Vita (because people don't understand the concept of exclusives) and were constantly clamoring for a PS3 version.  With nobody really wanting to commit anything to -one- system anymore, it seems, I worry that Gravity Rush 2 might be PS4/Vita which isn't bad per se, but it's missing the point.  Gravity Rush 1 -or- 2 doesn't need to be on a TV and I think that it might actually suffer from it, if not in the controls (the gyroscope, mainly, the touch controls I can take or leave) but for the sheer....feel of it, I guess.  It just fit perfectly on the Vita, and I worry that I might feel a sort of disconnect simply playing it on a DualShock 4 and staring at my TV.

It would also take the wind out of the sails of the announcement completely, since it would almost be confirming what everyone's griping about, with Sony "not committing" enough to the Vita.  A PS4 version would almost completely negate the Vita version in the ways that people....not 'care' about, but complain and speak smugly about, which just leads to a lot of annoyances and is completely not the point of the game or anything entirely.  It'll just mar something that could otherwise just be great personified and that irks me more than a little bit.  It all hinges on whether or not Sony wants to show a little loyalty to the Vita, versus scatter-shot release habits to 'ensure' that it's so much profit that nobody even knows what the fuck.  Which...seems like an unfortunately easy decision.  But we'll just have to see.  Not directly announcing it for the Vita with the teaser is making me just a...tad bit wary, I should say.

I still called that shit, and I want that on record, bitches

My Games of 2012, Part 4

We're hitting the home stretch here and praise everything for that.  There's not a whole lot that I can say here to preface these picks that I haven't already said, and I'm not really up for restating them, so let's just get on with it.

7.  Gravity Rush

Gravity Rush was a rather stunning game from the first time we saw it, to the time we finally got it in our collective hands and to the time where we uncovered all of its secrets, saw its story and gameplay and truly knew what the game was about.  This was among the few games shown off for the Vita, prior to the release that people were clamoring for, the games that people purchased Vitas for and thankfully this was one of the games that made that purchase well worth it.  The art style grabbed and the story charmed and the gameplay amazed.  In all facets, it was just a wonderfully well-done game.  In a lot of ways, Gravity Rush is definitely one of the best games that came out in 2012 because of just how different it was and how good it was as well.

Make no mistake, if you have a Vita and you do not have this game you are, in fact, doing it wrong.  Though I highly doubt that is a possibility because the game is one of the prime staples of the Vita's Playstation Plus Instant Game Collection which means it is -your- game for -free- whenever you want it.  Because if you have a Vita and you don't have Playstation Plus....well, again, you are doing it wrong.  So, by virtue of not being a wrong person, having a Vita and having Gravity Rush is basically hand-in-hand and this is a very good thing indeed because the game deserves to be something that is played by a wide audience.  It's something to be lauded and appreciated and it's something to hold up as a prime example of what a handheld game -can- be and in a lot of ways, what one -should- be.  Whenever the sequel comes out, with any luck, it will definitively reinforce that.

I think my fondest memory of the game, since I haven't played it in so long, is just the feel, the freedom, of 'flying' around the city in which the game takes place.  It's a simple affair, but because it is so simple, it allows for a lot of personalization, if you will, and it inspired a lot of that as well.  It becomes much more than "Shift, point at building, shift to 'fly' to it, you are at your destination".  It becomes "Well, if I launch myself at that angle and cut off my flight at this point, I'll land right there and then I can do this and that"  It becomes a thing that you can finesse and just have fun with on its own merits and, given that it's something we normally don't have access to in games - flight- that is a big deal.  Because not only is it done, but it's done well which is a rarity unto itself.  So long as the sequel has more things to -use- that flight, that finesse of movement, it will be an amazing game itself.

6.  Lollipop Chainsaw

I realize that, around these parts, I did not exactly say a lot about Lollipop Chainsaw once it was released, once I had played it myself and that was not fully intentional.  Rather unfortunately, the game came out at a time in my life and situation where things were hectic and annoying everyday thanks in part to the extreme heat wave, but clearly, there was a bit more going on than just that.  I won't get into the finer details, but there was a -thing- that I was trying to do with Lollipop Chainsaw and it simply fell through, but I didn't want to give up on it completely, so I just sort of held out to see if it could be salvaged.  And time passed, as it does, and I just got into other things that I could and wanted to talk about, so it just sort of fell by the wayside.  That is, of course, rather unfortunate.

So, let's talk about Lollipop Chainsaw.  Let's first discuss that, while playing Lollipop Chainsaw, no matter what the hell was going on around the house, in my life and such at the time that had me down and got in the way of doing things, I could not force the grin off of my face.  Lollipop Chainsaw is a thing of beauty because it is a perpetual entertainment machine.  If you're not enjoying the absolutely stylized, wonderful combat (along with the Sparkle Hunting finishers and the super mode that played "Hey Mickey" in the background while it was active), then you're enjoying the hilarious dialogue between Juliet and Nick, or the other characters, and if you're not enjoying either of those then you just aren't playing the game.  I am mostly serious when I say that I exist in a world where I think it is an impossibility for one to -not- consider Lollipop Chainsaw fun and/or entertaining on some level.

Lollipop Chainsaw does not complicate itself.  It doesn't over-saturate itself.  It simply exists as what it is, and it's because of that simple entertainment factor that it's just so damn wonderful.  It's not going to be one of those games that changes your outlook on anything, it's not going to redefine a genre for you and it doesn't need to.  It is a game that is fun.  That's all it is and that's all it needs to be.  In that vein, there's absolutely no way I could advocate picking up a copy of it yourself, since you probably didn't, and going through it.  You might not laugh at everything, you might struggle with the combat system at first, but if you don't crack a grin, if you don't chuckle here and there, then, well, there might just be something broken inside of you.

5.  Yakuza:  Dead Souls

It is a very, very odd thing for a game with "Yakuza" in the title to not be in the Top Two of any of my lists, and an even more odd thing indeed for said game to barely break the Top Five.  There is a very, very simple reason for why Yakuza:  Dead Souls didn't make the illustrious cut and, put simply, it's just because it was very, very obviously Yakuza Studios' first attempt at a third-person shooter.  Painfully obvious.  It was also fairly obvious that the Yakuza Engine (even modified as it was) was not intended for third-person shooting in any facet beyond cursory.  So, in the end, all it meant was that the Studio wanted to try something different, which is completely and totally admirable, they used a franchise of theirs to make it happen and it just didn't come out with the same level of quality as their other games.  It's unfortunate, but that's just what happened.

Now, clearly I'm not saying the end result was a bad game.  Because it wasn't.  In a way, Dead Souls was an absolute wonder in its own right and a lot of that is because they used the Yakuza franchise.  Not only did they use it, but they respected it (obviously, I mean, it's -theirs-) and made its out-landish story and concept fit into the long-running narrative and canon.  Though, obviously the game is not canon for the series (seeing as Yakuza 5 exists and Tokyo is not in shambles), you could totally believe that it is because of the way it just fits into everything that already exists in the series.  One of the moments that made me actually stop in something approaching shock was when I approached the upper right portion of the map, where Kamurocho Hills had been in development for the last two iterations of the series and suddenly, finally it was there.  It's like going to your old neighborhood and seeing things that are familiar, yet also seeing how time has changed it, the blending of nostalgia and awe of new things.

Something that Yakuza Studios said about Dead Souls was that, if the game were to get localized, they would 'like' to change up the gameplay some to more mirror Binary Domain's controls, the second third-person shooter they released that is much, -much- more like a third-person shooter.  After playing both games, I can safely say that that, unfortunately, did not happen even in the slightest, and Dead Souls really flounders in that respect.  It's not bad, it's just kind of clunky which is not at all what I would ever suggest is an attribute of a Yakuza game.  So, it's bad in comparison to its pedigree, I should say.  Yet, on the whole, it's a wonderfully realized game with the same things you love about a Yakuza game (aside from the combat system), which means it's a quality product indeed.  That might seem to clash with some of the things I said, but realize that I have a far more vested interest in the series than most, so I'm going to be a little over-critical of it.  And, considering it still made it as high on my list as it did, despite my grumblings, that should be a message in itself.

Vita's Playstation Plus is Fantastic

When Playstation Plus was rumored to be heading to the Vita, and even after it was announced, everyone seemed to sort of tentatively wait to see in just what context it would, in fact, emerge in.  When it became obvious that it would be in a similar fashion as the PS3 iteration, with free games, discounts, Cloud Storage and automatic updates/synching, hopes were kindled, but cynicism even moreso.  It was mere moments following the breaking of the news, the outlining of the preliminary features that speculation was abound in terms of the 'free games' aspect, all wondering at the varied ways with which Sony could pull value away from Playstation Plus by splitting it across both platforms.  People were already imagining a world where the Instant Game Collection was still 12 games large, split across PS3 and Vita with the lion's share of the titles being for the former.

As you can see above, this is not the case.

It's almost with a certain level of smug satisfaction that I look on the titles offered, and their number, and consider just how many people just don't know what to do at this point.  That there is real and tangible value with enough meat to it that you can sink your teeth into it generously.  Not only do you get access to the same amount of games on the PS3, but an additional six games on the Vita now that, much like its console counterpart, will be shuffled out with other titles overtime to create a rather robust library for those who stick around and keep subscribed.  Being that, after being attached to your account, you can download a game for the PS Plus price of free even after it rotates out of being free there's a really hard argument to make against it beyond actually worrying about what you buy, in the case of not wanting to spend money only to get the same game for free later on.  It's an understandable fear, for sure, but one that I find is mitigated by the other upsides the program has to offer.

Personally, on the Vita side of the games, I already own half of them, and really, -really- came close to biting on two of the ones I don't own.  Combined, the games that I own set me back a cool $100 ($50 for Uncharted, $40 for Gravity Rush and $10 for FFT) so that does kind of sting, but being that I buy physically, I still have the cushion of getting a free digital version which, as we all know from other forms of media, not just games, you are not automatically entitled to simply because you bought the physical version of it at some vague point previous.  It's a method of 'future-proofing' so to speak, since everyone has been very lenient on allowing you to 'own' the games you purchase digitally, even if the company that sold it eventually loses the rights to actually sell it.  It hasn't happened a lot, but it has happened - developers and publishers letting selling rights to a game expire, meaning that it has to thusly be removed from a digital storefront in terms of purchasing.  If you -have- purchased it, it remains still in your download list for an undetermined amount of time that may truly be 'forever', and as we move further and further into the Digital Distribution future, all we can do is amass titles in a digital way and hope that the future has a place to play them.

For the games that I don't own, however, this is a straight-up double-tap of awesome since not only do we have a release date for Jet Set Radio HD Vita, but it's next week and it's free.  As if I didn't have enough to play as it is, now I get a game that was already prepped for purchase (I literally have left $10+ in my wallet specifically for the purchase of JSR) thrust into my lap for the price of nothing, meaning that money can then be put towards something else should I desire.  And I do, but one thing at a time.  I slowly realized with a growing horror that I have no less than half a dozen PS3 games alone that I want to play before years-end (though, I'll settle for Final Fantasy XII-2 and finishing Yakuza:  Dead Souls) and I have the bulk of Ragnarok Odyssey yet to conquer as well as the entirety of Assassin's Creed:  Liberation.  And then I have Persona 4 Golden awaiting my money next week as well as Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale because I have very poor impulse control when it comes to Cross-Buy, I've learned.  I think what I'm saying, as I've said all year (no seriously, it's a running gag) is that I just don't have enough time for all this gaming, goddamnit and that depresses me.

Mutant Blobs Attack!! and Wipeout have also had my interest for a while, but I've simply never figured on having time for the former, and I just....really don't like racing games.  For the price of 'free', however, I think I'm willing to give Wipeout a shot because I just might like it.  Maybe not, and I doubt very much that I'll sink a lot of time into it in any case, but this is pretty much a brand new world to explore.  Being that things are a bit more flexible in terms of downloading when it comes to my Vita, I feel completely comfortable in letting it go to pull down a gig or two over the course of the ten hours it inevitably takes, so whereas I haven't really experienced any free PS3 games, I will be experiencing the shit out of the Vita ones.  Doubly so because of the cloud storage that Plus offers, though I suspect I'll end up crumbling and purchasing myself a 32 Gig memory stick at some point in the future.  I almost need to, I think, as I believe my 16 gig is a little off, corrupting things with little warning.  That is why, by the way, I haven't mentioned LittleBigPlanet Vita in a while - my save is corrupted, and I really am not going to replay the entire game right now.

The moral of the story in any case is that Playstation Plus continues to be one of the better, if not one of the best, member services out there by sheer bang:buck ratio.  Even if you're a stalwart and claiming that the games are not, themselves free because the exist behind a paywall, the basic math just throws everything off.  For $50 that I paid a few months ago, I will, next week, be able to play Jet Set Radio HD, Mutant Blobs Attack!! and Wipeout 2048 without paying a cent for either game.  I don't know what Wipeout retails for now and I'm not going to bother looking it up, but I assume, all told, those three games come in around or under $50.  I have thusly made up my investment.  Next month when a game or two moves out of the rotation and is replaced with another, that is another game where my money is safely unspent on it, able to be put towards something else.  And that's just on the games part - the cloud storage is going to be a goddamn invaluable tool, especially for those out there who really, really truly don't want to spring for a 32 Gig memory stick.  Need space?  Throw your data on the Cloud, delete the bubble, bam free space.  And you can come back to it at any point in the future after a redownload.

Well played.  Well played all around.

Gravity Rush Is Probably (Definitely) Getting a Sequel

So, I believe that I made my feelings about the wonderful Gravity Rush known when I reviewed it and one of the things I touched on was the realization that there was -going- to be another game in the series, at least.  It needs another game in the series, but not in the way that, say, Assassin's Creed 2 -needed- Brotherhood (and apparently Revelations), as Gravity Rush's untidy loose ends are not blatant and are not getting in the way of it being a cohesive, self-contained experience.  Either that, or the ending was so satisfying that it more or less made me stop caring which is accomplishing the same goal anyways.  The point is that there was obviously more of Gravity Rush's story to tell, but it wasn't as if the game made you feel like it was keeping anything back to be shown later, which seems to be a -thing- with games nowadays, in that they purposefully set themselves up to be trilogies or such.  It might just be an argument of semantics or something similar, but impressions and opinions are swayed by far less.

Regardless, it was quite fair to say that there was going to -be- a sequel, so it seemed like a foregone conclusion, but to hear "I'll do my best on the sequel" from the director is welcoming.  It was hot on the heels of the news that the game won Japan's Game of the Year Grand Award which was going on during TGS, so perhaps it was something exclaimed in a moment of pure excitement.  Well-deserved excitement at that.  So perhaps he wasn't supposed to hint at the possibility of a sequel that they are theoretically already making, much less state in such definitive terms "the sequel" as in "the sequel that is happening", but these things happen.  Personally, I'm almost waiting for the moment where he does "I didn't really mean it that way, more like if one happens", but come on we all know it's coming, and we're all very, very excited for it.

I can't speak for what I would like covered in the sequel as that will obviously spoil things, but something I am quite hoping for is a leap of quality in terms of inFamous 1 to 2.  I'm not quite sure how this is possible, as Gravity Rush was pretty fantastic, as was the original inFamous, but inFamous 2's quality leap was so great, so tantalizingly delicious, that I can't help but hold it up as the yardstick for everything else.  It's not fair, I realize, since no series really can hope for that jump, but those that even get close are generally the ones we want to get that close, and the ones that will do anything to climb towards that height.  And we love them for it.  It's just that sort of realization that you get when you play a game like inFamous and you love it like I did - you can't really take any part of it and say "Well, I could do -this- and it would be awesomer" (except the animations.  We....don't speak of the animations.) and yet -somebody- manages to have the frame of mind to be able to do that.  It's amazing, frankly, and I'm glad that people like that exist.

My only real suggestion for improvement with Gravity Rush was basically some improvements to the combat system and some side content.  I am a self-appointed Combat System aficionado, apparently, so Gravity Rush not coming in high on there is no real surprise since most games -don't-.  And it's sort of telling when one of your complaints about a game is that you want -more of it-, which I certainly did.  The challenges were there and then I beat them.  Then I found the Travelers.  And that was it.  So if the Sequel that is almost definitely happening manages to incorporate at least that, then we're all winners.  And I have a feeling that they will do just that and more because the quality was there already and it just needs to be expanded on, really.  Pulled out, made larger and if they take notes from other Sony Studios, which I think everybody does, then all the better.

It does still seem to be a bit premature speaking of the game as a thing that exists, but I'm sure that it will, so I'm going to do just that.  In fact, I expect an announcement of it sometime next year, possibly even at Sony's E3, with a release date somewhere in 2013's third or fourth quarter.  Primo spot would obviously be in the Holidays, but I'm not sure if they'd actually manage to do that, and if so, for all regions.  I'm hoping against a staggered release, but since it's Sony Japan Studios that made Gravity Rush, it certainly would not surprise me.  Whenever it comes out, however, it'll be well worth it, and I eagerly await it, even though there's....quite enough on my plate as it is.  But then again, that's always the case, pretty much, so there's no real change there!

Review - Gravity Rush

Fly.

It's a simple thing, yet I feel that it's something that video games have yet to really get a grasp on, to really give an appropriate sensation or feeling for.  While you're not expressly flying in Gravity Rush, it's close enough and manages, I feel, to buck the trend for the most part which is something of no small praise.  If for nothing else, if there were no other redeeming features to it, I would still recommend a play of Gravity Rush simply for that, for the absolute freedom you're instilled with when you soar through the air with the greatest of ease.  Fortunately for anyone that does play the game, however, the game shines in many many places so it's not a situation where your enjoyment will be wholly condensed in flying about.  However, if there is anything that will keep you playing the game when you're done with the story, it will be just that and I'll explain why in a bit.

First off, to elucidate the point about flying - you are not, in fact, flying when you play the game.  Contrary to the point, you're falling for the most of the game, it's just that you can control -how- you fall which is to say that you can make yourself fall directly up or fall against the side of a building so that you can stand as if you were perfectly upright.  Because you are, you see, just not perfectly upright in the comprehension of the rest of the world.  In much less confusing terms, the ability that our protagonist, Kat, is provided with is the ability to shift how gravity affects her.  That is to say when you are flying up, you're falling up because gravity in relation to her has been shifted to work that way.  It's an impossible concept to really state any easier than that, but I'm sure the spirit of it is not lost on you.  Basically, aiming your reticule on the side of a building and falling to it, then standing on it as with the opening picture means that the side of the building is the 'ground'.  It's like an M.C. Escher work in theory, but as a video game mechanic.

The mechanic is a lot less confusing if you don't think about it, of course, since it is fairly simple in practice while you're playing the game.  At most any time, you can hit the R button to suspend Kat in her own little anti-gravity bubble so that you can spin about and choose a direction in which to fall towards, hitting R once more to initiate said falling process.  The speed with which you fall is one of the short list of things you can upgrade in the game, but in my opinion it's more for the feel as the speed is really no more or less utilitarian at the start than at the end when you've gone and upgraded everything and still have 6,000 crystals in reserve.  That is how it works in its simplest form, though; press R, pick point, press R, fall, stand.  As you might imagine, you're not going to be using that a whole lot because it's never as simple as that except for in the start, and that is certainly the case with Gravity Rush, as it expects you to embrace, to master this mechanic of getting around.  And you, as the player, should want to do just this as well.

As you begin to understand the nuances of the system and implement them, that is when the real beauty of the game kicks in, since it allows you to get fancy, to zip around in impossible ways were you lacking the finesse, and to truly understand the quickest and smartest ways to get from point A to point B.  Of course, and I'm not sure if this is my own fault or not, but the system seems perfect when the situation doesn't exactly call for such precise measures as you're able to pull off.  Accuracy is not necessarily a strong point of the system which is a bit annoying when objectives call for it.  Most notably here are the side challenges that test your ability to get around in a fast, efficient way which need you to be able to turn and twist as you -want- to do, but to also land in exact spots which is a much-less achievable goal.  Too many times did I manage to land on the same general area as an objective, yet need to move the few extra steps to actually trigger it.  I'm hoping the sequel (yes, -the- sequel, not -a possible- sequel) will either re-evaluate this or tighten up the controls a bit to allow you to hit these as they desire.

Getting around is hardly the area where accuracy is against you the most, however.  That is reserved exclusively to the combat system which is a real shame from my point of view, as you all might know combat is a big component in video games to me.  The bulk of the combat in Gravity Rush is basically making use of the above, the Gravity Kick, to launch your foot of power directly against an exposed Nevi's core (Nevi being the baddies of the game, of course) from mid-air.  It utilizes the same base principle behind the basic shifting, except velocity increases the damage you do when you connect.  If you connect, however.  Basically what it means is that the further away you are (to a degree) when you initiate the kick, the more damage you do, except you're a little more likely to miss completely if the target moves a lot since you can mostly just fine-tune your direction mid-air.  It's a basic Risk/Reward approach which is not wrong in concept nor is it generally wrong in practice either.  The rub comes in when you have enemies that, whether intentional or not, are basically shielded from this attack not by requiring you to do it more (which exist as well, in the form of shelled Nevi) but by simply having, let's call it 'natural armor' that makes it rather difficult for you to connect, even at close range.

Later on in the game, you start to encounter bigger and badder Nevi that are shaped as actual -things- rather than the walking little blobs towards the beginning that can waddle up to you and smack you if you're not paying attention.  Without getting too detailed, the ones that gave me the most grief are Nevi that are shaped, more or less, in a rather Dragon-esque form.  They have three sets of wings, an elongated body and a head and fire off a plentiful amount of projectiles that have limited homing and can stop you mid-air if they hit you.  They are not inherently deadly if you're even decent at the game, of course, but the trouble comes in actually defeating them.  Their cores are located on the back and the head, three for the wings specifically, and they are nearly impossible to reach at range because the wings pull all the way back over them as it flies.  If you hit them, or any part of a Nevi's 'body', you bounce harmlessly off or are shoved off in a different direction.  As I've alluded, I'm not entirely sure if that's intentional or not, but it's there regardless and it means that I spent quite a lot of time throwing Gravity Kick after Gravity Kick at these specific foes and not hitting them at all because my timing wasn't precise.

Those of you with sense are probably shouting at the screen "This is what the special attacks are for!" and you very well may be right as there are a few Special Attacks you can gain in the game and they prove to be very very useful when you actually use them.  To my own fault, I underutilized the special attacks in the game purely because I always wanted to keep them back 'for an emergency' or the like.  You know what I'm talking about - those Megalixers or equivalent that sit in your inventory during a JRPG through the boss fight, through the optional super hard boss fight(s), they're there 'just in case' and you never use them and it just makes things difficult for you.  I could surmise that it's the limited cool-down that the abilities require that deterred me from using them (particularly because I couldn't pin down an indicator that suggests how long it would be), lending to the 'just in case' mentality, but the point I'm trying to make is that the Gravity Kick is obviously expected to be your main tool, and enemies that have unnatural protection from it is a worthy grumbling point.  Though in the scheme of things, they were mercifully uncommon, so I can't strike too hard against them.

Your other methods of bringing the ruckus are basically just the ground combo of punches and kicks which you likely won't use quite as much as I would prefer, and utilizing the stasis field to launch things that are not yourself at foes.  Special attacks aside, the Stasis Field, an ability that allows you to project a small field that grabs up items around you to be flung at enemies, is your only real method of using projectiles which....kind of seems like a wasted opportunity to me, personally.  But at the same time, being an origins story, I can understand that Kat can only control herself and have a minimal effect on the environment, as it were.  Regardless, the Stasis Field was also something that I completely under-used which is a strike against my playing ability as well, as well as my ability to comprehend things.  Such as leveling up the Stasis Field allows you to pick up more things if you hold the button longer.  Part of my under-use of the ability was my failure to get that which lead me to get frustrated when I was still only picking up two people at a time from a group of them in challenges that required you to grab people and take them to points of safety.  So I made specific mention of it here in case it was not merely a fault of me being dumb and it'd help someone else.

Almost as important as the ability to craft a system as free and fluid as Gravity Rush's shifting, is the care and detail shown in the process of making the world with which you use it.  In that department, the game is no slouch either, as the world is rather lovely to look at and not only for the very distinct art style that the game uses throughout.  More to the point, it's -cohesive- or at least as cohesive as a city semi-supended in air from being built around an endless pillar can be.  Each district of the city has its own distinct style that makes it more or less appealing to be hanging around in, depending on your preferences and the game offers fairly fun ways of getting between them if you don't have enough gravity juice, as it were, to just get there that way.  (By the end of the game you will)  Between riding on the tops of trains and sky taxis and such to get around, you're offered a lot of chances to just take in the scenery which can be just wonderful as you see above and it's those moments that really just let you appreciate it all.

These moments only come as you contend with the story, of course as in the case with most sandbox games.  The world is not fully open to you to start with and only opens up more and more as you get further and further along and that's fine with me as it doesn't feel quite as superfluous or forced as other games handle it.  Though, the story is not without its own flaws as it sort of requires you to ignore a few very obvious things (obvious to us as observers, that is, people who kind of have seen many types of song-and-dances before) which lead to "well, duh" moments that don't quite have an impact on us as much as they do the characters.  Similarly, the story seems to forget a lot of its own points here and there until it all of a sudden remembers them and thrusts them back in, insisting they're relevant when they really aren't.  Without spoiling anything, and saying this in a way that will likely only make sense to people who've played it, one thing in particular is pretty important for the start of the story, disappears completely, and then only pops up a couple more times to screw with the perceptions of not only Kat, but the player as well.  I'm waffling between whether or not I actually like this or not because it is nothing if not effective, but I'm not sure if it was as intended.

Things sort of begin to feel very general in terms of whether it's 'important' or 'important right now' when new plot points come up and it's more or less appropriate for an Origins story, but can leave the player sort of unsure of what to hinge on.  What I mean by this is that in most games, you have a very clear end-goal and a very obvious way of getting there and it's just usually a matter of the journey in between.  With Gravity Rush, there is sort of an end-goal that arcs over everything else, but it generally gets pushed into the background and is not resolved in the game at all.  Then as plot points pop up, they're generally swiftly resolved which just leads you into bringing up new ones so you can put them down as well.  To say any more would be spoiling matters, but suffice to say that I'm not throwing it down as an utter negative, nor am I saying the game is unfocused or anything like that.  But personally, while playing it, I found that my motivation never got honed to a fine point, since I never felt as if I was really in for the long haul against something.

At the same time, the ending does offer a satisfying bit of closure while still leaving the door open for the inevitable sequel in a fairly subtle way which is appreciated.  I mean, I know that the goal is to have another game in the series, but at least it didn't end with a "To Be Continued..." or a scene with one of the main characters turning out to be working with a big bad all along or anything so undesirable as that.  And I have to say that the very last bits of the game, the penultimate and final boss sections were possibly one of the more enjoyable segments in the game for me.  The penultimate boss because it absolutely nailed how the game should have felt all throughout because it was face-paced and allowed for the sort of finesse that you've gained by that point but aren't really expected to use.  It's hard to quantify it in words, but even though I spent the fight using the basically same tactic as any other boss battle which is more or less "Gravity Kick a lot", it -felt- like there was more to it than that because of the pacing and the openness of the battlefield itself.  It was glorious.  The final boss fight was the standard fare of the others, however the framing of it in terms of the story put it up there as something much more than that pretty easily.

When the story ends, however....that's about it which is quite unfortunate.  Side-content in sandbox games is often a double-edged sword as we all enjoy the opportunity to have other things to do in a game besides the main story, but there's a very fine line where there is too much of that and I don't think anybody quite knows where that line is.  Either they go far too much across it, or don't even come close to it, with nobody really having a good, happy medium spot and that's certainly the case with Gravity Rush.  In a game where pretty much all I want is more incentive to fly around and do stuff, there is little to be found beyond my own personal enjoyment.  Give me some sort of validation for finding it ever so fun to get around in your game because simply flying about because it's fun is fun, but we all have to move on eventually and I would like if it wasn't so easy to move on from a game I enjoy so thoroughly.

To this end, you only really have two options with the first being the Challenge Missions scattered about.  There is a surprisingly good amount of them, which by that I mean there are not too many nor too few, and they offer, unsurprisingly, a good challenge to be had which sometimes threaten to steal goodly amounts of time from your life to fine-tune your movements and to teach you the true finesse in the game.  It's not uncommon that you'll come in really really closely, but they're all very beatable with a little effort which is a very good area to be in.  The main flavors of these challenges are racing in nature, but specifically some task you with racing to checkpoints while making careful use of precious little energy, some have you fight as many Nevi as you can in a time frame and then you have the dreaded sliding races which make use of checkpoints and the Gravity Slide technique which is near-universally despised since...well, it's not very good.  Sliding takes the accuracy issues of the game and exemplify them, almost putting them under a lens because you very nearly have no control if you're not moving directly ahead.  It has its uses, but they are not ever-present given the limited scope the technique offers.

Beyond that there is only one 'collectible' which comes in the form of 'Travelers' whom you speak with.  They are not the easiest people to find, as they're not available on your map at all, only denoted by their speech icon if you're close enough to be able to spot it and their locations are generally the places you're not really expecting on going.  Which sort of touches on giving you a reason to fly around and explore, but without other things to find, it can be quite discouraging and end solely in just looking up a guide because it becomes more of a nuisance looking around to no avail.  However, these two people, for reasons I'm not going to get into, have a fairly important side-story, and divulge more and more of it with every encounter, thus making it worth it to seek them out at the very least.  It's optional of course, but interesting nonetheless because of what they have to say.  However, there are only 16 encounters and when they're done, they are -gone- and that is it.

It's kind of unfortunate because I am dead serious when I say that.  Like inFamous, there are all sorts of things scattered about that you pick up to improve your powers in a completely optional way (speaking of inFamous' blast shards specifically versus the crystals in GR) but they're handed out like coins in a Mario game or rings in a Sonic game so finding a cluster of them is not even a reward so much as a thing that will occur several times in the span of a few minutes.  Just something else like that, like the Blast Shards from inFamous, a game that I've made several allusions to when speaking of Gravity Rush being both Origins stories of sorts, would have been nice if just to give you a sort of meta-reward as it were.  I don't need to find 100 of them scattered over the world in completely obtuse places as other games treat their collectibles, but I want them in there nonetheless. 

Even though there is not exactly a lot in the game beyond the story content, what -is- there is quite worthy and definitely enjoyable.  The knowledge that it will not be the last bit of it by any stretch is very welcome, however since by no means is this the last time we'll see Kat.  Which isn't counting her cameo appearances in Hot Shots Golf and Playstation All-Stars (which isn't confirmed but come on) of course, as there is definitely more story out there that I have no reason to think we won't get.  Gravity Rush is a very good, very viable IP to sell on the Vita and it won't be the last I'm sure.  When the next installment will show up, I have no real idea, but I know that it won't be soon enough for my desires since I want more Gravity Rush right this moment.  Which, if nothing else, is pretty much the point to make for the entire game, double-speak involved with that and all.

The Good

• Impressive Art Style makes it very distinct all throughout and wonderful to play for it
• Kat is a very likeable protagonist, having enough personality to establish herself quite early and build on through the rest of the game
• The Controls offer a very real possibility to do some impressive things for the pure joy of it
• To further that point, 'flying' feels and works fantastically making it just a pleasure to play
• The actual setting of the game is whimsical and lovely, with the people milling about keeping it from feeling 'empty' as most sandbox games struggle with
• The story does several things correctly throughout for a proper Origins story
• The story also comes to a proper conclusion if not a 'complete' one
• The penultimate boss fight of the game is honestly like the perfect moment of the game
• There's a very real amount of charm that permeates through the entire game which elevates it overall

The Bad

• The game's challenges want a higher level of accuracy than players can comfortably give
• Gravity Sliding sections.  'Nuff said
• The story, by virtue of being an Origins story, brings up a lot to think about and to work with later
• Combat system isn't too varied, the Gravity Kick is pretty much your go-to move
• Some enemies have a sort of unnatural defense against the Gravity Kick, meaning battles go on far too long because of it (unless you use a special attack, probably)
• There's a real lack of side content
• The side content that's there (The Travelers) is a nuisance to get to because it's in no other company

Mogs Says

I really like Gravity Rush because, quite simply, it is a very likeable game.  It is a very good game and a strong contender for being the game (of the year) for some folks and this is all for very good reason.  The control of movement that the game really offers is staggering if you think about it and when you wrap your head around it, the controls with which to make it wonderful come naturally.  This, combined with the other efforts of the game itself make it really and truly enjoyable to play and experience.  If you have a Vita, then you likely have this game, possibly because of this game.  However, if by some strange reason you don't, this is definitely something you should get because this, more than anything else I've played so far, exemplifies the Vita itself with the subtle uses of the complete range of its features and gives an experience that you couldn't find anywhere else.

Dazed by Gravity Rush

So, because Harvest Moon's summertime has made me mad and I wanted to step away from the game for a bit, I went, "Gee, I haven't played Gravity Rush in a while" and went to remedy that.  Since I have it and all, and haven't played it for reasons that are far, far beyond my own comprehension.  Between everything I have on my Vita (and could potentially have, like the two Persona games I've yet to download) I could've picked anything, yet I decided on Gravity Rush again.  Because I like Gravity Rush.  As a whole, complete thing, I like it at least.  As a thing in practice, or rather a thing I am playing....I'm waning a little bit after today's go.  Which is a weird thing and something that I feel I need to qualify with a few things before knee-jerking begins.

I find that I'm struggling a bit with the game in terms of accepting the progress that I have made inside of the actual game itself.  Chapter-wise, I'm coming up on the end, I believe and basically just got to the point where the Special Forces DLC Pack (that I got as a pre-order bonus) could finally be used, played and enjoyed (aside from a couple challenge missions that I'd actually played before today - and provided I wasn't too thick and overlooked the story missions of the DLC entirely) and I played them.  In fact, I got the full range of the trophies for it which has a really cool effect with the trophy portraits that I admit I got entirely too much of a kick out of.  It's just really cool despite being really, really simple.  Anyways, the second mission of the DLC pack offered me a way to actually quantify one of my main problems with the game (though playing through some of the other challenge missions did that moreso) and it's a bit of an annoying thing when you think about it.

Without spoiling a whole lot, the second mission makes use of those water towers that you see scattered around roofs through the cities that, if you didn't know, you can grab up with your stasis field.  I mention this because this is, in fact, what you're doing in the mission - finding these, picking them up with stasis field and throwing them with an expected level of accuracy.  The issue is, despite the areas you need to hit being fairly large, I found myself struggling to....actually hit them in a way that the game agreed with, if the item shot the way I wanted it to go in the first place.  I saw this in a much more tangible way later on when I was throwing Gravity Kick after Gravity Kick towards one of the large, gangly dragon things that fly around and shoot projectiles at you and missing completely, despite having a fairly good level in the ability.  Anyway, the point I'm making is that accuracy is not a thing that is guaranteed in this game, even relative accuracy, and that's something of a concern really.

The other issue I touched on there is pretty much the other big issue I have - the game is entirely too reliant on the Gravity Kick move.  It is, beyond the usage of special attacks and stasis field tossing, the only offensive move you can make in mid-air and couple that with the fact that it is not all that accurate (on its own merits, and when you have a creature with 'natural' shielding, i.e. the core is placed in an area that's constantly obscured by wings or the like...) it is a bit of a problem.  Perhaps it's more a side-effect of me coming off of brawler games that I've been throwing spare hours into (Sleeping Dogs, mostly), but the combat is just shallow for me and that's a real shame.  I just do not particularly enjoy flying up in the air, hitting Square to launch at an enemy a ways away and then just watching as I sail right past them for no discernible reason.  Or hitting a non-core part of an enemy for the equal amount of no reason that I can tell.  After all, part of the upgrade to the Gravity Kick levels is lock-on accuracy increased, right?

Unfortunately, for me the actual getting around is another staggering point thought that might also be a factor of me comparing it to other things.  In this case, the total fluidity-of-movement granted by inFamous 2 was ambrosia from the Gods that I suspect might have just spoiled me for other things, such as cases like this.  inFamous 2 wasn't about free-running or anything of that sort, it was about getting where you gotta go and it did this in a way that offered variation all throughout no matter what path you went and it was glorious.  Similar to that, Gravity Rush gives you all the tools you need to get wherever the hell you wanna go, but those tools, rather the tool, is not quite as refined to allow that ease of travel.  This is a self-imposed sort of rigidity I imagine, since the game is an 'Origins' story as it were and Kat has not fully come into her powers, but that knowledge doesn't give me comfort when I try to get to Point B and hit Point C along the way because I can't move around that well without stopping and re-adjusting, or when the 'momentum' of gravity wasn't wonked in a way that prevents me from flying up the side of a building, un-shifting and landing on the roof of it as I should be able to without second and sometimes third attempts that end with me ultimately flying up, stopping and simply flying directly at the roof.

Still, I do not dislike Gravity Rush in the least and I can say with some certainty that I am still enamored with it in a very real way.  The issues, while not of my own making for once, that I have with the game are not insurmountable, and I don't have too much ire at having to do so.  I think that, after going through and gold medalling a bunch of challenges today as I did, I've reaffirmed to myself that I am quite getting the hang of the controls of the game, even Gravity Sliding (which is an abomination), and that I'm sure I will find that level of finesse required to go from passable at getting around to being actually skilled in it.  Or at the very least, I'll be able to do a little better than I am now which is still quite better than I was when I started it.  Basically what I mean is that I'm planning on getting good at the game because I like it.  And I hope that in the eventual sequel (come on, we know it and we want it) they achieve the same level of quality increase as Sucker Punch managed with inFamous to the sequel.  Which, I think we all look for that level of increase anymore for anything regardless, but it never hurts to hope.

Upcoming Purchases: April-June

As I have pointed out several times, to the point where it's almost a running theme for 2012, there are simply just too many games out already, as well as games that are -going- to come out.  While I've barely weathered the storm of games that are out (indeed, I missed Binary Domain, which I hope to grab at some point, as well as the whole Warriors Orochi 3 fiasco), there's still a veritable juggernaut of games as a collective on the horizon, both near and far, and, much like trying to play Shadow of the Colossus on a time limit, I'm not sure just how many of these things I will be able to encounter and conquer which is a bit worrisome.  It's a completely different scenario from last year, really and I'm not quite sure if too much is better than too little or vice versa.  Still, that's not the matter at hand; that matter being deciding just what games to get, what's a necessity, which of these colossi that I -must- slay, as opposed to the ones I can let wander for a time when I -have- time.

For several reasons, the Vita is the beast that I look to feed first, and Resistance:  Burning Skies looks to be the first game in line to do just this.  Wikipedia states that it's going to release on May 29th, GameStop says the 30th, but either way, it's slated up first in way of something that I 'need' to get.  It -haunts- me that I never made time for Resistance 3, nor have I secured a copy for myself, but in my defense, I had to be a little spendthrift at the end of the year (and still do, really) and because of that and the other titles I'm looking forward to, I just couldn't really fit it in.  As I've said times before, the Vita's portability and reliability (at least, the reliability I feel when I play it for extended periods of time without worry) make it my preferred gaming machine, and the Resistance series is one of which I am certainly a fan.  Were Resistance:  Retribution for PSP available for purchase on the Vita, I likely would have snatched it up by now, but that it isn't is a blessing still.

I don't know a lot about Burning Skies, nor do I need to.  The Chimera are on Earth at a time between Resistance 1 and 3, but not necessarily during 2's events and our protagonist in alien slaughter is a firefighter, as is denoted by the expert usage of a fire axe; a crucial element of the game, apparently.  This is basically all I know, and this is pretty much all you need to know about Resistance:  Burning Skies, much less any -other- FPS out there, because you're looking at, in a best circumstance scenario, a game where the story evolves over the course of the game to become more than simple or, in a worst case scenario, a half-hearted reason for indiscriminate destruction.  Either or works just fine, I assure you, and whether Burning Skies offers the former or the latter (I would bet on the former, of course), it should be a fun little romp as 1 and 2 were for me.  Especially so if anyone who worked on 3 has a hand in the Vita's incarnation, as 3 is apparently the best of the bunch, which makes it all the more painful to not play.

If Wikipedia and/or GameStop are to be believed, June is exactly what I didn't want, and as I type this I feel a very real sensation of fear for that month.  Not only is the game above, Lollipop Chainsaw, slated to release on June 12th, but so is the next game I want to talk about, where GameStop also places the last game I'll talk about for this go in the month, though it is assuredly not official yet.  Regardless, I suppose I'll simply have to suck it up and manage, somehow, because of all three games, I'm definitely not going to skip any of them, and assuredly not Lollipop Chainsaw.  You might know if you're a faithful reader, but if not, then let me paint a picture:  I am really, really excited for this friggin' game.  Not for the obvious reasons of course, but for the simple fact that this looks like one of the most absurd things to come out this year and I am all over that shit.  That it involves zombies which I am admittedly on a kick of lately is pretty much just a happy accident; after all, I wasn't doing much talking about Dead Souls way back in August.

I pretty much just love everything I've seen about the game individually as well as a whole.  Juliet Sterling, a cheerleader for San Romero High School, seems to be the only hope of the local life.  Armed with a chainsaw adorned with pink decorations and hearts, the true spirit and moves of a cheerleader, and the voice talents of Tara Strong, she seems to be the best bet San Romero has against the zombie outbreak.  And of course, not only is she deadly, but she's very stylish as well, which is quite evident if you watch the Debut Trailer in one of the above links.  (Seriously, go do that now.  I'm waiting.)  Also she gets a grenade launcher (among other attachments, presumably) for her chainsaw at some point.  No matter what, I cannot reiterate that point enough times - a chainsaw with a grenade launcher.  There is absolutely no reason I could fathom not wanting this game, and I only fear my ability to play it when I get it, rather than waiting for the embrace of Fall.

Slated to release the same day as Lollipop Chainsaw, as I said above, Gravity Rush could not be more different.  Though they both tout quite nice, different art styles and female protagonists, that's where the similarities end as Gravity Rush trades Lollipop Chainsaw's campy, absurd approach to unabashed violence against the undead for something more serious and game play that revolves around the ability to control gravity to combat, solve puzzles, and just get around.  It's uniquely interesting on several levels and I've commented on it before, so to say I'm interested in it is restating the obvious in such a way that stating the obvious is obvious is-nevermind.  People who've messed around with the demo say that the useage of the gravity mechanic is a good one, and it's certainly one I look forward to bending to my own whims to explore whatever amount of world they give me to do so.

Like with Burning Skies, I don't know a whole lot about Gravity Rush beyond the basics, so playing it will assuredly be a gem as it begins to unfold for me.  Since I -want- this type of game to succeed that's what I hope it will do; I hope that it will offer a presentation so slick, combined with a good story that I won't want to put it down.  I hope the mechanics are solid and enjoyable, that they don't make ridiculous usage of the Vita's extra features but rather implements them in fairly natural ways as many other games have managed to do so far.  And I hope that it creates characters that are compelling and well-written, so that when I get it and play it, I can say as much here so that maybe it'll sway someone else into buying the game, because this type of game will sell on word of mouth alone, I'm sure.  Am I hoping for a lot?  Assuredly, but I am excited for it and use that to justify it; hopefully that level is well-placed.

I'm sure I don't have to say anything beyond "It's LittleBigPlanet.  On the Vita."  It's apparently out on the 27th of June, according to GameStop, but that's not solid in the least, and I would put money on it being a quite different date.  At least, I'm hoping for it.  Because all of my money, etc. etc.

So that is the foreseeable future in terms of my gaming purchases.  I'm sure there's plenty of others that could be on here, and it certainly doesn't include games that are already out, but there's a whole lotta game for this year, even beyond what I've featured here.  With any luck, we'll see the other games and a window for them as well, so I can make yet another post lamenting the overflow we're all suffering from.  Also as a random side-note, this post is late because halfway through it, my internet cut out.  I'd set it back to 11-something to make sure it hits yesterday, but I'm going to post tonight too, so it'll be fine.

Vita Trailers On - Let's Do This

I don't think I've ever just had a post with trailers in it for the games coming out for the Vita when it hits its February 22nd release date in America.  This is mostly because the trailers have only recently started to come out in English (that I know of) and also because I haven't really wanted to consolidate all the Vita games I want since that is all sorts of money that I don't have.  If I have, I'm pretty sure it was with Japanese trailers and was a few months back so for all we know, it's new to us now.  Regardless, that's what I'm doing because it's what I want to do and with the frequent internet outs, I can't keep calm long enough to write something nice out because the internet cutting out whenever it seems like it won't/shouldn't fills me with so much rage.  So much.  Because it's bottom-of-the-barrel DSL and has been terrible for the years we've had it, but at least it was fairly, uh....reliable?  Non-reliable -and- shitty is not something I'm going to tolerate.

Anyways, the first trailer I'm queuing up is for the only game I have pre-ordered on the Vita which will not be a surprise to you because most every other person interested in a Vita knows of this game as 'the game' to get when you pick up your shiny new handheld.  Uncharted:  Golden Abyss likely won't be as great as the two that came before it, Uncharted 2:  Among Thieves and Uncharted 3:  Drake's Deception (which stand on equal ground as far as I'm concerned), but I at least expect it to be the same quality as Uncharted:  Drake's Fortune in that it'll be the first outing on the system, before they've mastered the wizardry necessary to make it mind-blowing.  Remains to be seen if it will be, but I have some faith in Sony Bend and I imagine they've worked closely with Naughty Dog and Sony's First/Second Party coordinators, so I think my faith is well-placed.

As you can see, it's not quite as bright, vibrant, nor quite as crisp as we could hope, but that could be the difference between watching it on youtube (in 360p in my case) and playing it in person.  And I'm not exactly sold on all the optional control methods, but I will grant that they are that indeed - optional - and that's the important part that should be at least touted.  I'll try them and if I don't like them or they actively impede my progress, I'll switch them off, but at least I'll give it the old attempt.  The game deserves at least that much, I think.  In the end, I expect another Uncharted adventure which is a prospect enough to get me excited for it, which is why there is $5 credit residing in the GameStop database implicitly stating I will own it.

Up next is the game that, if Uncharted:  Golden Abyss didn't exist, would be -the game- that I would have to have.  As it stands, I still have to have it, but I'm not sure what the fundage is going to look like come February, as I have to consider how much GameStop credit I have in card form, how much I am probably getting for Christmas, and what the difference is between that and the pricetag for the system, a memory stick (which we still don't officially know, price-wise) and Uncharted.  Basically, Gravity Rush will be the second game I own for the Vita, but the time between its purchasing and Uncharted's purchasing might be extended or it might not.

If you could sell a game on style alone, that game would be Gravity Rush assuredly because the look of it is so gorgeous that it practically sold me alone.  Then the actual concept of the game sank in, and that's what cemented it.  I've gone over Gravit y Rush before, but it remains to be said that the game looks like something you'd expect from further down in the Vita's lifetime, not right at the start.  It's possible that the gameplay might be a little more basic (minus the fairly original concept of using gravity as it does) which would point to 'launch title' but that still remains to be seen.  And it will be seen with great anxiousness and curiosity at some point.

Next up is the other "No surprise" game that I'm looking forward to for the Vita.  LittleBigPlanet (for the Vita) has been the subject of quite a few excited fanboy moments for me, especially with all the different showings it's had and will continue to do so.  It's one of many games announced/shown off for the system that doesn't quite have a release date yet, but that's only because "Not soon enough" isn't a valid date for some reason.  And if nothing else, the people at the helm of this one know how to make quite an enjoyable trailer.

From the looks of it, it's looking like it's trying to be LittleBigPlanet 2, but in your pocket, which is tantalizing for me.  I think the problem with LittleBigPlanet 2 for me is, quite simply, that it's on the PS3 and number one, I have far too many games for that already, and two, I don't play the PS3 near enough to even get through that gaming library as is.  I'm not expecting LittleBigPlanet Vita to have the same level of inter-connectivity with LBP or LBP 2 as LBP 2 has with the first game, but it would be nice.  They have said in the past that your entire costume gallery from the PS3 installments will be available to you on your Vita game, but we'll just have to see on that, since I've yet to see it trumpeted off again.  You know that I love me some costumes, but this likely won't be a deal-breaker for me.  Maybe.

And finally (as I decided not to get any trailer not from the Playstation Channel and barely looked as it stood) we have one of the more intriguing games for the system that I'm not yet sold on.  Escape Plan has charm and character and a style all its own as does Gravity Rush, so I have to compliment it on that much at the very least.  However, I'm just not too sure on the game for various reasons.

The goal is, obviously, to make you think "Oh, a good puzzle game" when you watch that trailer because of the neat and innovative uses of all the different things the Vita can do.  Of course, the goal of every trailer for every puzzle game is to make it look good and clever, when very seldom are truly both of those things.  Where some stumble by 'overthinking itself' and making it too easy or 'overestimating itself' by making it too hard ('How the fuck was I supposed to know I had to hit that first to get this thing to happen?!'), very few manage to find that precarious balance upon which a puzzle game is claimed "just hard enough" to make you consider it, but never enough to toss your controller/handheld away in frustration. 

Yet another pitfall puzzle games hit is basing puzzles not only on figuring them out, but giving ridiculous restrictions on how it's accomplished ("Flip a lever to drop a ball on the other side of a wall that you could only find by running around like an idiot.  The ball is used to weigh down a platform that is only accessible for the brief window in which the lever stays flipped, giving you a 0.7 second margin of error.  GOOD LUCK!") which is far and beyond the reason I've quit a number of puzzle games.  Yelling "I KNOW HOW TO DO THIS, WHY WON'T IT WORK" does nothing, nor does it make any fun occur.  I see every puzzle game as a game that can have any of these issues which is why I approach them all with caution.  That is mostly my hesitation for Escape Plan, so we'll see how that weathers when more on it comes out.

There are plentiful other titles for the Vita that I could probably find trailers for (Sumioni, Samurais and Dragons, etc.) and throw them here to show you that, yes, I do want quite a few Vita games, but I won't do that right now.  Assuredly when the Vita gets closer to launch on our fair shores, I'll have more trailers than I'll know what to do with besides post them up here.  And that is a day I almost cannot wait for.

Gravity Rush is Looking Legitimately Good

Now, I know it's kind of a weird thing to preface something with "Legitimately Good", but when we're talking about a Launch title for anything, quality does always have to be an issue that is scrutinized by weighing it against the newness of the device.  Obviously the tech is new and as such, there is very little to suggest that any developer has discovered little ways to use the wizardry that one often finds later on in a console/handheld to make the quality that much higher than before tricks were known, so you more or less have to be a little forgiving in certain areas.  Take Shinobido 2 for example; by all means from what we've seen it will not be a pretty game by any means, but it's not bad for a first effort with a device that hasn't been tinkered with yet.

My point is, more or less, that after looking at the above trailer and a few other resources of information for the game, I'm not sure that Gravity Rush will need to really be judged on this curve as it looks just fantastic.  The art style/direction has a lot to do with this, obviously, but it just doesn't look like it's really hampered in appearance or mechanics because of new tech, and really just instills a good feeling in looking at it since, inevitably, Vita games yet to come will likely eclipse it in 'quality' simply because everyone will know how to work with the device by then.  While I'm not sure if there'll be a such thing as an increase in quality at Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 2 levels, I can hope, which well....when it starts this good, is quite a thing.

I don't really know a whole lot about Gravity Rush as a game, other than the story seems like it'll take place over some cutscenes and Comic Book style events (as seen in the video) which is plenty fine by me, and the main 'gimmick' of the game is, of course, nullifying gravity.  I imagine this will be used in puzzle situations as well as fighting, and can only hope that we actually -get- a city as we see in the trailers and previews and not just...chunks of areas, which I suspect is a possibility.  If technical limitations come into play at all, I imagine that's where it'll happen which wouldn't be -terrible-, but a city plus gravity manipulation is just so enticing to think of.

From what I've seen, the story of the game seems a little underthought on the surface, but that could just be because it's a story of discovery and as such, is meant to be as such.  Kat(t?) the main character, awakes at the start of the game with amnesia, gravity powers, and a whole mess of enemies, and during the story, I assume she will regain some of her memories to at least figure out why she's being chased and/or hunted.  Again, not the shining example of an exemplary story on its surface, but it might open up into something quite enjoyable, so it's hard to judge on that.  Still, I'm hopeful, as I have no reason to be outwardly negative on it since I am a little enamored with the game I believe.

I'm really interested in getting my hands on it if just to see how they handle the gravity manipulation with the fighting system, as it -looks- like you can use it to rush (hey, wait....) at your enemies to start the fight which is really, really cool.  Seems like it could make for some really fast paced combat, so long as it's not too basic.  I wouldn't mind either way, obviously, but I'd hate to see the game get panned for what too many consider 'unrefined' fighting.  Not all systems have to be Arkham copies after all; just because many like to copycat CoD shooting, that doesn't make it the right move, as an example.  So long as it does something and does it well, that's all we can hope for.  And it's what I am, indeed, hoping for.