Some More Demo Impressions

Looks familiar...

Since there are still quite a few demos up on the store, thankfully, I decided to grab a couple more for the games that I've had my eye on.  There's still some that I haven't gotten, and some that just aren't on yet (Like the Gravity Rush one, -come on- I know it's not out til June but I want it now without resorting to exploiting the other region stores and the method for grabbing their content without a full reformat), but with the four demos I have (on top of the two games I own), I have plenty of content already, not to mention when some more of the games I own digitally become fully compatible.  And when I get PSN SEN Funbucks next.  As it's been described on the Penny Arcade forums, it's quite easy to trip over wonderful things in the store and find yourself having bought and played them for hours before realizing just what happened.  Not in a "this is too easy to buy what the hell, I didn't want it" way, but in a "This is too easy to buy stuff, God I want everything give it all to me" way.

Regardless, Touch My Katamari has a demo up as of last Tuesday and I am all sorts of grateful since I just want to play the game, get a feel for it, before I decide if I want it or not.  And...in all honesty, I think I do.  It's got the same lovely charm, the same level of wackiness, that I grew to expect from Nobi Nobi Boy which was spawned from the same mind, as we know.  And while I would rather still have Nobi Nobi Boy for Vita, Touch My Katamari seems like it'll fit the bill quite nicely in the meantime.  I sort of knew what to do with Katamari anyway, but if I hadn't, there was a handy tutorial included as, well, half the entirety of the demo, so I played that, despite knowing the content already.  It did quite a good job of explaining the finer points of things, especially the new mechanics of stretching the katamari itself.  That simple action proves to be quite useful, despite how simple it sounds.

Then the sole -level- of the demo, pictured above, was quite obviously a simple boys bedroom.  The goal was to make a 15 centimeter Katamari within 2 minutes and anything beyond that was just a self-challenge, I suppose.  It is possibly one of the simplest game concepts I've played, but it works and I can't really describe why.  All I know is that there simply isn't enough in this demo, which I guess is the point, because all I want to do is play more, more, more Katamari.  I want to get back in the level, figure out the best ways to get the objective items (playthings, in the room) and just try and get bigger and bigger Katamaris.  I want to see if I can roll up that swanky looking handheld in my Katamari.  I'm quite surprised at the instinctual -hunger- that the game instills because I pretty much just put it down before I started writing and I find my eyes darting towards it again and again, wondering if I can just maybe glean a little more fun out of that single level of the game.

Dat Texture.

Quite contrary to my experience with Katamari, my time with Modnation Racers was too long if anything.  I spent about twenty minutes messing around with the very limited group of items for both Mod and Kart creation and came up with the above, more or less.  (My Mod ended up having shoes.  Big surprise.)  The Kart I ended up with looked like this which is obviously -very- creative, what with the Christmas Lights on the front.  It was not easy to get to this point of completion as every item requires a touchscreen usage and it's just not all that accurate.  I can't tell you how many times I tapped an option only to have nothing happen, requiring several more touches, pushes and flicks before it registered.  I was less than impressed with the whole experience, as I'm sure you realize by now.

Then I got to the actual racing portion of the game and it was pretty much exactly what I'd feared it would be.  A perfect comparison of the game would be the above image.  Sure, it looks pretty good if you're not looking too close, but the second you actually get in it and look, the poor quality of it springs to the forefront.  The racing is simply....passable.  There's nothing that really makes it shine, nothing that makes it feel interesting and nothing that makes you want to come back to it.  There's no real feel of weight, and I can't quite put my finger on how to use the items I snatch from the middle of the road from spheres and definitely not cubic type things with question marks on them.  In fact, if I try to put my finger on the item I get, the one method of usage you might figure on working, it seems to just convert it into boost energy that I didn't know quite how to use for a few minutes.  In the end, it didn't even matter, as I only came in 4th out of 8, since I discovered that you could, in fact, have up to that many racers in a single match, though not without its downsides.

I'd played the demo before and the only matches I'd done had only 3 AI opponents, both of which races I lost pretty dramatically.  Fourth place both times, so I suppose I can just never break that top three when it counts.  I spent about a full lap in this past race in first, but then some pretty wild slowdown, slowdown I'd never experienced prior to this race with 7 AI opponents, happened I was knocked off my game and dropped down to fifth.  I only managed to pass the fourth place guy in the last stretch, to which I then finished to see my Mod slamming his fists against the steering wheel in frustration.  I could clearly sympathize with him. 

So once again, I have two wildly different experiences with mere chunks of games that the Vita has to offer and I've barely scratched the surface.  Whereas my last two demos were both pretty positive, but for far different reasons, I've finally had an experience I'm not going to remember too fondly.  It had to happen eventually and it doesn't really sour anything but my outlook on the whole of the franchise which wasn't too high anyway.  I think I gave it a fair enough shake, however, having played all three incarnations of it in some fashion.  Hopefully LittleBigPlanet Karting, when it comes out, will have learned from Modnation's mistakes and won't suffer the same short-comings.  I suppose it'll all develop on who is making it, however.  Still, there's hope in my mind!

More Vita Quick Looks

...Because I am a masochist, apparently and I can't stop watching these things despite having no ability to play with one for the long three days that remain.  Three more of the games that I have at least a cursory interest in have Quick Looks, as I imagine the bulk of the Vita's Launch Line-up does, so I decided it was a great idea to give them a look over as, while I doubt any of them will be bought sooner rather than later, there is a good chance that some of them will be accompanying me in my game-playing journeys.  I think it's a safe bet to say that the Vita's launch line-up is fantastic by anyone's standards, but more importantly to me, I'm finding that there's a lot of titles in it that I clearly wouldn't mind getting as well, which is exciting.  While I'm only getting two, that's mostly because of monetary reasons as were that not an object I think I would get all six of the games I've shown off through these two posts if just to try them.

First up is a game from a series that, much like Lumines, I've just never gotten into despite having a genuine interest at checking it out.  Though I guess you could say I have technically dipped my toes into the 'universe' of it as it were with Nobi Nobi Boy, it's still not really the same thing.  Touch My Katamari is the latest version of the Katamari Damacy series that involves you rolling a ball around the world to pick up things to get bigger so you can pick up bigger things and so on and so forth.  It's a simple concept, but the simple ones are oftentimes some of the most pleasing, if just in short bursts.  Though I'm not sure how short each level of the game might be, given that some seem to be based on getting the biggest Katamari as you can in a given time, where others seem to task you with a certain size to reach and grade you on how fast it took to get there.

While I haven't played Katamari games, I've certainly seen them and, as the Giant Bomb crew are quick to point out, it certainly looks like a Katamari game and appears to play as one too.  Though there's not a lot you can do to add to the simple theory in play aside from what's been added in the Vita version in stretching the Katamari tall or wide.  I'm not sure just how much that adds to the game beyond novelty, as I'm not sure if they'd create levels just to cater to those functions, but I'm sure there's some usage in there for it.  And it's something else to do as you roll around, picking up stuff.  I'm not sure I could suggest it adds strategy to the game, but at one point, I do see an area where rolling flat could have certainly made it easier for the guy playing to pick up a bunch of grouped objects though he didn't seem to think of it.

Katamari proves to have all the familiar japanese quirkiness one would hope for in such a game and then some, which will likely appeal to the side of me who ironically or unironically enjoys that sort of thing, though I'm sure it'll make me wonder why they have fully voiced cutscenes, but the King of All Cosmos talks in sound effects when he has been voiced in the past.  Seems like a little bit of an oversight there.  And despite all this, I can't help but wish that it was Nobi Nobi Boy rather than Katamari.  I can only hope that someone decides, down the line a bit, that it would be a good idea to port over the PSN darling for people like me who would enjoy it.  The Vita-exlusive gimmick is there already, as you can just use the touch pads to stretch your Nobi Nobi Boy rather than use the control sticks.  It's a rather perfect fit, I should say.

Super Stardust has built up something of a pretty hardcore following for anyone following all things PSN, so that it's seeing an iteration on the Vita, especially at launch, is no surprise.  It is, again, a rather simple concept in that you have a dual-stick shooter that puts you in the cockpit of a starship whose goal is to blow up a bunch of meteors using all sorts of wild weaponry.  From what I can tell, it has a little Ikaruga flair in it in it since meteors are color-coded (well, more like temperature-coded) and you have two weapons that will exaggerate these conditions, blowing the space rocks up.  As such, the heat ray is for hot rocks and the ice beam is for ice rocks, and while one can take out the other, it's nowhere near as fast or efficient to do so.  All in all, pretty simple right off.

There's more added on top of that of course, as there were mentions of bossfights which I imagine aren't against meteors, which is rather nice.  I don't really know a whole lot here, being someone who hasn't dipped into the series at all, but that's what I can glean from parts of information here and there as well as the quick look above.  I guess, thinking on it, there's not a lot I can say about a twin-stick shooter other than there are things that you shoot and how you shoot them.  Though I must say the game does use colors rather well, and the framerate is absolutely excellent.  Where most games have slowdown as a side-effect, I believe I can safely say the slow-down when you use a special attack like unleashing a black hole or letting loose a volley (which is an understatement) of missiles is intentional for effect.  That's quite refreshing to see when it seems that a lot of the other launch games weren't quite able to lock a framerate at anything.  And for a $10 title that most people might get for free, even, that's quite an introduction to the system.

Modnation Racers:  Road Trip could very well be the last lap for the franchise that's spanned over all three 'recent' Playstation devices with the news that LittleBigPlanet Karting is officially a thing, so I have to wonder if it's worth getting in on it since I can have the more 'complete' version of it, with the ability to play every track that was created for the PS3 version of the game, and have access to all the Mods and Karts created for it as well.  The rationale part of my brain says "No" because I do not, nor have I ever really (beyond a stint with Mario Kart 64 on my N64 which, let's be honest, any game would've been latched on to) been into Kart Racers and my playings with both the PS3 and PSP versions of the game left a little to be desired, having been in the Betas for both by some stroke of luck.  On the other hand, I get to have all the fun of a Single-Player racing experience which I find that much more desirable than a multi-player one, knowing I'm in the minority on this.

Still, the obvious main draw of the game, the creation aspects, have a powerful, powerful pull to me.  As you can tell by reading this blog even, I like just creating things, even if I'm not going to share them or anything.  I could probably spend hours making tracks, mods and karts in the creator, not upload a single one and be perfectly happy with it, though I suspect I might fold eventually.  Still, the mere thought of playing around, making things like that...it makes it really easy to reach for my wallet.  I have to constantly remind myself that there is racing in the game, and regardless of the quality of it, I really don't care for racing games whatsoever, preferring to get where I want to go the way I want to go without being shoehorned one way or another.  As well as that, there are rampant rumors of the AI for the PS3 version, at least having what's affectionately referred to as "Cheater AI" which can't make a racing game much more fun than it is at base.

Again, any of these games and the games from the previous post have a potential to have a spot in my Vita library at some point in the future, and from what I've seen, I wouldn't mind it in the least.  Modnation Racers is likely going to get a spot despite the obvious because I know I'm going to get it and make things and hate myself for spending $20-30 on a game that I won't play, but rather just use as a tool box, but I know me and I know it's going to happen.  Katamari is likely as well, as it seems like a fun little quirky game and perhaps my purchase will let Bandai Namco know that I like this type of game, so I'll be able to get what I actually want.  Time will tell, I suppose, and all I can do is watch and rewatch these videos again and again, wishing that it was me playing them.

LittleBigThings: Start Your Engines!

The above image, showing off Racing, one of the new styles of games you could make in LittleBigPlanet 2, might have been fore-telling something yet to come as LittleBigPlanet Karting is officially a thing, though details beyond that are scarce.  Literally, that's about all we know about it, as in we're not even sure on a developer just yet, but we're promised details of these things "soon", whenever that is.  This all follows some rumors that started towards the start of the week stating that LittleBigPlanet Karting was a thing and might even have some sort of Move integration, going so far as to having a Move Wheel peripheral mimicking that of the Wii Wheel used for Mario Kart.  I honestly don't like the idea of that, nor do I really have an idea of just how that would work (the Move Wand has a more organic, thus harder to mold, shape and the whole ball thing too), but I honestly wouldn't be surprised by it at this point.

You might be wondering, just as everybody else, "Why LBP?  Modnation Racers already exists!"  In fact, Chance wondered this exact thing and it is a really, really valid wonder to have.  I myself had it at first, but I had a little think about it, and I've got at least an idea of what could be the reason behind it all.  Just bear with me here for a moment.  The original Modnation Racers was made for PS3 as we all know, by a little studio called United Front Games who, as you might also know, has been a little busy lately.  Modnation Racers was initially something that a lot of people were looking forward to...until they got to play the Beta.  Gripes about controls instantly came out and even with some tweaking, the general opinion of the internet was a little unfavorable.  I'm sure it didn't set the sales charts on fire, despite all you could really do with it unfortunately, and the end result is that I don't think it's been seen as a 'franchise to look out for', like some of the other things the PS3 has that have started on the PS3 itself.

Then you have the PSP version that did even worse, mostly by virtue of it being a PSP game, which certainly didn't help the brand along at all.  That version and the up-coming Modnation Racers:  Road Trip for the Vita were done by SCE San Diego rather than United Front Games, so it just sort of reeks of "We already made this, might as well try and get it to sell." despite never really getting a lot of chatter.  Being that it's been a while since Modnation Racers came out, it's probably about time for a proper sequel to it, but the originators probably aren't too fussed at doing one and a sequel is likely a bit too much work for SCE San Diego who aren't really known for doing a whole lot aside from the criminally underrated Mark of Kri.  So if you can't do a sequel of a not-so-hot game, but still want to have another new racing game that has a broad appeal, what do you do?

Take the concept that worked (The Race, Create, Share philosophy that UFG put out there to mirror LBP's own Play, Create, Share), add it to a franchise that worked (LittleBigPlanet) and hope for success.  Everyone sort of looked at Modnation Racers as the "LittleBigPlanet" of kart-racing anyways, so why not make it official, yeah?  Sackboy already has a fairly broad appeal, as far as audiences go which is almost money in the bank right off, and the natural linking with making, tinkering with your own courses, racer and kart only makes it seem like more of a perfect fit.  Really, if it weren't for Road Trip coming out, Modnation Racers would probably be out of the general mindset already, so LittleBigPlanet Karting would be a little easier to accept.  LBP Karting even has Modnation Racers as an example case to look at; take the good, leave the bad.  As it stands, it just seems like the next step up if you sort of take apart all the ideas and look at them separately.

We'll see how it works out when the eventual reveal comes out, likely sooner rather than later.  I expect to see some footage of it by E3 and hopefully whoever's developing it (I doubt it's going to be Media Molecule, but we'll see) will be able to work something out with MM for some type of integration.  Figuring on the racers themselves being Sackboys and girls that you can customize, I'd hope we would be able to import our favorites from LBP 1 and 2 in to design karts around, rather than having to start from scratch - especially if they're planning on selling costumes for other Sony Franchises (as they did with Modnation and LBP both) to prevent having to double-dip for a Cole Sackboy racer.  (Which yes, Cole can't drive, blah blah, let me dream, okay?)  Here's hoping for at least a developer reveal in the coming week or so, since I'm pretty interested at face value.