Years before developer Naughty Dog started treasuring hunting with Nathan Drake and the Uncharted series, they brought gamers a funny tale of two friends, Jak and Daxter, and their adventures through four main games on the PS2 and two spinoffs. Now, Sony has enlisted developer Mass Media Inc. to give us an HD collection that consists of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Jak 3. The games were incredible when they first released, but can they stand the test of time?

The first title in the collection is Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. Released back in 2001 for the PlayStation 2, The Precursor Legacy introduced gamers to Jak and his best friend Daxter, who we find out are no stranger to breaking the rules. As the two sneak off to Misty Island, they get into all kinds of trouble and Daxter is transformed by Dark Eco into a hybrid of an otter and weasel. The two are now on a mission to find the Sage of Dark Eco who can change Daxter back into his old body. The game takes place in the village of Sandover and it’s outlining areas, as the two of you battle monsters, collect precursor orbs, and the all important power cells. Jak is able to double jump, use two different attacks and has some serious dance moves when he does discover a power cell.

Next up is Jak II, which released back 2003, also for the PlayStation 2. The second game picks up right after the events of the first, in a city called Haven City. Here the world is under the control of Baron Paraxis and Jak and Daxter have just broken out of jail and are looking for a way out of Haven City. Jak II sees some big changes from the original, as now you are equipped with various guns, such as the blaster and scatter gun. The game adds in vehicle control as you can hover around the city in Back to the Future II style and brings in Dark Jak, a dark side to Jak that has been unlocked after many experiments performed by the Baron. When you transform to Dark Jak, you have new abilities that you can use and unlock throughout the game.

Lastly we have Jak 3, again for the PlayStation 2, which released a year later in 2004. It has been about 300 years since Jak and Daxter fought in New Haven and takes place in Spargus City and a vast desert. Characters from Jak II make an appearance here in the game and so do many of the gameplay changes, but are expanded here. There are two more weapon types and now there is a Light Jak to counter the Dark Jak, very Star Wars like. There are also different kinds of vehicles in the game this time around, like sand buggies and yoshi-looking creatures.

Each of the games present a good mix of platforming, vehicle racing, and material collecting. The platforming still holds up today, with plenty of different missions to complete, and a good bit of variety to the levels. The characters are well fleshed out, with great dialogue and voice work complimenting a fun and exciting story. It is easy to see after playing this collection why the Uncharted series and developer Naughty Dog are the definition of top-notch. The first game suffers from not having subtitle options but thankfully, for me at least, the 2nd and 3rd remedy this.

All of the titles in the collection have full trophy support with each game receiving its very own platinum trophy, making this a great buy for those trophy lovers out there. The games look great in high definition (considering their age, and obviously cannot compete with current-gen games) and the gameplay makes a smooth transition, though it is not without hiccups. The camera angles are absolutely terrible, with things becoming very rigid in close quarters and the camera never seeming to do what you want it to do. The jumping mechanic also feels very sticky, leaving for plenty of frustrating moments where you swear you have double jumped but the game refuses to agree. These issues can be overlooked however as the comedy is still hilarious and the games are extremely addicting and fun to play. The HD revamp also includes 3D support, which is solid, but doesn’t add much to the game.

In the end, The Jak and Daxter Collection is yet another successful trek into the world of High Definition Collections being released on the PlayStation 3. It is a bit frustrating to not have the entire series added in, especially Lost Frontier from the PSP, but the set does not lose anything by just having the first three games. Aspects of the series also feel dated, but that is really the only bad thing you can say about this collection, which is a testament to the quality of the original games. Both newcomers to the series and those who have played every game will find yourself enthralled with the great voice work and laugh out loud comedy of these classic games.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Get ready to laugh a lot + Jak and Daxter Look Good in HD - Things like jumping and the troublesome camera feel dated

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© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Over the past several years, the role-playing genre has been evolving at an increasingly rapid rate. In an industry where JRPGs are beginning to feel more and more antiquated due to the surge of Western developed action-heavy experiences, the genre we’ve all come to know and love has grown into an entirely different beast. I’m happy to report that 38 Studios and Big Huge Games have only served to continue that trend with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, by crafting an innovative fantasy RPG that successfully blends fun and rewarding combat with a massive open world and robust character customization system.

What immediately struck me when I first booted up Reckoning was the art style. Beloved graphic designer Todd McFarlane was brought on to serve as the Executive Art Director on and boy does it show. The character and enemy designs are diverse and unique but pale in comparison to the game’s gorgeous environments. The bright and vibrant color palate smattered atop the game’s lavish and fleshed out vistas makes for a much more identifiable and endearing foray into whimsical fantasy than Peter Molyneux’s Fable.

The world of Amalur (i.e. The Faelands) is massive, with an over-world map so gargantuan, it’d give an Elder Scrolls title a run for its money. But what really strikes me about the game’s world is the development team’s attention to detail. Nothing ever feels recycled or reused, as every inch of the map looks and feels different. From lush wooded areas that burst with bright greens, to the expansive deserts littered with cacti and fossilized beasts, I found myself eager to discover each and every inch of the world. Unfortunately, I did experience a noteworthy amount texture pop-in, which is practically unavoidable when dealing with a game of this size, but a bit annoying nonetheless.

One area in which I found Amalur slightly lacking was in its sound design. The soundtrack is hardly memorable and offers little to enhance the experience. Fortunately, the voice acting more than makes up for it, as every NPC you come across sounds and feels completely different than the last. Much like the game’s diverse environment, the authentic cast of characters aids in the believability of the game world.

A major selling point that 38 Studios has been pushing is the fact that R.A. Salvatore, the famed New York Times bestselling author was responsible for crafting not only the game’s story, but the entire fictional universe that the Amalur lore was built upon. After having completed the entire main quest (which alone will take you a good 20 hours or so) and a hefty number of side quests, I must say that overall, I was impressed, but not blown away. While the game’s plot is actually quite entertaining, Amalur’s overly fanciful backstory and lore is a lot to chew on and will undoubtedly be a bit overwhelming for newcomers who may be new to this type of genre. I personally was having a bit of trouble remembering the names of several of the characters and locations.

The story centers around themes of fate and destiny. In an effort to spare you from an onslaught of spoilers, I’ll provide you with the basic premise. At the start of the game you find your character, who you get to customize to your liking, pronounced dead and dumped atop a pile of rotting corpses. Naturally, you come back to life, serving as the first successful test subject to prove that the gnome-crafted Well of Souls actually works. Since your character has defied the natural laws of mortality, he/she is no longer bound by fate and is now capable of carving out a new future that can’t be pre-determined. As such, you are the only one capable of saving Amalur from its ever approaching doom. In the end, while the plot is entertaining, it’s definitely not going to be the game’s main selling point, as that commendation is reserved for Reckoning’s stellar gameplay.

Some of this generation’s best role-playing games have combat mechanics that leave much to be desired. The clunky systems seen in Bethesda RPGs like Fallout 3 and Skyrim are often frustrating and unsatisfying, yielding an experience that offers unparalleled exploration at the cost of quality combat. Conversely, an RPG like Lionhead’s Fable attempts to be a jack of all trades, but in the ends offers little more than a shallow combat system with an overly-linear story structure bearing a false sense of discovery and exploration. Fortunately, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning manages to triumph where other RPGs fail, offering not only a compelling world, story and characters, but also an addictive combat system that truly rewards the player who takes the time to master the game’s controls.

The gameplay is as smooth as butter. Combat is fluid and intuitive, yielding an experience that on many levels goes toe-to-toe with games like God of War. I honestly haven’t had this much fun with an RPG in years. Every action is expertly mapped to the controller for quick and easy access, and with so many ways to approach any given battle, that is really saying something. You could be sneaking in on an unsuspecting foe and gutting him one second, while pouring waves of unrelenting electricity through another the next.

Ask any hardcore gamer and they’ll tell you that one of the fundamental pillars in any RPG is character growth and customization, something Reckoning has in spades. There are three different play-styles: might, finesse and sorcery. The game boasts a fully-featured talent tree system that allows you to pour points into each of the three classes as you see fit. Right off the bat, I was drawn to the game’s massive broadswords, so initially I spent the majority of my points filling out the might tree. As I did so, it was incredibly rewarding to see my character evolve into this unbeatable warrior. Then I started dabbling in sorcery, improving the virulence of my flaming chalkarams. Just talking about it makes me eager to jump back into the game and tear into a few more enemies. Speaking of which, it is important to note that after completing the main quest, the game continues on, allowing you to go back, tie up unfinished side quests and continue to level up your character.

There is just so much to love about Kingdoms of Amalur. Its genre-elevating combat and gorgeous visual design are unparalleled and will undoubtedly be emulated in years to come. If you consider yourself a fan of RPGs – or even pure action games for that matter – you owe it to yourself to give this game a look. With Mass Effect 3 on the horizon and another eleven months of games, I really hope that this game doesn’t get overlooked and garners the recognition it deserves when it comes time for Game of the Year Awards. It really is that good.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Fun and rewarding combat system that outclasses nearly every other title in the role-playing genre. + The beautiful art design and engaging story will have you lost in the world of Amalur. - Occasional texture pop-in and frame-rate slowdown mars an otherwise super-polished experience.

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© Alex for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us

[Editor's Note: Review is of Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII-2, purchased at the expense of the reviewer. The reviewer lives in Japan and speaks/reads Japanese.]

A story that spends 20 hours causing headaches before turning its ship around, a soundtrack with a severe identity crisis, a jumping mechanic that can’t figure out how it wants to work, monster allies, maps that are no longer shoe strings, beautiful environments with opportunities to explore, an addicting level-up and customization system, time travel, and a heavy metal red Chocobo whose theme music will ask you “Are we in Hell?” This is Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Final Fantasy games have been highly divisive this last decade, and XIII was even more polarizing than usual. So you know your reviewer here, I thought Final Fantasy XIII had some good stuff going on, but ending up being an overall average affair. It had great things, it had some disappointments, but I found it to be worth playing, though it’s perfectly understandable why a lot of people didn’t. What’s sad is that Final Fantasy XIII-2 feels like over compensation, as if the developers tried to include way too much, the result of which forms a game largely without an identity of its own. There’s a lot of good in this game, but so much of it is smeared with other aspects that disappoint or underachieve.

Final Fantasy XIII-2‘s music is a big example of its identity crisis, with types of music that feel mismatched and don’t fit together to make a functional soundtrack. There’s props to be earned by visiting several musical styles within a game’s OST, but the selections rarely feel appropriate. Things get especially awkward when vocal pop-type tracks serve as the BGM for some towns and dungeons. From an orchestrated opening, to some remixes of the XIII soundtrack, right into some J-pop. While running around, looping vocalized songs provide thought-provoking lyrics such as “everything looks shiny.” That’s deep. Later in the game, the music does improve, thanks mostly to having these painfully bad vocal tracks show up less frequently. Some of it is actually some real, solid RPG music that makes one wonder where the heck this stuff was from the get go.

The same thing happens with the story. For about 20 hours, the convoluted plot and poor writing render this story almost unbearable, but then there are these glimmers of hope, these shining moments when one must — as with the music — ask all too late “Where have you been this whole time?” By the end, however, most of that even washes away as complete nonsense and over-the-top direction come back from lunch break.

This tale isn’t helped at all by the two main characters. Sora’s older brother in both stance and pants, Noel is sent by Lightning to protect Serah, and he immediately starts trying to stuff his huge ego into everything. He’s a boring character that is hard to care about. From his introductory moments until the end, he’s ripped right from any of a hundred manga franchises. His dialogue is predictable, and he spends all game being a prototypical anime jackass. Simply having bad things happen to you does not make you a good character. Even when the rest of the cast members are evolving, he isn’t, and it eventually leads to eye rolling and makes it hard to care about him late in the game. All of his lines are the same type spewed by characters like Snow (FFXIII), Naruto (Naruto), Avan (Valkyria Chronicles 2), and the other “I’m gonna be the hero!” toolshacks of anime and games. JRPGs and anime have provided some great characters, but Noel isn’t one of them. He could be used in a writing class as an example of a poorly made character.

Serah is a little better. At least, during the middle of the game, she comes around, she grows, we see some of what is called in the business, “character development.” It’s just tragic that it takes so bloody long. For the first half of this 40-hour game (excluding epilogue), however, she struggles. If you want the audience to care about making choices as a lead, you have to make us enjoy being in her shoes. Making most of Serah’s dialogue options brain-dead bimbo things like “I don’t understand what you’re saying!”, especially when what’s going on is perfectly understandable is a terrible decision. Even if the player doesn’t pick it, the fact that it was even a possibility suggests that it’s a thought that was floating around in Serah’s head. Worse, there are several conversation selections that specifically don’t include an intelligent response. Sorry, I don’t want to play as a character who repeatedly demonstrates her idiocy. Serah is constantly asking questions with the perfect inflection and tone which lets you know that behind that mouth of hers is a whole head full of air. Naturally, Noel is constantly mansplaining things with his infinite wisdom.

The tremendous value of subtlety is lost on writer/director Motomu Toriyama. Rather than allowing the player to see things unfold and understand them, the player is smacked over the head with unnecessary filler dialogue. Get ready to have your intelligence repeatedly insulted, sometimes directly, sometimes using Serah’s airheadedness as the vehicle. Things the player obviously understands will then be explained and re-explained, often through Serah asking stupid questions. And when the answer isn’t so obvious, or there appears to be a contradiction, Toriyama shrugs and goes “Um, whoops, uh, time paradox!” and calls it good. Proving that the claim of developers fixing all the problems with XIII was exaggerated, there are, once again, large story chunks that need to be read in plain text form. This might be the worst story in Final Fantasy history.

Mog is perhaps the best example of squandered opportunity and destruction of subtlety. What could have been a funny, cute, enjoyable side character is made into an overused one-note joke that inappropriately injects itself into nearly every conversation. Scaled back a little bit, and Mog’s comic relief could have been a great addition to the cast, but eventually his voice and antics get annoying because of just how overused they are. Most of Mog’s sound effects and shorter voice clips are recycled from Final Fantasy Type-0, which hasn’t come out in North America, so perhaps Square Enix is banking on you not noticing, but I did notice because fuck.

A jumping mechanic further demonstrates Final Fantasy XIII-2‘s multiple personalities. Players can tap O to jump at will, and on rare occasion, this will prove useful in exploration, but it’s fairly inconsistent. Sometimes she can leap right over a fence waist-high, but others, invisible walls hold her back from hopping something only up to her ankles. It’s random and sloppy. At other points, there are glowing circles in which Serah’s jump will launch her into a sort of automated sequence similar to what was done in XIII. Auto-jumping can work fine, manual jumping can work fine, but Final Fantasy XIII-2 uses a mish-mash of the two for no particular reason. For most of the game, there’s not much point to the manual jump, until the platform-loaded final dungeon. Why was there no other platforming before this point? If given enough attention, it may have opened up some neat possibilities. But there we are again with the main theme of FFXIII-2: not really focusing on one thing and doing it well, but struggling to include anything and everything that anyone could have ever liked.

Instead of feeling like its own game, Final Fantasy XIII-2 feels like Motomu Toriyama trying to show off to Tetsuya Nomura, as if to prove hey, “I can make a crazy game with no gravity and stuff, too!” We got used to the no-gravity thing in Advent Children, and you have to make allowances for video games — even more for ones that include time travel — but some scenes in FFXIII-2 are off-the-wall ridiculous. There’s so much going on, to the point all these extra backflips and flying and swooping aren’t badass anymore, they feel forced and lame. Just because it’s possible to make a big flashy scene doesn’t mean it makes the game better. Tone it down a notch.

In a lot of ways, this sequel doesn’t run with some of the things Final Fantasy XIII did well, most prominently the tension of the world. Certain story elements that promised good things in XIII are hardly given a passing reference in XIII-2. While there are NPCs to talk to, we very rarely see any real, everyman citizens of the world doing their thing. What’s the social climate of these worlds and time periods we’re visiting? We don’t know.

Not all promises of gameplay amendments were broken, however. Exploration makes a welcome return. Especially after its introductory stages (about 6 hours), Final Fantasy XIII-2 puts players into some big, beautiful areas that are genuinely interesting and fun to explore. One of the big drawbacks to XIII was that its characters were running around these graphically impressive, nicely designed areas that really only had one place to go and gave no reason to look around. Heck, looking around wasn’t even possible in most of the places. This sequel thankfully ditches that, for the most part. It’s not a genre pioneer or anything, but the game does contain lots of areas that feel very rewarding to check out in full. Players who do so will usually be rewarded with items, gate keys, and of course, a few more chances to fight.

Another element of Final Fantasy XIII turned almost completely around in XIII-2 is the linearity. Once time travel possibilities are opened, the player really gets a lot of control over where the team goes and when. Several areas might open up at once, so from the menu, there’s a big decision to make as to where to go. Each place and time period has its own consequences, story bits, and other reasons the group might wanna check it out, making the decision all the more exciting. One can even see several scenarios play out differently depending on decisions made, up to and including different endings, which can be quite good. This was one of the biggest things the first game lacked: the ability for a player to make his adventure at least somewhat unique from that of other players. It feels great to have the aspect back. Saying this is in part a knock against XIII and in part praise for XIII-2; while XIII‘s laughably small amount exploration and over linearity drew complaints, those aspects are completely revived in XIII-2. The utilization of time travel is done particularly well — so much so that it might even draw complaints from Chrono fans that this mechanic wasn’t saved for a third game in that series. The story itself is convoluted and silly, but wow is that time travel pulled off well. There’s some great post-ending content that allows the player to continue zipping all around time and space, finding new areas and making sure to explore the old ones to the fullest, which will not be easy.

For the most part, battles have remained the same as they were in FFXIII, the biggest change being summons swapped out for group attacks. The same combatant roles are there, and players can once again group them as they please to fit their play style. Changing strategies for certain boss fights is a necessity, and drawing up the battle plans now has an extra twist. The third party member is a captured monster. Any monster that the team captures (this is done automatically, by chance, after winning a battle) can become an ally and has one specific role. Players select three different monsters to have on board for battles and then configure their Paradigms. This is where the game can get really addictive for level-up fiends, as monsters make progress through use of items, the vast majority of which can only be found after battles. Wanna get that next little smidge of statistical progress for your monster buddy? That’ll be two items. Another level will be two more. It’s strangely engaging to be constantly checking on the monster’s stats and wondering if another beast in the group could potentially prove more useful than one of the three in your main group, improving your little dudes a small step every handful of battles. Final Fantasy XIII did have some super cute enemies as well as a few badasses, so having them along for the ride, while probably sounding awful to some people, is surprisingly fun.

That right there is where Final Fantasy XIII-2 does truly shine. The gears of a great RPG are really there. It’s got a good progress system, Square Enix managed to create a leveling scheme in conjunction with a combat system that feels satisfying to play and to work through, and it’s easy to be excited about getting those new bits of loot to upgrade your favorite monster. Couple that with the gorgeous environments the party gets to explore and the framework is there for something great.

Making multiple saves per playthrough is odd in Final Fantasy XIII-2, as it can only be done in the Historia Crux menu, not in the field or town. Saving while exploring simply prompts an autosave that overwrites the previous file. If you’re wanting to compare the effectiveness of a certain character in a certain role or see if spending your monster items on Cait Sith is actually worth your time, you’re stuck with the inconvenience of having to exit the area, save, then re-enter the area of your choice, which can seem a little bit jerky and interfere with the flow of the otherwise fast battling and leveling. The Historia Crux causes an autosave of its own, and other autosaves happen before most story sequences. How many of us have multiple save files of our favorite JRPG, that were created along a singular play? People like to do that, so it being this oddly planned by including so much loading feels strange. (Update: This system is available for creating new saves in the Japanese version of the game, but at this time, stateside reviewers with pre-release copies are claiming that there is no way to create multiple save files. NA version comments cannot yet be confirmed, though the criticism of the Japanese version remains.)

Those who despised Final Fantasy XIII have no reason to even attempt the sequel; those that did should take it as highly recommended. If you play RPGs with your focus on plot, characters, and storytelling, you’re probably best to drop this game off your radar, unless you’re cool with it taking 20 hours to get good. If you play it for interesting progress systems and combat, it becomes interesting close to the five-hour mark and for the most part, holds its own. It’s a hard game to review, because you’re gonna get sacks of hatemail no matter what. Praise this game and you’re “contributing to the downfall of the series,” slam it and “you just didn’t get it, man.” Millions of people will fall very passionately on both sides of this one. For me, Final Fantasy XIII-2 lands right smack in the middle.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Lightning-fast battle system with a highly addictive growth interface. + Monster allies and the time travel system are awesome. - Perhaps the worst story in Final Fantasy history. -Keeps on switching what type of game it wants to be, inconsistently directed.

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© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 73 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Thanks to its dungeon-crawling and loot-packing emphasis, isometric camera, and somewhat detached story, Dungeon Hunter will bring about comparisons to the PC’s Diablo. Perhaps more appropriately, given how much better these games usually are in multiplayer modes than single player, it should be compared to a few PS2 games such as Champions of Norrath or to a lesser extent Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows. No one will be telling their kids about Alliance‘s tale of the great king resurrected by a fairy who came back to reclaim his crown, and in the months and years to come, you won’t see it popping up in “Best of…” features. Just the same, it does have its niche, and for those people, it could provide a good experience. For most people, however, this is a game with little to no appeal.

Not much has changed in the move from PS3 (via PSN) to PS Vita. PlayStation Move implementation has been replaced with touchscreen features. Most prominently, dragging one’s finger across the back panel can aim the player’s fairy helper. This isn’t the only way to do that, as the right analog stick does that same thing, if you’d prefer. It’s nice that it’s not mandatory, because it’s hard to make it work well, especially in the heat of battle. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same game. Still only three characters, and they’re still all dudes, same story, same…virtually everything.

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is a simple title in which the goal is generally to slice one’s way to the end of a dungeon, take down a powerful boss, and call it a day. As expected of a game like this, enemies will drop all sorts of items, some of which will prove useful, but most of which will end up being sold for a few coins back in the village. Upon leveling up, characters are given a few points which they can distribute as they please, adding a nice, addictive element to the progress scheme. There is a certain excitement to watching that level progress bar go up little by little, and grindaholics might find themselves addicted to the cycle of fighting and growing, fighting and growing, time out to buy and sell stuff, fighting and growing….

Enemies attack in great numbers in DH: Alliance, so there’s no shortage of challenge, especially in a single player run. They might not always have the strength to compete with your hero, but that’s more than made up for when there’s like 17 of them simultaneously charging one of you. There is a certain thrill to surviving a swarm like that, multiplied greatly for those lucky enough to have a friend or two playing alongside. Boss battles provide good thrills as well. They’ve got strong, diverse attacks and never go down easily. There’s no shame in getting beaten once in a while in DH:A, and in a group, I’d suppose it would serve as a lead in to those post-fight conversations that always begin with “Duuuuude.”

Dungeon Hunter is ugly. It’s not just visually unsatisfying in the way that some old games don’t seem to look as sharp as we remember them upon replay, and it’s not just a decent-looking game that falls short of the system’s most stunning graphic displays; no, quite simply, it looks bad. Inside the dungeons or out about in town, there is this constant blurriness, as if the screen has a giant smudge across it. Characters, whether friendly or hostile, will all have one thing in common: a blurry face. Indoor locations have a way of looking especially samey. You won’t get lost in the directional sense, but you won’t get lost in the immersion sense either. New games can look dated and still look good. Nippon Ichi’s ClaDun is a great example of this; its 8-bit look has charm, the player has no trouble telling what’s what, and the environments provide variety. But in Dungeon Hunter, the textures are weird, the most elaborate spell effects aren’t that great, and there’s nothing that stands out as looking even acceptable.

The PS3 version might have gotten away with this, since it was a PSN download-only title for a budget-friendly price of $15, but in Japan, this puppy is selling for 3,000 yen in shops and 2,400 yen in the PSN store (about $40 and $32, respectively). American retailers have the Vita version of this listed for $40 US. With the PS3 version being 15 bones, this version coming along almost a year later should have been no more than $12, and even that might be a tad high. When we’re talking about a re-rehash an iOS title, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance isn’t doing the Vita many favors by appearing in 2012 as a $40 game. In a world where handhelds such as the Vita and 3DS are struggling to convince a certain horde of millions of people that they are superior gaming machines than cellphones, what kind of message does that send?

PS Vita’s version of Dungeon Hunter seems even less relevant when considering that it’s virtually a direct port of the PSN version, which wasn’t too much better than the cellphone version. There are no big changes that would entice older fans of the game to drop money on it a second or third time. The people dedicated enough to want to form a multiplayer group have already done so on another platform, and spending hundreds more dollars to do it again just seems illogical and unlikely.

At the very least, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance does have a niche to satisfy, and it’s at least nice to have some option for a multiplayer RPG right at the Vita’s launch. It’s very disappointing that it had to be nearly a direct port of a game that’s been on PSN for almost a year, and the iPhone/iPod for much longer. If you and your friend or whoever are already planning on getting Vitas, getting this game, and diving head first into some dungeons, don’t let this review stop you; get in there and start the hack-and-slash marathon, because you’ll probably have some good fun with it. Should Gameloft decide to develop a Dungeon Hunter title for the Vita from the ground up, that could really be something to watch, as there’s obviously tons of untapped potential lurking behind Alliance.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Nice to have an option for a multiplayer RPG on Vita; this one in particular has big waves of enemies and challenging bosses. +/- Virtually the same as the PS3 version…for double the price. - Boring, shallow, ugly, generic, and not as well put together as other dungeon-crawlers out there.

© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us

As the title suggests, players take the role of Zen, who is on a quest for — wait for it — revenge. One works toward this goal by accepting missions from his own ally or one-off contract jobs for any of three warlords locked in battle against each other. Choose carefully, because the story will be affected by which jobs are taken. Mission objectives can include assassination, prisoner liberation, bodyguard duty, kidnapping, delivery of goods, theft, and fending off bears, though the huge majority of them come with the goal of defeating all enemies in the given area. Taking place in a small corner of an island nation, the number of areas is a little bit limited, though they always look beautiful (much more so on the PSV’s OLED screen than in screenshots). Characters and environments are always smooth, colorful when they need to be, yet dark when it fits. Beyond the visuals themselves, the animations are often done very well, especially the ways the dead bodies of Zen’s foes end up falling.

The environments aren’t the only pretty thing in Revenge of Zen, as the game is an audio delight, too. The music always captures the intensity of the moment, usually fading easily into the background, hardly noticeable — perfect for a stealth game. When Zen is spotted, however, the intensity of the music matches the increased heart rate of the player, adding layers to the experience. Sound effects are all done very well to boot.

Stealth is essential for success in Shinobido 2, especially after the first few hours when enemies start to toughen up. The value of remaining unseen, enabling Zen (and a later-appearing character) to get behind foes and perform that clutch one-hit kill cannot be understated. Staying hidden and waiting for the perfect moment to strike stays exciting all game long, adding to an already high addiction factor. Players who run head-on into missions just wanting to sword fight everyone will be seeing a lot of Mission Failed screens. Though there are boss battles that require ferocious combat, this is by no means the fix for hack-n-slash addicts.

The character who completes the given quest will get EXP and eventually level up, after which the player chooses how to spend the earned upgrade points. Level grind addicts beware, this game can suck you in. With so many missions, so many ninja tools, and a fully customizable level-up system, it’s easy to lose yourself playing Shinobido 2 and find hours feeling like minutes. The thought of “just one more mission” or “I’ll go to bed after I get one more level up” will be recurring ideas in many play sessions.

Progress is largely up to the player, as one can lean towards missions that will move the story toward a conclusion or opt to continuously do missions for all three warlords. Every mission completed has an impact on future ones. For example, taking a few quests that harm a given group’s food supply will hurt the morale and mindset of that group. In another battle against those guys, their soldiers will be more likely to fall for traps that involve food, like poisoned fish. Lay it in the path of a sentry, watch him consume it with delight, and enjoy your kill. So long as you’re not picking quests that will cause the story to move forward new quests appear seemingly infinite, allowing players to really make their shinobi something amazing.

Shinbido has a ton of depth. Even in addition to the pile of available missions, faction playing, and ability to customize Zen’s growth, there’s an alchemy system in place. By gathering items during missions or purchasing them, players can mix all sorts of combos to make some really wicked ninja tools. If it’s not your cup of tea, that’s totally fine, as the game can definitely be played in its entirety without ever getting into the alchemy. Use of these awesome ninja tools can open up new strategies for players and enable different ways of going about achieving Zen’s goals, adding to the replay value and longevity of Shinobido 2.

But Shinobido 2 isn’t all stealth kills and giddy level-up based endorphin releases. At the risk of sounding too blunt, the Artificial Intelligence programming is bad. Someone did a sloppy job with this. Most enemies that see Zen and are even hit right in the face with a shuriken will only pursue him for a few yards before giving up. Some might even stand still and get peppered to death by projectiles. Especially in the game’s first eight hours or so, common enemies can be engaged in a fight against Zen, but then they’ll sit and watch as he runs 20 feet away and hides around a corner. The rate at which enemies drop their guard and go back to being wholly unaware of Zen’s presence is laughable. Imagine getting punched by some punk, then watching him simply duck behind a bush where you can still plainly see him. You’re either going to call for help, run to an entirely different place, or attack that mofo, but the usual scenario in Shinobido 2 would be for you to say “Show yourself!” and stay in the same spot going about your business. They will opt for those other possibilities at times, but it didn’t feel like enough.

On the upside, rival ninjas have a bit more speed and will pursue Zen longer than the common foot soldiers, and over time, most enemies do gradually get a little more diligent in their pursuits. The good part of this is that it does do a nice job of illustrating the learning curve and difficulty balance, which are very well done. Tutorial missions are done well and serve their purpose without being boring, and all through the game, there will be a good flow of new types of enemies as well as the old ones getting a little stronger, despite not really getting smarter.

The best demonstration of the horrendous AI is in protection missions. Tasked with guarding the life of a VIP, Zen will be expected to aid the character and his/her bodyguards in holding off waves of attackers. Several problems arise, including allies running to nonsensical locations and much more annoyingly, attacking the wrong guy. Ally fighters, including the man/woman being protected, are just as likely to attack Zen or even attack each other. The player might attempt to make life easier for a struggling ally by getting behind the enemy and going for a stealth kill, only to have the move thwarted mid-animation by the flying sword of the very ally he was trying to help. This will not only damage Zen, but it releases the enemy that would have been dead otherwise. Get ready for it to happen all the time in escort missions, and it never gets any less frustrating or surprising when they do it. Allied combatants are just as much of a danger to Zen and his objectives as the enemies in most of these stages.

Incompetent ally AI doesn’t end with stabbing the leader, though. I played a mission that at one point seemed to require the VIP to go up some stairs, but the catch was that she physically couldn’t. I had to get behind her and keep running back and forth until Zen pushed her upwards with some graphic overlap. Until I did, she was walking on an invisible treadmill. See the screenshot. While not dominated by it, the game is littered this stuff, which will turn some players off.

This game relies on buttons exclusively for menu navigation, but during quests, uses Vita’s touch features pretty well. Placing a finger on the rear touch panel will bring up a cursor, then moving it around is how players will aim their grappling hook and anything else they may want to throw, with the launch being done via a manually mapped d-pad button. Things take a lot of getting used to and at times can be imprecise; this in tandem with the occasionally uncooperative camera will frustrate some gamers. The camera is mostly controlled by the player, and while one can swing it around or reset at any time, things can get chaotic in the heat of battle. All the more reason to stay in the shadows, yes, but the amount of time it takes for Shinobido‘s controls to become second nature will draw complaints from some gamers.

Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen is not a game for mainstream-only gamers. That’s not said with insult or anything, it’s a simple statement that this is not the AAA, huge-budget release with system-pushing graphics and mass market appeal that will sell millions and win awards. It’s just not. What it is, is a fun stealth game with tons of depth, innovative use of Vita tech, and some very interesting systems. If you’re not often the guy in your circle of friends that plays games other people have never heard of, this might not be for you. Shinobido 2 delivers on a level comparable to the Tenchu series in that it’s not the most polished thing in the world, but provides a fun stealth/ninja experience; in the case of this game, better and more addicting than handheld Tenchu titles. It’s not for the main crowd, but Shinobido 2 is a fine game.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Depth way beyond expectations; can easily keep you busy for hours. + Looks and sounds fantastic (better than screenshots). - Embarrassingly bad AI; imprecise controls/camera take a lot of getting used to.

© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Gameplay is the same good old fun it’s always been as players roll a giant ball called a “Katamari” around, usually trying to make it as big as possible within a time limit, but sometimes shooting for alternative goals, depending on the stage. There’s always been appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers in this series, and Touch My Katamari maintains the high level of accessible, fun play sessions. Rolling up the contents of a room, a house, or a whole town is fun and comical.

A change from past installments of the series is that time limits seem a little on the low end, perhaps in an effort to keep this portable game as travel-friendly as possible. Since the time limit can be seen from the selection menu, however, I don’t see why there couldn’t be at least a couple of longer levels, and I say this as someone who does a lot of PSP and Vita gaming on trains and buses. Even the final level — longest in the game — only comes with an eight-minute countdown, so exciting-yet-grueling tasks such as Katamari Damacy‘s 20-minute quest to make the moon will not be matched by anything in Touch My Katamari. Longtime fans will feel something lacking while newcomers won’t know what they’re missing.

In that way as well as others, Touch is better suited for first-time Katamari players than series veterans. While both can find something to enjoy, longtime fans will likely feel too much familiarity here, not just limited to the gameplay style. The stages look extremely familiar — good, but familiar. It’s fine, even expected, for some of them to look similar, but too many of these are dang near carbon copies of levels from the first pair of PS2 games; we’ve played these before. Mission objectives are similarly repetitive — not just within the game itself, but repeats of games past. Cleaning up the bedroom and getting as big as possible without rolling up a cow are just some levels that look and feel almost identical to their console forefathers. Including them is okay, but there should have been more new material than what we get in Touch My Katamari. The final level, fun as it may be, is unfortunately one of very few levels TMK can claim as its own.

Controls have been improved for the Vita, especially compared to the touchscreen-only iOS version and single-stick PSP game Me & My Katamari. The right stick now controls the camera exclusively, while the left stick rolls the Katamari. Proper touches of the either of the two screens can stretch it wide to pick up more things quickly in an open area, or make the Katamari tall and skinny so as to maneuver through tight spaces. A simple tap on the back panel can restore the ball to its regular shape, making this the best-handling Katamari game in the whole series, once you spend a level or two getting used to it. With those, plus the new ability to tap through dialogue and use of the R button to bounce up to higher elevations, it might even be tough to go back to older games after playing TMK. That’s one of few aspects that will please old fans more than new ones.

The Vita’s Katamari uses its system’s tech well without getting too crazy. While players can do the aforementioned stretching and tapping to make their lives easier, one could feasibly get by without using the feature. The end credits features a neat minigame that utilizes the PSV’s tilt capabilities wonderfully, making me wonder what other possibilities there could be for future games of this brand.

TMK features a candy collection system. Through playing the various stages, the Prince will collect pieces of candy which can be used to buy new music tracks and pieces of flair for the King of All Cosmos. I gave mine a top hat and monocle. The candy can be used to unlock Drive Mode (super speed) and Eternal Mode (no time limit) as well. These have to be purchased individually for each stage and can cost quite a bit. Collection is a nice addition, but getting anywhere with it will require a massive amount of replaying the same small number of stages over and over. You need to do a lot of replaying to up the replay value, which is something of a paradox.

Technical aspects are decent, not really adding to TMK or taking away from it in any major way. Visually, it’s about what one would expect of a Katamari title. It’s colorful, bright, cute, and very welcoming. This is the type of game that doesn’t need system-taxing visuals to achieve greatness, so with its familiar look, the game easily succeeds. Most of this game’s music is the type the series has been known for, but it’s taken a small step down in quality. There are a few good tracks and several that have that Katamari feel to them, but most of the music lacks the zip and memorability of the earlier games’ material.

In between successful missions, players will often be treated to rather amusing videos of Goro the Slacker, a hardcore otaku (super-introverted game/anime nerd) struggling to turn his life around and become a functional member of society. These are well animated and genuinely funny, and you just might find yourself looking forward to new ones with a pre-emptive smile.

To be clear, Touch My Katamari is a good game. The King of All Cosmos is still hilarious after all these years and the gameplay is satisfying overall. If you’ve never played a Katamari game before, Touch My Katamari comes highly recommended. Right along with Hot Shots Golf, it’s a low-risk Vita launch title that most newcomers would be pleasantly surprised with. I’ve enjoyed the Katamari franchise since the PS2 era and TMK is overall yet another good game. But with copied levels and the ability to be finished in a single day, TMK feels short, barely complete, and in some ways, more familiar than a sequel should. There’s just a little bit less of everything in comparison to most of the previous games. If you’ve never played one of these games in the past, start here for sure; if you’ve got experience, still consider it, but don’t set your expectations too high in the cosmos.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + That patented Katamari fun, now with better control than ever. +/- Better for series newcomers than longtime fans. - Katamari veterans have played many of these exact stages before, and several aspects don’t live up to previous entries.

© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us

The NFL Blitz series is known as an in-your-face, arcade style smash ‘em up that has always held the rulebook in blatant disregard, and this newest installment is no different. I mean that in the best way possible, of course.

The latest release returns to its true NFL roots in name only, and sticks to the old school style of arcade play. Don’t be looking for zebras on the field, unless they are unlockable fantasy characters. The announcers stick to old school Blitz commentary that range from tacky to down right funny. The players use real names, jerseys and numbers, and there is a striking similarity to their real NFL counterparts. That similarity ends once you look at the body build of each player. All of them are basically body building beasts with cartoonish body ratios. Tony Romo looks like he hit the juice and the gym and worked only on his upper body. Everyone is freakishly the same, and all can toss a ball carrier 10 yards on a whim. The gameplay is very entertaining, albeit cartoonish. This is by no means Madden, and it never tries to be, but it does do a great job at being an arcade style football game.

Each team has its own stadium, and some stadiums look similar to their real counterparts. You can see Minnesota’s inflatable ceiling and you can see the open ends of the stadium in the House That Jerry Built. The surroundings really aren’t all that important in an arcade style game, but they did attempt to give each team their own stadium. They all look vaguely similar, but then again your focus will be on that the gridiron and not on the fans in the stands. The stadium graphics are never hard on the eyes, they just may not look exactly like the real thing.

Those that have played Blitz games in the past will find the gameplay familiar. It’s a 7-on-7 match up that is both fast paced and flag free. There are no rules, so there are no referees. First and 10 has become first and 30, and that seems like a big task until you start throwing the ball around. Completions of 25 yards aren’t exceptional, they are expected. Your running game will be non-existent but a 600 yard passing game will more than make up for it. One thing to remember, there are no refs so there’s no such thing as pass interference. That one aspect is what will keep you from having a 900 yard passing game. Your receiver will start to reach up for a catch and the defender will level him. The ball will fly on by and end up, hopefully, on the turf. No flag, no foul. The beauty of this is that it’s a two-way street.

Tackling animations look painfully life threatening at times, but are usually fun to watch. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a few tackles that would be considered legal wrestling takedowns in a WWE game. There are no injuries to worry about, but you will see players getting up limping, shaking their heads, or holding body parts. Tackling can also help your guys on offense because the ball is placed where you land, and when some guy is swinging your receiver around like a rag doll, he might just land in the end zone. Forward progress is also used, so while knocking a guy backwards 15 yards might be fun, it isn’t really rewarded.

There is a turbo button that can give your player a boost of speed, but it runs out pretty quickly unless your team is On Fire. When you’re on ‘F-I- er’ your boost is unlimited and your team is almost unstoppable. Once on fire, your players will move faster and hit harder. Being on fire adds a great aspect to the arcade style, and the commentary can be quite entertaining.

NFL Blitz can be played online or off. Offline, you can jump into a quick game against the CPU or a friend with a 2nd controller, or you can try to run the Blitz Gauntlet, a tier-based mode similar to Mortal Kombat. You’ll face off against 3 separate teams, then go up against a boss in Blitz Stadium. Blitz stadium is the only one that has power-ups on the field that you can turbo through and pick up. These power-ups can freeze time or instantly put you on fire. Once you defeat a boss, you can then use them in-game either as an individual or an entire team. You’ll have to run the gauntlet at least 6 times in order to beat all of the bosses. The Gauntlet can get a little repetitive, and having to run the gauntlet 6 separate times to unlock all of the bosses is a bit much.

While playing offline can be a little weak, online is where this game shines. Online modes for NFL Blitz consist of head-to-head match-ups and Blitz Teams. Head-to-head will pit you against either someone on your friends list or a random opponent. You can also play online co-op with a friend sitting beside you or an online friend. Online co-op is also used for Blitz Teams. You can create and customize your co-op teams with logos and banners. You can then work together to win games and earn points. Leaderboards for each state and region, called Battle Boards, track your progress. Reaching the top of a Battle Board, either as an individual or a Blitz Team, gives you the option to defend your title or retire to the Hall of Fame. I could see the online community for this game sticking around for some time.

For those that enjoy card based style of game play, Elite League is available. You are given a random basic set of cards and can earn Blitz Bucks by playing online against other players across all online modes. These bucks can then be used to purchase more card packs to build a better team with. You can play head to head with your card team for points and bucks, or play Risk and Reward to try to earn a rare card from your opponent. This is basically a wager match where the winner keeps the card risked. Wagers matches like this aren’t usually found in online sports games, and are a welcome addition. Your win-loss record might not mean all that much, but a Barry Sanders or Joe Montana player’s card might make you try considerably harder.

NFL Blitz returns to its true arcade roots almost completely. The game isn’t looking to replace the Madden series, its creators are only out to give gamers another option for playing NFL football. The offline mode can get tiresome, but the online modes are enough to keep arcade gamers busy for some time. If you are looking for some fast paced, almost arena football style of game play, check this title out. At only $14.99, it provides good over-the-top fun at a price that won’t empty your wallet.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Former Blitz fans will love it +/- Real NFL Players, but they all feel the same - Offline mode is weak

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© Louis Edwards for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

The original Trine was one of the best downloadable games of 2009. Featuring head-scratching puzzles, entertaining platforming and fun fights, it was clear from the start that developer Frozenbyte had a hit on their hands. Its sequel was released just before the Christmas holiday (for North America, anyway), which is of course the perfect time to slay goblins and dragons. Can the Trine strike twice? We’ll find out in our review.

The game begins sometime after the events of the first Trine, and we join our three heroes as they are adjusting back to their normal lives. No heroes could stay out of action for long, and before we know it, Amadeus the wizard, Zoya, a thief and Pontius the knight are called back for another glorious adventure.

Fans of the original Trine will feel right at home here, since the controls have not changed at all. One big difference lies in the complete absence of the energy bar, which means that you can lift objects as the wizard as long as you want, which has its advantages and drawbacks, especially in multiplayer. The platforming remains the same in Trine 2 as well, which is to say it still requires an exacting jumping method. Miss your jump by a few inches and you won’t make a clearing, and your character will be sent plunging towards the ground or worse. But you will probably learn the game’s jumping mechanics quickly, and adapt to its quirks.

This is one of the best-looking downloadable games money can buy. The environment oozes with fantasy, and Trine 2‘s gigantic enemies such as snails and dragons wouldn’t look out of place in a fairytale book. The frame rate maintains stable throughout the adventure, even when playing with the maximum of three human players, which is arguably one of the the most fun ways to experience Trine 2 (more on that later). There are all sorts of fitting magical effects when firing weapons, when enemies attack, and whenever the environment is being interacted with. If you want to show off great fantasy graphics to a friend, this is the game to do it with. Audio is also fitting here, with a light fantasy touch on the soundtrack and sound effects.

Trine 2 just begs to be played with more than one player. With three main characters who often have to work together to tackle the forest’s puzzles, the game can get formidably challenging when playing alone. Add even one additional person, and the game becomes incredibly easy, to a fault in fact. Most challenges can be overcome using the wizard to conjure up a box, position another player on said box, and move the box with the wizard again to get up a cliff or over a gap. Since there is no more energy bar to stop you from constantly moving objects in this game, it feels a bit like cheating but at least speeds up progress.

Speaking of progress, Trine 2 does not try to impede yours. If you’re at a particularly brain-scratching puzzle and cannot solve it with one or two characters, you can “respec” the experience points you have earned so far to obtain new abilities on the fly. For example, some of the wizard’s higher-level powers include creating floating platforms, but it takes quite a few experience points to get there. Simply take some points from the knight or thief, re-apply them to the wizard, and carry on your merry way. The game doesn’t really explain this, and you have to figure it out on your own. While some people may not like this crutch, I enjoy the trial by experimentation route of discovering new solutions.

Fans of the first Trine should pick this game up without hesitation. It gives you more of the wonderful mix of platforming and puzzles that make you feel clever once you solve them. Trine 2 becomes incredibly easy when working with two or more people, however the game is so fun when playing in multiplayer that you don’t really care about the wizard being able to bypass puzzles completely. The story is an enjoyable light affair, and you could not ask for a better looking game, disc-based or not. It’s not a huge step up from the first game, but rather just more of the same great fun.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Wonderfully crafted world. The small details draw you in. + Co-op is now online, which works seamlessly. - Puzzles can become laughably easy with unlimited energy. Some aspects of the game are not explained.

© Paulmichael Contreras for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Once Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational is in your hands, it’s easy to see why this is Japan’s best-selling Vita game so far: pure fun.

If you’ve played any Hot Shots Golf game before, you’ll feel right at home upon your first swing. If you haven’t, worry not, because this is still a highly accessible game for practically anyone. This has always been a great series for all comers, including those who don’t even like golf. World Invitational keeps this up, being realistic enough to still be a golf game, but definitely more on the arcade side of things, as it’s been these last 13 years. As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The method of taking a shot hasn’t changed for this game, though there are some new minor tweaks and additions. Players can select from a variety of ways to hit the ball, for example. In the past, you’d hit a button to start the cursor moving along a power meter, hit it once for your power and when the cursor came back into a smaller meter, hit it again to determine your accuracy. That system can still be selected, but there are a few others that become available, which some players might prefer. Working to find what combination of character, clubs, and hit gauge works best is one of many fun experiments the player gets to mess around with while playing this.

World Invitational doesn’t use the front touch panel very much, but the rear touch panel can be used before taking a shot, to see exactly how far away certain spots are from the character. One can also tilt the Vita to get a better look at the ground and things. The technology is new and these features are neat, but they’re not game changers; I rarely use them and do just fine. In this way, it’s great for the hardcore who really wanna get into the new tech and are more into golf, but also stays quite friendly to the newcomer and the casual player.

While the consensus at launch time will likely be that Uncharted: Golden Abyss has the overall best graphics on the Vita, I’d submit for consideration that Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational might do the best job of showing off the high quality of the Vita’s screen. Its color palette is bright and perfectly chosen, its textures look good, and even with the system on the lowest brightness settings, World Invitational seems to illuminate the room. The series has always had a cartoonish charm about it and has never looked bad at all, but this entry really turns it up, and I can’t get over how good it looks. If you want to get a quick look at Vita’s best visuals, check out Uncharted, Virtua Tennis 4 and Hot Shots Golf.

Courses are well designed and look good, the designers did a great job of making the courses increasingly complex while not ridiculous. And since it’s a video game, they can get a lot more varied than the more realistic PGA-type golf games. You’ll always be excited to unlock a new course and see where in the world it takes you.

Gamers can play alone, against a local friend, online against PSN buddies, or online against the world in one of the Daily Tournaments. Single-player is smooth and efficient. Aside from the personal challenges, the player no longer watches the CPU characters make their plays. Players will take their shots, put it in the hole, see their score, and then see the overall score card which has their name as well as the simulated scores of 19 AI opponents. This seemed odd at first, but just getting the score at the end is enough, and after some play time in World Invitational, there’s no going back. It’s much more efficient this way and just as functional as before.

Completing rounds in both single player and online will earn the player some shopping points as well as affection for whichever character was used. Just as it was in the PSP entries of the series, spending the points in the shop on the myriad of clubs, golf balls, outfits, and other trinkets that become available is a fun little bonus.

Daily Tournaments are done well. It’s a bit of a hassle the way the online pass is set up, and I never even expected such a system on a portable to begin with, but after the code input, the online play is easily accessible and fun.

Players begin said online play by selecting which tournament (usually out of three) they want to play, and as they progress through, they’ll see where their score ranks in comparison with the thousands who’ve played the course already. For example, you’ll see that you’re number 2,904 out of 4,100 going into the fifth hole, but then double bogey and your butt drops to 3,797. Birdie the next hole and you might jump up to 3,210, and so on. It’s all very neat to watch as it unfolds during your run through the course.

There’s more to the online experience than just the tournaments, though. Players can customize a cutesy little avatar and walk around in the Visual Lobby and talk to fellow players, which almost becomes a different game in itself. The Japanese version of the keyboard uses Romaji converted into autofill options for the player to select, which works well enough. Where it runs into trouble is that the messages appear as speech bubbles above the characters, but only loom there for five seconds. This means some players might miss messages while they’re typing, as the keyboard takes up the whole screen. If you’ve even chatted with someone on any online program, you know that sometimes a message will appear while you’re typing. Just the same, the Visual Lobby serves its purpose in letting players meet, chat a little bit, create PSN friends, and move things towards the course. Lobby avatars can of course be decked out with unlockables. Elsewhere online, one can regularly check the leaderboards to find out who has spent way too much time on this.

The one problem I’ve found with the game is that sometimes it puts the player in a helpless position on the green. For example, if a player is 9 meters away from the hole, the character will be able to equip the putter and only the putter, which is fine most of the time. But about once per course, there will also be an incline to the putt which is impossible to overcome. Normally, if you have to putt uphill, you of course balance that out by adding more power to your swing, but if the putter is showing a maximum range of 10 meters and the hole is 9 meters away…that’s not happening if you’ve got a big incline. You have literally no chance of making that shot. You would actually have a better chance of making it if you were further away, because then the game would actually let you switch clubs and try for a chip-in. It’s a little bit frustrating when this happens, but in a game as lighthearted as Hot Shots Golf, it doesn’t diminish the experience much.

Hot Shots Golf is overall an outstanding game, bursting with fun, and enjoyable by gamers of all demographics. It’s great to play at home or on the go, alone or online, in short bursts or for several hours. To anyone picking up a Vita at launch, via import, or later down the road, you can’t go wrong in grabbing Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational along with it.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Same brand of arcade-type, fun, just plain awesome golf this series is known for. + Beautifully put together, shows off Vita’s tech while not making it mandatory. - Putting problems

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© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us

In 2005, Sony made a bold move: It went up against Nintendo in the handheld market. While so many others before them had failed miserably to gain any ground against the creators of the GameBoy, Sony, at the time, was the current reigning champion in the home console space and best poised to find success.

And success they found with the PlayStation Portable, selling over 70 million units to date. Still, in comparison, Nintendo’s DS doubled those sales numbers in the same timeframe – Nintendo still wears the portable crown.

The PSP, while extremely popular in Japan, fizzled out in North America far too early. Around the same time, sales of smartphones surged, bringing a somewhat unexpected contender into the fold. Now, Sony has launched their next generation portable, the PlayStation Vita. Competition is more fierce than ever – smartphones are a go to escape for casual gamers, on a device that everyone has in their pockets anyway, and the 3DS, while starting off slow is picking up steam and echoing the success of the DS. Is the PlayStation Vita strong enough to fend them off and make a name for itself?

Without a doubt, yes. The media is already spouting doom and gloom for the PlayStation Vita. If only they had the device in their hands before they spoke. From the second you pick it up you can tell that the Vita is an impressive piece of hardware. Most notably, the stunning 5″ OLED screen. If a picture is worth a thousand words the picture quality on the Vita is worth a million. iPhone’s Retina Display be damned. The screen is big, it’s bright, it’s crisp, and it’s capable of displaying near PS3 quality graphics.

The PlayStation Vita is the portable gaming device people have been asking for since the PSP released. Users begged for a second analog stick, and while they had a long time to wait, Sony listened, and here it is. The analog sticks aren’t sliding “circle pads” found on the PSP and 3DS, these are honest-to-goodness analog sticks. Tiny, yes, but they perform exactly like a DualShock 3 sans the L3/R3 click. The days of using the PSP’s face button as a camera or to strafe are gone, no gigantic “circle pad” attachment necessary. The analog sticks are there from the get-go.

But even with the addition of quality analog control, much of the Vita can be controlled using the OLED touchscreen. In fact, the entire menu is controlled using touch only – no buttons at all. In games, the multi-touch screen is used in a variety of ways. Touch controls are intuitive, even the youngest of children understand the cause and effect of touching a button on a smartphone – something that surely helped the widespread acceptance of video games by mainstream casual users. The Vita has that easy accessibility built-into it.

Unique to the PlayStation Vita is the rear touch-panel. It acts just like the front touchscreen does, except your fingers aren’t in the way, blocking the action. The rear touchpad is also multi-touch, adding up to eight more points of input on the devices; think of it like more buttons. The uses for the rear touch-panel aren’t as clear as the touchscreen or face buttons, but developers are already finding interesting and exciting ways to implement it into their games. There is one caveat, however, it takes getting used to. Not because it’s awkward to use, but instead because on our phones, on our controllers, and on past handhelds it hasn’t been there, so your fingers may be prone to rest on the outer edge of the pad. If there’s random unexplainable movement in a menu or in-game, your fingers are probably grazing the back of the Vita. After a week it’s second nature, and to help, Sony had included oval-shaped indentations on the back of the Vita for your fingers to rest without interference from the touch-panel. This, like so many other features proves that the PlayStation Vita is a well thought-out machine.

Less exciting than all of the fancy new bells and whistles are the standard D-pad and triangle, square, X, and circle face buttons. They’re significantly smaller than the PSP’s or what is found on the Dualshock – the tip of your thumb can cover each of them entirely – but the buttons are raised enough that controls are never hindered. Their positioning is directly above the analog sticks which can make it difficult to use the stick and press face buttons at the same time. Luckily, this was thought of too and many games will feature secondary touch-buttons on the right side corner of the OLED screen. Then there’s shoulder buttons. They’re nicely rounded and made out of a clear plastic. Nothing too much to note here.

The Vita itself doesn’t feel like the same tank that the PSP was. Despite being larger by just a smidgen, it’s lighter. It’s sturdy and well-built, something you find with all Sony products, but it doesn’t feel like it would survive a bad drop. There’s no separation for the screen, the entire front face of the device is a glossy, glassy, plastic material, which collects dust and fingerprints like a magnet. The rear touch-panel is made of the same material. The Vita appears to be a more refined execution of the original PSP’s design – it’s a perfectly rounded oval.  Best of all, it’s armed to the teeth with tech.

There are a few complaints. The doors covering the game slots are a bitch to get open, and the flaps holding it into the device seem weak and flimsy. But so it did on the PSP’s memory card slot, and that never broke on me. The memory cards themselves – namely the cost – and the one PSN account per system thing put a damper on what otherwise would be a mostly flaw-free device. The camera is lacklustre as well. But I attribute this to two things: One being the fact that we’re so spoiled by high megapixel cameras coming equipped on our phones, and two being that it’s a shame to see the pictures you take look so grainy on the OLED screen. If you like having pictures on your portable to show off to friends, I suggest you load them on using a PS3 or PC rather than snapping pics with the camera. For games, and for augmented reality, though, it’s more than fine. Remote play, at the moment, is a major disappointment – no better than what’s possible on the PSP.

Unfortunately, the battery is underpowered, and only lasts around three and a half hours if you’re playing a game. I did find it better than the 3DS. Charging is slow and it can take over an hour to fully charge the device. If you plan on using your Vita for long trips with no charging facilities, it definitely would be a good idea to purchase an external battery to keep your handheld running. There’s also the issue of portability. It’s much larger than a smartphone, and because of the massive screen, carrying it in your pocket without a strong case is scary. The analog sticks make pulling it in and out of a pocket difficult. If you’re gonna get a PlayStation Vita, I recommend purchasing a sturdy case for it.

But the most interesting thing about the PlayStation Vita may not even be the hardware itself, and rather the brand-new UI. I have to say it, I loved the XMB. It’s so simple to use – straight and to the point. But even I can see that at this point it’s outdated. Which is why Sony brought a whole new experience to the Vita with LiveArea. It’s not a far cry from the homescreens found on smartphones at first glance. It’s the pausing of live apps and games using the PS button, then being able to run up to five more apps all at the same time. Pausing and swapping between apps is a cinch. Done with a particular app? “Tear” the paper “fold” in the upper right hand corner downwards and it will close the screen. Or, just keep running more and more apps, it will close anything after the sixth app automatically. The entire experience feels very natural, and is simple but elegant.

The PlayStation Vita proves that Sony listens to consumers, learns from their past mistakes, and innovates and excites with their hardware. The design, feel, and user interface is a hybrid of what’s found on smartphones and a more traditional console experience. The touchscreen and analog sticks give the Vita more functionality geared toward video games than any other device on the market, and is capable of producing games more akin to the PS3 than the PSP. The rear touch-panel, built-in cameras, and other features’ usage isn’t as clear, but adding them gives developers yet another input source to play with and take advantage of. The possibilities hinge on the creativity of the minds of great developers. As a whole package, the PlayStation Vita is as an impressive piece of hardware as it gets. Only time – and software – will tell if its able to fend of the fierce competition from the 3DS, iOS, and Android. From what we’ve seen thus far on the software front, the PlayStation Vita has a future as bright as its OLED screen (very, very bright).

© Anthony Severino for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Namco Bandai gets points for trying new things, but that’s just about all it gets points for in the newest Ridge Racer.

A PlayStation Vita launch title, Ridge Racer is an experiment in game publication. Priced quite a bit less than most new games (in Japan it was 4,000 yen instead of 6,000), it offers very little content out of the box, delivering only five cars and three tracks. In the days after launch, there’s an onslaught of DLC coming to bolster it up. To some, this idea might initially sound great because it could allow gamers to pay a low price for a game, then pick and choose how they want to expand it, but Ridge Racer blows more than one tire on its journey toward game industry revolution.

First up, the profile creation system to even get the game started can be a royal pain in the ass, and if you’re as unlucky as I was, might put a serious damper on the so-called “portability” of your portable game. Having to connect to the internet before even playing a portable game by yourself is just ridiculous, unfriendly design. There are few worse ways to introduce a new game to players. If I were Sony, I’d be making animal sacrifices to every single god I could think of in order to make sure this game’s dumb profile system didn’t turn too many people off of the Vita entirely.

It gets worse. While the idea of the game is to start out being light on both content and price while building itself up with gradual DLC, the content actually due for download is forgettable, undesirable rubbish. We’re talking about BS like retro music packs and the like. Who cares? Or rather, who would rather have that than a new track or two? “Deal with it,” says Namco Bandai, as the DLC lineup from now until mid February is nothing but music updates. After that, for about 1600 yen (around $20 US) you can buy a bundle of timed updates between February and May that only amounts to about eight more cars and six more tracks. One can buy these updates individually for a cost that adds up to much more. While that’s all well and good, we’re talking about a game that hit the market at the December launch. To have to sit around with this tiny amount of content for over two months is a little bit ridiculous. If it stays that way for North Americans, we’re talking about being stuck with three tracks and five cars until late April, despite the game being available at the February launch.

Where reviewing this game becomes tricky is that the racing itself isn’t too shabby. As a game, it does pretty well, with nice looking cars and enjoyable environments. Having a slightly lower budget, less development time, and running a 30 frames per second, it doesn’t look as awesome as the Gran Turismo series tends to, but it looks good enough to be a portable launch title. Ridge Racer‘s car customization is nice, and in contrast to the rest of the game, actually offers quite a few possibilities right away. One can immediately make changes to the paint job and other visual features of the five starting cars. From there, one either jumps into World Race, Spot Race, or Time Attack. The last bit is self explanatory and Spot Race is the single player experience takes place, pitting the player in an eight-man race. The cars tend to handle well enough and at least the few tracks that are present are good for starters. It’s mildly fun to try and master the finer points of the game’s racing style, memorize the tracks a little better, and by so doing, shave seconds off your time little by little. Without any new cars, features, or tracks to unlock, though, motivation to keep going seems less in this game than in comparable racers. World Race is the obvious headliner, as it’s where you can test your skills online or against your local friends, which is of course way more fun than playing alone. The problems with this, of course, would be timing, with any system’s install base only getting bigger as time goes on.

Yet, for as well as Ridge Racer holds its own as a racing video game, it’s poorly structured as a consumer product. Perhaps the better thing to do would have been for Sony to buy the rights to this, then include it as a free (removable) item on all of its Vita memory sticks. As a free product or demo bundled with the system, it’d be wonderful; as something that starts out at about two-thirds the retail price, it does a poor job of being worth any money, even after all the updates are out. It’s sad to see a classic racing series take such a wrong turn.

Rather than jumping on Ridge Racer, driving fans looking for a good portable would probably be more satisfied to go for something else or perhaps wait for a Vita-based Need for Speed, Test Drive, or Gran Turismo title to come along in the future. Though there are obvious differences, F1 2011 will also be available at Vita launch, and Asphalt: Injection should also arrive soon. I can’t speak for either of them, but it’s not too hard to be better than Vita’s Ridge Racer, so they won’t have to do much to beat the game.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score +/- An interesting experiment in game publishing… which didn’t work - Stupid execution of a stupid idea. + The racing itself is fine. (Too bad there’s not much of it.)

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© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us

The Uncharted series is the most recognizable exclusive on the PlayStation 3, so bringing a franchise of this caliber to a portable system is was always going to be a herculean task. But if there’s anyone up to the job, it’s Sony Bend. They’re probably best known for bringing Syphon Filter, and more recently, another PS3 exclusive franchise to the PSP with Resistance: Retribution. Both are noble efforts and make up some of the best the PSP has to offer. Can Sony Bend work the same magic on the PlayStation Vita, but with a franchise that is more cherished by PlayStation fans?

Editor’s Note: This review was conducted on an import Japanese PlayStation Vita using the Japanese import version of Uncharted Golden: Abyss. Uncharted: Golden Abyss features full English text and audio, but some features and aspects of the game, and PlayStation Vita hardware itself, may change for the North American launch.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss is developed by Sony Bend in cooperation with Naughty Dog. Naughty Dog is mostly hands-off, leaving Sony Bend to the task of bringing Nathan Drake to the portable system. I myself – I’m sure like many others – was very skeptical. It’s not that I didn’t believe Sony Bend could make a great game based on a PS3 exclusive – they’ve proven themselves before. But what I could never expect, is that they’d produce an Uncharted game that’s not only worthy of the name, but it’s without a shadow of a doubt, the deepest, most-varied, console-like experience I’ve ever had on a portable system. Bold words, I know. And it’s something that must be seen to be truly believed. When it’s all said and done, you still may not believe that what you’ve just played is possible on a handheld. And more amazing still, on a launch title.

“Wow. This is a launch title?”

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Surprisingly, anything big Drake can do mini-Drake can do better. And he does it in more ways. All of Drake’s melee moves, ducking for cover, and running and gunning are here on the PlayStation Vita, except now a lot of it can be performed using the Vita’s touch-screen. It’s not necessary, but it feels more natural and intuitive. Like I said, this old “dog” has learned new tricks: Drake can now clear out vines and overgrown vegetation using a machete; he takes charcoal rubbings of hieroglyphics; he snaps pictures of the environment with a camera he carries around in his backpack. And there’s are a few surprises that I’d love to talk about, but it’d be a shame to spoil. It’s evident that Sony Bend wanted to exploit everything the Vita hardware had to offer for Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

But that OLED screen isn’t just for touching. It’s stunning, and Golden Abyss makes for a beautiful game to display on it. It’s not the realistic-looking Uncharted 3, but it’s honestly not all that far off. Which says a lot for the capabilities of the PlayStation Vita. Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a launch title, after all – so think of what developers will be able to do with the device with some time and mastery of the hardware. Vistas are gorgeous, forcing you to stop and just gaze. Textures are nice, again, very impressive for a portable. I can’t stress enough how good the game looks.

You can tell that Naughty Dog isn’t at the helm here. Mainly because the cinematic presentation isn’t what we’ve come to expect from an Uncharted game. But like the graphics, is still very impressive. The story starts off slow, but eventually picks up steam a couple of hours in. And it’s worth the wait. It’s got the typical Uncharted twists, the love interest, and the double-cross. Jason Dante, befitting of a goomba weasel stereotype, cares more about his boots than the life of his companions, and Marisa Chase plays the standard “save the female” role who doesn’t like guns but always seems to get in trouble type. They don’t inspire the same bond as say Elena Fisher – the character development isn’t at the same level found in the Naughty Dog games. Luckily, and old friend of Drake’s stops in at the game’s halfway point to save the day, witty banter included. At that point the game really starts to shine. The entire ten or so hour package is every bit of what you’d expect from the a game bearing the Uncharted namesake.

There’s bad guys, too. There has to be. Guerro, an ex-general who’s after treasure (duh!) and is giving Drake and friends a really difficult time. He’s not quite as imposing of a threat as Katherine Marlowe is, but he does fine making Drake’s life a living hell. A plot twist halfway brings another villain into the fold, but we’ll leave that for you to discover on your own.

Drake can approach Guerro’s henchmen stealthily, confront head-on with guns a’ blazing, or a mixture of the two. Vertical shootouts from Uncharted 3 make an appearance, and help to add variety to areas that are combat heavy. The pacing between shooting, platforming and climbing is perfect. On the subject of climbing, the Vita really makes the climbing seem less tedious. Simply brush your finger along the ledges and Drake follows the path you’ve outlined. When I demoed Uncharted: Golden Abyss previously, I though I’d never use this feature. But the ease of it and how smoothly it works cannot be overlooked. Touch controls are added to a number of actions, as are motion controls (used for swinging, walking across logs, etc.). The Vita’s capabilities are fully explored.

Exploration is a stronger theme in Uncharted: Golden Abyss than with its PS3 big brothers. Treasures return adding replayability, but are a bit different. They’re in sets, rather than just a long list of them. And that’s not the only thing you discover. Using Drake’s camera, you have to take snapshots of certain locations throughout his adventure. Zooming is done best with the rear-touch panel, and for using it you unlock an aptly named “Touch My Rear” bronze trophy. Drake keeps track of everything in his journal, but the journal is more helpful as it tells you which chapter each opportunity is lurking at.

“You won’t believe what you’ve just played is possible on a handheld.”

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Puzzles are here too, but they’re not as plentiful as you may be used to. At least not in the traditional Uncharted sense. A lot of them have to do with the charcoal rubbings Drake takes of statues and hieroglyphics found around the environment. Shredded documents or maps must be rearranged as if they were actual puzzle pieces. And all of the rotating and maneuvering is done using the Vita’s touch screen. There was one puzzle, in fact, that used the PlayStation Vita in such an interesting way, my jaw hit the floor.

From start to finish, Sony Bend has captured the essence of Uncharted. They hit the nail on the head with the gameplay, environments, and combat. The story and the characters don’t quite live up to the high bar set by the PlayStation 3 games, but they’re still better than most portable games. At times, you forget you’re even playing a portable game. Thanks to the Vita’s dual-analog sticks, the Uncharted: Golden Abyss experience feels more like what a home console can produce, but with a touch (pun intended) of smartphone-like gameplay elements.

“Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the very best reason to buy a PS Vita.”

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Uncharted: Golden Abyss is – hands-down – a must-own for anyone at all considering a purchase of a PlayStation Vita. It shows what that little portable with plenty of power can do, from the graphics, to the controls, to the Vita-specific touch features – it’s truly amazing. More impressive is the fact that, at launch, the PlayStation Vita has a title as packed with greatness as Uncharted: Golden Abyss, but I’d expect nothing less from something bearing the franchise namesake. If you’re looking for a reason to convince you to buy a PlayStation Vita, look no further than Uncharted: Golden Abyss. As the bar has been set by Uncharted on the PS3, so it has on the PlayStation Vita as well. For a launch title to be this impressive, it speaks extremely well of the future of the PlayStation Vita, and it solidifies Sony Bend as the go to studio for forging blockbuster games on portable platforms.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Worthy of the Uncharted name. + Takes full advantage of the PS Vita’s capabilities. + Wow. This is a launch title?

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© Anthony Severino for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 28 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Have you ever been sitting in front of your gaming console and had the desire to visit the carnival, only you didn’t want to leave the house? Sony might just have the solution for you, with the Move controlled game, Carnival Island, from developer Magic Pixel. The PlayStation Move has just passed its first year on the market and Sony is trying its best to win over the family crowd, however this might be a bit lacking to provide enough staying power in the home.

Playing the game as a pair of mute siblings, you stumble across two lost tickets and from there the magic begins. You will now be tasked with reviving the magic of the carnival and its cast of lovable pets that inhabit it. There is no narrative to push your through the game but the cut-scenes featured throughout are beautifully done and give the game a fair amount of charm. With the game essentially boiling down to a set of mini-games, the story aspect wasn’t really needed but did breathe a little fresh air into the game.

In the story mode, you will find yourself in a carnival that has four different sections to play through, with each section featuring four different booths to visit. Two of the booths in each area will feature a collection of mini-games, while the other two are inhabited by a balloon vendor and a nice old granny selling prizes. The areas are each unique and well done, with more life coming to them as you play through the games available. Each game booth houses five games to play, with each game featuring around nine challenges that you can try to compete.

The games featured are what you would expect from any sort of state fair you might have been to. This is the coin toss, ski-ball, basketball hoops, and plenty more. Each of these games are extremely easy to learn and the motion controller works great, with the movements easy to handle for kids of all ages. While it is nice that the games are so easy to pick up and play, it would have been nice to see a bit more difficulty with some of the Hero level challenges. The good part is, the mini-games are extremely quick, so you never feel like you are stuck on a particular game for too long, which is a great thing for kids. However, for those people a bit older, the games can feel a bit void of any depth, with some of them growing old fairly quickly.

To add a bit of depth to the game, you can unlock tickets as you complete the games and various pets. The tickets can be used in the game to purchase different animal balloons or prizes for your character to carry around. Unfortunately, all you can do with these purchases is carry them around the park, giving players literally no need to collect them, other than to collect some easy trophies. The pets you unlock also serve very little purpose other than trophies and some quick cuteness factor for the kids, as you can collect over 20 pets but only a set of 9 can be picked from as “your” pet when you start the game.

Aside from the story mode of the game, which can be completed in around 2 hours, the game also features a party mode. Here, you can have 2-4 players going at it with either one or two move controllers. You only have two options in this mode; either pick and play, where you select the 5 games you want in your playlist, or just play, where the game randomly selects five games for your round. A tiny cool feature here is that when you pass the move controller to the next player, the wand changes color for that player, creating an easy way to remember whose turn it is. Also, if you play two players with two motion controllers, you get to play all the mini-games side by side, adding for some very fun competitions. The party mode is really where the game does shine, as it is quick hitting and fun for the whole family. It also helps that everything is unlocked for the party mode, so if you don’t want to do the story mode, you don’t have to bother.

The presentation in the game is great, from the sexy looking cut scenes to the simple and easy to use interface. The menu throughout the game never feels too cumbersome and with a quick click of a button, you are in a game and playing. Load times are there during the game but are minimal, with the time loading between islands lasting 10-15 seconds as the most.

Overall, the game is too short, even for a minigame, but each minigame is rather enjoyable – especially for younger children. Good presentation and an easy menu, make it a decent bargain bin Move game, even if you will be left feeling like half the game is missing.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Quick and Easy to Pick up and Play - Lack of Difficulty or Depth + Smooth Motion Controls

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© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us

For those of you old enough to remember anime style cartoons back in the 80′s, you’ll probably recall Voltron: Defender of the Universe. The show followed a group of five soldiers, assigned to the Voltron Force, in a futuristic setting. It was their duty to defend their sector from any and all evil forces that endangered the safety of their planets. These five soldiers each had Urban Assault Lions, which are mechanized lion vehicles, that could be used as five separate vehicles or could be combined to create Voltron, the ultimate fighting machine.

You can choose to play solo, local co-op with one other person, or online co-op with up to four other people. The online community isn’t very busy, but we did find online games without too much waiting. Your score is tallied as you play, and leader boards are available to see how you stack against other players around the world.

The game has you playing as one of the five lions, in a top down, twin stick arcade style. Each lion has different characteristics. Some are great for up close combat, while others can hit enemies farther away. Their durability varies as well, and team work becomes important if you are playing on the harder difficulties. The game is split up into three planets, with four levels each. The first three levels will have you manning your lion and taking on ground and air forces. The left stick controls movement while the right stick controls your main weapon. You also have a boost attack and a pounce attack. Pounce attacks are a great deterrent against air vehicles annoyingly flying and dropping mines around you. The boost attack is also useful for slamming into tanks. There are a few pickup boosts in the game that give you more blasting power and tougher shields, but you’ll wish there were more.

Each planet has a boss level at the end, and this will have you combining your five lions into Voltron once you have taken the boss down a notch. As the Voltron assembly animation plays, you can earn bonus points by pressing on the left stick in quick time fashion, and the direction required is displayed on the screen. This has no effect on the actual game other than points. Boss battles are all turn based, quick time events. If you are playing co-op, one person is randomly selected to choose which attack of Voltron’s to use, while the other players just watch. Your defense against the boss is also a QTE. Finally you’ll “Form Blazing Sword” to strike one last blow to slice the boss in half.

The story is fairly short, and if you go it alone you can probably blow through it in a couple hours. There are collectibles in the form of  pieces of stars and groups of civilians. For every 5 star pieces you collect, you’ll earn an extra life. Lives are not unlimited, you’ll only have five to start with, and are shared online, so these star pieces can be important. There is also a trophy for saving 100 groups of civilians, so completionists will want to save all they can until they reach that plateau. Completionists will also want to finish the game with each lion for that trophy as well.

The graphics for the gameplay are typical for most top down shooters of this nature. They aren’t terrible, but they aren’t the best either. Cut scenes for the story use what looks like original cartoon footage, and look accordingly retro. That gave the game more of a classic feel and didn’t take anything away from the over all experience, even though the graphics looked like they belonged in the 80′s.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe is a great little game that can burn up more than a few hours of your time. There is an option for downloadable content from the main game menu, so the developer is thinking ahead. The $9.99 price tag seems a little high due to the short story, but if future DLC were to be free, or minimally priced, the price would fit better.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + Fun game for Voltron fans. - Very short story - Mediocre price unless future DLC is free

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© Louis Edwards for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

While not “gory” by today’s standards, it’s several notches above what Final Fantasy has been used to. Lack of advanced graphics prevented us from seeing blood for years and years, and even when characters died in the past, there was something… somehow cleaner about it. That changes in Type-0 with its frequent images of people losing their lives – often violently. It’s not the FF we grew up with, but damn if it isn’t powerful and well done throughout, epitomized in the thrilling introduction and memorable conclusion.

Rather than collecting party members gradually, we’ll meet all of our 14 protagonists within minutes of starting, all of whom are as different on the battlefield as they are in personality. It’s enough to make a big cast that the player honestly cares about, but not too big to suffer from “Chrono Cross Syndrome,” during which the player is overloaded with too many characters and has to ask “Who was he again? Was he the one with the dead mom? No? Well, then whose funeral did I go to? I have no idea who this kid is.” It would be nice to be able to rotate the order somewhere other than save points, though; either that, or make the world map a save point so that changing up the roster isn’t such a pain in the butt. Sometimes, characters won’t even need to be rotated at all, as some parts of the game are clearly done more sensibly as a solo effort. Being an extension of the Crisis Core battle system, this might not be surprising. With enemies so powerful that they’re often capable of one-shot killing anyone in the party, having a second and third character simply stand around can be detrimental to progress. I noticed multiple instances of my allies simply standing around (with no negative status, even) instead of attacking things. I busted into a room, guns blazing, only to realize too late that my two teammates hadn’t even followed me in.

One downfall of having 14 playable characters is that they all apparently need some spotlight time, and some story sequences will have, say, 15 lines of dialogue split among 11 people, as if the writers had a checklist and a quota beside them. This is mostly an early thing though, to establish the characters; like most other aspects, it gets better as the game goes on. The story and its characters are pretty strong overall, and hopefully they’ll transition well into English. Another small setback with the sheer amount of characters is how it ties into leveling them up. The punishing mission structure and strong enemies will put players into situations in which almost all characters must be used at some point. I had two instances of being down to my last singular character when finishing a mission; everyone else was knocked out. What a rush.

It might be Final Fantasy, but Type-0 is no walk in the park. In the first 10 or 11 Final Fantasy games, when you couldn’t beat a dungeon or boss in the first try or two, a feasible option would be to go get your main crew two or three level-ups and have another go at it with a noticeable difference. Levels certainly are important in this game, but for all the power that leveling can grant against regular enemies, the time-honored grinding tradition described above won’t work on most of the game’s bosses. Much more important is timing one’s shot to get critical damage, and the game is actually better for it. It can be initially frustrating to get Game Overs and feel helpless against someone, but the benefit is that it makes the player to get in there and fight a better fight. It’s surprisingly more possible than it might sound, which to a player that just got stomped, is great to realize. The increase in difficulty without being ridiculous is an overdue addition to the Final Fantasy series.

Final Fantasy Type-0 is addictive as hell, thanks to its furiously fast combat and magic growth system. On one hand, the huge level gaps between some of the story segments suggest a need to hit the grindstone, but on the other, time flies during that process. You’re always looking for that next Phantoma, that next level for whatever character, and FFT0 keeps the hunt exciting with the fast pace and high challenge of its battle system. There is a killer amount of fun to be had finding the best party combinations, finding which characters are best for taking out which enemies, or testing out the results of your Alto Crystarium magic mixing. It’s just too freaking easy to get caught up obsessing over your master plan for how you’re going to customize the magic spells, then accidentally spending hours working towards it. The spells can be modified manually through gathering Phantomas from defeated enemies, though, on the downside, the game has a way of capping the player’s growth. Through making certain types of Phantomas available only appear in select locations, then roping those locations off from the player via invisible walls, players are somewhat restricted in just how crazy they can really get with the Phantoma system, though a lot of players won’t notice this.

There are similar barriers that players almost certainly will notice, however. An explorable overworld finally makes its return to the Final Fantasy series in this game, but the feature as well have an asterisk on it, given how many invisible walls there are. For all its size, there’s sadly not a whole lot of exploration that can be done until very late in the game, which actually sounds a lot like FF‘s X and XIII. Players will see a scenic vista off in the distance, be lured in, only to see a message on the screen that says “You can’t go here yet.” At least give me some sort of river for which I need a boat, a bridge that’s under construction, or hell, even a party member that pops out and says “Hey Ace, we should actually not get too far from the campus. We’ve got important stuff to do, man.” Boom, problem solved. Instead there’s just a lazy, simple, “Not yet champ.” It appears in front of several towns and caves as well, “You can’t go in here.” Oh. OK.

Entering said towns would invite new shopping opportunities and a save point, but little else. A popular complaint about Final Fantasy XIII from some fans of the older games was its failure to provide exciting new cities for players to discover and mention in internet forum threads about the best RPG towns of all time; Type-0 doesn’t have much to calm that crowd. There are several towns dotting the world map, but while players may enter, they’re only to be met by disappointment in the small size, usual lack of more shops than one, and Wal-Mart style similarity. A few that buck the visual trend finally show up near the end, but even those end up looking too much like each other and still feel microscopic.

A handful of times, a mandatory minigame puts players on the overworld map and requires them to take a certain target city, almost mimicking a real-time strategy game, except minus the strategy. While not a bad idea for a side game, these sections feel tacked-on, with very few strategic options and no customization. If I’m going to have something that looks like an RTS, I want something that lets me formulate an attack plan and try to implement it, but this is kind of dull. During the final one of these sequences, in which there are dragons and armies all over the map, the lag in moving around is awful. I hopped on a chocobo to speed things up, but it did little to help how painfully slow everything was going. Some people won’t mind them, but I found these sections to be a waste of time.

Even in the face of those, Final Fantasy Type-0 comes with high replay value. The first go-round provides a long game in its own right, but beyond that, there are more story sequences, more missions, and a ton of other little additions that open up on second and third playthroughs. There’s definitely over 100 hours of gaming in this package.

Of course, FFT0‘s visuals and music are on the highest level, pushing Sony’s first handheld to its limit. Up close, there are some jagged edges outside of the cinemas, but it’s clear that there’s not much more could be done on the PSP. Helped in part by Rieko Mikoshiba, Takeharu Ishimoto makes a return to the composer spot, and like he did with Crisis Core, he knocks the soundtrack right out of the park. It’s almost too good. If I were Johnny Depp and this were Once Upon a Time in Mexico, I would shoot a composer for making something this great.

Though it might not satisfy everyone in the bi-polar FF fanbase, Final Fantasy Type-0 is a hell of a game. It has a number of small problems, but they’re more than overshadowed by the amazing fun of the action-packed battle system, good characters, world-class soundtrack and fantastic story. It’s not even necessarily the story itself that’s so great, but the characters amplifying it and the ending just putting a perfect stamp on things.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score + My favorite ending in the Final Fantasy series caps off a good story. + Bosses and regular combat amazing for different reasons. - Lacks serious exploration almost as much as it lacks good ally A.I.

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© Knifefight for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us