Grave Gamer News & Views — sony

Datura (PSN - May 8th)

PSN’s next unconventional download comes in the form of a stylistically unique puzzle game that challenges players to forgo cunning problem solving and logical analysis and instead flex your intuition, trust your emotions, and follow sporadic impulses.  Puzzles don’t always make sense or unfold neatly, nor does the story whisk you along in a linear fashion.  Built from the ground up with the Move controller (and 3D functionality) in mind, the game relays your motions into an on-screen virtual hand that interacts and manipulates Datura’s rife world of choice and consequence.

I’ve got some more weird for you; developer Plastic Group claims meaning can be derived from the name Datura itself, which is borrowed from the toxic plant that has historically been utilized as a debilitating poison and, to a lesser extent, a highly volatile hallucinogen.  On a recreational basis, no other psychoactive substance tops the amount of negative firsthand experience reports datura has received; short term side effects commonly include hyperthermia, delirium, disassociation with reality, violent behavior, and – what is sure to be the mind trying to erase itself after ingestion – cases of amnesia.  Long term side effects include photophobia, mydriasis, and, oh, death.

Despite all the hell datura has wrought on our world, the plant still manages to spurn beauty, producing gorgeous, white flowers often referred to as “moonflowers."  That natural juxtaposition may be the idea Plastic Group wants us to compare their game to, but now I’m too afraid of datura to think about Datura.  But as I understand it, you can only forget datura by taking datura.

Watch an official trailer hereabouts.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS3 - Holiday 2012)

You can find a great interview on the PS3 brawler with the game’s director, Omar Kendall, as well as some footage for your eyes to munch on over at the PlayStation blog.

Kendall claims his studio and staff were handpicked for having the most experience in the fighting genre and I sincerely hope they put it to good use.  The gameplay looks to paint a target on the casual gamer’s forehead (much so to the point I’m shocked Move support hasn’t been loudly announced yet), but wouldn’t it be a helluva thing if there was a tech-heavy fighter beneath All-Stars’ kiddy veneer?

Developer Superbot also makes mention on the PS blog that a bigger reveal is slated for this year’s E3.

It’s Real, Sony Fanatics: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is Slamming into a PS3 Near You

If you haven’t heard about it yet, you aren’t possible.  Sony’s “secret” fighting game has been outed from minute one as a rebuttal to Super Smash Bros.  I just didn’t believe it would be a mirror image of SMB as you can see in GTTV’s exclusive preview.

Dubbed PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, the title does not have the excuse of being a poor Japanese translation as SCEA’s own Superbot Entertainment is tasked with readying the game on Western shores for a projected Holiday release on the PS3.  While Superbot’s resume is a tad…blank, the internalized Sony studio has stated serious fighting game talent was brought on board to bulk the four-player brawler up.

PSASBR – as it will never be referred to again – features familiar Sony game mascots entering the fray such as Kratos, Sweet Tooth, Sly, and Parappa (occupation: the Rapper), but several unexpected combatants make the roster, ranging from obscurities like Fat Princess and extending to even third-party characters friendly to the company’s platforms.  Given the mash-up nature of the game, stages also follow suit and offer up crossovers like a Little Big Planet themed level that literally builds itself up until turning – well, honestly, degrading – into a Buzz! inspired backdrop/nightmare-scape.

Let’s review: we’re getting a kitschy SMB clone from an unproven developer that swims in a tirade of licenses, some that may coast right past most people’s threshold of recognition…This one can really go either way, but I’ve seen miracles in this industry before.  Just that, most of those miracles weren’t so unfortunately named.

Still, with as many huge properties attached to the bill, the only real feat All-Stars needs to perform is being fun to play.

’Pls Be Patient’ For PSOne Classics on the Vita Asks Sony

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios, has updated Vita owners on the PSOne shaped holes located in the system’s marketplace.  The ability to download PSOne classics has eluded the handheld since its release in Japan last year with the constant assurance something, somewhere was being done about it.

Yoshida recently promised engineers the company over were hard at work to right this 32-bit wrong.  Credibility was earned when a downloadable version of the seminal Buzz Lightyear of Star Command appeared on the Vita’s European Store.  Trying to actually play it, however, would result in an error code shut out.

In summation: we’re still waiting.  Listen, Sony, if I can’t take Dino Crisis 2 with me on the go, I’m not even sure what the hell else I’m supposed to do with a Vita.

Amazon Lets Loose Our First Glimpse at God of War: Ascension

Sony’s big reveal that they’ve been teasing for a week now be damned says Amazon.  The online retailer has (likely accidentally) leaked the fourth God of War game and has revealed the beast to be a prequel to Kratos’ saga.  God of War: Ascension depicts Kratos as a mere man, before he ever became the Ghost of Sparta in “a time where something other than rage consumed him.”

You can check out Amazon’s listing for the game, it being our only scraps to feed off of since Sony’s official announcement was beaten to the punch.  We’ll be sure to hear more tomorrow given that all the teasers point to the 19th.  Until then, set your eyes to stunned and scope out the new trailer.

I’m extremely disappointed that after viciously skewering all of Greek mythology, we’re given a prequel instead of a sequel that could’ve had Kratos maiming Norse mythology or even Biblical mythology (Kratos v. Goliath, man; it writes itself).  Still, a prequel gives us insights into the all heads Kratos cracked open before…all the rest of the heads Kratos cracked open.