10 Reviews! Developer Features! Latest News!
The Vita Lounge M A G A Z I N E
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The Vita Lounge M A G A Z I N E
Issue 9 | January 2016 www.thevitalounge.net @PSVitaMag @TheVitaLounge THE VITA LOUNGE TEAM EDITORIAL TEAM Executive Editor / Paul Murphy @pmurphy1978 Editor-in-Chief / Kyle Wakeling @teflontactics Deputy Editor / Charlie Large @charlielarge Podcast Editor / Tyler Olthoff @imsohappy77 MAGAZINE DESIGN Art Editor / Jhonatan Carneiro @JhoCarneiro WEBSITE TEAM Lateralus1082 @lateralus2801 Zach Price @MyrishMartyr Liam Langan @liamhangover Colin Byrne @ColinJByrne Kerry-Lee Copsey @Kezz182 Jenny Jones @Kitty_has_Klaws CONTRIBUTOR Brad Gruetzmacher @vongruetz GadgetGirlKylie @GadgetGirlKylie SPECIAL THANKS Claire Bromley @Lef0nda Sony XDev Studio Europe @SonyXDevEurope Rami Ismail @tha_rami Vlambeer @vlambeer Mighty Rabbit Studio @TheMightyRabbit Infinite State Games @InfiniteStates Steve Thornton @_SteveThornton
Hello Vita Gamers! Happy New Year to you all and welcome to your new issue of The Vita Lounge Magazine - back with a new look for 2016 - and what a year it is promising to be! We were already excited about what could come this year, and we talk a bit about that on pages 6-7 but as we went to press we were hit with a ton of Bandai Namco localisation announcements! We are very confident that 2016 will be better than 2015 in every way, but more on that next time! Back to this issue, to go with our new look we return with ten reviews including Handball 16, Sword Art Online: Lost Song, Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires and cover title Bastion, which is fabulous and at last on Vita.
PMurphy1978 @PMurphy1978
Founder
We also have five great developer features with an EXCLUSIVE look at Infinite States' upcoming Wing Kings as well as discussions with Sony XDev Studio Europe, Mighty Rabbit Studios, Vlambeer and TT Fusion. We also look at some of the news from December's PSX and caught up with Youtube's GadgetGirlKylie. Kylie discusses her highlights from 2015 and what she cannot wait for in 2016. We close of our issue with our hottest picks and games to get. The Vita continues to get negative attention, yet as we enter another year, that catalogue (and backlog) continues to grow for those in the know. We love the Vita, just as you do. That means you can trust us to bring you all of the big news and reviews as they happen, and we will continue to do so across 2016 and our website, forum, magazine, podcast, social channels and however else we can reach dedicated Vita fans! We hope that you really enjoy this first issue of 2016 and we will see you back here on February 15th for Issue 10! PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING OUR PATREON – IT WOULD REALLY BE APPRECIATED AND WOULD GO A LONG WAY TO SUPPORTING WHAT WE DO! FOR $10 PER ISSUE YOU WILL GET A PRINT COPY OF THIS MAGAZINE DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR! YOU CAN FIND OUR PATREON PAGE AT WWW.PATREON.COM/THEVITALOUNGE
PRINT EDITION Our magazine comes in physical form - if you want to support us and aid The Vita Lounge financially as well as receive a print copy of future issues of The Vita Lounge Magazine delivered worldwide and to your door - please head over to www.patreon.com/TheVitaLounge and consider pledging to us! BACK ISSUES You can buy previous print issues of the magazine for £3.99 (plus shipping) from www.thevitalounge.net/shop whilst stocks last!
Paul Murphy
meet the TEAM...
ADVERTISING Want to get your game featured in our magazine and read by many thousands of PSVita fans? For just £25 you can take out a FULL PAGE advert within the magazine. Please send an email to advertising@thevitalounge.net to discuss this opportunity! Artwork not provided. COVERAGE Are you a developer? If you are working on PSVita content and want to get it covered for FREE in either the magazine or on the website, then we would love to hear from you! Please send an email to press@thevitalounge.net and add us to your press lists. If you have a game coming out soon and want us to tell other Vita owners, get in touch! DISCLAIMER The Vita Lounge is an independent PlayStation Vita enthusiast website and magazine. All content featured is used with permission, and is used to promote existing and upcoming titles for the PS Vita. We are not endorsed or affiliated with Sony or PlayStation, or any of the companies featured. © 2015-2016 The Vita Lounge
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The Vita Lounge Magazine
Kyle Wakeling
Charlie Large
Tyler Olthoff
Brad Gruetzmacher
@teflontactics
@charlielarge
@imsohappy77
@vongruetz
Lateralus1082 Colin Byrne
Liam Langan
Zach Price
@lateralus2801
@liamhangover
@MyrishMartyr
teflontactics
Lateralus1082
Chaz3010
EnterCole
@ColinJByrne
ImSoHappy77
liamlangan
vongruetz
MyrishMartyr
thevitalounge.net
g The Vita Loun
Contents 04 BITE-SIZED NEWS THE LATEST VITA NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD!
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The
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PAUL LOOKS AT WHAT WE EXPECT - AND WANT - TO HAPPEN FOR THE VITA THIS YEAR
08 WE SENT TYLER ALONG TO PSX IN DECEMBER TO PLAY SOME OF THE VITA GAMES THAT WERE THERE
10 JANUARY RELEASES
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO SEE FOR THE VITA THIS MONTH
11 HOT TEN
WE TELL YOU THE HOTTEST VITA GAMES THAT WE WANT THE MOST
44 COMMUNITY FEATURE
YOUTUBE'S GADGETGIRLKYLIE IS BACK WITH HER FAVOURITE 2015 GAMES AND WHAT SHE'S EXCITED FOR THIS YEAR
46 DIRECTORY
THE BEST 2015 GAMES THAT WE HAVE REVIEWED. HAVE YOU BOUGHT THEM ALL?
47 PATREON STARS
THE MAGAZINE WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT THESE AMAZING PEOPLE, SO TAKE A MINUTE TO APPRECIATE HOW AWESOME THEY ARE!
@PSVitaMag
Z I N E M A G A
The Vita Lounge Magazine | Issue 9 | January 2016
12-21 INTERVIEWS 12 SONY XDEV
22-43 REVIEWS 22
Bastion
24
Super Blackout
26
Sword Art Online: Lost Song
STUDIO EUROPE CLAIRE BROMLEY TALKS TO US ABOUT "FESTIVAL SIMULATOR" BIGFEST
14 VLAMBEER RAMI ISMAIL TAKES TIME OUT TO TELL US ABOUT NUCLEAR THRONE
16 MIGHTY RABBIT STUDIOS
JOSH AND DOUGLAS TELL US ALL ABOUT SATURDAY MORNING RPG AND LIMITED RUN GAMES
18 TT GAMES STEVE THORNTON EXPLAINS EVERYTHING WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT LEGO MARVEL'S AVENGERS
20 INFINITE STATES
29 Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires 32
HTR +
34
DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviours
36
Phineas and Ferb: Day of Doofenshmirtz
38
BigFest
40
Super Star Wars
42
Handball 16
GAMES
THE TEAM BEHIND "DON'T DIE MR ROBOT" EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT THEIR UPCOMING TITLE, WING KINGS
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BITE-SIZED NEWS Downwell spotted running on Vita Devlover Digital have shown Downwell - the "curious game about a young person falling down a well, battling enemies with gun boots and sometime visiting shops" - running on the Vita. You can see the Vita being held vertically, which obviously gives a more detailed view of the depths beneath you in the well. We will bring you more news on a Vita version of Downwell as we have it!
New Minecraft patch brings the Vita version almost in line with PC There has long been disparity between the Vita and PC versions of Mojang's block-building masterpiece but after the latest 1.22 patch, these will be few and far between, with new blocks, biomes, items and mobs - including Rabbits - arriving alongside many other feature tweaks. It should be live now, assuming it passed certification! We will have more details next issue.
Gundam Breaker 3 announced for Japan Those of us that love giant fighting robots may be out of luck with Western releases, but Japanese gamers can't get enough of them and Bandai Namco have announced that Gundam Breaker 3 will release in 2016. Details are scarce at present, but will you be interested in importing this?
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Banner Saga Vita in the balance? The console version of Stoic Games' The Banner Saga launches this month, but the Vita version is conspicuous by its absence. Development problems then financial constraints mean that the portable version isn't cancelled, but is on hold. If you want the Vita version, you need to let @StoicStudio know on Twitter.
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LEGO Marvel's Avengers is open world on Vita Vita versions of LEGO titles are usually cut-down in size, but we learned from Steve Thornton from TT Fusion that the Vita version will have open world areas for the first time, with Manhattan being 1:1 with the console version. LEGO Marvel's Avengers is based primarily on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is out later this month.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles confirmed We've known about this one potentially existing for some time, but it was nice to see it finally confirmed by Ubisoft. Spilt into three games based in China, India and Russia, the three titles will be bundled together on PlayStation Vita and released on April 5th.
Attack on Titan dated for Japan Long time readers will know that Attack on Titan is one of our most anticipated titles, and whilst we don't have anything more concrete that "2016" for the West, our Japanese friends will be playing from February 18th. Based on the anime of the same name, we really, really cannot wait to find out more about this one.
@PSVitaMag
The Last Blade 2 headed to Vita Neo-Geo classic fighting game The Last Blade 2 is headed to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 sometime in the future Gio Corsi announced during the PlayStation Experience keynote event. Set after The Last Blade (the original) ended, this title features a battle that will decide the fate of the Earth. We will bring you more news as we have it!
Hitman Go announced for Vita Square Enix announced at PlayStation Experience 2015 that mobile strategy game Hitman GO is coming to Vita. The game’s launch window is set for 2016; it will be updated and optimized for the Vita. Hitman GO will launch with 91 levels, and all in-app micro-transaction purchases will be removed. The port will feature a new difficulty curve meant to please both new and veteran players.
Full Throttle Remastered announced One of the biggest Vita name-drops at PlayStation Experience came as we learned that Tim Shafer’s Full Throttle is getting remastered for the console. A point and click adventure game about a man named Ben, Full Throttle is getting remastered for the PlayStation Vita, coming to us with all new artwork and higher resolution assets - updated by hand.
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The
Written by
Paul Murphy
PMurphy1978 PMurphy1978
in
With the constant negativity surrounding the Vita you could be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing to get excited for this year for the Vita, but regular readers of The Vita Lounge will know that there are many games coming - over 250 games are currently confirmed to be in development across the world. Whilst you shouldn't expect many big name titles, if you were satisfied with 2015's library then we are confident that you'll probably enjoy 2016's. We look at what you can expect and give our thoughts on what else should happen this year.
PROBABLY NOT A LOT OF FIRST PARTY
LOTS OF INDIES
The biggest issue for many is Sony's lack of support for their own system and as what little Vita focus they have shifts towards convincing PS4 owners to buy a PSVR, you can probably expect any remaining support to fizzle out. Sony DID, however, refute suggestions that they have no future games coming for the Vita. In 2015 we saw titles like Oreshika Bloodlines, HellDivers and even BigFest - all published by SCE - so if Sony do bring anything then expect it to be in a publishing role only.
Whether you love or hate independently developed titles, they continue to arrive on the Vita in large quantities and 2016 will continue that trend. We are still waiting ports of Volume, Not a Hero, Axiom Verge, The Banner Saga and many others than rolled over from 2015. These will fit perfectly alongside other promising titles such as Severed, YIIK, Mighty No. 9, Hyper Light Drifter, Forma. 8 and so many more. The calibre of these titles continues to go from strength to strength and I personally cannot wait - playing these games when and where I want is the best way to experience them, in my opinion.
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MORE THIRD PARTY GAMES Thankfully, whilst Sony are abandoning their own interests and responsibility there are quite a few third party publishers still committed to bringing titles to the Vita, with Bandai Namco, Koei Tecmo and XSeed Games bringing many games and even Ubisoft are in on the act. 2K games are bringing at least one of their franchises to the Vita, and I think we all know that at least another is coming too *cough* XCOM *cough*. Whether this will continue into 2017 remains to be seen and will very much depend on how well their games perform. Over 2016 you'll be able to experience Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, New Danganronpa V3, Assassin's Creed Chronicles, Civilization Revolution 2 Plus, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus, Attack on Titan, World of Final Fantasy and many more. Your support for these games (assuming they are good, of course!) will determine how much longer these companies support the system. Right now it is a viable venture for them, it's down to you to ensure this continues. 6
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MORE JAPANESE GAMES The Vita continues to perform well in Japan, and it is receiving more games all the time - and whilst a great many of these are seeing Western Localisations, some are more unlikely to arrive. Dead or Alive Extreme 3, Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS Force, Dragon Quest Builders and so much more are all coming to Japan next year and many of these games are receive English Translations and are easily available online. We are building a partnership with Play Asia to improve our import coverage to help you decide on taking the plunge, but there are many great experiences awaiting you if you want to take the chance! thevitalounge.net
WHAT WE WANT TO SEE MORE VITA IN STORES
PSV-3000
I can't speak for the global retail position, but here in the UK the Vita has a very limited physical presence. The supermarkets, game stores and dedicated toy stores have very little Vita content, despite the system receiving many games and having an abundance of retail titles. Sony seem content to allow this to happen, and if I was responsible for marketing the product I would worry about my job. Limited Run Games are looking at boxed Vita titles and I hope that their venture really takes off, and that they can get even bigger. Giving the system more visibility in stores can only be a good thing. Unless you don't actually want to sell any more.
The PSP saw five different models over the duration of its life, mainly to minimise production costs and reinvigorate interest in the system - it's probably about time to look at that again, right? We will cover what we would like to see on a PSV-3000 in a future issue, but for starters it needs to have some sizeable internal memory. After all - the PSP Go did.
SOME PASSION AND PRIDE FROM SONY PRICE CUT A price cut for the Vita is long overdue. The PS4 has seen it's price slashed considerably and now a PS4 costs only ÂŁ100 more than the RRP for the Vita and comes with games. This is just idiotic business sense and leaves Vita units on warehouse shelves unsold. It needs it's price slashing considerably - to at least ÂŁ130 with a memory card and a (decent) game. And not just a 4GB card either Sony.
The PSVita community is awesome. That includes you, reading this, and the many different Vita enthusiast websites and channels that all pool their time to promote this system that the parent company has abandoned. However, there are many individuals within the corporate entity of Sony that do love the Vita, and I hope that their voices are allowed to be heard more as 2016 goes on. It's an awesome system with as passionate and dedicated an audience as I have ever seen for any gaming device, and a significant amount of content still to come. Be proud of what you built, Sony, and show these fans that you do give a shit that they bought one. It would also help if the actual Vita news there is was better communicated on the PS Blog, like Vita versions, Vita PS+ titles and more, which is often neglected.
MEMORY CARDS Yes, these need their price slashing too. Proprietary memory was stupid in the first place and has been well covered for the last four years, but we NEED that 64GB card in the West - too many of us are relying on importing (and getting stung with dodgy knock offs) and some of us need even bigger - who else needs a 128GB card?
#BUILDINGTHELIST Gio Corsi is one of our lone prominent Vita voices within PlayStation and he says that "#BuildingTheList" is still a thing. Make sure you are sending him your suggestions via that hashtag. What games do you want to see come to Vita? Obviously there are no guarantees, but supporting that movement has got to be better than not, right?
@PSVitaMag
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Written by Tyler Olthoff
@imsohappy77 imsohappy77
At last year's PSX Sony remembered that they actually had a handheld, so this year we wanted to actually be there and sent Tyler along. Whilst nothing was specifically announced for the Vita, Tyler was able to get some time with a few games and you can read his thoughts here!
Severed The game I was looking forward to playing most at the show had to of been Severed. The guys at Drinkbox Studios are bringing us this one. Before playing this game I thought to myself; “Can Drinkbox Studios really make a touch game worth playing?” – which I think is a question on quite a few people’s minds. Well, I was able to play a good 20 minutes or so of the game, and from just that short amount of time I could tell that this is a game I can’t wait to have. When you think touch you think mobile, and for the most part you think there’ll not be much to it. Severed isn’t shallow like that, it has depth and quite a lot of thought goes into each encounter. At first you kind of just wing it and are good, however as more mechanics get thrown into the mix it turns the game from swiping and tapping into something more. It’s this type of depth that I like in my games, instead of a mindless touch game this one challenges you to think about each move. Drinkbox has been known for the colorful artwork, and Severed is no different. It feels very much similar to Guacamelee’s art,
Shakedown Hawaii
but with it’s own uniqueness to it – almost as if they’d taken a slice out of some fantastical world for Guacamelee and then gone back and sliced the other side of the world for Severed. From unique enemy designs, to eye-popping environments, I think it’s safe to say Drinkbox knows what they’re doing with this one. The best part is it’s a Vita exclusive and even if you’re not a fan of this style of game (which for the record I’m not a fan of first person dungeon crawlers), I’d highly recommend picking this one up as soon as it launches. Next up for me was Shakedown Hawaii from Vblank Entertainment. Shakedown Hawaii in a sense feels like Retro City Rampage but with a massive tune up; everything feels more smooth. From the animation, to the controls, and graphics it’s just all around a better feeling version of what they’ve already given us. I didn’t spend too much time with the game, but the time I did put into it was definitely fun. I found myself dying a lot, but that’s because I caused a lot of trouble and wasn’t caring about my character. One of the biggest changes from RCR is that a lot of the environment can now be destroyed. Having this aspect in the game really changes the way you can interact with everything. With that in mind, Brian (the developer) also mentioned how you’ll be able to enter most buildings which definitely adds a lot to the mix. All things considered this one has jumped up on my radar as a game I really would like to play.
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Cosmic Star Heroine Heading over to the next game on my list, it’s time to talk about my time with Cosmic Star Heroine. This game really didn’t do much to excite me before playing, and I wasn’t sure if I’d even enjoy it; but luckily for the game (and myself) it was actually quite fun. It reminded me a lot of old school RPG’s of the 90’s, with it’s classic RPG feel and solid mechanics this game is now much higher on my “to buy” list. The only problem I encountered with this game was not even the game’s fault, but simply the fault of circumstances; I started playing at a random point in the game, and had no idea how to play or what was happening. This made it quite difficult to really get into it and understand anything, though the time I had with it made me want to know what’s happening in the story all the much more. Considering this game was not even on my radar really, and now I can’t wait
for it, I think that says a lot about what they’re bringing to the table. If Cosmic Star Heroine was on your “to buy” list then don’t worry it’ll be worth the wait. Now if it isn’t on your list, then I’d highly recommend you rethink that; this is one to look out for.
Trillion: God of Destruction This was actually the first game I played at the PlayStation Experience, as when I noticed the banner and Vita logo I booked it on over right away to get in line. Now the thing about this game is I’m not actually the biggest fan of the tactical role playing game genre. It’s never been my interest and this one is no exception (sadly). That said, seeing as how it’s a game being demoed on a busy show floor (and not something I’m playing somewhere I can concentrate) doesn’t help it what-so-ever. The game had me maneuvering around a grid with a few enemies to attack. It looks very colorful and the graphics look nice, but that’s really all I can say about the game. I didn’t get a lot of time with this one, and being a genre I really don’t play a lot of I can’t say much about whether or not it’s a game worth getting.
It exists and it runs well, that all you’re getting from me on this one. ;)
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptunia VS Zombies The final game that I played was an interesting one to say the least as MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptunia VS Zombies feels a lot like Senran Kagura – but without the clothes breaking mechanic. It’s a game where you go around beating up tons of enemies with crazy attacks. The portion I played was pretty simple, but even so I got to test out some of the interesting aspects of the game. The ability to switch characters on the fly and using my HDD transformation was seamless and really made a difference on how you fought against the enemies. The game also has you setting up your team of two so you can find that perfect duo for your missions. The only problem I noticed with this game was that I could see it getting “old hat” kind of quick. Now, it was just a short burst of play on my part and it wasn’t anything to do with story (I was in a free-mode sort of setting), so seeing as that’s the only down side I could notice, you might not feel the same. @PSVitaMag
So, that’s it for me from PlayStation Experience. I had a great time playing these games and cannot wait to get my hands on a lot them. I wish I could get hours with these games to really tell you about them, but that’s the nature of these shows sometimes. Let me know what you are most excited for!
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Civilization Revolution 2 Plus
January 26th NA / January 29th EU
THESE ARE THE VITA GAMES DUE OUT IN JANUARY. WILL YOU BE PICKING ANY OF THESE UP?
LEGO Marvel’s Avengers
January 26th NA / January 29th EU
Volume
January 5th NA / January 6th EU
Atelier Escha & Logy Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky January 20th NA/EU
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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel January 29th EU
Saturday Morning RPG January TBC NA/EU
thevitalounge.net
Ho eN THE VITA GAMES WE ARE MOST EXCITED FOR! SEVERED
AXIOM VERGE
axiomverge.com @AxiomVerge
severedgame.com @DrinkBoxStudios
DANGANRONPA 3
notahe.ro @Roll7
@spikechunsoft
YIIK
ackkstudios.wordpress.com @ackkstudios
ATTACK ON TITAN
@koeitecmoeurope
DIGIMON STORY CYBER SLEUTH
bandainamcoent.eu/product/ digimon-story-cyber-sleuth/ps-vita @BandaiNamcoEU @PSVitaMag
NOT A HERO
DARKEST DUNGEON
darkestdungeon.com @RedHookStudios
HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER
heart-machine.com @HeartMachineZ
DAY OF THE TENTACLE REMASTERED
dott.doublefine.com @doublefine The Vita Lounge Magazine
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External Development Studio Europe XDEV
sonyxdeveurope.com @SonyXDevEurope
Claire Bromley
Associate Producer @Lef0nda
Hello Claire, thanks for talking with us today! Can you explain a little bit about what Sony XDev do? Hi Paul! Always a pleasure to speak to you guys!
HAVE YOU HEARD OF BIGFEST? THE "FESTIVAL SIMULATOR" COMES TO THE VITA VIA SONY XDEV STUDIO EUROPE AND WE SPOKE TO ASSOCIATE PRODUCER CLAIRE BROMLEY ABOUT THE GAME AND THE VITA!
The main focus of the game is choosing new and unsigned acts to perform at your event. What was the motivation behind this choice? We love these types of games, but we also wanted to bring something new Sure thing, here at XDev Studio Europe we and interesting to the table. So when aim to bring a wide range of innovative we spoke to the guys over at Jamendo games to PlayStation platforms. To give on how we could work together to allow you an idea, some of our previous releases players to search, discover and promote were Until Dawn and LittleBigPlanet 3, real life unsigned artists through the two very different games, both awesome game, it just seemed like too cool an idea fun. to not make it into the game. Obviously the main reason we are talking to you is the "Festival Simulator" BigFest. Can you explain what the game is about? The game is about designing and managing your own Festival, your way. So you can be headlining a Hard Rock band, whilst everyone is wearing straw hats and eating candy floss. You also have access to global catalogue of real life unsigned artists, through our mates over at Jamendo. So you can have fun scouting out and finding unknown artists you like to promoting through your festivals, which other players can attend and listen to, as well as following how their doing on the BigFest Leaderboards. 12
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When the game was first announced it was a Free-to-play title, but this has obviously been abandoned. What was the thinking behind this? As you know, things can change during the development of a game as we regularly play and review iterations, and in the end we believed it would offer a more satisfying experience to players as a premium game.
Do you have any favourite artists in BigFest? Juanitos - Glitter Bomb from her Best The game will continually be updated with of Juanitos album and before you ask, no I'm new artists to choose from. How do you not going to sing any. go about attracting this talent, and how long do you think the game will do this The game was initially for? announced as a Vita So we're currently planning to swap out exclusive, then coming to a few hundred tracks every few months, PS3/4 before releasing as a to keep it fresh and interesting for the Vita exclusive. Not that we players. We don't need to attract the are complaining, but can you talent, it's already there waiting for us shed any light on the other to find them on Jamendo! It only really depends on demand as to when we'll stop versions? Like I mentioned earlier, updating the tracks. things can change during development. We investigated the idea of thevitalounge.net
bringing the game to our other platforms but in the end the best experience was on Vita so we decided to focus on that version and do it properly. There have been a lot of high-profile comments regarding Sony's plans towards the Vita. Are Sony XDev working on any other Vita titles right now? Unfortunately I can't confirm if we have any other Vita games in development right now, although we've worked hard to get this one to you, so we hope you enjoy it.
You are a big Vita fan yourself, what have been your favourite experiences? I am indeed. Being able to game wherever I go and the option of Remote Play, is just delightful, although crossing busy roads can be dangerous sometimes....
Our last question is a hard one - which do you think is the better Vita model, the My favourite moments would have to original OLED or the Slim? be LittleBigPlanet making me giggle The honest answer from me is both. I've straightaway with 'oh no! The end of the still got my original Vita but he's beginning road!' and continuing making me smile to look his age. He's still serving me very until the end. well, there's not been a cough or splutter out of him despite, and I'm not proud to Tearaway's end specifically, but that game say this...I have dropped him a few times. is utterly charming throughout. But the new colourful slim models...I really want one too, but that's just being Rayman Legends music levels, those Gloo Vita greedy, although I guess if anyone Gloo songs are just fabulous fun to listen would understand where I'm coming from, to as you play through the same level and it would be you guys. try to time that jump better. My favourite experience of Hotline Miami will always be on the Vita version, I'm pretty sure I do better at the absolutely nails levels when the screen is an inch away from my nose.
@PSVitaMag
Is there anything that you are looking forward to from the 2016 line-up? The Attack on Titan game on the Vita will be getting purchased day 1.
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Claire! Make sure you follow @SonyXDevEurope for the latest updates from the team! Have you played BigFest yet? Check out our review on page 38! The Vita Lounge Magazine
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Vlambeer
vlambeer.com @Vlambeer
Rami Ismail
@tha_rami
Hello Rami, thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Can you tell us a little bit about Vlambeer and how you got into developing games? Vlambeer is myself and co-founder Jan Willem Nijman. We met at a game design university, even though both of us had been making games since we were young. I focused on creating larger games with commercial potential, and Jan Willem focused on just making as many games as he could. It led to him being really good at starting projects and designing them, me being capable of figuring out the commercial potential of a game and wrapping up, and both of us being really bored at university. We decided to ignore our different approaches and teamed up for Vlambeer. That was back in 2010, and by now, we're known for Super Crate Box, Ridiculous Fishing, LUFTRAUSERS and now Nuclear Throne. We always team up with super talented people, and this time was no exception. Super Crate Box and LUFTRAUSERS artist Paul Veer did all the art for the game. LUFTRAUSERS musician Jukio Kallio returned to working with us for the music. Badlands audio designer Joonas Turner did all of the sound effects and design. Finally, Justin Chan - a student that made fan-art for an early prototype - was brought aboard for the cover and promo art. We wanted to talk to you about Nuclear Throne, which has just released on Vita. Can you tell us a little bit about the game? Nuclear Throne is a top-down action roguelike-like. It's a fast-paced, merciless action game, that throws you into unpredictable situations. There's no 'one run' to practice and master - you'll have to practice enough to become good at 14
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VLAMBEER ARE AN INDEPENDENT DUTCH STUDIO MADE UP OF RAMI ISMAIL AND JAN WILLEM NIJMAN AND TOGETHER THEY HAVE BEEN "BRINGING BACK ARCADE GAMES SINCE 2010". WE CAUGHT UP WITH RAMI TO DISCUSS THE RELEASE OF NUCLEAR THRONE, THE PSVITA AND THEIR GAMES. down on content until only the most interesting things remain. For Nuclear Throne, since we're playing with randomness, we could let go of those chains for a bit. There are 130 weapons, and while there are absurd differences between some weapons, there are many 'interesting little variations'. For the What was the inspiration behind Nuclear characters, we retained our old approach - each of the characters really has its own Throne? Bad sci-fi novels from 40-50 years ago or playstyle and feel to it. Playing Crystal, so. It's a bit more hopeful in tone than the with her defensive powers, is an entirely contemporary 'the last stand of humanity', different experience than playing Steroids, which is extremely offensive. Play as which we're honestly super tired of. In Nuclear Throne, we just decided humanity Robot, and you'll have to go for pickups you otherwise never would've picked up, was extinct after an undefined while as Melting you start weaker than apocalypse, and created the colourful any other mutant, but turn into an mutants as our main characters. Their world might be sad and bleak and barren, unstoppable killing machine very rapidly if but at least there's not some sort of heroic you can sustain it. anthem playing over a pan shot of hopeful How was development of the Vita humans at their final stand against version? Have there been difficulties or impossible odds. Any living creature in compromises? this post-apocalyptic world has a rather The Vita was challenging to develop for, high chance of dying due to radiation, yeah. It's a nifty device, and we're both big random tears in reality or bullets. Or lasers miniguns. Or you know, screwdriver fans of the screen and controls. We had to compromise somewhere, and we refused stabbings or something. Bad things happen. No one lives to grow old. For the to compromise in the gameplay. We mutants, a distant myth of a throne room wanted PlayStation Vita to play exactly yielding unimaginable power draws them the same as it does on the other platforms. That meant there's an ungodly to their journey into the wastelands, but amount of stuff going on each frame, and the honest reality is that nobody knows the Vita just couldn't really keep up. The whether the Throne exists, what it is or main compromises came in audio whether it even can fix anything. compression, which filled up 60% of the Vita's memory in the original high-quality There are many different characters to version. We were loading and playing so choose from. How does that affect how many sounds, while even our favourite players approach the game? AAA Vita games only load and play a few It's actually really funny. Nuclear Throne incorporates a lot of ideas from our earlier dozen. The other compromise we had to make was on the menu screens, where games. Vlambeer has traditionally been the portals are of a lower fidelity. We also known for minimalist design, cutting recognizing situations and dealing with them quickly. You'll have to learn to balance your choices. We wanted to make a game at which you could suck when you first pick it up, so that you can actually get that feeling of mastery when you beat the first world.
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had the option of fixing a frame drop by toning down the explosion of the second boss-fight, which is by all means screenfilling, but we decided to optimize it by turning off collision on the smoke particles instead. There's still a frame drop during that explosion, but it's kind of charming.
a tiny bit a shorter, but the sheer vision behind that game in your hands was amazing. Persona 4 and Tearaway also have permanent spots on my Vita. I have Sound Shapes, Rogue Legacy, Thomas Was Alone and Hotline Miami around. I think all of them are a benchmark in their own way. They all inspire us as creators.
The game's release was announced at PSX in December and was immediately available. How was that? We're really proud of the game launch. It's kind of a dream to launch a game on a big stage, and we worked extremely hard to keep our commitments to SONY. They've been magnificent and extremely helpful. As with LUFTRAUSERS, we couldn't be happier with our collaboration.
Is there anything from the upcoming releases that you are most looking forward to on the Vita? Darkest Dungeon and Hyper Light Drifter.
Are there any games that stand out for you on the Vita? Which games would you say are the benchmark? It's so hard to pick a benchmark! We're making a very specific game, and we're trying to make something new something recognizable yet unique. If what you're asking for my favourite game: my first Vita game is still my favourite: Gravity Rush was such an overwhelmingly special game. Sure, it wasn't perfect, and it felt like it would've been better with being
Was there anything you had to cut out of Luftrausers that you wish you'd left in? No!
We couldn't talk to you without asking about the fantastic Luftrausers. Are there any plans to patch the trophy issues? If you're asking about whether we'll fix the one glitched trophy, we're going to look into it. It seems like it might be really hard to fix that bug, but we haven't had the What are your thoughts on the Vita as a time to take a look at it due to our platform? development schedule on Nuclear Throne. As said, we love it. The amount of There's a long and confusing story behind independent games coming out for the how that bug happened, and we're as platform is overwhelming, and there simply is no other handheld platform that upset about it as the people who have can give you the level of control and indie been emailing us. We hope we'll find a way to fix it somehow. It's a shame for portfolio that the Vita does. I personally completionists to be stuck at less than fly a lot, and the Vita has always kept up 100%. with me, even for longer flights.
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You have many other popular titles, one of the most notable is perhaps Super Crate Box. With the death of the PS Mobile format, would you consider a native Vita version? Maybe! We need a nap first.
The Vita has become well placed for a multitude of independently developed titles. Do you see this continuing? Or as these games become more ambitious do you think the Vita will be left behind? I like my Vita, so maybe I'm optimistic, but I think a lot of independent developers have a soft spot for handhelds. Combine that with SONY's amazing developer relationship team, which also seems to love the Vita. As long as SONY supports it at events, and supports developers trying to create for it, you'll see independent developers making games for it. For indies that don't want to deal with the technical aspects and limitations, there are great studios with great expertise in porting games over to Vita, studios like Abstraction and Curve. That mitigates a lot of my worries that the platform will be left behind. There's just something special about making something that you can carry with you, and sometimes developers are self-indulgent like that. It might often sound like game-development is super business-oriented and mechanical from the outside, but in the end, everything always starts with a glint in someone's eye as they think 'It would be so cool to play this thing I'm working on my Vita'. Finally, which do you think is the best Vita model, the OLED or the Slim? I love the original. Maybe because that's the one I own!
We would like to thank Rami for his time with this interview! Make sure you follow @Vlambeer for their latest updates. Have you played Nuclear Throne yet? We will bring you a review next issue! The Vita Lounge Magazine
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Mighty Rabbit Studios mightyrabbitstudios.com @TheMightyRabbit
Limited Run Games limitedrungames.com @LimitedRunGames
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Can you tell us a little bit about Mighty Rabbit Studios? Josh: Mighty Rabbit Studios is a small game developer based out of Cary, NC. We’ve been making games since 2010. Our first game was Saturday Morning RPG in 2012 - it was received well by critics but it bombed financially. Out of that financial crisis, we found work building Breach & Clear and followed that by building Breach & Clear: Deadline (a more action-oriented B&C spinoff). Both of those games were built as work for hire while we slowly continued work on Saturday Morning RPG. Earlier this year we launched our physical game publishing wing, Limited Run Games. I’m a huge game collector so launching LRG is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m incredibly excited for what the future holds for Mighty Rabbit Studios!
MIGHTY RABBIT STUDIOS HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE 2010 AND ARE BRINGING THEIR GAMES TO THE VITA, WITH THE LATEST BEING SATURDAY MORNING RPG. THEY ALSO LAUNCHED THEIR OWN GAME PUBLISHING SERVICE TO GET PHYSICAL VERSIONS OF VITA GAMES, STARTING WITH THEIR OWN. WE SPOKE TO DOUGLAS BOGART AS WELL AS MIGHTY RABBIT'S PRESIDENT, JOSH FAIRHURST TO FIND OUT MORE.
Josh: We don’t beat people over the head with 80’s stuff - as in, it’s not so 80’s it hurts. We didn’t slap neon colors everywhere and scream “THIS IS THE 80’S!!” at the top of our lungs. This was a conscious choice on my part because I wanted it to have an appeal that wasn’t specific to a decade. One of my favourite The game has a ton of enemies to fight, TV shows is “The Wonder Years” - it’s set lots of items to collect, and many in the 60’s. I didn’t grow up in the 60’s and environments to explore. It’s a lot of fun and I really hope it finds an audience that I have no personal frame of reference for that decade. People who grew up in the appreciates it on the Vita. 60’s get added nostalgia from the show, but you don’t need that nostalgia to enjoy What sort of gameplay and experiences it. They didn’t go all out stupid with the can gamers expect to encounter in the 60’s stuff to the point where it would game? Josh: The game is a turn-based RPG with alienate people. I guess an apt way to put this is our intention here was to create active elements (like Mario RPG or Paper something genuine like “The Wonder Mario) - players can time button presses Years” rather than something in-yourto defend in combat or boost attack damage with special inputs. For example face like “That 80’s Show” (remember that if you decide to use the “Joystick” object in hot pile of garbage)? battle, you have to play a mini-game Douglas: Our mascot is awesome! resembling PONG or Breakout in order to The short answer is that yes, people who damage the enemy. For players that want grew up outside the 80’s will definitely still find something to enjoy here. We’ve We are talking today about Saturday to do as little input as possible during seen kids as young as five playing the Morning RPG. Can you explain what it is battle, there is items that do not require game and loving it. They don’t catch the about? it. Battles can kind of be as active or references, but since we don’t beat Josh: Saturday Morning RPG is an episodic inactive as you want them to be. anyone over the head with them, that’s Japanese-style RPG set in a world inspired not really an issue. The references and by 1980s Saturday morning cartoons and When you’re not battling, you get to callbacks add to the experience rather pop culture. In the game players take the explore the world of Saturday Morning than being the experience. role of Marty, a high school student who RPG. While exploring you’ll talk to NPCs has just been gifted an extraordinary and gain side quests, new battle objects, Will there be any notable differences power - the ability to channel magic and equippable scratch n’ sniff stickers through everyday objects. Through this that boost your stats in battle. Some side between previous versions of Saturday power Marty manages to gain the ire of quests require the player to make choices Morning RPG and the Vita version? Josh: For starters you can play the game the evil Commander Hood, who happens which can ripple into later (or even past) entirely on the touch screen or on the to be the world’s most feared villain. episodes. controller. That hasn’t been possible on The adventure spans five episodes and Is the game more of a love letter to those any other platform. This next thing doesn’t really impact gameplay but I’m your character stats, choices, and that grew up in the 80s of do you think proud of it (on an attention to detail level): inventory are carried forward into each that anyone can enjoy it? 16
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episode you play. Episodes can be played multiple times and in any order. Each episode features a relatively selfcontained story, much like the cartoons it draws inspiration from, so playing them out of order is possible.
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Games - which we covered in Issue 7 how is that going? Will Saturday Morning RPG receive a physical Vita version? Douglas: It's going great! We have a lot of great releases coming out, and met a lot of great people at PSX. The fan reaction was incredible, being able to sell out of our first game in 103 minutes is just amazing. We are definitely a fan driven company The game's music is primarily composed and take feedback into serious by Vince DiCola, who worked on consideration. We will start numbering Transformers: The Movie, Rocky IV and the spines for example based on more. How did that collaboration come feedback. One of the greatest things that about? happen to me personally was having fans Josh: We reached out to Vince in 2010 to see if he’d compose the theme song to the come up to me at PSX and telling me how happy they are that there is a company game. I didn’t really think he’d respond out there that is putting out physical and figured the best we’d get would be a releases. Even developers knew who we no. Much to my surprise, Vince said yes were when I would approach them and not just to composing the theme because fans have been tweeting about song but to composing the entire game! He had just recently done a version of the us possibly working together. I just want Gran Turismo theme with Doug Bossi for to give a sincere thank you to our fans! GT5: Prologue and really wanted to do some more work for games. He was really Saturday Morning RPG will definitely have excited to work with us and we were really a physical version, we are very excited to be able to make that happen! RPG's just excited to work with him! For Saturday feel at home on a Vita, so Saturday Morning RPG, Vince worked alongside Morning RPG is a definite must have. Kenny Meriedith - Kenny is one of those guys who has done a ton of stuff you’ve Breach and Clear was limited to 1500 probably heard but hasn’t been in the copies on the Vita - do you plan to spotlight. His resume on his old website increase this at all for Saturday Morning read like a laundry list of everything I RPG? watched growing up (Duck Tales, Power The PS4 will have 1980 copies, and the Rangers, X-Men, and more). Vita will have somewhere between 2200 to 2300, we haven't decided on a concrete Vince and Kenny have been amazing to work with and I really hope they get more number yet. We will be doing more Vita work in games. They’re insanely talented copies due to the overwhelming response from Vita fans. :) and don’t seem to get the amount of attention or praise they deserve. What have been your favourite experiences on the Vita? Although a separate initiative, Mighty Douglas: For me game wise it's been the Rabbit Studios have set up Limited Run On every version but the Vita and PS4 version, the main menu features VHS tapes; on the Vita and PS4 version, those tapes are Beta tapes. Sony invented the Beta format and lost out to VHS, so we felt it would be nice to keep Sony formats in our Sony versions.
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Danganronpa series, Freedom Wars and Senran Kagura. Is there anything coming out for the Vita that you are excited by (or want to sort a retail release for)? Douglas: I'd say Cosmic Star Heroine, not just because we are doing a release for it, but because the amount of work Zeboyd Games has put in it and how great it plays. Retail wise there are a lot of games, but I would love to put out Salt and Sanctuary, Nuclear Throne, and Crypt of the NecroDancer. Honestly most of the games I got to see at PSX deserve physical releases. Will Cosmic Star Heroine also get a Limited Run Games release? Cosmic Star Heroine is confirmed for both PS4 and Vita. Our final question - what do you think is the better Vita model, the OLED or the Slim? Douglas: VitaTV! Haha. Semi-joke, I love mine, but in terms of the actual Vita, I love the slim series, it feels better in my hands and has a normal charger. Josh: I'm an OLED guy. Those colours, man! They just pop on that screen.
Thanks to Josh and Douglas for taking the time to talk with us! Make sure you follow @TheMightRabbit and @LimitedRubGames for the latest updates from the team! We will bring you a review of Saturday Morning RPG soon! The Vita Lounge Magazine
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TT Games
ttgames.com @TTGames
Steve Thornton
Game Director @_SteveThornton
Hello Steve! Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Can you explain a little about TT Fusion? Hi! Thanks for having me. Something that not everyone knows about TT Games is that we actually have two offices, one in Knutsford, and another office just down the road in a town called Wilmslow. TT Fusion is what we call the Wilmslow office, where I work. Although TT Fusion was originally created to help bring the early LEGO console games to handheld players, our role expanded massively as LEGO became more popular (if that’s possible!) and the two offices now share the projects, with TT Fusion teams leading both the console and handheld versions of LEGO City Undercover, The LEGO Movie Videogame and most recently LEGO Jurassic World; along with Nintendo 3DS and PSVita exclusives like LEGO Chima: Laval’s Journey and LEGO Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin. Although we have a separate office and name, we act like one large development studio, sharing ideas, technology and resources, always working together to push the LEGO games forward. LEGO Marvel's Avengers is out very soon and is exciting a lot of people, especially since it will be the first PSVita title to have a fully open world environment. Can you explain a little more about how you managed to fit that in? We try to read every review, user comment, email and tweet we can get our hands on before, during and after development of a game … so we know 18
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LEGO MARVEL'S AVENGERS RELEASES LATER THIS MONTH AND THE LATEST BRICK-BASED TITLE IS BASED AROUND MARVEL'S AVENGERS CHARACTERS; AND ESPECIALLY THE CINEMATIC SERIES FROM JOSS WHEDON. WE CAUGHT UP WITH TT FUSION'S GAME DIRECTOR, STEVE THORNTON, TO FIND OUT MORE. something people have wanted on handheld for a while now is a true open world experience that they can keep in their pocket and play anytime, anywhere. It’s something we’ve been building up to, and if I was to name the three ways that we achieved it with this game, it would be the combination of an extremely clever and experienced tech and code team, an incredibly ambitious and tech-savvy art team, and a very well-organised and stubborn design team. I am incredibly impressed with what the team has accomplished with LEGO Marvel’s Avengers’ open world Manhattan hub. It’s a living, breathing city that is a 1:1 scale to the console environment, full of content that you can fly, drive and leap through without cuts, breaks or loading screens. Previous PSVita versions of LEGO titles have been much more condensed versions of the home console editions. What changes can we expect between the two this time around, or are they much closer? We know that audiences are interested in the console and handheld games becoming ever closer in terms of feel and features, so we worked closer with the console team than ever before on this project, ensuring that all the key defining features (teamwork mechanics, Iron Man suit wheel, Hulk super jump abilities, Quicksilver super speed, etc.) were present in both versions. This said, when you sit down to design a game like LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, you immediately start making choices about what content to
include and how to translate it into the game, including what characters to focus on, what levels to have, what events to cover, what environments to build, character mechanics and how they’ll work, etc. An advantage of doing both a handheld and console version is being able to try different things and explore different aspects of the Marvel Universe. So although we share a lot of our core content and tell the same central MCU story, our levels often deviate in flow and style, our characters sometimes have new or different mechanics and our Free Play content is completely exclusive. We also try to make choices that are right for the handheld audience and on-the-go gaming. LEGO Marvel's Avengers is based more around the MCU as opposed to the content in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. Which of the two is your favourite? LEGO Marvel’s Avengers is a celebration of all things Avengers, featuring all of the cool characters, iconic scenes and big action set pieces that audiences know and love from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as classic Avengers content from Marvel Comics, all recreated in LEGO form with that clever, humorous TT Games twist. Although the main story of the game is focused on the MCU, in Free Play mode we find every opportunity to explore the extended Avengers family and delve into the rich and diverse comic book back-story behind the MCU. It’s really the best of both worlds! thevitalounge.net
The PSVita's struggles have been well documented, yet we continue to see LEGO titles arrive and also with a retail presence. Where do you see your support The PSVita LEGO titles have improved in for the Vita, going forward? Is it on a title quality and content as they have been by title basis? released, with the Legends of Chima titles I am personally a big fan of PSVita; I think and LEGO Jurassic World series high it’s a lovely platform with an even lovelier points. Does LEGO Marvel's Avengers screen, and I’m proud that the LEGO eclipse those, in your opinion? games continue to support the PSVita Well firstly, thank you! I was deeply audience with regular releases. I think the involved with LEGO Legends of Chima: audience for LEGO titles on PSVita is only Laval’s Journey and am always excited to expanding, and hopefully now that we’re hear from people who played and enjoyed bringing open world New York City to it. Although people have a tendency to LEGO Marvel’s Avengers on handheld for lump the LEGO games together, it’s the first time, it will continue to attract incredibly important to us that we respect more gamers to the platform. the spirit of our source material with each game, since different licenses change the Are there any games that you enjoy on kind of experience we want to provide. the PSVita? Whereas Laval’s Journey was very much I suppose it would be cheating to name a designed to feel like a light and cartoony bunch of LEGO games! I absolutely loved old-school platformer, and LEGO Jurassic Tearaway, an extremely imaginative and World was about adrenaline and elegant game from the reliably lovely atmosphere, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers is Media Molecule. I doubt I can find better an explosive action adventure game with adjectives than you’ll find in the hundreds big set pieces, numerous characters and of glowing reviews. I also liked Uncharted: innovative features. The continuing trend Golden Abyss, Need for Speed: Most with all of our projects is to listen to what Wanted and Killzone: Mercenary, all of which did a great job of emulating the The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to fans want, and that is what drives the look and feel of their console versions on enter Phase Three; do you anticipate that focus of our core features. The things I the small screen. I really need to try we will see a LEGO Marvel's Avengers 2 as heard people asking for after our most recent handheld titles were clear: more Gravity Rush, I hear that’s a must play. we approach Infinity War? types of gameplay, more variety, more When we work on a game, I try not to characters, more fan service and of imagine any potential sequels or look course, an open world. We’ve gone down ahead to the next license, as it can make Thanks for taking the time to talk the full checklist this time, and more than you hold something back or think “we’ll with us Steve! Make sure you any game before, I think LEGO Marvel’s save that for the next one.” On every follow @TTGames for the latest Avengers is giving the fans exactly what project I want to push the features and updates from the team! LEGO content as far as I can so I don’t dwell too they want. Marvel's Avengers is set to be much on what’s coming next! I will say released on January 26th/29th! though that in many ways, LEGO Marvel’s How big is the roster in LEGO Marvel's Avengers? Do you have a favourite character to play as? I don’t think we have nailed down an exact number yet, but we have over 100 characters in the handheld version, and I’m fairly sure it is the biggest character roster we’ve ever had on PSVita or 3DS. As for my favourite character to play, Iron Man and Hulk both offer their own way of getting around the open world city. Iron Man can jet, boost and barrel his way through the skies, while Hulk can perform huge leaping jumps and smash his way up the side of buildings with his super jump abilities. It makes it hard to choose between them! Luckily there are a few characters in the game that offer BOTH traversal abilities, able to activate jet flight out of a hyper jump and then cut their boosters to grab the nearest surface. So for my favourite character to play, look no further than Detroit Steel, a ridiculous mountain of starry stripey metal armed with a rocket launcher and chainsaw. In the main story mode, I have a real soft spot for Captain America’s shield mechanics and combat animations.
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Avengers is a celebration of the MCU’s Phase 1 and 2 so it’s quite fitting that it releases as Phase 3 is beginning.
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R DI E P O L E V E D
ARY
At Infinite State Games we pride ourselves on being completely independent. No publishers, no stakeholders, no nothing. It’s literally just two guys with a home-made game engine working out of our respective kitchens, making the sort of games we want to play, with no-one to answer to. In November 2014, we released Don’t Die, Mr. Robot! on PSVita. It got some nice fat 8/10 scores and introduced a lot of people to the sort of games that we , slightly unhinged, logetic at ISG like to make: unapo that require a bit games super fun, hardcore arcade of thought but not too much. In this quick dev-diary, we’re gonna let you into the last 6 months of development on our next game; Wing Kings – due for release mid-2016 on PSVita and PS4 platforms.
‘As long as it’s fun, it’s fine.’ The fact is, there are many ways to dispatch enemies in Wing Kings. Not all of them pretty. What we do guarantee though is, it’s all great fun. So with our joint vision clear, the time to make a new game arrived…
August – The Core Mechanic of Flight
Right at the core of Wing Kings is flying. If flying doesn’t feel right, the game ain’t gonna feel right. So we didn't mess about. At Infinite State Games we strongly believe that your core game mechanics need to be very tight: everything else is just icing on that cake. And as the son of an ex-RAF pilot and a huge fan of WW2 flight sims, Charlie wanted to get as much realism into the flight and damage models as possible, while still making it feel fun.
July – The War Planning Committee
But neither of us are aeronautical engineers though, so it was over to the good people at MIT to provide some guidance: web.mit.edu/16.00/www/aec/flight. html
Looking through our big black book of secret game designs, we didn’t take long to agree that the next game should be one we’ve been planning for many years now. It would be a revisiting of the old 2D dog fighting games of our youth, but with modern game-play mechanics, rogue-like character development and procedurally generated landscapes. It would have to have replay value out the wazoo, a deep control scheme and gorgeous art.
September – Prototyping and Experimenting
We’ve no shortage of games we want to make at ISG, so chucking ideas around at the initial planning phases is always an energizing process.
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guidelines. We came up with this:
September was the month we dropped the core game-play mechanics into our engine and started properly prototyping. Initially the focus was on getting taking off and landing right, getting the firing speed right, making the bombs and rockets feel exciting and ensuring the landscape generation routines didn’t make the world a horrid place to be.
We wanted the player to choose between a female or male protagonist. Charlie always likes to play as femme fatales in games, Mike always chooses a meat-head dude, so this way we both got to play as we like.
We also started making the AI for our enemies. Making the enemy planes chase and attack the player in a pleasing way wasn’t too hard. Making them not want to smash into the sea or cliff edges took a little more persuasion. https://youtu.be/ xJpGabrkRzc
We also wanted to be conscious of the ethics of making a game based around war. Neither of us at ISG are fans of armed conflict in real life. Mike was raised by Quakers and is always casting his hippy eyes over everything to make sure it’s all morally kosher. But when you’re peppering enemies with a highly powered prop-plane mounted cannon, blasting them with rockets and pummeling their bases with bombs – there’s gonna be some violent depictions. We needed a rule. We needed internal
As we both played the prototype in our respective offices, texts started to fly between us with shaggy
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The more we played, the more we realized that the fun of the game was not from specific instructions and rigid missions, but from breaking off and doing your own thing. When you’re making games, you look for those water cooler moments. The bizarre collections of random events in a game which made for a great war story.
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dog stories of great battles, close shaves and near misses. If we had a water cooler at ISG (or even an office) – it would have been a very busy place. We were excited. We even sent Mike skydiving to report back on how it felt to control a parachute in real life. Felt great! Made us realize quite how much say over where it goes you actually have which has been reflected in the game.
October – Art Drop Time
admirably. In fact, their music is so perfectly brutal I just listened to a 10 second snippet of it and my palms are now covered in coarse black hairs. Here’s a sneak peak of one of the tunes https://soundcloud.com/ kevvymetal/infinite-state-gamesnew-game-preview-track
We also had our yearly ISG meeting in November. Now, to the casual observer, it may have appeared as if we just sat on the sofa for 24 hours eating We’ve worked on and off with our artist friend Tony donuts and watching movies. Indeed, that’s exactly what we did do. It’s important as a team to just let for years. He’s a games industry veteran who cut your hair down sometimes and chill. You don’t his teeth making 8 and 16bit graphics when it was want all your memories of the best years of your life state of the art rather than an imposed limitation. being just working. Trust me. This guy’s the real deal. A man can develop in coder art for only so long. With October, so came the art.
Tony’s a fan of the genre that Wing Kings sits in too, having played many of the same inspirational titles we did back in the day. Games like Wings of Fury, Sky Strike, Jet Strike, and more recently Glory Days on DS. His style is somewhere between industrial and cute. Metal Slug meets Speed Ball 2. When the art delivery came (in glorious HD ready for the PS4 version) we resized it, dropped it in, and they say a picture paints a thousand words so have two;
December – Tweaks, iteration and polishing hooks.
As the nights began to draw in, we had the guts of what would be Wing Kings, and it was now we were able to pinpoint what was fun, what wasn’t working, and what new ideas could be incorporated. Playing the game solid for a month led us to find what would become one of the riskiest but most rewarding game-play hook in Wing Kings – the aerial steal. We noticed that when you eject from your plane, those moments before your parachute deploys, quite often you’d fall past an enemy plane. It came to us in a flash: ‘Dude, we so need to rip the pilot out of that plane and have your guy steal it mid-air’
Tony decided to use a technique where the plane was modeled in 3D, rotated to create the animation We implemented, tried it… and we saw that it was frames, then painstakingly touched up with hand rad. painted pixels until it looked perfect. We love how it looks and we reckon you will too. The tweaks and ideas kept coming. While drifting down on the parachute, we thought ‘hey, why don’t we give our player a gun here? No, not a November – Death to all but Metal Sure enough, as promised, November saw the arrival gun, a big fat hand cannon. That way they can blast away any planes or troops that pose a of the music we’d commissioned. threat on the way down. It’ll be fun!’ So now, after ejecting, you can fire in any direction you You ever listen to Iron Maiden? Specifically Aces want as you descend. One word of advice though; High? That’s what we were after. Our exquisite don’t shoot your own parachute. That gets kinda circa 1995 32-bit pixel artwork needed to sit on messy. But ‘As long as it’s fun, it’s fine?’ right? top of music that took elements from 90’s metal, Iron Maiden, but with a unique proggy / modern Wing Kings continues to be developed slant. independently by Infinite State Games. They are currently investigating online multiplayer Kevin ‘Kevvy Metal’ Black (bassist from Laeto, Fat Goth) and his producer Ross Middlemiss are based in modes and tweaking missions until they’re so much fun they should be illegal. Dundee. These two are so metal, they can make pink spandex look good. So metal they piss Mercury. Wing Kings is due for release mid-2016 Tasked with writing us several battle loops, a main on PSVita, PS4 and Xbox One. theme and some stings – those boys have delivered
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Written by
Paul Murphy
PMurphy1978 PMurphy1978
8 8 6 PSTV 958 MB Publisher
wbfun.com @WB_Games
Developer
supergiantgames.com
@SupergiantGames
Released
NA: December 5th EU: December 5th
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“Critically acclaimed” is thrown around too easily these days. How often have you seen a game receive multiple accolades and plaudits, yet a few years down the line the mechanics and gameplay haven’t held up? This was my main concern whilst awaiting the Vita release for Bastion, which is actually more than four years old; that’s when I got my first experience of the game when it originally launched on the XBOX 360. Despite the game receiving a PlayStation 4 release earlier this year, I have been (im)patiently longing for this Vita release as you would expect – but I anxiously asked myself repeatedly; “would the game still be as glorious as I remember all those years ago?” Thankfully the answer is a resounding yes! For those of you that haven’t heard of the game before, in Bastion you play as “the Kid” who awakens to find that the world has been afflicted by “the calamity” and disintegrated your home into multiple floating islands. It falls to you to recover the missing core shards and rebuild the “Bastion” to its former glory, whilst discovering many of the worlds characters and enemies along the way.
Presented from an isometric viewpoint, there are few that will deny that the game is stunning – with a beautiful hand-drawn style forming around you as you explore your surroundings. Vibrant, detailed and colourful, the landscape shifts from locale to locale and each different part of the world you encounter looks and feels different to the one you discovered before. All of this unfolds with some belated narration from Logan Cunningham, who explains what happens in the adventure as you do it. With over 3,000 lines of dialogue, his calming, dulcet tones sit alongside the game’s stunning acoustics. Even four years after it was originally released, this remains one of the most accomplished and beautifully crafted indie experiences that I have played. The basics of Bastion are very simple to grasp, and soon after awakening from your slumber you will very quickly discover your first weapons – initially a melee and a ranged – and will begin your assault on the beasts that have invaded your lands. Some of these enemies won’t last very long at all, but many will require some evasive work by rolling away. You’ll also acquire a shield which, with some perfect timing, can result in a devastating counter attack at your foes. If these combinations are not enough, you’ll also discover your first “secret skill”, a special attack which although limited in uses can often prove handy in many situations. How you play will come down to which weapons you enjoy using the most, and the game has a wide variety available for you to select from the arsenal, once discovered of course, and each tool has thevitalounge.net
its own special attack as well. Not all of these are available to start with, they’ll be discovered as you progress through your experience. Every weapon can also be upgraded too, with two different options available at each level. Want more power or a faster attack? More range or increased target capability? It is entirely down to you, and thankfully you can change it if you want afterwards with a visit to the forge. By the time you come to the end of your first play through and have decided on the fate of the land, you will firmly have settled on your favourite combination and probably have maxed these out. Completing the adventure probably won’t take you very long, but thankfully Bastion has more than enough to keep you coming back for more. For starters you’ll be able to start it all again in New Game Plus – and retain your experience, level, currency and weapons – or play in a new way with Score Mode, which, as you’d expect, will see you try to attain the highest scores possible in each level. Pro-tip – you’ll want to build your multiplier. That’s not all, within the adventure you’ll also have “vigils” which are set challengers and these will keep you occupied as you progress. The game also has multiple “proving grounds” and these act as specific weapon challenges. Successfully completing these challenges awards you upgrade materials for your weapons or even special moves. Your skills and abilities will be severely tested as you try to get first prize.
alter the way that your enemies play, with more health, less damage taken, no health drops and much more. There are also four trips to “who knows where” which are basically wave-based enemy encounters. Surviving to the end of these will net you a huge amount of experience and currency shards, as well as trophies. Which will all be needed on the way to that platinum.
that they have worked on. It’s also worth noting that the original game was coded in C# – which is not Vita-friendly, so it has been a massive undertaking to get it almost perfect on the Vita.
And almost perfect it is. If you want a charming, engrossing and colourful game to keep you occupied for a while, you really cannot go wrong with Bastion. It has It’s hard to find anything not to like in passed my expectations and is every bit Bastion, and whilst almost all of the credit as charming as I remember it being four years ago, which has to be some sort of must go to Supergiant Games for their accomplishment – feeling as fresh today vision, ambition and execution, this Vita as it did then and as deserving of that version was managed by the team at adulation as it ever has been. You won’t be BlitWorks. If you love indie games on the disappointed. Vita, you’ve probably played something that they have worked on – most notably FEZ, Spelunky and Don’t Starve to name a few, but this is easily my favourite game
If you need your games to have a significant challenge, Bastion has you covered there too. Within your main play through you’ll be able to activate a maximum of ten idols (when discovered) from the shrine, which will significantly
VERDICT Vibrant, colourful and beautiful all round, Bastion is easily one of the most accomplished indie games that I have ever played. With an enchanting story, great weapons and lots to keeping you playing for some time, it is one of my favourite games ever, let alone on the Vita.
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4.5 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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the untrained eye, it’s a jumble of colors and shapes, but to an analytical mastermind, it’s a puzzle written in a language waiting to be learned.
Written by
Brad Gruetzmacher @vongruetz vongruetz
1 3 8 PSTV 67.9 MB
The game Othello was always billed as taking “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.” The same could also be said for Super Blackout on the PlayStation Vita. However, this simple to learn but difficult to master game probably has more in common with another frustratingly difficult game that was the bane of my childhood: the Rubik’s Cube. Both have the root of their puzzles in patterns and mathematics. To
Super Blackout is essentially the Rubik’s Cube brought into the digital age. It can be maddeningly difficult at times, but when the code is finally cracked, the sense of accomplishment is all the greater. Super Blackout consists of a 6×6 grid of tiles that are either lit or blacked out. Selecting a tile will reverse its color and also reverse the colors of the tiles above, below, and to either side of it. The goal is to turn off all the tiles with the fewest possible moves to leave the screen all black. Probably easier said than done.
Publisher
fordesoft.com @Fordesoft
Developer
fordesoft.com @Fordesoft
Released
NA: October 13rd EU: Not released
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The game starts you off with 30 different Easy levels to try before you move on to the 30 Medium and 30 Hard levels… which can be extremely hard. There is also the option to play a stream of random levels from any of the difficulty levels, or even to create your own levels. The downside with the user created levels is that there is no way to share them with other players, nor is there a way to download levels that other players have created. The Easy levels are a nice introduction into the game and help to explain the language the game uses. It provides some basic scenarios with patterns that will recur in other levels. These are the puzzles that demonstrate how you want to “move” the pieces into corners and the edges to finishes things up. Then once the solutions to these basic puzzles are understood, it’s time to move on to the challenges that Medium and Hard offer. I was able to breeze through most of the Easy levels with few problems. It wasn’t until I increased the difficulty did I truly understand the challenge of the game. The times of finishing a puzzle in five moves or less were gone. To be honest,
the times of finishing the puzzle at all were mostly gone as well. The solution would be staring me right in the face, but a lot of times I just couldn’t see it. But then, I was never great at these kind of games, and the Rubik’s Cube… well, I’ve probably never solved one in my life.
Super Blackout is the ultimate case of “what you see is what you get.” It’s a challenging puzzle game with very simple rules. It’s also very bare boned, and while it does offer a nice level editor, it doesn’t offer any way to share these user generated levels.
That’s not a knock on the game at all. The concept is simple even if the solutions are not. But everything else, from the graphics to the controls, are exceedingly simple and easy to learn. You can choose between touching the tiles or using the sticks to highlight which tile you want to flip. Both work flawlessly. The only problem I had was in the location of the Quit button. It’s located so close to one of the boxes that it is very easy to accidentally touch, and since there’s no confirmation prompt once pressed, it’s easy to lose your progress accidentally.
Judging Super Blackout is really a matter of personal taste. What it does, it does well. The only question is whether or not these kind of puzzles are your cup of tea. The bite-sized puzzles offer the perfect pick-up-and-play opportunities that Vita owners love so much, and I think puzzle lovers will have a good time mulling over the solutions to these tricky problems.
The graphics are also about as simple as you can get. There is no fluff or pizazz to the presentation in Super Blackout. The music is also soft, soothing, and probably best just turned off. I found that when trying to concentrate here, silence is golden.
VERDICT Super Blackout is a super challenging puzzle game that has an easy to grasp concept to very difficult puzzles. The bare bones approach may cut out any cruft from the game, but it also leaves some features (like sharing user generated levels) clearly absent. Puzzle lovers looking for a great challenge will have to look no further than Super Blackout. @PSVitaMag
3.1 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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other fifteen-plus characters – allowing for you to customise your in-battle party as you see fit. If you see fit, you can even create your own character to play through the story with, although the story will progress telling Kirito’s tale regardless who your ‘main’ character is.
Written by Charlie Large @charlielarge Chaz3010
1 18 23 PSTV 3.0 GB Publisher
bandainamcoent.com @BandaiNamcoUS
Developer
www.artdink.co.jp @artdink_tw
Released
NA: November 17th EU: November 13th
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After the resonating success that was Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, there was no doubt that Bandai Namco would bring the follow up, Sword Art Online: Lost Song, to the west following its release in Asia early this year. One thing that was made pretty clear to me as soon as I jumped into the game was that this is not the best way for newcomers like myself to get their first taste of the Sword Art Online universe. This game does carry on from where Hollow Fragment left off and I would recommend that if you are looking at Lost Song as your way into the Sword Art Online universe to rethink your plans and start with either the anime or the earlier game before playing this.
Lost Song tales place on a floating continent called Svart ALfheim that appears in ALfheim Online – the VRMMORPG successor to Sword Art Online. The premise of the game is that you are racing against other guilds to clear the quests within Svart ALfheim – becoming the first to do so. Your main challenger in this race to be number one is Shamrock – a fan-club/guild that worships idol/scientist Seven, one of the new characters in the game. Kirito returns as the main protagonist in Lost Song, but, for the first time in the series, he can be replaced by any of the
The main hub area, the Floating City of Ryne, is where you can plan your approach before venturing into the different continents that fill Svart ALfheim’s world. In the hub city you can interact with other characters from time to time to begin individual character stories, visit Agil or Lisbeth for all your weapon and armour needs, choose your party of three at the Inn and even pick Side Quests and Extra Quests at the inn. Once you are ready and equipped to take on the next quest, you will then travel to a continent and work toward clearing each of the dungeons that are located within that land. There are four continents in total to work your way through, Woglinde – the island of meadows, Wellgunde – the Valley of Sand, Flosshilde – the Ring of Ice and Nibelheim – the Rocky Wasteland (the final, dark continent). In order to progress to the next area you will need to clear the current one that you have unlocked – beating all the bosses in all the dungeons before you clear the final dungeon that plays home to a badass boss! Travelling around these areas and battling the enemies that you encounter as you progress are two of the highlights in Lost Song. In keeping with the Alfheim Online setting, players have fairy wings and can fly around the continents in Lost Song. thevitalounge.net
The flight mechanics feel great, with the PlayStation Vita’s d-pad allowing you to switch between ground-based traversal, hovering and full flight. It does take a few goes to get used to, but in next to no time you will be soaring the skies of Svart ALfheim (especially once the altitude limit is removed later on in the game). The only downside to the flying is that you cannot use this mechanic when in a dungeon – making fights against flying enemies a bit of a pain at times. I also found myself wanting more from the dungeons and enemies that the game threw at me. Bar the bosses (which are glorious to look at and give off a menacing vibe) the ‘standard’ enemies that you encounter during the game re-use the same character models over and over – with each continent inhabited by the same seven or so enemies that have simply been re-skinned, re-named and had their level raised up a notch or two to add a bit more of a challenge then the last time you came across them. This
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means that after you have faced off with a certain enemy type a few times, you will begin to learn it’s attack pattern – meaning that you can almost pre-empt enemy movements which makes battles a lot less difficult.
know you are in for a good twenty minute slog!
Another series first for Lost Song is the action-RPG battle system in the game. Each character can wield three different weapons – with swords, axes and spears The same thing can be said about amongst those that are available. the dungeons. Whilst the outdoor Pressing Square will see you attack and environments of the continents that you you can press Triangle for a heavy attack. visit offer up bright colours and a variety Original Sword Skills (or OSS) return of contours and locations that help you and are incredibly useful in combat and find your bearings – the dungeons leave a the more you use these skills the more lot to be desired. Each dungeon looks the powerful they become – levelling up as same as the last, with minimal differences you progress through the game. such as the design on a door and some having multiple levels. Alongside the phyiscal attacks available are magic spells – featuring the usual It’s a shame that both the dungeons and element-based spells that are common enemies come across as lazy reskins in most RPG’s. These attacks also levelbecause, as I mentioned above, the boss up, so it is dividing your attacks between designs are great in this game. Each boss physical and magical attacks so that you is extremely detailed and looks like a force can level both up together – ensuring that to be reckoned with. When you come you do not have underpowered attacks across a boss battle and then see the later on in the game. health bar that you have to deplete – you
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The problem with the levelling system for individual attacks is that I found myself sticking to one weapon and one elemental attack throughout the whole game, levelling these two up as high as I could whilst not really paying much attention to the other options available. Luckily, I spent more care when levelling up all of the support characters – switching between them often and experimenting with the different setups available that would best compliment my character.
I would also like to point out that Lost Song is definitely one of the best looking games that has released on the PlayStation Vita this year. The cutscenes and dialogue sections are mainly portrayed with beautiful, static, 2D artwork (with some animated cutscenes for key story points) but each character and each environment looks great. The
One thing that I found great about Lost Song was that the party AI was a lot better than in most RPG’s. Whenever in battle I could rely on the AI characters to heal and revive myself and each other whilst helping me whittle down some of the gigantic health bars I was tasked with tackling.
colours and effects on show are stunning, and the game runs smoothly with very little slowdown (I did notice a drop in the frame rate when the on-screen action got a little busy but nothing too bad). The game’s audio works extremely well, with ambient, melodic guitar tracks playing as you explore the continents. The music soon ramps up as you enter battle, with the sound effects also playing their part to make every attack sound exactly as you would expect. Lost Song‘s voiceovers are all Japanese, so you will need to read the on-screen text but that is to be expected and the localisation of the text is spot on – so you don’t need to worry about anything getting lost in translation! Overall, my experience with Sword Art Online: Lost Song was enjoyable – I had fun flying through the continents, slaying all the monsters in my path. However, I feel that I would have appreciated the game more if I had a bit more knowledge of the source material. Over the 30 hours or so it will take you to get to the end of the main story you will grow to enjoy the characters and their interactions with each other – but this is definitely a game that relies on you knowing the previous goings-on in the Sword Art universe. I think the best thing I can say is that if you are new to the Sword Art Online, then you are not ready for this game – have a read of Kyle’s review of Hollow Fragment and consider buying that game instead. If you are a Sword Art veteran, then what are you waiting for – this game provides a nice continuation of the series and, if you haven’t already bought it, will give you hours of fun!
Although the AI is great in the game, nothing quite compares to being able to play alongside other players. Here is where Sword Art Online: Lost Song excels. The game’s online modes allow for both ad-hoc or network multiplayer and offers players the chance to either quest together or duel with each other. It is great fun questing with other players, with the quests available generally tasking you with defeating a number of enemies or the larger bosses that feature in the single-player. The duels are also a good laugh, allowing you to duke it out with another player in a bid to come out on top. I found myself favouring the quests over the duels, as these were definitely the most social of the two modes. I also liked the fact that there was a lot of criteria options available when searching for or setting up a lobby room.
VERDICT Sword Art Online: Lost Song is an enjoyable game that does have it's flaws. I felt that due to my lack of knowledge of the series I didn't get the full enjoyment out of the game - but this did not stop me experiencing everything it had to offer. If you, like me, have never experienced a Sword Art Online game before then do not make this your entry point into the series. If, however, you are a fan of the series then you will have a lot of fun with this game - and can also add a 0.5 to that number on the right hand side! 28
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3.6 thevitalounge.net
It really is up to you.
Written by
deathskitten
@Kitty_has_Klaws Deathskitten
3 8 36 PSTV 3.2 GB Publisher
koeitecmoamerica.com
@KoeiTecmoUS
Developer
koeitecmoamerica.com
@KoeiTecmoUS
Released
NA: November 24th EU: November 25th
@PSVitaMag
If you’ve always dreamed of uniting Ancient China then Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires might be the game for you! DW8E is a strategy hack-and-slash set in Ancient China and loosely based on the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However if you’re expecting the game to have an intriguing in-depth political story then you may be slightly disappointed. The story is barely visible in this game, and it’s more about you creating your own story through your actions. When you begin Empire mode you pick which scenario you want to start with. Each scenario starts in a different year, and kingdoms will rule different areas of territories. You could choose to start in an age with lots of small kingdoms all jostling to be bigger than their neighbours, or you could start with just a handful of large powerful kingdoms. You can select from over 80 unique characters and decide whether you want to start off as a free officer or maybe you’ll decide to start straight at the top as Ruler. Whatever you decide your overall mission remains the same; unite the land under a single rule. There are many paths to achieving this, and you are free to decide how to play. You could be a loyal retainer improving the kingdom by gaining finances and materials, or you could choose to betray your Ruler, stage a coup d’etat and take all of his lands
Although there are a lot of historical characters to choose from the real fun is in creating your own warrior. I spent a good 15-20 minutes just going through all of the different options in the creation mode. There are many different tweaks you can make such as body shape, facial features, costumes, and favourite weapons. You can also create your own banner, customise soldiers and your horse. As a created warrior you start off as a free officer, not assigned to any particular country. This gives you the freedom to move around different territories as you please. Actions take one month, and there is a wide range of things to fill your time. You could pillage, partner up with other officers or take on a quest. There are many different quests such as assassinations, ridding the land of pesky wolves or escorting caravans. All of this can be quite entertaining, but you will eventually feel the hunger for power. To move up you could form a vagabond unit and eventually raise your own banner to form a new kingdom, or you could decide to join an existing kingdom. If you decide to serve under an existing Ruler then you will usually start off as a Lieutenant. Every six months a War Council will be held, and you will be told by your Ruler which land he (or she) wants you to invade next. In between War Councils you are free to do what you want and different ranks are able to do different things. As Lieutenant you have no influence over what decisions the Ruler takes. The Vita Lounge Magazine
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By successfully completing strategy and battle objectives you may eventually be noticed by the Ruler and given a promotion. By reaching the rank of Strategist or Marshal you’re able to influence your Ruler and can try to persuade him to focus on improving finances or suggest that you invade a different region. If you have a good relationship with him and are persuasive (or intimidating) enough then you will succeed in changing his mind. If you become a Ruler yourself then you can set the priorities of your kingdom at every War Council. All of the strategy elements take place using menu screens, it’s only during quests or invasions that you will actually be able to freely move about. It would have been nice to have been able to walk about in your kingdom, speak to the common people and see how things change as you build different facilities or invade more lands.
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You’ll probably spend a lot of time in either defensive or invasion battles. In these battles both sides have a number of bases and it’s up to you and your fellow officers to make sure that your own bases are defended while simultaneously attacking enemy bases. Each base has to be depleted of troops before you can take it over. It’s quite fun to play as one warrior slashing your way through hundreds of ordinary soldiers. Enemy officers provide more of a challenge and getting surrounded by numerous officers can quickly spell disaster. This is where stratagems come in handy. Stratagems are powerful manoeuvres that can give you the edge in battle; you could increase your attack for 20 seconds, unleash a poisonous mist or even just summon an ally to your side. There are plenty of different stratagems to learn so it’s worth building academies to get access to new ones.
While the combat is quite fun, it doesn’t take long to realise that you are mostly just repeating the same actions over and over. The square button will get quite a pounding. You occasionally mix this up using a strong attack or a musou attack, but for the majority of the time you will just be hitting square over and over again. Touch screen controls are used to activate stratagems, but I found it quite clumsy to use. You swipe to open the stratagem cards and then tap on the one you want to use. More than once I accidently closed the menu instead of activating a stratagem, which was annoying when surrounded by foes. The various maps soon start to feel repetitive and although each territory looks slightly different, none of them really stood out to give me a ‘wow’ moment. The graphics are a bit drab, but I suppose they do get the job done. There were moments when I thought the frame rate might start to stutter because of the amount of enemies on the screen, but it
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I’m not going to lie I’m not a big history buff and my knowledge of Chinese history is pretty lacking. I imagine that there are some people who will get a big kick out of pitting certain historical figures against each other. I’ve probably missed out on lots of exciting moments because I didn’t realise that fighting against certain officers is the equivalent of putting Mike Tyson against Evander Holyfield. One touch I do like is that Koei has put an Encyclopedia into the game so even a history dropout like me can pick up some pretty interesting knowledge.
held up really well. It’s also a nice touch that you can select what music plays in battle or change what your residence looks like. Who doesn’t want to live in a fairy forest or a castle? Sun Tzu once said “Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys”. The more you work on your relationships with fellow officers the more likely they are to follow your orders in battle, become sworn siblings or offer confessions of love. You can improve relations by taking officers into battle with you or throwing great banquets in their honour. If someone does fall in love with you then you have the option of marrying and having children. As in real life children are a blend of their parents. Probably not so similar to real life is the fact that it only takes a few years for them to grow up and become officers in your army. It is nice that they can fight alongside you as uniting the land probably should be a family affair.
I think by playing this game I’ve actually learnt a lot about myself, like the fact that I would probably make a pretty lousy Ruler in real life. I definitely prefer being on my own, doing things like assassinations and raiding caravans instead of sorting out a kingdoms resources. Actually, now that I think about it, all the things I enjoyed doing were, shall we say, less than virtuous? In fact you could say that if I was actually in Ancient China I would probably be a bit of a bandit. I do however think that I look pretty damn cool on horseback with a massive sword.
As you play through the game you will gain various titles such as ‘Pirate Pillager’ for completing raid missions. Collecting certain titles will set your Way of Life. If you finish a game with a custom warrior you can save that WoL and in your next playthrough they can appear as an NPC and will act in accordance to their WoL. I think that this is a really interesting concept and definitely increases the games replayability.
Outside of its fanbase Dynasty Warriors games have a reputation of being somewhat monotonous and samey, and I don’t think DW8E has really done anything to break the mold. It’s fun in small doses but does become a bit of a grind. If you’re a fan of this genre then you probably already know if you’re going to like this. The game might be slightly overwhelming to newcomers due to the massive amounts of history and the game assuming some familiarity with the DW universe, but I do think it’s worth playing as there is plenty to do and it does have replay value.
VERDICT Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires is a typical hack-and-slash with an empire management side. Newcomers might be slightly disinterested by the repetitive nature of the game, but fans of the genre will find that it packs quite a bit of content and has a lot of replay value.
@PSVitaMag
3.4 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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really are, but more how we wished they were and probably how we imagined it in our minds.
Written by
Brad Gruetzmacher @vongruetz vongruetz
0 1 1 PSTV 186 MB Publisher
qubyteinteractive.com
@qubytegames
Developer
qubyteinteractive.com
@qubytegames
I never had a slot car track growing up, though it was not for lack of wanting. Every time I’d go to a friend’s house who had one, I remember being so enamored with watching those cars zip around the track… until I’d take a corner too fast, and it would fly off to the floor. So when I heard that HTR+ was a slot car simulator for the PS Vita, I was excited that I was finally going to get a race track of my own. And I quickly learned why my parents never shelled out the money for my own set when I was a kid. Sometimes things are good only in small doses.
HTR+ is a slot car simulator that brings the experience of slot car racing into the palm of your hand. HTR is short for High Tech Racing… which is a bit ironic since there has never been anything very “high tech” about slot cars. But it does provide a slightly over-fantasized version of the toy. The experience isn’t so much how slot cars
I always dreamed of having my car barrel down the straightaway before flawlessly jumping a gap in the track and finishing up by going into a series of loops only to cross the finish line ahead of my friends. That’s how I saw it in my head, but it rarely played out like that in real life. Cords would get tangled and come lose. The metal connector on the bottom of the cars would always be corroded. The battery for the track would always be running out of juice. But in HTR+, those fantasies finally become a reality. The menu screen gives you quite a few different ways to play. There’s the standard Championship series of races, which pit you against three other cars on a number of tracks that get increasingly more difficult. Or you can choose to just practice any track to your heart’s delight. The downside to this is that most of the tracks are locked until you race them and finish 1st. So all those cool tracks with the jumps and loops will have to wait awhile. Upon first firing up HTR+ I was immediately struck with how good it looked. The colors were vibrant and the tiny toy cars looked spot on. Everything moved fast and fluid,
Released
NA: November 17th EU: Not Released
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and if you take a corner too fast, your car flies off the track and has to be re-seated. The music is rocking and the whine of the cars is pitch perfect. They nailed the look, the sounds, and the feel of a real slot car track. It’s just that controlling everything is a bit of a mess. The first problem I encountered when I started to play is that making your car move is more of a hassle than it should be. The accelerator is mapped to the analog sticks and how far forward you move the stick will determine how much juice you give your car. The problem is that there isn’t a lot of travel distance in the Vita’s sticks. Chances are you’ll either be going full throttle or at a complete standstill. Trying to hit that sweet spot and maintain it is about as difficult as taking a decent screenshot during a race. The solution to this is that there is an on-screen throttle you can work with your finger. This method actually allows for a high level of precision in setting your speed, but it makes changing your speed a bit more painful. This would lead me to not wanting to adjust my speed and suddenly everything came tumbling down from there.
Here’s basically how HTR+ went for me from then on: I’d fire up a race on Easy and find that sweet spot on the accelerator where I didn’t fly off the track. I’d usually win, which gives me coins so I can purchase upgrades for my car. I’d buy better tires to grip the track better, and now I could go a bit faster without flying off. It didn’t take long before I wasn’t even racing anymore… in fact, I wasn’t even looking at the screen. I could just place my thumb in a certain spot and wait until the race was over (usually with me as the winner). Track after track, race after race, this is how it played out. Every Easy track, every Normal one as well.
HTR+ is a beautiful and authentic slot car racer that is seriously hampered by its Boosting the difficulty level to Hard makes controls. It also reminded me that the things a bit more interesting, but then the fun in slot cars isn’t watching a racer zip element of luck also becomes a deciding around a track, but rather the joy of racing factor. If you get assigned to an outside against a friend. Sadly neither are available track, you could be screwed, or if the other here. racers find themselves in a collision, you catch a lucky break. This is true in most racing games I suppose, but here it feels more prevalent. There is no middleground. Things are either ridiculously easy or out-of-control difficult.
VERDICT HTR+ is a beautiful and authentic looking slot car simulator that brings all the excitement and fun of racing to the PS Vita. However, because of its flawed controls and lack of multiplayer, that fun and excitement doesn't last long. HTR+ can be fun in short bursts, but the thrill quickly wears off.
@PSVitaMag
In addition to the Championship series of races, HTR+ also has a track editor so you can build your own monster creations. Put as many loops and jumps in as your heart desires, but the best of luck to you in “closing” the track. It’s almost a shame because the tools for putting the track together work so well, but every time I got to the end, the track pieces would never line up. The other downside is that once you do create a track, it’s locked to your system. You can’t share it with your friends, nor can you download tracks they have built.
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Written by
Brad Gruetzmacher @vongruetz vongruetz
5 8 18 PSTV 716 MB
But it also has a number of flaws that prevents it from being a truly great game.
Publisher
degica.com @DegiGames
Developer
pyramid-inc.net
Released
NA: November 30th EU: December 8th
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Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours is the latest entry to the Darius series, the long-running arcade shooter that has been around for nearly 30 years. Chronicle Saviours is a frantic and beautiful game that does an amazing job of capturing the essence of the arcade and putting it in the palm of your hand.
The Vita Lounge Magazine
Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours is a spacebased shooter in which the enemies you face are all designed after marine creatures (no, not space marines, but like fish in space. I know, it’s wild for me as well). A typical level will have you shooting swarms of aquatic-themed spaceships while collecting power-ups and score multipliers before facing off against a giant battlefish… er, battleship. Once the battleship is defeated, you’ve secured the sector and move on to the next level. And there are a lot of sectors to secure. People who complain about lack of content in games need to look no further than Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours. The story mode part of the game, Chronicle Saviours, features hundreds of stages to unlock and beat. Then there is the Another Chronicles part of the game which features over 3000
levels to play in four different modes. You can choose from a variety of ships and even customize your ship with upgrades you get along the way. You want more? Dariusburst will give you more. Except sometimes more isn’t better. Sometimes more is just more, and that’s really how I felt about Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours. You can only face off against so many fish-themed spaceships before a sense of déjà vu kicks in and you feel like you’ve already seen this one before. A game doesn’t have to have thousands of levels if most of them just feel like filler. Yes, things change and the tactics needed to defeat new enemies have to be changed up at times, but after 60-70 levels, things just start to blend together. thevitalounge.net
The game is broken up into two main parts. The first is titled Another Chronicle, a mode which provides the full arcade experience. The other is the story-based Chronicles Saviour section, with a typical level progression system that feels at home on a console. Each mode slightly changes up the way the game is played, but more to the point, one is great and one is a mess. The Another Chronicle mode tries to capture the feeling of the arcade cabinet on the Vita. This sounds great except for the fact that the Darius arcade games are known for their double-wide screens. To do this on the Vita, the game letterboxes the screen and shrinks everything down to fit. It takes what is already a small screen and makes it even smaller. Everything becomes hard to see, and text is nearly illegible. It ruins the experience and after awhile, it makes it a chore to play.
On top of that, the game also teases you with a multiplayer mode which doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter how long you stare at the screen which is flashing “Accepting players” because they’re not coming. There is no multiplayer in the Vita port of the game. That’s disappointing since this mode was designed around the idea of multiplayer, so its absence is substantial. This, combined with the shrunken screen, means that over half of the game’s content is inherently crippled. Then on the other hand you have the Chronicle Saviours mode which is an absolute blast to play. It is a firstclass shooter that looks the part. The environments are stunning to look at, and even when dozens of enemy ships are flying around the screen, the performance never stutters. The thrill of building up a score muliplier while dodging enemy fire is second to none, and even if there are a few too many “filler” levels, it’s still well worth playing. The controls are another area where the game absolutely nails it. The left stick or the D-pad will allow you to fly your ship while Square acts as your fire button. Then to fire your burst weapon, you just need to roll your thumb down a bit and tap Cross. The right shoulder button will flip your ship to shoot behind you while the left shoulder button activates the alternative burst weapon. Learning to use the burst cannon effectively is the major tactical challenge in the game, and key to surviving many of the enemy encounters.
VERDICT DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviours is a beautiful arcade shooter that performs remarkably well on the PS Vita. It is not short on content and its thousands of levels will keep you busy for days, however after awhile they start to outstay their welcome. Half the game is also crippled with a letterbox screen that makes the game difficult to see and hard to enjoy. But in the end, DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviours remains a fantastic shooter (albeit a pricey one). @PSVitaMag
At the end of the day there are two questions that come to mind: Is this game worth your money? And is this game worth your time? When you compare it to other games in this genre that are already available, it’s really hard to justify a $40 price tag since so much of the game is lost in the Vita port. But otherwise, yes, it is definitely worth your time. Also, the game is compatible with the PlayStation TV (which makes the super widescreen sections a bit more tolerable), and it is also cross-save compatible with the PS4 version, but not cross-buy.
Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours is a great space arcade shooter that both looks and performs amazing on the Vita. It’s biggest problems are that it overstays its welcome a bit, and half of the game is wedged into a tiny screen that makes it a pain to play. But if you’re looking for a good arcade shooter, then Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours is a safe choice.
3.5 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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The first warning signs hit me when the game’s opening movie started. The movie is the well known and much loved title sequence to the cartoon, but all wasn’t quite what it seemed. The ever catchy and much loved theme song, composed by one of my favourite musicians of all time (Jaret Reddick of Pop-Punk band Bowling for Soup) and, even worse, the voice acting for the characters was missing – a theme that that I would learn continues throughout the games.
Written by Liam Langan
@LiamHangover liamlangan
2 2 4 PSTV 899 MB Publisher
playstation.com @PlayStationEU
Developer
virtualtoys.net @VirtualToys
Released
NA: November 27th EU: Not Released
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The Vita Lounge Magazine
There’s one hundred and four days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it, so the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it, like maybe releasing a big named Disney franchise onto the PlayStation Vita such as Phineas and Ferb! Virtual Toys, a developer based in Spain have been busy quite recently working on a range of Vita-exclusive titles, including The Muppets Movie Adventures and Looney Tunes: Galactic Sports. Their latest release, however, comes in the form of one of Disney’s most recent and very popular cartoon series – Phineas and Ferb: Day of Doofenshmirtz. With a popular IP in their hands the question is, can they manage to make a competent game that is fun and entertaining for its target audience?
Then comes the story, which is narrated through a series of comic strips between levels. This manages to stay true to a typical episode, ith the usual catchphrases of Phineas exclaiming ‘Hey, I know what we’re gonna do today’ and Phineas and Ferb’s sister Candace with ‘Wait till mom hears about this!’ but these scenes are about as true to the cartoon as this game gets. The gameplay itself is actually half decent, a platformer that feels akin to games like Ratchet and Clank or Jak and Daxter, but with less of an open world feel to it. Levels will see you destroy waves of enemies with various different weapons and overcoming platforming obstacles. You can choose from three different types of weapons, you have a gun which shoots out balls, a gun that shoots out fireballs and a gun that shoots water. Each of them are effective on different types of enemies and can be upgraded.
thevitalounge.net
Upgrades for each weapon vary, for example, you can upgrade the ball gun from tennis balls to basketballs, and the fire gun from rockets to a flamethrower – each upgrade being more powerful than the next. The main issue that I had with the weapons is that when you got too close to a wall or an enemy the gun wouldn’t fire, this left me in a variety of situations where I died and found it to be for unfair reasons. Throughout the levels there are various different items for you to collect, with different coloured coins that are worth different values. Coins can be used to buy items to upgrade your weapons, to buy outfits and also to obtain items for a minigame involving a robot in a virtual reality environment.
Although collecting the coins in levels can mean a lot of backtracking, there is also a Space Invaders-style minigame that allows you to earn a large amount of coins – allowing you to power up massively if there is a particular level you’re stuck on. The parts of the game that I found to be most fun are when you take control of Perry The Platypus – Phineas and Ferb’s pet who doubles as a secret agent. It’s in these levels where the gameplay changes from a platformer into a 2D sidescroller, bringing a nice change of pace to the gameplay and, in my honest opinion, this is where I got most of the enjoyment from this game. Graphically the game is rather impressive, with the environments and character models reflecting those of the TV series quite well whilst the cutscenes and comic strips are very well designed. The main issue I had is that the enemy designs felt cheap and unoriginal, leading me to grow bored of killing the same types of enemies for the 8 hours it takes to get through the game.
Phineas and Ferb: Day of Doofenschmirz feels like an uninspired platformer that whilst sometimes fun can also be repetitive and tedious. The difficulty is also something worth a mention (especially with it’s target audience being children) as I found the game could be quite challenging when facing the game’s bosses. I could easily see a younger individual losing interest if they were to die any more than a couple of times. As a full priced title I also felt rather robbed given the trophies for this game, there are 8 in total and none of them are a platinum, this felt kind of off-putting for a game that I had spent around £30 to buy. I can’t say that I can recommend this game, at least as a full priced title. If you’re a fan of the series then I’d definitely say it’s worthwhile picking up in a sale. With it’s fun factor being hit and miss, Phineas and Ferb: Day of Doofenschmirz is definitely a game that I won’t be revisiting again any time soon!
As I mentioned at the start of the review, one of the main things that lets this game down is the fact that whilst it does contain the Phineas and Ferb license for its story and plot, it is missing an authentic soundtrack. The implemented soundtrack in the game is rather poor, with repetitive looping music that quickly becomes tiresome.
VERDICT Phineas and Ferb: Day of Doofenschmirz is a decent platformer which is sadly surrounded in repetitive and tedious gameplay, while its nice to see a licensed game from an established franchise on Vita, this one sadly fails to meet the sum of its parts.
@PSVitaMag
2.6 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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Written by Charlie Large @charlielarge Chaz3010
10 2 0 PSTV 367 MB Publisher
sonyxdeveurope.com
@SonyXDevEurope
Developer
on-the-metal.net
@OnTheMetal
Released
NA: December 1st EU: December 2nd
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The Vita Lounge Magazine
After what seemed to be an eternity of silence, On the Metal’s BigFest burst onto the PlayStation Vita earlier this month and has given some much needed festival spirit to December’s quiet release line-up. Being that I used to have fun with the now defunct Bullfrog titles such as Theme Park and Theme Hospital, I was quite excited to see whether BigFest could handle the headline slot on the PlayStation Vita or whether it would fade away into obscurity like many opening and middle-ofthe-card acts do. Back when it was first announced BigFest was planned to be a free-to-play game, instead this musical management game has scrapped the micro-transactions in favour of charging you a one-off fee for entry to the festival. It can be quite clear at times where the micro-transactions would have slotted into the game but I feel that the right choice was made in making this title a paid-for game rather than relying on people to purchase in-game packs in order to progress. The gameplay itself is relatively simple. Each level is a festival ‘poster’ in which you can earn up to three stars depending on the completion of the three tasks that are associated with the stars. The more stars you collect, the more levels you unlock – a mechanic you may associate with many pick up and play titles. At the start of each poster you will pick the bands that you wish to play the festival (generally an Opener, a Support act and a Headliner playing one track each) and once you have picked your bands you will have until the headliner finishes their track to
complete the objectives that are set. These objectives will usually include having a certain amount of tents in your festival, having a festival that has a ‘Vibe’ score over a certain amount or ejecting a certain number of undesirable festival goers from your event. To build a busy festival you will need to build and maintain the amenities that you would associate with a real-life music festival. Food and drink stalls, merchandise stands, showers, toilets even down to the basics such as trash cans, toilets and showers are required to keep your festival goers happy. Speakers and video display screens are also available to give your gig the extra awesomeness it needs to keep the punters coming back for more. These items are all purchased using the game’s currency, ‘BigNotes’, and you will earn more money from the customers that purchase items from your stalls. One thing that you will notice is that you cannot build a load of stalls and the best items from the start of the game, you will need to unlock the ‘luxury’ items by upgrading the BigFest stage and the areas behind this. For example, you will not be able to build a toilet block or showers until you upgrade the sewage treatment facility behind the stage, nor will you be able to build the best video screens or speakers until the generators behind the stage are big enough to handle the voltage required by these mammoth items. In order to build (and repair) these items you will need to hire roadies who will carry out any tasks required of them provided thevitalounge.net
you have the funds to cover the build or repair costs. These roadies are overseen by Big Dave – who is effectively your best friend during your time as a festival promoter, providing you will hints, tips and information about what is going on within the perimeters of your festival grounds. One thing that you will soon learn is that people are hard to please! Your crowds will call out their feelings about your festival via speech bubbles above their heads and will walk out if something is not to their liking. Due to the fact that BigFest restricts and prevents you from ploughing all of your BigNotes into one area at a time due to its upgrade system you will find that as soon as you rectify one complaint another one will rise, meaning that you are endlessly dealing with disappointed punters as you set out to become the number one promoter on the scene.
artists at your festivals you increase their popularity in-game, meaning that your crowd will compliment (or criticise) you on your choice of headliner – although if you do pick a popular band to play your small festival you will find that they do not like performing to small crowds and they will also be more demanding in their requests prior to taking to the stage and putting on the performance of a lifetime. I like the fact that On the Metal have taken this approach with how to incorporate real music into the game, the variety of bands on offer means that there is something for everyone – whatever your musical preference.
BigFest’s control scheme makes use of both the PlayStation Vita’s touchscreen and physical buttons. You can manoeuvre around the festival using the leftanalogue stick while placing and moving items on the map using the touchscreen. A press of the Left trigger will switch the You will also have undesirable attendees camera from an isometric perspective to a arrive at your festival unannounced, from birds-eye view of the festival field – people that have a cold who will infect the allowing for you to spot any undesirables rest of your crowds with their germs or unhappy party-goers with ease. The forcing people to leave for the warmth of one thing that I did find a bit annoying their own homes to smelly tree-hugger was the fact that the reliance on the types who refuse to shower – making the touchscreen makes it hard to select the masses leave due to the off-putting speech bubble that you want above a odours that fill the air. By finding these crowd members’ head when there are undesirables and ejecting them you will other objects/people in the same vicinity. earn tokens that can be used in the online element to BigFest which I will get to in a BigFest also includes an element of online play, where you can invade your friends’ moment. festivals and cause mischief whilst you are there. The undesirables that you eject Not only do you have to keep your audience pleased, but the bands that you in the single-player game will drop tokens that you can then spend to terrorise the sign up to play your festivals will have festivals of others – with items and diva-like demands as they become more famous on the festival scene. The artists customisations unlocking for use in the single-player mode when you visit other that feature in BigFest are part of the Jamendo Music service – indie artists who players’ creations. The game also features span a variety of genres, allowing for you online leaderboards where you can view who the best promoters and most popular to effectively find the next big thing and play them at your festivals. By using these bands are – you will earn XP as you play
VERDICT BigFest is a welcome addition to the Vita library, especially with the management-sim genre criminally neglected on the handheld. The premise is simple and is executed extremely well. The game will certainly get people hooked once they start playing - although for how long is a question that only time will tell! @PSVitaMag
and this helps boost your promoter score. One thing that I worry for with BigFest is its lasting appeal. This game contains an easy Platinum trophy that can be obtained in around 15-20 hours, and I fear that a lot of players will then put the game down as soon as they have achieved it. Sure there will be completionists who will strive to obtain all of the stars on offer, I think that the majority of those that play the game will simply go for the platinum trophy and then fail to return to the title – meaning that any bands that may be added to the game at a later stage may get overlooked. Another problem I had with the game is that it was a struggle to get the online functionality to work all the time. Despite my PlayStation Vita being connected to the PlayStation Network I constantly got a message saying that a connection could not be found and would I like to play offline. This happened more often than not, and for a game that relies on online connectivity to allow for you to download artists to use at your festivals I found thus a little disappointing. Overall, I found BigFest to be a great little game that does the management-sim style of game very well. Although it does not offer the depth of titles like Theme Hospital or Rollercoaster Tycoon it certainly has the same humour that features in these titles. I love the concept of the festival management and the music choices on offer are not only welcome, but show a great initiative to support indie music. However, the questionable longevity of the title and the constant issues I had with the connectivity mean have played a part in lowering the overall score that I have given this game. I would recommend BigFest to anyone that has an interest in either music or management sims, but its time at the top of your Vita’s ‘most played’ charts may be shortlived!
3.5 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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the standards of the movie and that is what Star Wars fans want in a game.
Written by Zach Price
@MyrishMartyr MyrishMartyr
1 4 7 PSTV 78 MB Publisher
disneyinteractive.com
@DisneyInteract
Developer
codemystics.com
@CodeMystics
Released
NA: November 17th EU: November 24th
40
The Vita Lounge Magazine
I’ve been a fan of the “Star Wars” movie series since I was a little kid; the mysterious Force, excellent characters, and promise of adventure and action drew me in. So when Super Star Wars was announced as a re-release for Vita, I was on board. Even though you know exactly what will happen, as a Star Wars fan, you should enjoy Super Star Wars.
Super Star Wars is a port of the SNES game by the same name. The game takes place during “Star Wars IV: A New Hope,” and it has you starting as the role of Luke Skywalker as he matures from a young man on Tatooine into a warrior blowing up the Death Star. It follows its corresponding film more or less and you play as Luke for most of the time – later on you can choose to play as him, Han Solo or Chewbacca. Naturally, you start off with just a blaster, until you meet Obi-Wan and he gives you your first Lightsaber and you can switch between the two. I really appreciate that the game follows the movie and doesn’t add any sort of filler; there aren’t any scenes added to make it longer, and you can’t blow up the Death Star as Han – you have to be Luke. It upholds
Super Star Wars is notorious for its difficulty, and the port is no different. This game isn’t for the faint of heart. You will find yourself raging and fatigued as you continuously die over and over again. The caveat is that this game has been given some features that make it more accessible for everyone. The first is the ability to save your place in-game. You can load up as you please and learn from mistakes you make. One piece of advice: don’t be free with your saves. Many times I would freely save and lose lives, effectively backing me into a corner where I only had a single life for the rest of the game. The other addition is the original’s cheat codes, which you can use for various things like invincible mode. On top of that, you can change difficulty in the menu from three options: “Easy,” “Normal” and “Jedi.” Normal is brutal. I struggled through the first few levels on it, so I wouldn’t recommend it for most gamers. Sadly, Easy is too easy. I swept through it. There isn’t any middle ground, and that’s what is duly needed – something challenging, but not too hard. The levels are actually fun apart from the difficulty. They are well-designed and make you think – having to time your movements and all. The worst levels, however, were the flying/vehicle levels. They were awkward and were a pain to get through. Furthermore, the controls weren’t really laid out well, making them even more difficult. That’s one thing that bugged me overall in the game, you weren’t really told the controls; I didn’t find out what they were until I dove into the menus and found them. thevitalounge.net
The length of Super Star Wars is fairly short, totaling around two and a half or three hours – that is, if you are doing a flawless playthrough. In reality, even if you play on Easy, you can expect around four or five hours of play, and it’s actually a fun few hours. If you’re a Star Wars fan, then you’ll enjoy your time and think it was worth it. There is one big problem with Super Star Wars, though, and that is it’s graphical quality.
early ‘90s. The characters are pixelated and hard on the eyes, and I even got a headache if I played more than a half hour from looking at them. The other problem is that the screen is shown in a 4:3 ratio (standard definition) instead of 16:9 (high definition). To make up for the blank space, a graphic of the Millenium Falcon and Death Star wrap around the screen. Strangely enough, you have to go into the menus to make it take up all of the Vita’s screen, when you think it would already use that real estate as a port with added Even though Super Star Wars is a port, it is painfully obvious that it comes from the features.
VERDICT Super Star Wars is a fun game that is meant only for fans of the series -- anyone unfamiliar or who dislikes it won't be satisfied. Despite its outdated graphics and puzzling difficulty, players will find a solid experience as they step into a galaxy far, far away.
@PSVitaMag
Overall, Super Star Wars is a good game. However, like all licensed games, it can only be truly appreciated by fans of the series. The iconic music and characters will draw you into the fourth movies story and keep you there as long as you’re tolerant of the abnormal difficulty. Again, I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone but Star Wars fans, and even some will be turned off by the dated graphics.
3.1 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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Handball Club as I know their football team perform quite well.
Written by Liam Langan
@LiamHangover liamlangan
6 9 10 PSTV 1.0 GB Publisher
bigben.eu @bigbeninteract
Developer
ekosystem.com
@Eko_Software
Released
NA: December 1st EU: November 27th
42
The Vita Lounge Magazine
This year was a strange one for Vita, normally we’d sit here at this time of the year and take a look at FIFA – talking about how it was basically the same game as last year with updated teams, but sadly EA decided to give the Vita a miss this year.
Handball 16 by Big Ben Interactive could very well be a worthwhile replacement to the miss of our usual yearly football fix, but will the different sport be just as approachable as FIFA? Let’s find out! The controls to this particular game are simple, whilst playing offensively a press of X allows you to pass the ball to players, Circle is your shoot button and Triangle allows for jump shots – which can often be less accurate. You can also use the L and R triggers as well as the analogue sticks to twist your players and perform more advanced shots. While playing defensively the controls change, pressing Circle allows you to push players over (which most of the time lead to have players sent off), pressing Square will allow you to try and intercept passes or shots and Triangle will allow you to try and jump to intercept shots. I had no idea that Handball was a professional sport before starting up the game, which led to no surprise when I noticed there were no English teams to be seen in the game, instead there was a lot of French, Spanish and Italian teams to choose from. I went with Paris-Saint Germain
Starting my first match I learnt even more how much I didn’t know the sport, the game gave me no indication of the rules or what to do in order to score. I lost that particular match 7-0, that’s when I decided to take things on the defensive side. In my second match I had too many players sent off due to pushing the opposition over, which then lead to the entire team being disqualified. That’s when I found the perfect balance between offensive and defensive play and from there I started to score goals and win games. Their are three game modes to choose from in Handball 16. First up is Career Mode, which allows you to create your own player, start off in a lower level team and work your way up to a five star team and play amongst some of the best Handball players in the world. You can get one offer per season to join a different club, and you have to make the decision of whether or not you’re ready to rise up the ranks. The second mode is a league mode, where you’ll play through a whole season playing each team twice throughout 26 different matches, your goal is to win as many matches as you can and rise to the top of the league. The third and final mode of the game is Exhibition mode, where you can pick any team you like and play against any other team of your choosing, this is the best mode to play if you’re trying to learn the ropes and get used to the rules and thevitalounge.net
The visuals of the game are also quite a let down, the game doesn’t quite look as sharp or perform as well as FIFA does on Vita, that being said, it’s clear what the game is trying to achieve in terms You may have already noticed that there of visuals and if Handball 17 is to be a appears to be something missing, the option of a multiplayer or online mode, thing then this is something they could that’s because their isn’t one. I’m not sure definitely look to improve on. if this is the case with all versions of the game, but it’s definitely missing in the Vita The sound design is also rather fantastic, version – which is a shame as it would’ve the commentators are hilariously cheesy, been fantastic to go online and play but it’s quite amusing and eye opening against friends. to hear what they have to say, I actually controls of the game, so this is a highly recommended starting point in my opinion.
VERDICT Handball 16 is a worthwhile alternative to FIFA if you're missing a sports game on your Vita this year. It's not perfect and there is certainly room for improvement. Handball 16 is difficult, addicting and fun, but should've including Online Multiplayer as part of the package.
@PSVitaMag
learnt a lot about my play style by listening to them and it helped me when trying to improve my game play style. Other than that the gameplay is incredibly difficult to start, but once you get the hang of it Handball 16 can actually be rather addicting, the kind of game where you stay up all night playing it – which I very much nearly did. It is definitely something unique and interesting and may very well be a worthwhile alternative to FIFA.
3.1 The Vita Lounge Magazine
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Gadget Girl Kylie @Gadgetgirlkylie
Hi everyone, it's Gadgetgirlkylie here! It's good to be back writing for The Vita Lounge Magazine again! This time I thought I would talk about games I enjoyed in 2015 and about my top 10 most anticipated games due out this year for PSVita.
Personally, I thought that 2015 was a good year for the Vita. I struggled to decide which games I should buy, as I'm often spoilt for choice. I played a lot of excellent games so I thought I would give a exclusive list of my top 5 PSVita experiences from the last year. For those of you that regularly visit my channel you'll know that I have done a Top 10 video, but this list here is the most up to date one I have - exclusive for the TVL team! All of the games featured in this list can be found on my channel if you want to find out more. Without further ado let's begin counting down!
5 – MONSTERBAG
Cute, colourful but also violent and funny. The puzzles could be a little frustrating at times, but I still found myself struggling to put the game down. This is coming from someone who isn't a fan of puzzle games! Shame it wasn't a bit longer, but it was still a memorable experience.
4 – TOUKIDEN KIWAMI
I'm a huge fan of this genre and it's a no brainer that Kiwami would end up in my list. The game has plenty to offer, you can slay monsters known as Oni on single player, while experiencing a rich story. Or you can head onto online multiplayer and play with friends. There is also plenty of collecting to do. Forge spectacular amour and be the best slayer you can be! 44
The Vita Lounge Magazine
3 – DIGIMON STORY: CYBER SLEUTH
Yes I know I played it in Japanese, but it was just that good, and I'm going to enjoy re-playing it in English this year! I can't speak about the storyline since I didn't understand it, but gameplay was fun. I loved training and digi-volving my Digimon, and the game has a fair amount of content to enjoy. Don't forget to pick up your copy this year! I will also be doing another let's play in English on my channel!
2 – SWORD ART ONLINE: LOST SONG
What a shock! Huge fan of the series as my subscribers will know and I really enjoyed this game. It has it's own story and is set in Svartalfheim. The story isn't nearly as long as Hollow Fragment but this game does feature online multiplayer. You can fly, use magic, equip a variety of different weapons, control other characters and even create your own (sadly this is very limited) Fans of SAO will greatly enjoy this game! thevitalounge.net
Cosmic Star Heroine 1 – DANGANRONPA ANOTHER EPISODE: ULTRA DESPAIR GIRLS This is also my game of the year for PS Vita 2015. I really enjoyed the story which is just as good as the previous Danganronpa games. It was fun controlling Kimaru Neagi and switching over to Genocide Jack to destroy Monokuma's. I liked the fast hack and slash action when controlling Genocide Jack and I even enjoyed using the Hacking Gun playing as Kimaru Neagi. The game features collectables, boss fights, deep story, great music and nice graphics. I highly recommend picking this up if you haven't done so already!
I'm regularly asked my PSVita fans what I am most looking forward to in 2016, so it made sense to put my most anticipated upcoming Vita titles into a list, and this list was really hard to put together because there are so many great games due out this year! 10 - Darkest Dungeon 9 - Trillion: God Of Destruction 8 - Salt & Sanctuary 7 - Stranger of Sword City 6 - World Of Final Fantasy 5 – Ray Gigant 4 - Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir 3 - Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth 2 – Severed 1 – Attack On Titan Attack on Titan is my most anticipated game for PS Vita this year, and I'm sure i'm not alone. In fact as regular Vita Cast listeners will know, Tyler (@mrpsvitareviews) is just as stoked as I am. The game just looks so beautiful and just like the Anime. I can't wait to fly around slicing up some Titans while experiencing the story all over again!
*This list was written in November, so bare that in mind with latest announcements!
TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED PS VITA GAMES FOR 2016 RELEASE + OTHER FUTURE RELEASES If you want to see what other games I'm looking forward to in 2016 then check out my “Top 10 Most Anticipated PS Vita Games For 2016 Release + Other Future Releases” video. All of the games featured in this list will be on my channel in the form of let's plays or gameplay videos. youtube.com/user/GadgetGirlKylie
As I was writing this article and putting my list together, more big news popped up. God Eater Resurrection and God Eater 2: Rage Burst are both coming to the PSVita this year. I can't even begin to describe how happy I am about this news. I have played God Eater 2 in Japanese and the language barrier just really put me off, I so desperately wanted to play it in English. Finally my prayers have been answered. So expect to see videos of both games on my channel this year, hopefully some live stream community nights playing with viewers as well! Thanks for reading everyone, and stay tuned to my channel for more great PSVita content!
@PSVitaMag
One of the best PS Vita channels on Youtube, GadgetGirlKylie is a massive Vita fan. If you love your Vita (and you obviously do) you should definitely check her out! /GadgetGirlKylie @Gadgetgirlkylie
The Vita Lounge Magazine
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DIRECTORY THE BEST 2015 VITA GAMES
5
1.5 GB 2 16
23
PERSONA 4: DANCING ALL NIGHT
4.9
3.1 GB 3 15
21
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4.9
144 MB 1 4 7
4.9
3.7 GB 2 16
26
808 MB 1 1
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4.6
3.0 GB 2 7
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DANGANRONPA ANOTHER EPISODE: ULTRA DESPAIR GIRLS
322 MB 7 10
6
ATELIER AYESHA PLUS: THE ALCHEMIST OF DUSK
KICK & FENNICK
4.6
4.9 SUPER MEAT BOY
BROKEN AGE
4.6
GRIM FANDANGO REMASTERED
TETRIS ULTIMATE
STEINS; GATE
2.9 GB 4 10
4.8
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OLLIOLLI 2: WELCOME TO OLLIWOOD
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4.6
HOTLINE MIAMI 2: WRONG NUMBER
BASTION
4.6
4.5
403 MB 8 6
2.3 GB 5 9
14
303 MB 6 8
12
958 MB 8 8
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