Loot Entertainment is taking it back to the Old Skool with Q*bert™

Nothing better than going to Pizza Hut as a kid and having tables with built-in arcade games like Centipede, Asteroid and of course Q*bert™. That was my childhood in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas growing up.

I could not believe it when Loot announced Q*bert™ on the PlayStation Blog. But then again, why not? We had a blast playing Fluster Cluck released earlier this year by Loot and now we get to play one of the all time classics!

Q*bert: Rebooted_20141028165935

Jamie Ottilie, CEO of Galaxy Pest Control Games mentioned:

“Q*bert: Rebooted remains faithful to the commercially successful 1980’s arcade game while creating an entirely new experience that appeals to today’s savvy gamer. We saw an incredible opportunity by partnering with LOOT to bring Q*bert and his band of adversaries, like Coily, Ugg, and Red Ball, to the 21st Century via PlayStation®.”

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Now you are not just getting the Classic Q*bert™, you get Q*bert™: Rebooted as well, rated E for everyone and PEGI 3, and is now available for download on PS4™, PS3™ and PSVita™ entertainment systems for $9.99 and $6.99 for PlayStation Plus members (SCEA) and €8.99 and €5.99 for PlayStation Plus members (SCEE.)

Q*bert: Rebooted_20141028175755

So for less than $10 you are getting 2 games in one, the original and Rebooted which replaces the cubes with 3D hexagons and introduces new playable characters such as Q*bot, Q*bertha, Q*knight, Q*nicorn, and Q*zilla, along with new enemies, traps, gem collecting, and power-ups.

Q*bert: Rebooted_20141029155448

Q*bert™ is a must have for any gamer out there and even better for you parents out there that want to show the kiddos how we gamed back in the day. Too bad there is not a coin slot to collect quarters from the kids like we had to do it!

More information on Q*bert: Rebooted or LOOT Entertainment can be found at www.lootentertainment.com. Players can follow Q*bert: Rebooted on Twitter and Facebook or by visiting www.qbert.com.

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Uncharted: Fight For Fortune announced for the Vita

Remember that Indiana Jones type of 3rd person adventure game Uncharted? Well in a bizarre chain of events, Nathan Drake is sent out on a mission to collect cards and do battle with them! From the Playstation blog’s Chris Reese, he describes Uncharted: Fight for Fortune as a turn based card game exclusive for the Vita!

 

Remember that Indiana Jones type of 3rd person adventure game  Uncharted? Well in a bizarre chain of events, Nathan Drake is sent out on a mission to collect cards and do battle with them! From the Playstation blog’s Chris Reese, he describes Uncharted: Fight for Fortune as a turn based card game exclusive for the Vita!

 

“So you’re probably wondering, how exactly does Fight For Fortune work? I’ll explain. The core gameplay in UNCHARTED: Fight for Fortune involves creating a team of Faction cards featuring heroes, villains, and mercenaries from the UNCHARTED universe, then using that team to defeat your opponent while defending yourself from their attacks.
Each Faction card can be equipped with powerful Resource and valuable Fortune cards, which enhance their stats and give them special abilities. Once you’ve selected and equipped a card, it’s time to head into battle! During combat, attacks either reduce the health of opposing Faction cards or the health of your opponent. Defeating an opposing Faction card removes it from play, while reducing the health of your opponent to zero wins you the game.”

 

Whether you enjoyed Golden Abyss or not, Bend Studios returns to the portable Uncharted series with turn based action! December 4th is when we’ll see how the $4.99 PS Vita game of Uncharted: Fight for Fortune will fare against other spin off card games based on our favorite Playstation treasure hunter.

 

Uncharted: Golden Abyss trailer

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2 New Characters Join Sony’s Playstation All-Stars Battle Royal

As promised today at San Diego Comic Con two new playable characters were announced for Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. Who are they you may ask? Read on to find out!

 

As promised two new playable characters for Playstation All-Stars were released today at Comic-Con. Before, SuperBot stated that the original line-up was going to be ten, with the last two being announced at EVO, Toro and Heihachi. The two new characters are Cole McGrath from inFAMOUS and Jak, with Daxter by his side of course. I mean you can’t have JAK without Daxter!

 

Here are the details released via the Playstation Blog:

 

Jak & Daxter:

Players familiar with Jak and Daxter’s arsenal will immediately recognize some of the weaponry utilized in PlayStation All-Stars including the Blaster, Needle Lazer, Gyro Burster, and Mass Inverter. When the going gets tough, Jak has the ability to unleash the powers of both Dark and Light Jak to even the playing field, as seen in Jak II and Jak 3 respectively. Daxter even lends a hand in Jak’s melee attacks.

Cole McGrath:

Cole takes advantage of a wide array of abilities in inFAMOUS, an experience we hoped to emulate when incorporating him into the game. He is a well-rounded fighter who is effective at both close and long range combat, and is highly mobile as well. Players can command both his electrokinesis and cryokinesis, using these powers to assault opponents from a safe distance or propel himself towards the action. With these abilities, Cole proves to be a formidable adversary for the rest of the PlayStation All-Stars cast!

 

There are still many characters I’d like to see anounced, even more now that there will be third party characters in the game. We will see as more info is released in the upcoing weeks.

 

PlayStation® All-Stars Battle Royale Event of the Year Trailer

 

 

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Assasins Creed is coming to Vita

As rumoured at Gamescon 2011, Assasins Creed is coming to vita!

Assassin’s Creed for Vita is to be called ‘Assasins Creed III: Liberation’ and as said in Gamescon, there is a new character and story line, Assasins Creed III: Liberations, will feature a female assassin!

The game will be on sale the same day as Assassin’s Creed III and will take place between 1765 – 1780 in New Orleans, at the end of the French and Indian war. Also, it’s been said, Assasins Creed III: Liberation will have multiplayer features.

And to add even more incentive to buy a Ps Vita, they will have a Limited Edition bundle with the game, a 4gb Memory card, and the first ever WHITE PS Vita!

Heres a little teaser pic I found, looks promising. Roll on October 13th!

Assasins Creed III Liberation FULL Trailer

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“KickBeat” Announced for Playstation Vita

 

Isn’t it great when someone offers you something amazing that you never even realized you wanted?  Zen Studios has done just that for me with the announcement of KickBeat for the PS Vita.

KickBeat is, at it’s core, a rhythm game.  Now before you roll your eyes and jump to another article, bear with me for a minute.  I’m just as burnt out on rhythm games  as the next person, but KickBeat offers a new twist that completely changes the game.  You see, wrapped around that rhythm game core is a fighting game that tasks you with defeating waves of enemies with kung fu. That’s right kung fu.  So rather than matching colors or tapping circles, you’re kicking butt.

The game’s lineup of licensed tracks come from a diverse lineup of artists from well-known bands such as Pendulum and Marilyn Manson, to indie pioneers Celldweller and Blue Stahli, to hidden talents like electronic music producer Voicians and Taiwanese rapper Shen Yi. The absolute icing on the cake for me though is that KickBeat will feature a music analyzer that allows you to create new tracks from your own music library.  That’s right, you can use your own music to beat enemies with kung fu.

Zen Studios will allow you to try and snatch the pebble from their hand later this year only on the Vita. Until then check out the trailer:

Source: PSNation.org

 

 

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MLB 12: The Show – So real. It’s unreal.

I love baseball. I mean, I really, really love baseball.

As a kid growing up in Detroit, Michigan in the 70s, I remember loving the Tigers before loving just about anything else. Through the years, my passion for the game has only grown, and as a father, it’s been the source of great joy to share my love of America’s past time with my 10 year old son.

As it turns out, I had the privilege of coaching his Little League team a year or so ago. And one day before a game, he asked me, “Dad…why do you love baseball so much?”. As I struggled to give him a sufficient answer, I realized that it’s the sum of many different things that makes me love baseball so much.

The sights, the sounds, and even the smells of the game are what caused me to fall deeply in love with baseball. And to me, that’s really what baseball is. It’s more than just a game. It’s an amalgam of Geometry, Physics, history, culture, memories, or the anticipatory pause before every single pitch, that all come together to create this magical, uniquely American experience.

As a gamer, I’ve played almost every baseball game ever created. And while there have been a few franchises that have gotten close to capturing the “spirit” of the game, none have done so as aptly as Sony’s MLB: The Show franchise. Without question, MLB:The Show is the only baseball franchise to consistently hit it out of the park with each iteration.

And MLB 12: The Show is no exception.

It’s one thing to focus on the basic geometry & physics of the game. Which The Show executes masterfully. But, it’s another thing altogether to really focus on the little things that actually make baseball great.

For instance, if you play at Wrigley Field in Chicago, you’ll hear the el train going by during the game. Play an entire season as the Cubs and you’ll be able to watch Wrigley’s trademark ivy go from a dingy brown in April, to a lush green as the season winds down.

And it’s like that for each and every team & stadium.

Considered by many to be the most authentic baseball simulation available, Sony’s San Diego Studios continues to deliver an award winning take on America’s game.

In MLB 12: The Show, most of what you’ve grown to love about the franchise is back. Including a variation of the Analog Control System introduced last year in MLB 11.

This time around, they’ve combined the feel of the classic Zone Hitting interface with the Analog Hitting interface to get something called Zone Analog Batting.

You still use the Right Analog Stick for the stride & swing, but if you choose to, you can now control where you actually swing in the zone, by using the Left Analog Stick. It seems insignificant at first, but once you get the hang of it, it feels like you’re actually “steering” the ball like a real hitter.

While the Analog Pitching system remains virtually untouched, the Classic pitching interface has gotten an upgrade. MLB 12: The Show introduces a brand new pitching interface for the Classic Pitching Style, called Pulse Pitching. Players still pitch using a simple “X” button press, but now must time the press with an on-screen display, to ensure pitch accuracy.

But don’t freak out. If you prefer to just use the Classic Control System for either pitching or hitting, you can do that too.

MLB 12: The Show also introduces True Ball Physics. Again, it seems insignificant at first, but once you get into a game, you’ll notice that the baseball now acts & reacts more realistically than in previous installments. Using actual math, the ball will now behave like a real baseball, making hitting and fielding a bit more challenging.

Also making a return to The Show are Franchise Mode and the “fan favorite“, Road To The Show.

Franchise Mode is basically the same, with the exception of a few tweaks they’ve made to team logic. Teams will now make decisions including drafts and trades that make more sense for each specific team, depending largely on which market they happen to be in.

Similarly, Road To The Show has been tweaked to the point to where your progression feels more natural & balanced. Most noticeably, the reward / penalty ratio is more balanced, so you feel like you succeed almost as much as you fail. At-Bats also seem a little more forgiving than in previous versions of RTTS.

What may have been considered a Poor AB in MLB 11, may now be considered an OK AB in MLB 12: The Show.
It’s not really easier, just more balanced.

New to The Show, and maybe 2012’s biggest upgrade, is Diamond Dynasty.

Diamond Dynasty juggles aspects of team management, player progression, and online competition with more creative freedom than any other sports game to date. Gamers create a completely customizable team, with thousands of options that include, team name, team colors, custom uniforms, and customizable logos.

Once created, the team is given a handful of MLB baseball cards and Dynasty baseball cards that, when activated, add the players to your team’s roster.

The fundamentals of Diamond Dynasty revolve around the difference between MLB and Dynasty cards and the unique reward system that support each type.

A Dynasty player is a long-term investment that requires training similar to a Road To The Show player. While an MLB player is a short-term investment that is ready to slot into your roster ready to play at their current attribute levels.

Like real baseball cards, completing collections of MLB players will reward you with budget bonuses. Your budget is used to train players, purchase card packs (Dynasty or MLB), and purchase cards from other users on the marketplace.

Most of your budget is earned by playing ranked/matched head-to-head online games or vs. CPU against MLB teams. Every fifth game played, your custom team is re-evaluated for placement into one of five competitive divisions:

Spring Training, Season Series, Division Series, Championship Series, or World Series.

Clearly, Sony understands that baseball fans want an accurate simulation of baseball reality, and anything that detracts from that, can shatter the illusion of playing in, or watching, a real game.

MLB 12: The Show‘s TruBroadcast Presentation once again blurs the line between reality, and the in-game experience. If you didn’t know it was a video game, you’d swear it was an actual network broadcast, of an actual game.

In other words, “It’s so real…it’s unreal“.

Matt Vasgersian, Dave Campbell, and Eric Karros all return to the broadcast booth for MLB 12: The Show.

Which, in my opinion, may just be the one thing that needs to be revamped in the entire franchise.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Vasgersian well enough, “Soup” is a baseball encyclopedia, and Karros is a former Cub, so he gets a free pass from me.

But, the fact that I can actually recite the booth dialog word for word, or predict the dialog in almost any scenario, is just unbearable at times.
In fact, I often turn it off  “in-game“, which is disappointing in and of itself. Mainly because the booth dialog does add to the overall experience. For a franchise that has went to great lengths to create such an in-depth simulation, they seem to be neglecting what I think is an important aspect of the game.

Outside of that single criticism, it would be hard to find anything wrong with this game.

Overall, much like the real game of baseball, MLB 12: The Show is an amalgam of many different things, that all come together to make a great game.

And I guess that’s as it should be.

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Unit 13 Review on the PS Vita

 

Anyone who has read my article on the PS Vita will know that I was very complimentry about the new handheld. But the hardware has to have good software to show it off and the first of these new games is the third person shooter, Unit 13.

Developed by Zipper Interactive, Unit 13 is about a group of hard military types who by the use of stealt, speed and if needed, force, complete their objectives to gather information or take out key targets. This may sound like many other military games, but there are things to be enjoyed that set it apart from the others.

One of the main things is that this is on the PS Vita so it’s portable and also has the social aspect tied in. This is also a portable game that you can really get into and enjoy, the graphics are excellent and the gameplay is smooth and crisp.

Unit 13 is not the type of game that you can simply barge in and shoot everything in sight, this game needs, no expects forward planning. There is a radar map on the left that shows the area as well as any people moving within them. The people are also colour coded depending on their alert level. This is normally white/grey but once you take one of them out with a silent shot to the head, they tend to get quite angry.

As long as you keep your head down, it doesn’t take them long to calm down, of course you are really looking to get in and out as quickly as possible without being seen. You are helped along the way by the communications officer who updates you on the situation and your next objectives. There is also the direction arrow at the top of the screen that tells you the direction you need to be going in. This is not always the direction you are currently taking as obsticles and guards may be in your way.

In terms of the gameplay, Zipper Interactive have worked hard on making Unit 13 as involved and at the same time very playable. They have involved all that the PS Vita has to offer in terms of interactivity and that makes things much more fun. The controls for the touch screen seem a little difficult at times but this doesn’t detract from the overall gameplay too much.

Concept7/10
Graphics8/10
Sound7/10
Playability8/10
Entertainment8/10
Replay7/10

Overall, this is a very absorbing game that tries hard to grab and keep your attention. Though this may be one of many of it’s kind out there, it’s certainly worth a look if you have a PS Vita.

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Sony PS Vita Review: A Handheld Console to be reckoned with

When I first saw the PS Vita on display at the Eurogamer Expo last year, I thought then that this could be a really good piece of kit. Not just that it looked good or had dual analogue sticks or even that it had a touch screen; the main reason was that it was so interactive, more than the PSP. The things I mentioned above as well as the rear touch pad, cameras front and back and the gyroscope all help make the PS Vita a far more immersive experience. I will of course go into greater detail when I write about some of the games now available, for the moment though I will concentrate on what the console has to offer.

Although it resembles the PSP in looks, this is a very different beast. As I mentioned, this has a 5″ OLED capacitive touch screen which is very responsive and a delight to use. I found some sun (not easy I can tell you) to see how much you could see on a sunny day. It was very good, I found a slight amount of reflection but otherwise I was very impressed. It also has dual analogue sticks, which are very smooth and intuitive, I really like to use these over buttons and the addition of them on the PS Vita makes things much more comfortable. You do also get the standard triangle, square, circle and cross buttons, d-pad and shoulder buttons. The buttons are well laid out and feel nice and solid when pressed, although I found that for the most part during navigating and game play, I used the analogue sticks, touch pad and shoulder buttons more than anything else.

The speakers are just to the side of the analogue sticks and the sound that they produce is really very good for a handheld device. The sound is clear and crisp and really does help to add some atmosphere to the games, as opposed to flat, tinny like sounds produced by some other consoles in the past. Using headphones is also a good experience; I tend to use them quite a lot as it gets me into the game and the sound coming through the headphones on the PS Vita certainly does that.

There is of course, no UMD in this console, which many predicted long ago. There is still a memory card slot which takes small specifically designed memory cards and of course WIFI and or 3G depending on the version you buy. As well as a memory card slot, you also have the PS Vita Card Slot which is what you will find inside those shiny new cases in your local game store. There are also downloadable games and content, via the PlayStation Network where you are also able to get movies, music and additional levels as you can with the PlayStation 3 now.

The PS Vita itself feels very solid in the hand which I personally prefer, for me it feels strangely reassuring and less likely to break if I get a bit over zealous. The screen and rear touch pad do suffer a bit from fingerprint marks which for those who find it a irritating will no doubt need a lint free cloth handy.

When you turn on the PS Vita, you are greeted with the initial screen that shows the time and date. The corner is folded down which you use to peel it off the screen using your finger. I liked this way of entering/exiting different apps and games and it is used throughout. You can scroll up and down using the touch screen and each app or game is in its own ‘bubble’. There are apps for Facebook, Google Maps, Music and Videos that you may have on your console and they all sway gently as you move around the screen. Once you have selected the game you want, you are taken to the LiveArea screen. From this area you can see details about the game and also communicate with other players. Again, you can peel it off when you are finished or press start to take you to the game. You will also find a Welcome Pack that will guide you through all aspects of the PS Vita and its controls.

The browser is quite responsive and loads quickly; it loaded all the sites I tried with no issues at all. The LiveTweet and Facebook integration is a nice addition, you can post your progress to all your friends and show them how good you are doing (or not). It also means that you can keep in touch without having to stop and switch devices. There are also other nifty apps like ‘near’ which lets you see what other PS Vita owners in your area are playing and allows you to interact and swap items with them.

If you are a PlayStation 3 owner (unfortunately I’m not) you can benefit from cross-platform play and Remote Play. The former allows you to switch from playing a game on the PS3 to the PS Vita from where you left off and also join multiplayer games as well. Remote Play lets you control your PS3 from your PS Vita, as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection. You can stream movies, music and even play compatible PS3 games using your PS Vita as a controller…now that’s impressive!

As I mentioned earlier, I will go into more depth about each game as I write about them, but the graphics throughout are truly splendid. The shading and 3D effect from the characters and scenery is fabulous and this will only get better as more games come out. This is all thanks to the ARM Cortex A9 MPcore CPU with its four cores (sorry a bit tech there) but in short it makes for stunning graphics that at times made me wish I had a scarf tied around my head like Jacob Marley to stop my jaw from dropping! Game play is smooth and quick once the game loads which can take a few seconds, but it well worth the wait. Sony has always pushed the limits of what is expected of handheld consoles and with smart phones getting faster, this is more relevant than ever. I don’t think they will disappoint many in this respect, it is very impressive and this together with the interactive abilities makes this more of an all round gaming, entertaining and social experience than the Nintendo DSi or 3DS in my opinion.

Concept9/10
Graphics9/10
Sound8/10
Playability9/10
Entertainment9/10
Replay9/10

Overall I was really impressed with the PS Vita; it is all the things I personally think the PSP should have been. In the past, Nintendo have concentrated on the interactive elements of the games in favor of all out graphics power while Sony did the opposite. I think though that with the PS Vita, Sony have combined the two very well and if the games I have played so far are anything to go by, Nintendo may have a serious fight on their hands.

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