Tag: First Impressions - Page 4
First Impressions Frobisher Says
Stand on your head
If Simon Says had an illicit affair with Nintendo’s madcap minigame series Wario Ware, Frobisher Says would be the hyperactive accidental love-child. Honeyslug’s eccentric PlayStation Vita launch-title might not be drawing the headlines like Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Wipeout 2048, but it's easily the most h
First Impressions Frobisher Says on PlayStation Vita
If Simon Says had an illicit affair with Nintendo's madcap minigame series WarioWare, Frobisher Says would be the hyperactive accidental love-child
Honeyslug's eccentric PlayStation Vita launch-title might not be drawing the headlines like Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Wipeout 2048, but its easily the most humorous game we've played in a long time...
First Impressions Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz
Do the splitz
It’s a bit of a shame that Super Monkey Ball has been relegated to launch window fodder. SEGA’s zany primate-populated pseudo-puzzle platformer felt like a breath of fresh air when it debuted on the Nintendo GameCube ten years ago, transforming a basic gameplay concept into something cute and, most importantly, memorable. But an...
First Impressions Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz on PS Vita
It's a bit of a shame that Super Monkey Ball has been relegated to launch window fodder
SEGA's zany primate-populated pseudo-puzzle platformer felt like a breath of fresh air when it debuted on the Nintendo GameCube ten years ago, transforming a basic gameplay concept into something cute and, most importantly, memorable. But an overzealous SEGA was...
First Impressions ModNation Racers: Road Trip
Slick
ModNation Racers stole our hearts last summer. The Sony published “Play Create Share” kart racer was a real triumph, championing the best of Mario Kart and LittleBigPlanet in one tidy, well presented package. ModNation Racers: Road Trip sees the core ideas from last year’s PlayStation 3 game shrunk down and repurposed for PlayStation...
First Impressions ModNation Racers: Road Trip on PS Vita
ModNation Racers stole our hearts last summer
The Sony published "Play Create Share" kart racer was a real triumph, championing the best of Mario Kart and LittleBigPlanet in one tidy, well presented package. ModNation Racers: Road Trip sees the core ideas from last year's PlayStation 3 game shrunk down and repurposed for PlayStation Vita...
First Impressions Virtua Tennis 4
Top spin?
Regular readers will not need reminding of our attachment to tennis games. Nor will they be surprised to learn that Virtua Tennis 4 on Vita is one of our most anticipated launch titles. Those of you that played Virtua Tennis 4 on PS3 earlier in the year will be immediately familiar with its PlayStation Vita counterpart. The slick,...
First Impressions Virtua Tennis 4 on PlayStation Vita
Regular readers will not need reminding of our unreasonable attachment to tennis games
Nor will they be surprised to learn that Virtua Tennis 4 is one of our most anticipated launch titles for the PlayStation Vita. Those of you that played the arcade tennis sim on the PS3 earlier in the year will be immediately familiar with its PlayStation Vita...
First Impressions LittleBigPlanet
A stitch up
The PlayStation Vita was made for LittleBigPlanet. Double Eleven and Tarsier Studios’ latest entry in Media Molecule’s sandbox series is one of the most intelligent experiences available in the handheld’s initial wave of software. Everything from the user interface to the game mechanics has been expertly tweaked and adjusted not...
First Impressions LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation Vita
The PlayStation Vita was made for LittleBigPlanet
Double Eleven and Tarsier Studios' latest entry in Media Molecule's sandbox series is one of the most intelligent experiences available in the handheld's initial wave of software. Everything from the user-interface to the game mechanics have been expertly tweaked and adjusted to not only make the...
Double-top?
Darts games never really worked until the advent of motion controls and touch screens. Tossing tungsten just never quite felt right with an analogue stick and buttons. Developers tried everything, from wobbly hands to ripping off Hot Shots Golf’s three-click aiming system, but nothing ever really replicated the actual act of playing...
First Impressions Top Darts on PlayStation Vita
Darts games never really worked until the advent of motion controls and touch screens
Tossing tungsten just never quite felt right with an analogue stick and buttons. Developers tried everything, from wobbly hands to ripping off Hot Shots Golf's three-click aiming system, but nothing ever really replicated the actual act of playing arrows until...
First Impressions Super Stardust Delta
Blast from the future
There’s no bigger advocate for the PlayStation Vita’s dual analogue sticks than Super Stardust Delta. Housemarque’s intergalactic shooter series has been a poster child for the PlayStation Network for years, and on PlayStation Vita it is no less important. The game offers a smattering of play options, divided between...
First Impressions Super Stardust Delta on PS Vita
There's no bigger advocate for the PlayStation Vita's dual-analogue sticks than Super Stardust Delta
Housemarque's intergalactic shooter series has been a poster child for the PlayStation Network for years, and on PlayStation Vita it is no less important. The game offers a smattering of play options, divided between traditional and modern controls...
First Impressions Move Fitness on PlayStation 3
Nobody told us PlayStation Move's inevitable fitness package, Move Fitness, was being developed by Coldwood Interactive -- the Swedish studio behind the unfairly maligned motion controlled brawler, The Fight: Lights Out
Regular readers (and followers of our PlayStation Network account) will know we developed a bizarre addiction to The Fight: Lights...
First Impressions Ridge Racer Unbounded on PlayStation 3
It's certainly a unique sight: a demo kiosk labelled with the Ridge Racer name, showing vehicles smashing through stone pillars and crashing into each other
Regardless of whether Ridge Racer Unbounded turns out to be the best racing game ever conceived, Namco's got its work cut-out convincing long-time fans that a more destructive racer is what they...
First Impressions Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Beta on PlayStation 3
The Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3 'war' has been getting on our nerves
We feel like gamers have been acting needlessly contrary, probably in response to the popularity of Call Of Duty and the lingering assumption that the series needs to evolve. Competition certainly can't hurt, but its irritating watching fans praise a laborious Battlefield...
First Impressions Disney Universe on PlayStation 3
Someone at Disney Universe developer, Eurocom, has spent a lot of time playing LittleBigPlanet
That's not to say this four-player platforming adventure plays exactly like Media Molecule's 'Play Create Share' adventure, but tonally it's extremely similar. Playing as one of four costumed blue-squibs — we were totally Alice from the Wonderland series...
First Impressions Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest
Good job, Zindagi
It probably shouldn’t be funny to watch a guy try to use a digital bow and arrow unsuccessfully for a good five minutes. That’s exactly the scenario we were faced with when taking a peek at Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest, the latest PlayStation Move title from Sports Champions developer Zindagi Games. It would have been a...
First Impressions Sound Shapes
Shaping up nicely
The PlayStation Vita queue at the recent Eurogamer Expo was a sight to behold: as the first opportunity for the UK public at large to play with Sony’s new handheld, two lines of people formed on either side of the demonstration area. Early in the day, nobody wanted to give poor Sound Shapes a chance, presumably many were holding...
First Impressions Binary Domain on PlayStation 3
Sometimes you go into a video game demonstration with remarkably low expectations
For us, Binary Domain was one of those games. Which is strange given that it's the latest project from the studio behind the Yakuza titles — one of our favourite PlayStation franchises of all time. While Binary Domain has shown flashes of brilliance in its underlying...
First Impressions Starhawk on PlayStation 3
Starhawk is a dense experience that demands more time than our demo allowed
By the end of our short hands-on, we were flying over a huge changing battlefield, tailing enemy Warhawks desperately trying to assume a lock-on. Unfortunately, we didn't get enough time with the game to truly get a grasp on how the gameplay will be structured. Playing as...
First Impressions House of the Dead: Overkill - Extended Cut
Goregasmic
It's no surprise to see House of the Dead: Overkill making the leap to PlayStation Move. Originally developed for Nintendo Wii, Headstrong Games' title seemed like an ideal candidate for a port from the second that PlayStation Move was announced, following similar arcade shooter efforts such as EA's Dead Space: Extraction. What is still...
First Impressions GoldenEye 007: Reloaded on PlayStation 3
After naming GoldenEye 007: Reloaded as one of our most anticipated PlayStation 3 games of the year, we couldn't help but feel disappointed by our time with the game's demo
It felt early. Really early. Borderline broken in fact. After restarting our demo — because a bit of geometry was obtruding our entry into a vent — we decided to restart the...
First Impressions HOTD: Overkill - Extended Cut on PS3
Consider this less of a preview and more of a confirmation; House Of The Dead: Overkill - Extended Cut is exactly what you'd expect it to be
We got to check out the game's Hospital stage and giggled our through the demo as the game's sheer stupidity resurfaced itself. The PlayStation Move controller works perfectly, and the experience is enhanced by...
First Impressions Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One on PlayStation 3
Here's what we think.
Topping the brilliant Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time was always going to be a challenge for Insomniac Games. The developer's previous entry in its highly acclaimed platforming franchise neared perfection in terms of level variety, design, and combat. Short of sprucing up the graphics and adding more of the same, it's...
Outperforming the Sharp Shooter?
Has there ever been a time in your life when you thought, ‘I could do or make that better’? But what do we normally do at this point? We go on with our lives, as the thought passes on and whatever it was we thought we could do better... well, it just never comes to be. But what would happen if you actually tried...
First Impressions Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest on PS3
Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest is Sports Champions
Make no mistake, this is a brand new PlayStation Move-exclusive title with its own characters and narrative, but at its core it's built upon the same fundamentals that developer Zindagi Games founded in last year's motion controlled sports compilation. Our demo opens in a vast training arena. It's...
First Impressions Resistance 3 Multiplayer Beta on PlayStation 3
The most striking thing about Resistance 3 is the way it looks
Insomniac's poured love into every facet of the game's presentation; from the surprisingly minimalistic hand-drawn menu back-drops, to the slick and industrial user-interface — the game's presentation is lavish. We'd read some criticism of the game's visuals prior to going hands-on...
First Impressions Driver: San Francisco on PlayStation 3 Demo
It's the littlest things that make Driver: San Francisco fun
From the wah-pedal infused soundtrack, through to the rear-wheel camera angles, it's clear that Ubisoft Reflections has spent a lot of time analysing classic seventies car chases during the development of the game. Driver: San Francisco promises the "ultimate car chase...
First Impressions Catherine on PlayStation 3 Demo
Video games can be quite immature
Even when they come attached with mature age ratings, the content inside can often feel like the opposite. Enormous guns, vats of gore and over-sized breasts are not necessarily indicative of what it means to be mature, in fact they are the antithesis. Few games capture the essence of adulthood. For all its faults,...
First Impressions Resistance 3
Fight the opposition
If the third entry in the Killzone series wasn’t enough sci-fi shooter action to keep you busy, then the upcoming release of Insomniac’s Resistance 3 is shaping up to Move you back into action in just a few short months. We recently survived some hands-on time with the Resistance 3 demo and have returned to give you some...
First Impressions Uncharted 3 Multiplayer Beta on PS3
If the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta has taught us anything, it's that we're terrible at Uncharted multiplayer
After a spot of beginner's luck — winning our first game of Free For All with a deftly timed melee swipe to the face — we've lingered in the loser's half of every game we've played. We're even rubbish at co-op, consecutively getting less...
First Impressions Little Deviants
More than mindless mini-games
Once I arrived in Los Angeles for E3 2011, one thing I knew for certain - I had to get my hands on Sony's upcoming PSVita system while I had the chance. And while the games I had on my list of must-see titles mostly involved games like Hot Shots Golf and LittleBigPlanet, it was actually a title I hadn't given a lot of...
First Impressions PlayStation Vita
We take Vita for a spin
After staring at photos of Sony's upcoming Playstation Vita system for the past few months, there was a certain level of excited anticipation at the prospect of actually getting some hands-on time with the unit at this year's E3 show in Los Angeles. And while I had a wealth of questions about how the unit would feel and...
First Impressions ModNation Racers on PlayStation Vita
One of our favourite games on PlayStation 3 last year was ModNation Racers
In our line of work, we're constantly moving on to the next thing. But ModNation Racers was one of those titles that never fell too low down our stack of PS3 games. We'd pull it out every rainy Sunday or slow afternoon, just to browse the game's latest creations, or race a...
First Impressions Hustle Kings on NGP
No-one in their right mind should get excited over a pool game
Considering the NGP's stunning line-up, Hustle Kings should be the game that gets easily overlooked. But with the promise of a new interface and intriguing new multiplayer options, Hustle Kings is an important component of the NGP's line-up in spite of its dry subject matter. Touch...
First Impressions Wipeout 2048 on NGP
While Uncharted undoubtedly rules the roost when it comes to PlayStation content in 2011, Wipeout has been quietly defining the brand throughout its entire life-span
Studio Liverpool's club-culture inspired racer was a smash on the original PlayStation, and hasn't looked back since. The most recent entry, Wipeout HD on PlayStation 3, is probably the...
First Impressions Uncharted: Golden Abyss on NGP
Uncharted is arguably the most important franchise in Sony's roster at the moment
Not only is it a critical and commercial success for the platform holder, the franchise is also an industry leader. Uncharted is continuously setting a precedent for other developers to follow — it's influential. Uncharted: Golden Abyss aims to take that influence...
First Impressions Virtua Tennis 4 on PlayStation 3
Stop worrying: Virtua Tennis 4 plays exactly how you'd expect it to with the PlayStation Move
While a little forgiving, SEGA's anticipated tennis sequel provides the intricate motion control many of us have been dreaming of since first experiencing Sports Champions' excellent table-tennis mode. The publisher really deserves kudos for unlocking the...
First Impressions Yakuza: Of The End on PlayStation 3
"When was the last time you pressed Square to shoot," we asked rhetorically in response to the opening stages of Yakuza: Of The End's Japanese demo
"Erm. Fade To Black," came the unnecessary response. "Exactly," we said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Fade To Black is a PSone game." The proposed point being that Japanese...
First Impressions Ape Escape Fury! Fury!
The Ape's for the Kids
Ape Escape fans have been craving a new console entry in the series for years, and it’s finally close to being upon us. Ape Escape Fury! Fury! brings a unique style of gameplay to the franchise that can only be possible with the power of Move, and we recently got to catch a few Apes for ourselves. Ape Escape became a fan...
First Impressions Tron Evolution
Greetings, programs!
Twenty-eight years is a long time to wait for a sequel, but the follow-up film to the iconic Tron is almost upon us. One month before Tron Legacy arrives on our screens will come Tron Evolution, a game filling in some of the middle ground between both films, and Movemodo was fortunate enough to be invited to a preview event for...
First Impressions SOCOM: Special Forces on PlayStation 3
When we think of SOCOM, we don't necessarily think of a graphical power-house
But SOCOM: Special Forces is surprising in that regard. All credit to Zipper Interactive, they've crafted something technically stunning with their latest title. This is a different kind of SOCOM game. It conforms somewhat to the requirements of a modern-day third-person...
First Impressions Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on PS3
Having been anticipating Criterion's next racing game since Burnout: Paradise, we were initially somewhat disappointed watching others play Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
The game looked slower than Burnout Paradise, perhaps a result of the unfinished frame-rate. But once we got our hands on the game - much was forgiven. Criterion know racing games...
First Impressions Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood on PS3 Multiplayer
Online multiplayer has slowly been getting more predictable
While every game attempts to gazump Call Of Duty by offering the exact same suite of features, we've been slowly playing less and less attention. Multiplayer used to be a feature that got us vastly excited about any game that supported it. Nowadays we spend 5-10 minutes seeing how a title...
First Impressions inFamous 2 on PlayStation 3
The original inFamous was a success because of its silky smooth combat mechanics
They're still apparent in inFamous 2, though Sucker Punch has gone out of their was to improve the visual clarity of the open-world environment and up the number of combat mechanics at Cole's disposal. Our demo starts out with a bunch of super-natural goons for us to...
First Impressions Medal Of Honor on PlayStation 3 Multiplayer
Medal Of Honor's multiplayer is a strange beast
We actually think there's a lot to like about it. But at the same time, it's so very familiar. The game doesn't appear to have any personality of its own; and while it's certainly beyond competent, it's also agonisingly akin to Call Of Duty. Our 16-player hands-on demo saw us checking out the game's...
First Impressions Dead Space 2 on PlayStation 3
Dead Space is still one of our favourite games on PlayStation 3
Above all else, the atmosphere Visceral managed to deliver with their debut release remains unmatched. It was refreshing to see Dead Space 2 deliver that same sense of mystery. The game might not be set on the original Ishimura space-craft; but the teasing shadows and bright lights are...
First Impressions MySims: Sky Heroes on PlayStation 3 Demo
We've always liked flight combat titles here at PushSquare
Commercially they are somewhat of a niche product; and they do suffer from genre limitations. Realistically there is only so much you can do with a plane, gatling gun and a few rockets. MySims: Sky Heroes takes the gritty air combat format and makes it cute - a trait in itself which makes...
