Beginning tomorrow, Sony kicks off the latest edition of its PS Vita PLAY PlayStation Store promotion with a lineup of four games to be released over the next month.
The lineup includes skateboarding game OlliOlli ($12.99, or $10.39 with PS Plus), anime fighter Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z ($39.99, or $31.99 with PS Plus), acrobatic swee-em-up platformer Dustforce ($9.99, or $7.99 with PS Plus), and abstract arcade shooter TxK ($9.99, or $7.99 with PS Plus).
As always, Sony is offering cash back rewards for multiple game purchases during the PLAY event. You’ll get $3 in SEN wallet credit for buying any two games, $6 for any three games, or $10 for purchasing all four. I have a feeling the DBZ game is going to be keeping a lot of Vita users from getting the full $10 credit…
Check below for more details about the PS Vita PLAY lineup.
OlliOlli – Tom Hegarty // Director, Roll 7
“We’re stoked to be bringing OlliOlli to you guys, we’re a small team based in London and we’re actually skateboarders (at least we were in our youth) as well as huge gamers, so this project really has been a labour of love for us. We can’t wait to see what scores people start posting and we’re giving you a five day head start before we unleash our senior coder, Nikos onto the nearest Vita and he starts busting some serious scores. You have been warned. And remember, just don’t slam on your face…”
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z – Brandon Williams // Producer, Namco
“Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z is a completely new DBZ game focused on team battles, letting you create your ultimate DBZ dream team and battling online head to head in teams of 4 vs. 4 or even up to 8 players simultaneously across the globe! The game follows the classic DBZ storyline and features many “what if” scenarios which are sure to please the fans. The graphical look of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z blends the best aspects of the manga and the anime creating visually striking action. Fans will also get a chance to play characters from the new movie “DRAGON BALL Z BATTLE OF GODS” for the first time! With massive co-op and competitive online battles, giant bosses waiting to be taken down, huge character roster and 60 unforgettable missions, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z will make you want to go Super Saiyan in no time! To try the demo, click here.”
Dustforce – Rey Jimenez // Producer, Capcom
“Everyone at Capcom is thrilled to bring Dustforce, the critically-acclaimed PC title from indie developer Hitbox Team, to PS3 and PS Vita fans. Continuing the tradition of today’s boutique developers, Dustforce has an art style and soundtrack that’s utterly unique and addicting. Dustforce is a simple and pure platformer that asks only one thing of the gamer…Be the fastest you can be.”
TxK – Jeff Minter // Designer, Llamasoft
“We bring 30 years of arcade design experience to bear in TxK, the latest and greatest evolution of the abstract arcade shooter style that we pioneered back in the 90s. TxK features beautiful vector graphics that look stunning on the Vita’s screen, an outstanding and extensive original soundtrack and absorbing, satisfying gameplay that’ll take you to tranced-out arcade nirvana. TxK is neon candy for your thumbs and your mind – come get your supply!”
PS Vita PLAY: 4 New Vita Games, PS Plus discounts and more [PlayStation.Blog]
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Step right up and take our screenshot gallery tour of Microsoft’s E3 2012 video game exclusives for the Xbox 360 platform. Halo 4 and Gears of War: Judgment are the blockbuster attractions, but there’s also plenty of XBLA content to look forward to throughout the remainder of the year. Not to mention a timed-exclusive DLC quest pack for a certain Bethesda role-playing epic.
Screenshot guides for Nintendo and Sony platforms are on the way. Stay tuned!
Halo 4:
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Gears of War: Judgment:
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Forza Horizon:
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dawnguard:
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Fable: The Journey:
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Ascend: New Gods:
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Deadlight:
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Hybrid:
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Dust: An Elysian Tail:
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Mark of the Ninja:
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Dance Central 3:
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Avatar Motocross Madness:
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Happy Wars:
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Skulls of the Shogun:
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Wreckateer:
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Dragon Ball Z Kinect:
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Namco Bandai’s next Dragon Ball Z game is going to be an Xbox 360 exclusive, harnessing the powers of Kinect to present the series’ debut first-person anime fighting game. Not a bad idea in theory, but it looks practically identical to last year’s lousy Ultimate Tenkaichi, only in first-person with full-body gestures used to activate all the quick time event attacks. Anyone really want to stand in front of their TV throwing rapid-fire fists at an invisible punching bag? I didn’t think so.
One nifty feature, though, is the QR code functionality. Players will be able to hold up special cards for the Kinect to scan in new characters and power-ups. That’s kinda cool. I guess.
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One of the top stories of the week was Halo 4 getting its confirmed November 6 global launch date so it’s only fitting that Master Chief’s grand return to Xbox 360 glory headlines the latest edition of Screenshot Saturday. New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Crysis 3 certainly deserve to share the spotlight, as does the charmingly beautiful PS3 RPG Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. (Level-5’s latest is a treasure trove of desktop wallpaper material.)
Other top draws this week include Resistance: Burning Skies, Sorcery, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Dragon’s Dogma, Inversion, The Dark Eye – Demonicon, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Mercenary Ops and the iOS version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
For sporty gamers, new shots are also in for Pub Games, Sega’s official London 2012 Olympic Games video game, Super Black Bass 3D and Pro Cycling Manager 2012 / Tour de France 2012. Anime lovers won’t want to miss the first screen grabs from Dragon Ball Z for Kinect and One Piece: Pirate Warriors, and casual Nintendo 3DS/DS players should enjoy the scenery of Thundercats and three newly announced titles from Rising Star Games, including Cradle of Rome 2, Cradle of Persia and To-Fu Collection.
Halo 4 (Xbox 360):
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New Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo 3DS):
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Crysis 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360):
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Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (PS3):
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Resistance: Burning Skies (PS Vita):
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Sorcery (PS3 – PlayStation Move):
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Pub Games (PS Vita):
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The Dark Eye – Demonicon (PC):
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Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (PS3, Xbox 360):
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Inversion (PC, PS3, Xbox 360):
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Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (PS3, Xbox 360):
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One Piece: Pirate Warriors (PS3 – PSN):
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Dragon Ball Z for Kinect (Xbox 360 – Kinect):
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Pro Cycling Manager 2012/Tour de France 2012 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360):
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Thundercats (Nintendo DS):
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Cradle of Rome 2 (Nintendo 3DS/DS):
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Cradle of Persia (Nintendo DS):
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Super Black Bass 3D (Nintendo 3DS):
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To-Fu Collection (Nintendo DS):
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London 2012 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games (PC, PS3, Xbox 360):
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Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (iPhone, iPod touch):
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Mercenary Ops (PC):
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Dragon’s Dogma (PS3, Xbox 360):
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Check Out These Links:
- Nintendo Announces New Super Mario Bros. 2 for 3DS, Kirby Anniversary Collection for Wii
- NYC Becomes a Real Urban Jungle in Crysis 3
- Dragon’s Dogma Launches in May, Resident Evil 6 Demo Download Code Included
- Halo 4 Launching Worldwide November 6
- Deathmatch Goes Portable in Resistance: Burning Skies
- Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Looks as Enchanting as Ever
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Launch Date Confirmed in First Gameplay Trailer
After an eventful October that saw the releases of quality games like Enslaved, Time Crisis: Razing Storm and Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 (my Enslaved review can be read here; reviews for Time Crisis and UNS2 are coming soon), Namco Bandai is preparing to continue its hot streak into November with four more titles that recently went gold. Those four titles include:
Namco Museum Megamix (Wii) – November 16, 2010 for $19.99
Pac-Man Party (Wii) – November 16, 2010 for $39.99
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom (PS3, Xbox 360) – November 23, 2010 for $59.99
Splatterhouse (PS3, Xbox 360) – November 23, 2010 for $59.99
Don’t forget about Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 either. Its launch kicks off Namco Bandai’s November run this week with releases on PS3 and Xbox 360. A copy arrived here over the weekend, so keep an eye out for a review in the coming weeks.
Any of these upcoming titles strike your fancy?
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With all of the Dragon Ball Z games that have been released over the years, it amazes me that none have featured a tag team mechanic. I haven’t played them all to know for myself, but according to the press materials I received from Namco Bandai with my review copy, Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team for the PSP is the first DBZ game with tag team gameplay.
Now, I won’t sit here and pose as a knowledgeable Dragon Ball Z fan. I know nothing about the anime or manga, and my only knowledge of the franchise has been obtained through playing some of the video games it has spawned. I see that as a good thing, though; as it allows me to fairly examine the quality of the game by itself without being swayed by fan service. I’m not reviewing whether or not this is a good Dragon Ball Z game, but whether or not it is a good fighting game. Period.
When I first turned Tenkaichi Tag Team on and began browsing through the main menu to acquaint myself with the game’s mode offerings, I was very impressed by the breadth of what I saw. This game has a ton of content going for it, and tons of fan service.
There’s a full-on quest mode called Dragon Walker, which chronicles the original Dragon Ball Z storyline from the Saiyan saga to the Majin Buu saga. Basically, you take on individual missions pulled from the anime and fly around a JRPG-like overworld map to initiate dialogue sequences leading into the ensuing battles. It’s a substantial mode too, taking upwards of six hours to finish, not including optional side objectives and new mission branches that open up upon completion. Many of the missions do seem to retread similar scenarios. But it is a fighting game, so it’d be unreasonable to expect a huge amount of variety in this area.
In addition to the story mode, there are Free Battle and Survival modes along with a Battle 100 mode, in which you pick matches on a grid and relive iconic battles from the anime to earn points by connecting the grid nodes in a line after victory. Ad Hoc support also allows for four-player wireless battles — but unfortunately Infrastructure play is not an option.
If that wasn’t enough for you, the game also stars 70 playable and customizable characters (that number is inflated by multiple forms of the same character, mind you). Pretty much everything you do in the game – including a loading screen mini-game — earns you D-Points, a currency used to upgrade character abilities by purchasing and equipping D-Items. Each character can equip D-Items in three categories – Ability Type, Tag Type and Intellect Type – and each one augments their battle performance with boosts to team attacks, defense/attack/health/Ki attributes, overall fighting styles, and things of that nature. You can save three customization slots per character too, in case you want to match a specific skill set to your opponent.
Unfortunately, the game begins to fall apart when you actually play it. After opening the in-game Battle Guide filled with text explanations of the game’s battle system, I was overwhelmed by the volume of control options and left the training expecting challenging, nuanced battles. That’s not exactly what I got.
Battles take place in full 3D, meaning you have free reign to move around within an open battlefield and even take the fisticuffs skyward, and new to this game are team battles in which you are paired with an AI partner and matched up against other teams of two (matches can be 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, 1 vs. 2, and 2 vs. 1). From the training guide, the game appears to have everything you would want from a fighting game. Combos, counters, evasive maneuvers, special attacks, taunts, grabs, character transformations, and team attacks too of course.
But during actual gameplay, I found the game to be a shallow anime fighter built to favor style over substance. Seriously, the gameplay is as deep as a puddle…in a desert…where there is no water!
The battles are visually spectacular. Characters are authentically rendered and animated in colorful, cel-shaded detail, and the special attacks certainly don’t skimp on the fireworks. But the flashy imagery is really just a facade masking an excruciatingly simple fighting game that can be brainless, button-mashing fun for a fight or two at a time, but quickly becomes a snore after that.
The beef I have is that the game rarely challenges you to put any effort or skill into winning fights. I went through the entire quest mode with one simple strategy: press X to homing-dash towards the enemy, mash on the square button to attack, and mix in a special attack here and there for massive damage. The only battles that ever became even remotely challenging were the 1 vs. 2 bouts, and those were only ever difficult because of cheap AI tactics that would have one enemy dashing in from beyond the camera’s view and hitting me from behind while I tried to attack his friend. But even those battles weren’t that much of a challenge in the end.
In over eight hours of game time across all modes, I haven’t lost a single match – and I’ve never had to do more than the “dash, attack, rinse and repeat” strategy. In fact, if I deviated from that tactic and tried to explore some of the deeper elements, the battles just seemed to become more tedious. Why am I going to wait for an enemy to attack so I can counter or muck around with charging up my Ki gauge when I can dash and attack without a whole lot of resistance?
Lack of depth isn’t the only problem either. The camera system is also a mess. On top of unseen enemies cheaply striking you from behind, the camera does a poor job tracking your current target. During frantic moments when multiple characters are dashing around simultaneously, the perspective gets stuck whipping around to keep up with the action, and it can be quite nauseating. Many times it causes you to lose sight of you and your target entirely, leaving you to stare at a blank screen for a few seconds as if you entered some hidden first-person view.
Fan service will likely mask these flaws for a very specific audience that loves everything Dragon Ball Z no matter what “outsiders” have to say. So, if you’re in that group, you can pretty much disregard everything negative I’ve had to say about Tenkaichi Tag Team, because you’re probably going to dig this game regardless of my opinion. However, for the broader PSP audience wondering whether or not Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team is a worthwhile fighting game, I think I’ve made my answer abundantly clear at this point.
Pros:
+ Deep feature set, including a lengthy quest mode
+ Vibrant, detailed graphics pop off the PSP screen
+ Lots of characters and an interesting customization system
+ Plenty of fan service to mask the flaws for the DBZ fanatic
Cons:
– Shallow combat lacks challenge and grows stale quickly
– Disorienting camera fails to consistently keep up with the action
– No Infrastructure multiplayer support
– Tag team gameplay really doesn’t add anything all that special
Game Info:
Platform: PSP
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Spike
Release Date: 10/19/2010
Genre: Fighting
ESRB Rating: Teen
Players: 1-4 (Ad Hoc only)
Source: Review copy provided by publisher
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