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Little Big Planet 2 – A reinvention of its predecessor?

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Little Big Planet 2 (LBP 2) demo was available for download at Playstation Store about a month or two ago. Trust that some of you might have already downloaded it and tried out the much anticipated title. The demo features three playable levels which demonstrated the various tools that are unique to LBP 2.

In the beginning of the first level, you might not feel that you are playing LBP2 but LBP 1 since the level outlook, physic and controls are almost the same as its predecessor. However, you soon get to try your hands on the new Grappling Hook which allows you to swing around. For those who played Worms 2 before, it is the same as the ninja rope in that game. Nothing amazing in my opinion.

For the second level in the demo, you are introduced to several of these robots that you can control. The first robot you get to ride on is a rabbit. Controlling the robo-rabbit does pose some challenge and you might lose control of it as times. Will be fun if you are playing with your friends and family seeing how they lose control of their robo-rabbit and get electrocuted when they touches those electrified pads.

After jumping your way around the first part of this level, you are presented with another robot. This time it is a dog that can emit ultrasonic wave. The waves emitted by the dog can push away movable platform making path for you to cross.

Finally, the last creature that you can ride on is a furry hamster that in my opinion looks kind of mutated. The ‘robo-hamster’ can charge in the direction it is facing much like Sonic. This part of the level is also designed to be a bit ‘Sonic-like’. Ok so much for my reminiscence. It can be inferred in some of the trailers I have seen that you might be able to create your own robot to ride on.

After playing through level two, you should have a basic idea of how sackboy can now ride on different kinds of robots. Until this point, I feel that LBP2 still lacks of something innovative, something that can really deliver the punch to make our money worth while buying this sequel. Basically, I feel that the first two level can be easily done with a patch to LBP 1.

In the last level, Media Molecule (the company who made LBP) included a multiplayer head-on level. Unlike traditional platform level, players are now thrown into a small area where the sackboys are equipped with a rocket launcher on their head. The objective of the game is to shoot each other and gain points. I think the developers have learnt the importance of multiplayer from LBP1 and are trying to provide a new competitive ways that players can compete with each other in LBP2.

This is kind of new compared to LBP1 but honestly, I think that players would want more than shooting rockets at each other. The demo ends with this playable level. However, if you have been following news on LBP2, you would know that there is more that this title can offer compared to the demo. In some of the videos I have seen, you can play shooter, racing and even real-time strategy games on LBP2. And it supports PS Move as well! You can also compose your own musical track this time!

LBP2 is coming to you this month! Look out for it!

Game Review

PlayStation Move – Is It Worth it?

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I’ve recently managed to get my hands on the PlayStation Move and decided to write a review on it.

I’ve bought the bundle with Sports Champions and subsequently bought the other Move games as well. Comparing with the Wii, PlayStation Move has definitely much better graphics, basically a Wii HD. The accuracy of the Move controller is much better compared to that of Wii. As far I am concerned, you do need two Move controllers to completely enjoy the experience while playing Sports Champions. Although you don’t really need the navigator controller until the really good games come out next year.

Sports Champions
For Sports Champions, you get a couple of mini games such as table tennis and gladiator dueling. For the table tennis and archery mini games, the Move controllers work extremely well and you actually feel like you are doing exactly what is on the screen. As for the the other games like beach volleyball and gladiator dueling, it didn’t feel like you are doing the motions as you don’t move with your body besides your hands. During the gladiator dueling , the move controller also doesn’t capture your motions correctly.

Start the Party!
Start the Party is just like the Wii’s Mario Party, a party game. Playing by yourself is extremely boring although there could be some games that make you giggle or two. Playing your with your friends, however, is a totally different experience. You are given some tasks to do within a time limit and you are rack up as much points as you can. As I’ve said, playing with your friends is extremely fun and you would be constantly be laughing at your friends failing the tasks or failing to beat your score. Although it is fun playing with your friends though, there is very little games to play with and if you are playing with a group of four to five, the fun only lasts for a moment. To truly stretch the playability you would probably have to play with your whole gang of friend in a chalet.

Time Crisis Razing Storm
If you frequent the arcades alot you probably recognize the name Time Crisis and Razing Storm. The game disc includes those 2 games and an extra called DeadStorm Pirates, making it 3 games in 1 disc. To fully enjoy the game you do need to gun attachment for the move OR if you have a guncon, you could use that.All 3 games are basically what you would expect from the arcade, the experience is however dampened by the fact that you could revive each time you die without putting in money like in arcade which kind of ruins the challenge. Apart from that the games are pretty decent but i personally think that DeadStorm Pirates should had been the main game as it was way better than the other 2. The gun attachment for the move works perfectly and functions exactly like the same guns in the arcade and shooting people is ok as well as detection of where you point the move controller is working. Overall its better to play with friends but do note the short campaign, you could easily finish the game in a day.

The Fight: Lights Out
This video game blew my mind away albeit in the wrong way. This fighting game is extremely mediocre and for the first time, the move controllers did not function the way I wanted it to function. You are taught by the guy from Machete, Danny Trejo, on how to fight, which is probably the cool thing about the game, but everytime you try to execute the moves he told you to do, it doesn’t work! Moving is clunky as well and hit detection is awful. It will let you lose weight for those who want to lose weight but I would advise you just go outside to exercise.

All in all,the games may be fun for a short time but after a while. you would probably just trade them away. If you want to buy the Move, I suggest you buy it in the middle of next year where many of the most anticipated games and new hardware for the move will come out. Below is one of the games that will use the move plus a picture showing the new gun attachment.

Game Tech news

The Future of Kinect, or the lack of it.

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Cheers! I’ve recently bought a Wii set, and it is a really great system. PS2 graphics aside, it really gives you a different kind of fun from the PS3. And it is really enjoyable to play a game with the whole family, even adding a few relatives would be fine. A good choice to buy it so far, well so far that is.

The thing is, I have been wondering if my choice over Kinect had been a right one. Recently I saw a Kinect demonstration at IMM. People were playing table tennis (GO WII SPORTS RESORT!) with their bare hands. The funny thing was, their hands were shaped like a bats. This may look normal to everybody, but if you change your vantage point you would see something different. This controllerless technology isn’t really that controllerless after all. An irony hidden well between the lines.

Of course, this is very natural. Since time immemorial, people have had been using tools to do various things, from cooking to writing to even personal pleasure. It has been wired in our systems to use tools for majority of the tasks that we do. So essentially what the Kinect does is it detects the “controller” that our hands are trying to imitate. That is where the limitation of Kinect lies, at least that is what I believe.

Just think about it. While it would be easy to detect equipment like tennis rackets and baseball bats, the challenge would be at objects that have more detail. Take rifles and pistols for example. I am not a technical expert, but I believe that the minute action of one pulling an imaginary trigger would be pretty difficult for the Kinect to detect. This means that shooting games might be out for Kinect. According to Gamespot, shooting games account for 38% of the Last 12 Months Top 50 PC games. It also accounts for 40% and 52% for All Time Top 50 games for PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. That is one hell of a market that Kinect might be missing out on.

Onto the next lucrative market – Role Playing Games. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft series have been great hits, among other free to play MMORPG games like Maplestory and Dragonica. Even single player RPGs like Dragon Age: Origins and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are now all time classics. But imagining RPG games on the Kinect seems to be a little tough. While melee weapons like swords and staffs might be possible, the tricky part lies with ranged weapons. Bows and guns have the same problem highlighted earlier, and it is puzzling as to how one will control a mage. Perhaps a wave of the hand will cast frost bolt.

With so many barriers of entry for the Kinect into the top 2 markets, it really seems to have a tough time ahead. Right now my eyes are on PS3 move.