PS Vita

Mortal Kombat – One Hour Demo Impressions

Mortal  Kombat was recently added to the full game demo list on PSN+. If your new to PSN+ its just a special subscription where you can get games for free/discount or play the full game (in this case)  Mortal Kombat for one hour. Back in the day Mortal Kombat was the poster-boy for videogame hate groups for its brutality or should i say its Fatalities. After a long hiatus Mortal Kombat is back and better than ever judging from the one hour demo. NetherRealm Studios are the developers and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment the publishers. Mortal Kombat originally released on April 19, 2011 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The VITA will get a release April 2, 2012.

The main menu broke down into Fight, Story Mode, Challenge Tower, Training, Online, Extras and Options. One thing this fighting doesn’t lack is content.Whether its Challenge Tower or Online mode Mortal Kombat has multiple gaming options to keep you playing for a long time. For instance the Extras section has unlockable content that you can purchase. Not only that but there are a Necropolis section, a place to Redeem Codes,  Character Trailers and Announcement trailers. Navigating all of the menus was pretty easy do to Mortal Kombat’s menu ergonomics. For as much content that is present i expected some issues finding everything but that wasn’t the case at all.

The controls via Duel Shock 3: Square- Punch, Triangle-Back Punch, X-Front Kick, O-Back Kick, R1-Throw, L1-Tag, R2-Block and L2-Flip Stance. As far as controls go they created a really good gameplay experience. It feels like your playing old school Mortal Kombat all over again due to the controls and button layout. Performing moves wasn’t an issue with me thanks to the tight controls. After going through the menus and control layout it was time to play. I choose Story Mode first with the attention of getting it out of the way first.

Story mode in Mortal Kombat starts off with a fairly lengthly opening cutscene detailing the ending and beginning of the Mortal Kombat tournamaent. You start off playing Chapter 1: Johnny Cage. The story mode has snippets of storylines infused with each character you fight with. You do bounce from charcater to character during story mode. Story Mode was average. Its basically some cutscenes and voiced dialog mixed in with fighting. I had just one hour with this game so i moved on immediately to Ladder Match.

Ladder Match is the classic Mortal Kombat set-up where you just jump in and fight a ladder of opponents and hopefully reach the top. I picked Kratos for all my matches throughout the demo. I mean he is Kratos afterall. He can use the Bow, Hermes Boots and Helios’s Head from God of War 3. Kratos can probably use many other special abilities from God of War 3 but those are the ones i performed while playing. I played a few Ladder Matches which weren’t too difficult on normal difficulty. One level had me fighting in a city with cars racing in front of Kratos. Off in the distance you can see a huge monster destroying buildings. Next i played Challenge Tower which is a training tutorial/practice section. You can learn fatalities and complete tests to hone your fighter’s skills. Challenge Tower is where you should practice.

And last but not least i spent the rest of my hour playing Online mode. When you log into the online servers your greeted with a “Message of the Day” from the devs. Online sub-menus include: Ranked Match, Player Mtach, Private Match, Join Room, Create Room, User Statistics and Leaderboards. I spent my time in Ranked Match. There you can play one on one or tag-team matches. There were quite a few individual rooms with groups of players available also. I completed all of matches from quick matchmaking. As far as connections go i had only one freeze while connecting to a match.

As far as gameplay goes its fun. Its easy to perform Breakers. I couldn’t do any finishing Fatalities which blew. Many experienced players i played against online had no problem pulling them off on me however. The online competitive multiplayer was fun as you imagined and whould be the place i spent most of my time if i did buy Mortal Kombat. Although the in-game cutscenes wern’t impressive visually the actual in-game fighting looked and sound great.

The art design and texture work makes Mortal Kombat one goodlooking fighting game. And not to mention the x-ray bone crushing moves you can perform. Mortal Kombat looks great but is very gruesome to look at. The sound design brings back memories everytime i heard “FIGHT” before the match. The voice acting during cutscenes were mediocre which was expected. When everything is laid out in front of me its easy to say the presentation is good in Mortal Kombat.

From my one hour i spent with Mortal Kombat i will go on record and call it a very good fighting game. I do love my Street Fighter more but Mortal Kombat was really impressive. Thanks for reading.

Street Fighter X Tekken – Mega Man & Pac-Man Trailer

It looks like the Playstation 3 and VITA versions of Street Fighter X Tekken are getting Mega Man and Pac-Man as playable characters. Not only are Pac-Man and Mega Man going to make an appearance but also the electrifying Cole Mcgrath from Infamous fame. I’m a big fan of Infamous personally so i’m glad Cole made the cut. Toro and Kuro rounds out the all star cast for the Playstation 3 and VITA versions of Street Fighter X Tekken.

Some things of note: What happened to Mega Man? Boy did he let himself go. I wonder which characters (if it happens) the Xbox 360 version will be getting. Give me Marcus Fenix and Master Cheif and i’ll call it a day. Street Fighter X Tekken is developed and published by Capcom. Expect to play this crossover fighting game on your PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and VITA March 6, 2012. Thanks RajmanGamingHD.

Puddle – Demo Impressions

Puddle is a physics based game where you tilt the screen using the Left or Right Triggers on the Xbox 360 gamepad.  Your goal is to manipulate a puddle of liquid and help it reach the exit of each stages while avoiding dangers. Puddle is developed by Neko Entertainment and published by Konami. Its currently available as a Xbox Live Arcade Game (XBLAG). It will also release on PSN (January 31, 2012) and later on the VITA.

The main menu screen featured Play, Laboratory, Leaderboards, Achievements, Unlock, Buy Full Game, Help & Options and Exit Game. I immediately went into the Help & Options to see the controls: Left Trigger (tilt left), Right Trigger (tilt right), Back (restart level) and Pause (start). The controls are practically flawless. All your really doing is rotating the screen left or right to manipulate liquid where you want it to go. Its not hard to mess up the controls in Puddle since its juts a simple physics based puzzle game.

After looking at the controls i then checked out the Achievements section. The achievements looked pretty easy. “Goldrush” you just have to get 48  gold medals and “Total Reaction” you get that when you finish all levels. Although you can only play one level in the demo you can see all of the levels in Puddle on-screen. Watercourse, Nursery, Laboratory, Sewers and Rocket and a few others. The full game has 8 chapters with 6 levels each. So you have 48 total levels which seems like a decent amount.

One gameplay feature that caught my eye was the ability to unlock secret levels.   When talking about Puddle’s gameplay its pure addicting. Its fun and it makes you want to keep trying everytime you lose all your liquid to dangers. Dangers include fire that comes in the forms of flames mostly. The level design in the demo was good. It was interesting and challenging enough to make getting to the end rewarding. To bad i could only play one level i wanted more.

The presentation is good. From the title screen’s music to the visuals of the liquid. The game has quality written all over it. The music and sound design gave me a science vibe (if that is possible). I usually don’t try out physics games but something told me to give Puddle a go. Glad i did i really enjoyed the gameplay and presentation of this liquid manipulating videogame.

Puddle is a pretty good puzzle physics game judging from the demo. I wasn’t expecting this game to be good or bad. In the end, it turned out really good. If your a fan of physics based games give the demo of Puddle a try. Its a short demo but a good demo. Thanks for reading.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss – PS Vita Gameplay Video

Uncharted: Golden Abyss will be the reason i buy a PS Vita (among a few others). Being a fan of Nathan Drake and his treasure hunting escapades makes it a no-brainer for me. Early into the ign off-screen video below (which lasts ten minutes btw) shows off the amazing visuals of Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Not only that you can see the touch screen controls and a trophy unlock just like the PS Vita’s big bro aka the Playstation 3.

I really do like how the touch screen is used regarding puzzles in this game. I can see this as the NA launch system seller and the reason to buy a Vita. The video is really good below. It gives you a nice presentation of Uncharted: Golden Abyss showing its visuals, great sound design and quite a bit of gameplay. Sony Bend Studio are the developers and SCEA the publishers for Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

Unit 13: Kill or Be Killed – PS Vita Gameplay Video

Here is some off-screen footage of Unit 13: Kill or Be Killed for the PS Vita handheld system. Zipper Interactive are the developers for this third person shooter. Apparently its going to have a big online multiplayer focus which is expected from a developer who made Socom and a game called MAG for the Playstation 3. You can see in the off-screen ign footage below that the game seems unpolished from a gameplay standpoint in its current state.

Unit 13: Kill or Be Killed does sport nice visuals and sound design due to the technical muscle under Vita’s hood. This game does sport a over the shoulder view and cover based shooting gameplay. There also appears to be stealth gameplay and the ability to blind-fire from cover as well. The controls appears to be decent thanks to the dual analog design of the Vita. At this point i need to see much more gameplay to make a decision on it.