30 years ago Pac-Man was released for the first time ever, letting players munch their way through various dots, ghosts, and lolly pops.  Pac-Man was an incredibly addictive game that seemingly went on forever always giving players a score to beat – and this new version of the game definitely doesn’t fail to capture that.

This new version of Pac-Man takes all the aspects that made Pac-Man addictive and makes it 100 times faster, which makes it 100 times more fun – the speed adds a sense of panic that was often missing until the ghosts got close in the original title. The gameplay in this version of the game is slightly modified to adapt to the speed however, and I think it really works – instead of the ghosts all moving in random directions they follow Pac-Man, waiting for him to slip up so they can gobble his brains. Along with the chain of ghosts following you, there are also ghosts dotted around the maze that you need to avoid –when you run near them they add to the chain which makes way for some very frantic gameplay as you have to ensure the chain doesn’t catch up, that you don’t run into other ghosts waiting around the maze, and that Pac-Man is still munching on enough yellow dots to get a good score.

The game comes with a range of mazes that are ever-changing as you progress, which means you also have to adapt to the map as you play which is obviously different to the original Pac-Man, but change is good – it works well.  Each different maze comes with a range of challenges for players to attempt – including time trials where you have to eat a certain amount of dots in the quickest times, time attacks where you are given a certain amount of time to reach a high score and ghost combos where you have to eat as many ghosts as you can in one chain. This range of different modes makes this new PacMan game a joy to play and adds a nice challenge and variety.

There are a range of different visual and sound themes you can apply to each level – allowing you to completely change the aesthetics of each level and the characters within it – this is a nice touch, and although some of the themes seem a little cramped they generally work well and are easy enough to navigate even with the intense speed.

There is only really one issue that I had with this game, and that was that I found the pricing a bit steep – at £7.99 on the store there is a lot cheaper competition, but this is no lazy remake – everything has been greatly considered and adapted to make the gameplay more modern and intense. There is definitely enough content here to keep you hooked for a while, especially once you start getting higher and higher scores – it’s often hard to pull yourself away from the controller. If you’re looking for a great addictive game to play, I recommend this.

Overall Score – 9.5/10

One of my main issues with modern gaming is the lack of local player games – playing with people, in the same room, on the same console, which is seemingly something developers choose to overlook now days as a result of the online community. Sackboy’s Prehistoric Moves is a refreshingly new Co-op experience that has players guiding Sackboy through a range of prehistoric worlds and mini games with the Playstation Move, and at least one dual shock 3. Bare in mind, however, despite being sold as a game on the store, it advertises itself as merely a demo to demonstrate how the Move can be used in Little Big Planet, as said in the first video by Stephen Fry himself.

The way in which the Playstation Move controller is implemented in Sackboy’s Prehistoric Moves is not unlike the Co-op in the Super Mario Galaxy series -up to 4 people control various Sackboys on the screen, whilst at least one person uses the move controller to move objects and help the other players get through the level. This is surprisingly fun and requires a lot of communication between the players, and a lot of trust in the player with the Move – your life is often in their hands, so be nice!

The levels in Sackboy’s latest adventure are as impressive as ever, with varied game play and well designed levels it is a true pleasure to play through – with little additions to make you smile in each level, and new objects being introduced throughout to add fresh challenges. Yet again, the game comes packed with a brilliant soundtrack, and is again narrated by the one and only Stephen Fry who doesn’t fail to add charm to the game – though his part is minimal.

The game also comes packed with a selection of mini-games that rely on teamwork between the players – with players lives relying on the one with the Move controller, you’d better hope they’re on the ball. Sadly, the game has no online compatibility so the high score boards are just filled with local scores, but this doesn’t really affect the experience the game offers.

The other issue I had with this particular addition to the Little Big Planet franchise was simply that you are essentially forced to play with a partner – and don’t get me wrong, I love Co-op play, but this means you can’t really enjoy the game as much on your own without awkwardly balancing the Move controller above the Dualshock 3, and with devices available such as the Navigation Controller I can’t really see why giving players the option to play on their own was overlooked.

Sackboy’s Prehistoric Moves once again offers the traditional Little Big Planet customisation we’ve all come to know and love, but it is incredibly limited – no stickers or extra costumes are available to collect throughout the game, and you are limited to the prehistoric costume set – this effected the gameplay a bit as exploring for items in the original game I found was always part of the fun, but the special bubbles hidden throughout work okay as a replacement, despite the motivation to find them all essentially lies with the trophies, rather than with finding new things to decorate your characters and levels with.

For an unexpected title, and a reason to pick up my move controllers, I thought Sackboy’s Prehistoric Move is a brilliant game, offering a good demonstration as to what can be achieved with the Move controller, and providing players with fresh Little Big Planet levels in preparation for the launch of the 2nd game early next year. The lack of compatibility with old DLC and online leader-boards was a small disappointment but the game still remains incredibly fun, and at the cheap price you can’t really go wrong – as long as you’ve someone else to play with.

Overall Score – 8/10

The other week I was a bit bored on store update day, and so being my typical self I decided I was going to buy something from the Playstation Store. Being a fan of the first Dead Space game and seeing a spin off on the store for cheap I thought I couldn’t go wrong, it’s only £3.99 after all.

The game consists of 3 main mini games, all of which are different ways of hacking computers – the first sees you guiding a red dot through a course to reach the end before any of the computers defences, the 2^nd is  based around destroying a computers defences with viruses, and the last is manipulating various lasers to activate switches.  I didn’t find any of them particularly inspiring or original but they were mildly enjoyable when the difficulty started to pick up.

The main thing that bugged me about this game was how unnecessary it seemed, bridging the 2 games together – but really not much happens in ignition and there’s no – “ZOMG” ending to it either, the story could have easily been a 2 minute cut scene before Dead Space 2 and no one would have complained. The game does let you make choices along the way in regards to the story line, but none of this has any effect on the end of the game (which you get to in about half an hour) but it did add a bit of replay value seeing what other paths you can take.

The best area of the game, without doubt, is the visuals for the cut scenes – showing impressive scenes similar to the art style of the Dead Space film/cartoon, with some really cool scenes to look at, but this isn’t really enough to make the game.

Other than this I can’t really think much to write about this game as there isn’t really too much content there – yes the game offers the ability to try and beat your friends best scores and times but I didn’t really find that added anything to the game. I think they might have missed a trick in regards to missing out multiplayer modes, as local co-op on some of the mini games could have potentially increased how enjoyable the game was to play through. The content that is there, however, isn’t necessarily bad, it just isn’t anything to go over the moon about – some of the mini games can be quite interesting but by the time you’ve upgraded your rig to level 4 all challenge is removed from the game.

If you’re a die-hard Dead Space fan you might enjoy this addition to the series, but otherwise I’d say look elsewhere – there are a wide range of puzzlers on the store for a similar price that top this.

Overall Score – 5/10

I know, I’m late on this one – Pixeljunk Shooter was released late last year and I never got round to picking it up, being a tad put off by the price point and the pure amount of games I had to play at the time – but now I feel a fool having missed out on such a gem for so long.  Pixeljunk shooter adds to the already thriving top down shooter market on Playstation Network, but has enough original ideas to really make it stand out from the rest.

The game is based around a bunch of miners who have been trapped, your mission is to free them from the incredibly awkward predicaments that they have managed to put themselves into. Initially most of the workers are simply trapped behind rock you can destroy easily enough, but soon enough different substances are introduced that can be manipulated in different ways, depending what ship you’re using – just be careful not to cover the workers in lava, I found pretty early on that they don’t mix terribly well. Mixing the different substances however can have very different effects, and some very clever situations are created that take advantage of this, creating some great puzzles to work around.

Playing through the game, I was incredibly impressed with the amount of new gameplay features that were being introduced throughout – each time you thought you’d seen all the gameplay varients the game had to offer it introduces something new, whether it being a new substance to take advantage of, or a new space ship with different powers – this kept the game fresh from start to finish, and made it hard to stop playing at 2 in the morning. Seriously.

Along with the wide range of gameplay features that PixelJunk Shooter offers, it also has a wide range of levels to explore, all of which are innovative and pretty unique, you don’t spend lots of time repeating actions in this game – it is more focused on the manipulation of different substances in a large variety of ways. The issue that came of this however is after I’d completed the game, I just wanted more – but this should normally be seen as a positive, as it must mean I enjoyed the game enough to want to play more of the same thing.

PixelJunk Shooter also includes 2 play compatibility, which is often an oversight in many modern games – that tend to focus upon online gameplay, and it works pretty well – adding a competitive aspect to co-op gameplay because let’s face it – no one wants to be the player that doesn’t get the lava suit and saves all the people. This creates many situations where you find eachother wasting through your lives and having to restart, but thankfully the stages aren’t too long and it’s a great laugh.

To be honest, I think that PixelJunk Shooter is the perfect addition to the collection of games Q-games has to offer on the Playstation Store – with great titles such as PixelJunk Monsters already available there is a wide range to chose from, from just one company. The only complaint I maintain about PixelJunk Shooter is the length, as once I finished I craved for more, which probably means it’s a good job a 2^nd is coming out soon.

Overall Score – 9/10

A few weeks ago, the long awaited Playstation Move controllers were launched in the UK, offering Playstation users the chance to get their hands on some motion gaming. Motion gaming is a much debated area, with some seeing it as a mere gimmick, and others believing it to be a true platform for games – I’m somewhere in-between, I do not believe that motion control is the future of gaming, but I am glad to have Playstation Move as an option when playing my system to add more variety in the games I play.

The hardware & technology itself is very impressive, with a nice solid feel to the controller – all the buttons are very accessible making the controller easy to use. What Sony have been boasting most about the Move controllers is the precision they give – they were not wrong here. When using the Move controller, not only are left and right positions used, but depth as well – but I’m sure you’ve already heard that before.  Along with the Move controllers that were released last week came a “Navigation” controller, which is similar to half a dual shock 3, with less buttons – this allows you to use the analogue stick to position your player, especially in first person shooter games – similar to the “Nun chuck” controller for the Wii.

Like many new products, Playstation Move hasn’t got a great amount of software support, with just 4 Move games released on the same day as the product; Sports Champions, Kung Fu Rider, Start the Party & The Shoot – but this is set to greatly improve in the near future, with games already receiving patches with move compatibility such as Heavy Rain and EyePet – each of which have a brilliant format to adapt the Move controller to.

Game Impressions:

Currently I have only tried out a handful of games, downloading the demos off the store to see what each title has to offer – The first being “Sports Champions”, the game I decided to buy with the Move controllers. Everyone knew it would happen, sports games using motion controllers is the way to go as proven by the Wii’s “Wii sports” titles. Sports  Champions contains 6 activities to play; table tennis, archery, volleyball, Frisbee golf, Bocce and Gladiator Duel – each of which is great to demonstrate moves accuracy. The main issue I had with Sports Champions was that it failed to give a party feel in multiplayer that you would expect to come with a motion controlled sports game, but I’m sure adding more controllers to the mix and fighting each other with swords would prove that wrong.

The next game I tried out was a demo from the Playstation Store, Beat Sketcher – an interesting concept, combining your drawing skills with sound, allowing you to create musical masterpieces as you graffiti on your latest victims face.  The demo is pretty limited in what it allows you to do, but still offers a range of tools for you to experiment with – from paint brushes to graffiti cans, most of which adapt to the angle of the move controller along with the position, which is an interesting tool to play with. There are a range of tasks and activities that were visible in the trail that could be interesting, including video capture and a challenge mode, both of which could greatly extend the games replay value.

One of my most anticipated Move games is Heroes on the Move, which I was able to play last weekend at the Eurogamer Expo – I really didn’t know what to think. From what I saw in the trailer it seemed like an adventure with all the awesome Playstation heroes, but from the demo it seems to be a collection of mini games using the characters – though it does seem pretty enjoyable. The game I was able to play involved one of the heroes from the Ratchet and Clank series, Ratchet.  The Ratchet mini game had you running around with a flaming whip which you had to destroy waves of robots with – it was pretty entertaining and worked well with move.

What do I think about move? I’m not really sure – when I’m using it I can tell it’s a great responsive bit of kit and it’s not very often that the games will be unresponsive, meaning the ones that are there are enjoyable enough to play; the issue is there just isn’t enough software at the moment – which means that the games around don’t fit everybody’s taste, and there isn’t a great amount of variety. This will all soon change though, with the likes of Killzone 3, Socom, Little Big Planet 2 and more supporting move, which should hopefully demonstrate to other developers how to use the technology in an innovative way that is fun to play.

“An Epic of Epic Epicness”

Scott Pilgrim: The Video Game follows the story of 23 year old Scott as he makes life complicated after deciding he must date the “seriously mind blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers” – who just happens to have a league of 7 evil ex-boyfriends exes. The game is a tribute to both the graphic novels and many retro games – and it works, really well.

Scott Pilgrim the game is fundamentally similar to side scrolling beat ‘em up games, but adds a few new gameplay features which make it smooth and enjoyable to play but also keep the retro feel. The game has a really fun combat system, which is easy to get the hang of as combos only consist of 2 buttons – so even button mashing could work – but in the harder levels of the game you are going to need to know the moves. Another feature this game uses is the “Snack” items which you can purchase from stores throughout the levels – this can either be eaten on purchase or as a take away item which restores your health when it gets low. This is a really useful game dynamic and means you can plan ahead before tackling the really hard bits, giving you a bit more of a chance.

Initially Scott Pilgrim gives you 4 characters to play as: Scott, Ramona, Kim & Stills – each of which can be levelled up to gain new powers and more strength adding a layer of depth to the game, though I would hate to think how difficult it would be without it. The 4 characters also make it perfect for Co-op multiplayer, though you may find yourselves fighting over Ramona – We all know she’s the coolest, right? Sadly, the game doesn’t have online multiplayer, which is one of its major let downs – not because I see online as essential for every game, but because some levels are just incredibly hard with a single player – frustratingly hard in fact.

When you do finally get 4 people playing locally levelling up becomes a problem, seeing that when other players join in they do not automatically go to a similar level is a tad irritating, as it means you often end up boosting their characters on the first few levels – which can get tiresome after a few runs – but shouldn’t take too long with your level 16 characters.

Most of the scenes in the game are direct translations of scenes in the novels, fighting evil boyfriends with super powers and giant robots on rooftops, and often using what seems to be exactly the same art which really helps to complete the feel of the game (If you’ve already read the novels, if you haven’t – I’d highly recommend them).  This graphical style really works, and helps to create the retro feel of the game. The games sound also compliments the graphical style, using catchy 8-bit tracks that get stuck in your head almost as badly as the Mario theme tune, and satisfying sounds which retain quality whilst keeping old school.

The game consists of 7 levels, each of which are rather lengthy – navigating each of the evil boyfriends exes areas, battling their waves of enemies to reach the boss battle. Each of the stages are varied and offer a nice challenge, with the waves of enemies often being harder than the boss battle at the end – with a few exceptions of course, my hands still haven’t recovered from the amount of times I had to bash square to defeat the last boss after the 5^th try.

Despite the game seemingly being built for 4 players, it can still be enjoyable with less or even on your own – with the in depth level up system and item collection there is plenty to do and explore. If you’re really determined to complete the game on your own it’s very possible, but it will certainly require some boosting of previous levels.

Scott Pilgrim is a very unique title on the Playstation Network, and definitely one to check out – Although there are a few issues that can come around with multiplayer characters playing at different times, and you may sometimes get irritated at the difficulty of the levels, persisting with the game is incredibly rewarding and will provide you with hours of fun – whether you’re battling Ramona’s 7 exes on your own or as a team. Again, if you haven’t already checked out the graphic novels then I’d highly recommend it – as playing through some of the scenes you recognise, and seeing characters in the backgrounds of levels made the overall experience more enjoyable.

Overall Score – 8/10