Take-Two Interactive has announced it’s bringing a PSP version of fantasy role-playing game Silverfall to Europe in June, complete with a head-to-head multiplayer for four players and co-op mode.
Originally released on PC earlier this year, Silverfall sees you thrown into a bitter battle against the forces of evil. During the course of your adventure you must decide whether to rely on the powers of nature or the wonders of science, which determines how you fight and the spells you can cast, as well as your path through the game.
Featuring a tactical approach to combat, Silverfall has more than 80 character attributes, which allows for a high level of customisation. This freedom to create the ultimate warrior or indeed mage proves invaluable as you fight your way through 35 creatures and seven bosses, each with specific strengths and weaknesses.
“We are thrilled to be working with Monte Cristo Games to bring this title to European consumers,” said James Ellingford, international managing director of Take-Two. “Silverfall is another great game for the PSP system and we’re confident players will find this pure action RPG adventure highly rewarding.”
Sumo Digital has done a great job of porting the Xbox 360 version of Virtua Tennis 3 to the PSP. In fact, when running both titles side-by-side, their presentations are near-identical. But how the game is offered isn’t all it has going for it. Like most successful sports franchises, Virtua Tennis 3 also has a solid foundation to expand on. The arcade-inspired gameplay makes jumping into a match as easy as pressing start and the three-button setup has a surprising amount of flexibility. In other words, it’s perfect for portable gaming.
For a coin-op inspired setup, there’s a surprising amount of gameplay depth here. Simple hits like lobs, slices, and top spins can be modified into smashes, drops, and running shots based on player position and the amount of time a button is held; and when you factor in variable player stats and multiple surface types, you get a pretty good game of tennis.
Truth be told, playing lob wars with an ad hoc buddy or the CPU can be a lot of fun — even if it does feel extremely similar to 2005’s Virtua Tennis: World Tour. Whether you’re smashing back and forth in a singles match or teaming up with three others for a doubles competition, there’s real entertainment value here — and some matches can get downright intense. When two or more advanced players are butting heads, it’s not uncommon to see 30-stroke volleys that involve every racket motion known to man. Diehard fans should feel right at home.
The revamped World Tour Mode is a nice distraction as well, but it does feel a little limited compared to the 2005 game. Most folks will still spend the majority of their time in World Tour obviously, but the tweaked interface and loss of a market option is a slight backwards step. However, the inclusion of the sim-like stamina meter, the all-new mini-games, various practice challenges and a formal “Tennis Academy” (for fine-tuning attributes and skills) is a definite move forward. Putting it all together makes for quite a few game years of net play and all things considered, it’s still pretty good.
One of the reasons that World Tour is so interesting is because creating your own character is actually entertaining. Though the facial modification and accessory options are limited (even more so than the console version, as the PSP edition removes the option to do real-time morphing), enhancing a player via the Tennis Academy (timed shot challenges) and the mini-games is really addictive. Finding an excuse to avoid boulder-sized tennis balls while capturing fruit to improve your footwork or blowing up orb-shooting robots to better your stroke is a smart and surreal way to pass the time. Being able to influence what sort of tendencies your alter ego has (big server, fast runner, etc) is a nice touch too.
Bad dates, boring meetings and the rapid descent of a capsized ocean liner: just three situations proving tricky for self-extraction. In an ideal world, someone somewhere would offer some kind of dial-an-escapologist service, meaning we’d never have to climb through toilet windows, feign a family emergency or endure Kate Winslet for more than a nano-second ever again.
Sadly, it’s not an ideal world – and that’s why we play videogames! Thankfully, what with there being a game out there to satisfy almost every conceivable fantasy we might have (apart from that one with the snowboard and kazoo), there’s Exit 2 – following the exploits of one-man rescue team for hire, Mr. ESC. Of course, it’s the sequel to Taito’s surprisingly entertaining PSP puzzler – a game which managed to divide opinion quite sharply, thanks to its fiendishly imaginative level design and some overly finicky controls.
We’ll save you some time here – don’t expect too many revelations if you already know which side of the fence you were on first time around. To recap though, as with the original, Exit 2’s one hundred levels (plus additional downloadable content) task you with rescuing a set number of ‘companions’ from disaster before the time limit runs out. The series’ puzzle component is present in the form of intricately designed levels, requiring careful navigation and the exploitation of your companions’ varying abilities. At its simplest, the idea is to traverse a level, nudging your companions into action, then guiding the pre-specified quota to the Emergency Exit at the end of an area within the time limit.
Once again, levels are packed with all manner of obstacles – ranging from movable blocks, seemingly impassable gaps, scale-like platforms affected by weight to ladders and ropes. While Mr. ESC can tackle most of this himself, some situations demand careful people management and multi-tasking for success. You see, each type of companion you encounter – be they rotund adults, youths, children and the incapacitated, or the new “macho” and canine comrades – has his or her own unique abilities. Children, for instance, can squeeze through small gaps and move across weight-restricted walkways, while dogs can swim or bound over large chasms. Meanwhile, machos are able to perform maneuvers normally requiring two people – such as pushing large blocks.
While many tasks can be accomplished by controlling Mr. ESC directly, later levels demand the full use of your companions’ abilities in order to reach your goal. For instance, although you can reach a comrade yourself, it might require the strength of a macho to push a block into place and create a step to get them down from a high ledge. To this end, Exit 2 features a point and click-style command interface for interacting with your companions. Using the PSP’s nubbin, you can highlight a comrade and click in a new spot to direct their movement, pick up an object or trigger a switch. Needless to say, careful assessment, pre-planning and execution are the order of the day in Exit 2.
Fans of hack-n-slash games have few choices when it comes to Sony’s handheld. Like first-person shooters, most developers have shied away from them. Players have a choice between Untold Legends and, well, the Untold Legends sequel. Which is strange considering the portability of action games. No matter – players have a little more choice now, thanks to Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony.
Coming out of SuperVillain Studios, Throne of Agony takes the original Dungeon Siege formula from the PC original and tweaks it for a portable audience. And it did a good job of it, too. It still plays like a Dungeon Siege game, which should please old-time fans, but it also welcomes new players through a few critical changes. This makes Throne of Agony play differently than its predecessors, make no mistake about it, but it certainly feels like an extension of the series, and not something completely different. It also looks and sounds damn good, so it definitely shares in the high-quality presentation of its older brethren.
Chief among the changes is the way characters actually fight. Instead of simply clicking an enemy and watching the hero attack him, players now execute each blow manually by pressing the appropriate button. This makes combat far more dynamic and visceral – something that mobile gamers will really like. Throne of Agony also grants full control of characters through the analog stick. Players can access everything from magic spells and special attacks to healing items and map control from within the game. Aside from serious micro-management of items and inventory players never need to pause the action. All that matters is beating the snot out of demons and assorted evil things.
The game starts with a choice between three characters. Players can choose between the mage, fighter and ranger archetypes, and thankfully each plays very differently. After choosing a character class, the game offers secondary choice involving pets. Every bit as important as character selection, pets can greatly swing the flow of battle. The developer made them an essential part of the experience and it’s therefore a super important decision. They all make sense, too: if a player choose to play a mage, for instance, their pet selection will include a total bruiser, like a giant goon made of a stone. Conversely, should someone choose the brawny fighter, then their pet selection will include a mage for healing.
And it doesn’t stop there. Each pet gains experience just like the main character, so that opens a new venue of customization. Each pet, from the agile archer to the powerful mage, has their very own set of special attacks and abilities. It’s entirely up to the player which attributes and techniques to enhance, which is done through a simple point system, like in the average role-playing game. Players acquire multiple pets, too. Eventually there’s a small army of pets to choose from, each with individual strengths. It’s then a matter of choosing the right one for a specific situation, which adds a good deal of strategy to the game. True, it would have been cool to have a greater selection of main characters, but the game makes up for it through the in-depth pet system.
Combat itself is fast-paced and just the thing for hack-n-slash fans. In addition to a character’s main attack, Throne of Agony lets one assign special techniques individually. Players can define the circle and square buttons, as well as a combination of face buttons and shoulder triggers. This helps maximize the potential for each ability since they’re all super easy to use.
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