I owe ModNation Racers a debt of gratitude. It is the game that has got me playing my often neglected PSP on a regular basis again. This fully customisable kart racing game is perfectly designed both graphically and in terms of gameplay for the portable nature of the handheld console.
In much the same vein as Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing you race your vehicle around all manor of tracks, picking up random weapons like mines, rockets or electrical bolts in an attempt to stall or eliminate the opposition.
Performing jumps and 360’s will earn you boost points which fill your boost meter. This can be used as a burst of speed just like in the game MotorStorm or as a shield.
You can customise your little Mod characters in much the same way as Little Big Planet, their vehicles and you can also create your own tracks using one of the most user-friendly track editor interfaces I have ever seen.
There is online play and it should be excellent with the user created content, but at the time of writing I was unable to review the multiplayer aspect.
I’m going to be straight up with you – I really don’t like the SOCOM series. From the PS2 releases where you barked out vocal orders through the included headset – orders that the game would understand seemingly when it wanted to, to the early PSP efforts that were, well terrible to say the least. Thirty minutes into the first SOCOM game on the PSP I vowed never to play another SOCOM game ever again – and I didn’t until Fireteam Bravo 3 arrived on my doorstep.
To be honest, the UMD sat there on my kitchen table getting the occasional sideways glance of nervous cynicism for a good couple of days before, with the help of a little Dutch courage, I slid it into my PSP and prepared for the worst.
But wait, what’s this? A decent story, passable graphics, a manageable control method and excellent multiplayer options? Hold the phone ladies and gentlemen, Does the PSP finally have a shooter other than Resistance Retribution worth spending some time on?
You better believe it.
In Fireteam Bravo 3 you play as a badass Navy SEAL nicknamed Wraith. You know he’s a badass because he wears his baseball cap on backwards, just because he can, not for fear of getting a sunburnt neck in the hot Soviet sun, no sir. It’s up to you, or should I say Wraith, to gather together a four man team to make contact with a U.S. operative who is missing deep behind enemy lines. It’s a black-ops mission, you’re off the map, off the radar, all knowledge of your expendable arse will be denied should something go wrong.
Initially you’ll need to run through a couple of brief training courses that are essential for learning the control method, but anyone used to playing Resistance Retribution will know exactly what to do – there’s only so many button configurations you can run on the PSP, so when one works well there’s no need to rock the boat. The analogue stick moves forward, back and turns but holding LT engages strafing. On the D-Pad: Left and Right switch between primary and secondary weapons plus grenades, Up activates an over-the-shoulder view for exact aiming from a distance or from cover (you cannot move in this mode because the thumbstick moves a crosshair) and Down cancels this view. The face buttons take care of crouching and going prone, reloading, giving commands and firing. But the most important button, and one the game would be completely unplayable without is RT which lets you lock onto short to medium range targets. Without dual thumbsticks and being able to aim on the run, locking on is a necessity.
Tapping circle will command your team to go to the spot where your crosshair is aiming and holding it down brings up the team command menu where you can choose to issue commands to Able, Bravo or the whole Fireteam Squad. Once chosen a brief list of commands appears and with a press of X it is instantly executed. There are places where you will approach a door and a different set of options becomes available, like Bang and Clear etc, which anywhere else would be irrelevant.
On Normal difficulty there isn’t a great deal of incentive to even fire your gun. Your team mates can’t die (well it’s a very rare occasion), so it makes perfect sense to set them to Weapons Free mode and let them charge ahead. They’re deadly accurate and can be revived at the touch of a button, so the game becomes an absolute walk in the park. However if you do get mortally wounded then they can’t revive you. Even at the highest difficulty, it’s like the game encourages you to stand back and let your squad do all the dirty work.
Me, I chose to let my squad pin the enemy down while I flanked around buildings to pick them off with casual headshots, that is if I got there in time.
The custom missions, which let you redeploy and customise any of your previously played campaign missions are where the most single player fun is to be had. You can tweak the number of enemies, what they look like, their weaponry, difficulty, what your objective is etc. You can even choose to drop your squad altogether and take on the mission by yourself.
When you finish a campaign or custom mission you are awarded Command Equity points – they are essentially the currency in the game and can be used to unlock costume parts and weapon add-ons for use in the multiplayer modes.
So the single player campaign is solid fun, but also way too easy if you take the lazy way out. Thankfully there are multiplayer options that give the game some longevity. It would be easy for me to sit here and make up some story about how awesome the online multiplayer action was, and you’d probably believe me, but I’d be lying. Up to 16 players can apparently indulge in battles and up to 4 players can play the 9 mission campaign or a selection of separate co-op missions, but at the time of writing this review I couldn’t find anyone to play with online. Actually that’s not entirely true, I did stumble across someone once in a head to head battle, but I think it must have been another reviewer as we ended up walking around looking at each other before I shot him/her in the groin and turned the game off.
I have read about other reviewers (US based) having better luck finding online action, and it sounds quite solid, so maybe once a decent fanbase has developed then there might be more out there.
However, where the multiplayer does shine is in adhoc mode, again for up to 16 players, and this is excellent fun. It should be noted that respawning is turned off by default so once you die, you’re twiddling your thumbs until the end of the round. The 4 player co-op is the best by far and you can’t afford to let your team do all the work here. Teamwork is paramount to success and once you get your tactics sorted then even the biggest firefights shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.
Ultimately, SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3 is what you want to make of it. You can breeze through it and end up with a hollow feeling at the end, or you can set yourself a challenge and play it as a valuable team member. It took me a couple of missions to warm up to it but warm up to it I did – and that’s saying something from a bitter and twisted SOCOM player from way back. It’s as good a shooter as you’re going to get on the PSP until Sony find room for a second thumbstick.
Ups: Great fun to be had in adhoc multiplayer with your PSP owning mates. Decent story and some very nice cutscenes too.
Downs: Doesn’t encourage the player to actually play – the squad AI is too good.
The smash hit from the PS3 has made a very welcome appearance on the PSP and shows that this is exactly the kind of game that the PSP excels at.
Veterans of the PS3 version will feel right at home with LBP PSP as Sackboy runs, jumps and grabs his way around some weird and wonderful platforming levels.
There’s 3 separate worlds available to play: an Earth which is made up of 30 PSP exclusive levels designed by the developers, a moon where you can design and construct your own levels, and a community sphere where you can download your choice of endless levels made by the online community and upload your own creations.
The game looks, feels and plays brilliantly with only a little slow-down on occasion when there’s a lot going on. As in the PS3 original the soundtrack genuinely polishes off the game to perfection – there’s some really great tracks to be heard here.
If you didn’t like Little Big Planet on the PS3 then you’re not going to like it on the PSP either, but for those of us with taste in quality gaming, this one is a must own.
For the first time the MotorStorm series takes a hiatus from the PS3 and makes an appearance on Sony’s PSP and PS2 consoles. While there are still dirt, desert and mud tracks available, the theme this time around – as if you hadn’t guessed from the title – is snow and ice. This opens up the door for a whole new set of handling dynamics, environmental characteristics, vehicles and pitfalls.
The secret to succeeding in MotorStorm is finding alternate routes to take. Whether the route is quicker all depends on what vehicle you’ve chosen to drive. Big heavy cumbersome vehicles are best suited to the main drags where they can power through the mud or snow and the lighter rides can easily divert down narrow shortcuts. The snow and ice allows for new classes of vehicle to be introduced – Snowpluggers the giant Snowcat also Snow Machines make an appearance and each have their own characteristics.
MotorStorm hasn’t suffered a bit from the switch to the portable format, in fact it seems to suit it quite nicely. There’s plenty of race modes to keep solo players happy for hours on end, but the online multiplayer is a hit and miss affair.
It would be easy to write a review of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars filled with cynicism and comparisons. It is afterall, more or less a direct port from the most successful DS game ever and it is also very typical of the GTA series from a gameplay perspective.
In a world where time is money, I could end the review right there and you’d have a decent idea of what to expect. 9/10. Must have. Thanks for coming.
But for those of you who have already played the game on the DS, there lies the question of why you should even consider picking up the PSP version, and there are a number of reasons.
Firstly, let’s take a look at the game from a newcomers perspective. Chinatown Wars takes the GTA series back to its roots and tilts the players’ viewpoint from a 3rd person perspective to an almost top-down view, but none of the street-smart violence, cutting humour and underbelly atmosphere from recent releases has been omitted.
Set once again in Liberty City, the same world displayed in GTAIV (with the exception of one island – Alderney), you play as Huang Lee whose seedy, prostitute-loving crime-boss father has recently been murdered. So Huang jumps on a plane from Hong Kong and jets to Liberty City to avenge his father and deliver a precious sword to his uncle. Within minutes of arriving, Huang is abducted, thrown in a car and driven off a wharf, presumed drowned and his sword stolen.
From here the story begins as Huang infiltrates the Triad gangs and discovers a power struggle within the organisation.
The main quest, if you choose to play it by the numbers will take you around 9 hours, but in true GTA style there are a bevy of distractions and side missions that bring longevity and ultimately replayability to the game. These side missions are dependent of the type of vehicle you hijack and your ability to take on the occupation of its previous occupant. Steal a taxi – become a taxi driver, steal an ambulance – become a paramedic etc.
Main storyline missions usually consist of driving fast from A to B, killing person C to appease person D, evading the police at all times and delivering item X to person Z. However the main mission requirement that runs parallel to the story involves buying drugs in bulk and reselling them for a profit – this is how you earn most of your cash in the game. It’s a questionable ethos to include in a game, but hey, this is GTA and an R18, not Spiro the Dragon, and if you have trouble discerning between fantasy and reality then you shouldn’t be playing games at all, let alone GTA.
Story missions are only required to be played once, but one of the redeeming features in Chinatown Wars having the choice to play them again if you want to beat your time or earn a higher score. Along those lines too is the “trip skip” option – which allows you to skip the initial travelling and jump straight back to the action should you get killed.
Many missions are dished out to you via your PDA. Where the DS utilised the touchscreen for this feature, the PSP uses buttons to navigate and suffers from a short load time from the UMD each time you open your PDA. The lack of the stylus/touchscreen combo also means that all of the mini-games play differently too. Like stealing cars (jamming a screwdriver in the lock and turning it by swivelling the thumbstick), or hotwiring the vehicle, for example. They all work ok, but in games such ad tattooing fellow gang members or making your own Molotov cocktails, where the DS stylus excelled, now just prove to be an annoyance.
Chinatown Wars have had a great deal of thought put into it in terms of making the game as user friendly as possible. It could easily have been ruined by a bad combat system, but aiming your attacks is surprisingly simple, especially when performing drive-by shootings, where an auto-targeting system kicks in. There is even a slight steering assistance which straightens your vehicle on the road so to avoid snaking from one wall to the other.
The map is situated to the bottom left of the PSP screen, and while it’s easy to see where you’re meant to go and which way, because of the top-down view it’s dangerous to take your eyes off the road even for a second. Far too many times I rear-ended slow or stationary vehicles because I was glancing at the map. Or when you drive under a railway overpass, it’s easy to lose sight of your own vehicle let alone any others.
To combat this, and I highly recommend using it constantly, you can switch on GPS style directions which map arrows onto the road surface. All of a sudden the map becomes virtually redundant in missions where you are driving from one point to another.
Other major differences from the DS Chinatown Wars are the grenade selection – previously done using the stylus, but made quicker and simpler using buttons.
Of course graphics is perhaps the biggest difference with the PSP being able to pull off real time lighting and far more detailed texturing. The widescreen is also taken full advantage of and proves invaluable in crowded firefights.
There are also several missions and radio stations unique to the PSP release of Chinatown Wars.
The multiplayer aspect still requires the use of the Rockstar Social Club system but alas only two players can indulge in GTA goodness at any one time.
At the writing of this review I hadn’t tried the multiplayer – mainly because the Rockstar Social Club sound too much like a badly painted hall where Iggy Pop, Keith Richards and Joe Walsh meet on a Tuesday night to play bridge and euchre.
All in all, if you’re a PSP owner, or a DS + PSP owner then Chinatown Wars on the more powerful console with the superior visuals is well worth your money. The game slots in nicely with the handheld philosophy in that you can either sit down and have a marathon session or just as easily have a 10 minute blat while waiting for the pizza to arrive.
Ups: The game oozes style and has thick lashings of dark humour. Fantastic lighting and detail on the bright PSP screen
Downs: Some minigames lose their appeal without the stylus. Short but frequent loading times off the disc.
I remember he very first time I turned on my PSP on release day. When I saw the impressively bright, vivid screen I thought to myself – “Holy crap, Gran Turismo would look amazing on this”.
Shamefully for Polyphony and Sony, it’s taken several years for that dream to be realised. But finally, Sony’s premier driving simulation has shown its face on the handheld format and for the most part, it’s a joy to behold.
If I had to describe Gran Turismo on the PSP in a short sentence then I’d say it has the styling and feel of the original GT combined with the good looks of GT4. But it’s not all beer and skittles for GTPSP (as I’m going to refer to it as from here on in), there are problems, which I shall address later.
The hat-tip to the original GT begins with the remarkably similar cover art and doesn’t stop there. When I first started flicking through the menus a chill went down my spine as the original GT menu sounds brought back memories of countless hours and countless laps of PSX racing 12 years ago.
One of my biggest gripes with the GT series is also one of the major appeals for many racing fans – the License Tests. I hated having to reach a certain skill level before I could progress and I’m personally pleased to see that License Tests are non-existent in GTPSP. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to do a whole heap of driving to load up on the goodies, it’s just presented in a way that makes it a lot less stressful.
The lack of a structured single player mode means that there are just three choices from the single player menu – Mode Selection (Time Trial, Single Race and Drift Trial), Car Selection and Track Selection. You will earn credits from racing based on your performance, the difficult and number of laps. These can then be used to purchase better cars, which is something you’ll want to do in a hurry. Initially you’re forced to pick from a selection of snails-pace vehicles which are nothing short of painful to drive. The speedo maxes out at about 120kph but it feels like you’re doing no more than 50. In about an hour, you’ll be driving something a bit more substantial, even though it might be the longest hour of your life.
Thankfully credits come easily and you’ll quickly catch the car collecting bug and with around 800 cars to choose from, all faithfully recreated in looks and handling, you’re spoilt for choice. It’s a figure that blew me away to be perfectly honest. I was expecting maybe 200 vehicles on the UMD but 800 is an amazing feat.
Add to that 45 tracks, including variations, plus the ability to dive most of them in reverse and you have a comprehensive GT release that can hold its head high amongst its bigger console brothers.
Vehicle handling works surprisingly well with the PSP analogue stick, but with the high-speed cars I found that the D-Pad had better response times, especially on the more complicated tracks. However the analogue comes into its own in the drift races where twitchy movement isn’t as important as feathering the throttle. However neither method seems to help on the dirt and ice tracks, which are far too slippery. Even though they’re few and far between, the game would have been better off without them.
If the single player mode becomes a little tedious, there is an excellent Challenge mode to make things more interesting. Here you are presented with more than 50 challenges (similar to the License Tests of old) where you can earn Bronze, Silver or Gold medals and a whole heap of credits to spend, which alone makes completing them worthwhile.
Car modding and upgrading is also absent from GTPSP, which has never really appealed to me anyway, but you can still tweak your car’s handling in a number of pre-race options such as traction control, tyre type, stability control etc. You can also choose the level of Simulation (Standard or Professional). But you’ll want to be very confident in your ability to choose Professional, as the cars tend to spin off at the drop of a hat.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment in GTPSP is the complete lack of online features and support. Multiplayer is reduced to up to 4 players local ad-hoc only. There isn’t even online leaderboards to upload your best lap times or ghosts to, which is obviously a deliberate decision, but a criminal shame nonetheless. That said, I’ve experienced many wireless latency problems with other PSP racers that would no doubt ruin the whole GT experience. So maybe the developers had this in mind when the decision was made to cut online multiplayer from the game altogether.
Graphically, GTPSP is easily the best looking racer on the handheld, running at around 60fps. There is some visible stitching in places but nothing that suggests shoddy workmanship. The game obviously pushes the PSP to its processing limits and for that we should allow for the occasional glitch.
As for the sound, there’s a quality tracklist as per usual, although the music is usually the first thing I turn off in driving sims as I like to hear every squeal of the tyres. But if you like your sounds playing while you drive then there is also MP3 support so you can make your own playlist.
Ultimately, this is Gran Turismo, and the PSP version is a legit release that’s a must have for PSP owning petrol-heads. There’s a ton of cars to collect and a whole lot of track to race them on. Sure, the lack of online support is disappointing, but if you call yourself a Gran Turismo fan then GT5 will no doubt satiate all your online multiplayer urges.
Pros: It’s a stunning game that both looks and plays beautifully. Truckloads of content will get you addicted in no time.
Cons: No online multiplayer is excusable, but the lack of leaderboard and ghost support is not.
Remember when 2D side-scrollers were on the cutting edge of video gaming? Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero will appease both retro fans and current-gen gamers with pure, honest, no frills gameplay.
Those of you who follow Japanese gaming culture to any degree, especially from Nippon Ichi Software, should already know what a Prinny is. For the rest of you, myself included, your initial reaction was probably similar to mine – “What the hell is a Prinny? And what a stupid name for a game”.
Adding “Can I Really Be The Hero?” to the title adds strangeness to an already strange concept. It’s like EA releasing “Need for Speed: Can I Really Win A Race?”
Well yes, yes you can. – if you’re good enough.
Without delving too far into their history and relevance, Prinnies first appeared in the PS2 game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness where they were used as a weapon because of their tendency to explode upon impact. Humans who have lead a worthless life, committed crimes such as theft, murder or the mortal sin of suicide, have their souls sewn into the body of a Prinny upon their death. That’s all well and good – but what shifts that concept into the ‘bizarre’ category is the physical appearance of the Prinnies themselves. They are penguins. But not your usual garden variety penguins. Prinnies have wooden peg-legs and little bat wings, a leather satchel and a long red scarf. They talk like surfies on helium and have a penchant for saying “dood” more often than Ted Theodore Logan.
Let’s just leave the descriptions and explanations there shall we? Because trying to make sense out of the nonsensical can only make things worse.
The game itself is far easier to understand. A 2D side-scroller (well 2.5D actually) that takes you back to a time when games like Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Ghouls ‘n Ghosts reigned supreme. In fact Prinny is very similar to these two classics and is a style of game which both looks and plays superbly on the PSP.
The Prinnies take a starring role for the first time and the game starts with their demon overlord Etna having a tantrum when she finds out her favourite “Ultra Dessert” has gone missing. This sets the scene for what is essentially a game where you traverse a level, dodging and killing various enemies with a mix of 2D platforming, then combat a boss and collect a pudding ingredient. Sounds silly? It is. But don’t let the story detract from what is a thoroughly enjoyable old-school gaming experience.
Your Prinny has a slashing knife attack and a spinning attack along with a ‘ground pound’ which is used for activating checkpoints and on boss enemies a lot. Your most impressive attack by far is a kind of fireball which is launched from mid-air diagonally to the ground either in front or behind. When you execute this devastating move the camera swings around on an oblique angle, slightly behind Prinny and shows you a nice view of the carnage you are unleashing upon your hapless foe. It’s a nice touch and encourages you to use it often.
My biggest gripe with Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero is the jumping dynamic and the fact that you can’t change direction in mid-air a-la Crash Bandicoot. Youcan jump and double jump, but your landing point is predetermined. This makes it very hard on some of the more precise platforming sections or where you want to collect that difficult floating object without plummeting to your death. This is a criminal oversight, and could easily have ruined the whole game if the rest of is wasn’t such good fun. Having said that, you do learn to compensate for it before too long, and when you have 1000, yes 1000 lives, you can afford a bit of trial and error anyway.
You see the red scarf your Prinny wears is a magical garment which prevents them from exploding (as Prinnies are prone to do). However there is only one of these scarves to go around, so only one Prinny, from the thousand strong army can venture out at a time. This gives some storyline tie-in to the relevance of having so many lives.
As far as re-playability goes, Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero presents a clever idea in its sequence of events. There are 6 separately themed worlds to complete and the order in which you tackle them is entirely up to you. Seeming as the game increases in difficulty as you progress, a particular level you completed early on in the game will present a much harder challenge if you play it later in the game next time around. So essentially, each level has six different variations in difficulty if you feel inclined to play the game over again several times.
Ultimately, if you can get past the initial weirdness and the frustrating jumping mechanic, Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero is a well paced, highly addictive side-scroller with plenty of slick humour and charm to boot, dood.
Pros: Well placed checkpoints, 1000 lives and a nicely paced difficulty curve makes this one very addictive game.
Cons: Awkward jumping mechanic makes precise jumping an impossibility.
If you’ve been following the Monster Hunter series then you might already know that Monster Hunter Freedom Unite has been out in Japan for quite some time as Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, which was reportedly the must-have game of last year. Its success has prompted Capcom to release it to the rest of the world.
Monster Hunter’s origins are based in the hack & slash genre, and that’s evident in Unite. But it also has one big fat bloodied foot planted firmly in the RPG camp. The actual hunting and killing of beasts, while essentially the name of the game, is almost an aside to the gathering, farming, crafting, talking, exploring, buying, selling and upskilling. Unite is certainly not a game for those with short attention spans, this is one you need to invest a lot of time in either solo or with friends to get the most out of.
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is essentially Monster Hunter Freedom 2 but with several brand new monsters and far more interesting and varied quests. If you have favourite characters saved from Freedom 2 then you can import them readily into Unite or alternatively use the character creation feature to make a new one.
The single player campaign is long and extremely difficult, in fact the world is so large and the monsters so fierce later in the game that I would hesitate to say that it’s almost impossible to beat solo, even utilising the available help. It will take you a day or two of constant game time to really feel like you’re getting somewhere in the game. You have the ability to hire, train and level up Felynes (catlike creatures) to fight alongside you. While they won’t do your dirty work for you, they do serve a purpose and can compliment your efforts with some solid attacks. As always, you can still use Felynes to cook you up special meals in your kitchen.
But as with the other games in the Monster Hunter series, Unite really hits its straps when played with other people. The multiplayer aspect has become so huge in Japan that there are gaming cafés dedicated to gatherings where Monster Hunters can join together and embark on group raids, not too dissimilar to Phantasy Star Online. It’s quite a satisfying feeling to embark on a quest with several others of varying skill levels as unlike some MMORPG games, higher level characters can help out the lower ranked because the main element to success is the quality of your equipment. If you need a hand slaying a certain monster then get one of your levelled-up friends to dish out the damage. All members of the group receive the same amount of reward money, so it pays to work as a team whenever possible.
Graphically the game is decent enough, especially in the cut scenes and in battles with the larger monsters. It’s by no means up to God of War’s standards on the PSP, but where Unite shows its graphical flaws and collision problems doesn’t really matter or affect gameplay or the enjoyment of the game in any way. For example you can walk straight through the carcasses of slain beasts before you harvest meat from them – there’s no collision detection whatsoever. But it just doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things.
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is an enormous game for a handheld console. It’s a game where you will get well rewarded for putting a lot of effort in. It’s easily the best release so far in the Monster Hunter franchise and bodes well for the eventual release of Monster Hunter 3.
Pros: This is all about the multiplayer. Playing it solo will start off fun but before long you’ll realise it’s an exercise in futility.
Cons: There’s a lot of dialogue and time spent in menus if you play the game correctly, so Unite is not for the impatient.
Title: Resistance Retribution
From: Sony Computer Entertainment
For: PSP
I was understandably hesitant at the thought of playing another 3rd-person shooter on the PSP as the console doesn’t lend itself to moving, strafing, aiming and shooting simultaneously very well. But Resistance Retribution succeeds in making it relatively easy where others have failed miserably (I’m looking at you SOCOM).
The game uses a lock-on auto-aim system which seems all too easy at first but quickly becomes necessary as you need to dodge Auger fire while strafing, turning and taking out enemies with headshots. But as handy as it is, the auto-aim doesn’t intelligently lock onto the most pressing threat, rather than the one closest to the previous. You can flick between targets manually though. The AI is inconsistent too and barely reacts to getting hit which can be misleading.
If you connect your PSP to your PS3 with Resistance 2 then it will unlock content in Retribution. This also allows you to play it on your TV with a DualShock controller.
Graphically the game is about as good as this genre will get on the PSP and some niggly problems aside, Resistance Retribution is easily the best of its kind on the console.
If there’s one thing that all gamers will agree on with LocoRoco, it’s that there’s nothing else quite like Tsutomu Kouno’s masterful concept. It’s simple, but not too easy. It’s technical, but accessible to even the youngest of gamers. It looks easily made, but would actually be a logistical nightmare to design.
The original LocoRoco was a resounding success, and therefore it makes perfect sense that its sequel hasn’t reinvented the wheel. LocoRoco 2 is basically more of the same – and that’s music to the ears of anyone who enjoyed the original. All too often developers try too hard with sequels to keep things “fresh” and “interesting” but only end up fixing something that wasn’t broken in the first place.
It’s a pleasure also to see a game that’s built to take advantage of what the PSP has to offer rather than the fiddly, thrown-together also-rans that are FPS and 3rd PS on the handheld console. As in the original, three buttons is all you’ll need to play LocoRoco 2 – L and R plus circle will do everything you need to do in the game. The beauty of its apparent simplicity is ever present once again.
The LocoRocos are a collection of blob-shaped creatures, varying in shape, colour and personality. They, along with the tiny Mui Mui care greatly for the well-being and harmony on their planet. The Moja are a race of evil flying aliens whose sole purpose in life seems to be the destruction of every living thing on the LocoRoco’s lovely planet.
Having been defeated in the original game, the Moja army retreated to its home planet. The Moja boss, Bonmucho creates a song that drains the life-force from anything living. This spells bad news for the LocoRoco as the Moja launch another invasion on their planet. It’s up to the LocoRoco once again to drive them out. While it’s fair to say that the story does take a distant backseat to the gameplay itself, it’s there nonetheless and does serve to gel the whole experience together.
Exactly the same as the first game, the gameplay is split between the inventive platforming/puzzler element and the need to collect everything along the way by discovering all the hidden areas. Longevity kicks in here as you’ll find yourself replaying levels over again in an attempt to find those elusive last berries or Mui Mui. There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of a level only having found one Mui Mui – it’ll do your head in trying to think back as to what you missed and where.
Collecting berries is paramount, this makes your LocoRoco bigger and able to complete different tasks that require either mass or individual numbers. Just as before, pressing circle will cause your LocoRoco to split into a number of small LocoRoco, allowing them to pass through cracks and small gaps. Holding circle makes them huddle together and join back into the larger mass.
There are some new characters in the sequel, some there to help you like sea otters, penguins and specialised characters such as Nyokki who perform specific tasks. One even lends yout LocoRoko his afro hair so you can smash through barriers, yeah I didn’t get it either, but this is a land where weird things are the norm. Then there are other characters who are there to harm you like Bui Bui (some kind of anti-Mui Mui), angry bees, pufferfish, carnivorous plants with long tongues and of course the ever-present Moja, who, funnily enough are probably the easiest enemies to defeat.. It’s a treacherous world out there for an innocent LocoRoco. Coming into contact with an enemy or spiky object causes you to lose one LocoRoco and unless you can quickly gather it in again before it disappears then it is gone for the rest of the level.
The level design is once again a work of art. The more LocoRoco you play, the better you will get at finding the game’s secret areas. It’s a satisfying feeling when, while you’re being whisked on a gust of wind to another part of the level, to catch a glimpse of a platform or area and then backtracking or replaying the level to find out just how to get to it. Your LocoRoco can now dive underwater too, which allows for some below the surface action in a shipwreck, but not too much to make it an over-used feature.
The levels range from the stark and gloomy so the bright and surreal. One even takes place in the bowels of a giant penguin. Well let’s face it, the long narrow tubes are ideal for a LocoRoco level and when you find yourself swinging from what can only be described as polyps, then you know you’re playing a game like no other and are entering the mind of the imaginative (and probably quite sick) level designer.
There’s a lot more to collect in LocoRoco 2, meaning you’ll be replaying levels more often than the original game. There’s stamps, which you can then use to complete templated scene cards, or even create your own. There’s the obligatory nuts, seeds and objects that can be used to build at the Mui Mui house, which makes its return in what seems to be exactly the same format. It’s a novelty to build different rooms etc for your rescued Mui Mui, but not essential to the main quest. In fact I completed the original LocoRoco game without even looking at the Mui Mui house once.
There are also a couple of mini-games thrown into the sequel – but neither are worth writing home about – in fact they’re downright stupid. One is a Whack-a-Mole type affair and the other has you picking which LocoRoco will win a race – the winner of which is chosen completely at random, so success is nothing but pure luck.
The music follows the style of the first game. It’s original, strange, annoying, beautiful and infuriatingly addictive all at the same time. But without the music, LocoRoco would be nothing – the gameplay and the music are symbiotic. There are times when you will come across a sleeping creature which needs to be woken to proceed. This prompts a kind of mini-game where a cursor will follow a series of notes around the screen and you must press a button in time to the music as the cursor passes over the top of the note. It’s a clever inclusion that doesn’t seem out of place due to it being tied in closely with the musicality.
LocoRoco 2 is designed with the nature of the PSP in mind. It’s not a game that you sit down and play for 3 hours straight – although there’s no reason why you can’t. It’s a game designed to be picked up for a 10 minute bash and then put down again. Ideal for that bus trip to school or work or a quick blast in your lunch hour. These are the types of game that should be smothering the shelves for the PSP.
LocoRoco 2 isn’t better than the original and it’s certainly not worse. It’s more of the same, with a few tweaks here and there – and that’s just perfect in my books. I’m not sure whether the series has a third game in it, not without bringing something new to the table, however I wouldn’t say no to another ‘expansion’ a year or so from now either.
Pros: Such an uplifting game. Platforming and puzzling perfection.
Cons: Perhaps a little too short. The Mui Mui house could be developed into something worthwhile doing. Added mini-games are stupid.
Title: ModNation Racers
Title: SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3
Title: Little Big Planet
Title: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge
