Posts Tagged ‘PSN’
Something You May Have Missed: ‘Papo & Yo’ For PSN – One Man’s Early Life Retold As A Gloriously Surreal Looking 3D Puzzle-Platformer
A whimsical and seemingly unassuming logo; the actual game is anything but.
If you haven’t heard of ‘Papo & Yo’, I wouldn’t have blamed you given its relatively low profile. A shame that said profile isn’t more prominent really, since Papo & Yo appears to be one of the most emotionally engaging and compelling looking releases of the year – downloadable or otherwise.
Papo & Yo is a surrealist 3D platformer that appears to take inspiration from the likes of Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, ICO and Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending film, Inception. Interestingly, the game is actually loosely based on the early life of creator Vander Caballero – a former EA employee who had worked on the likes of Army of Two and FIFA before deciding to leave in order to pour his heart and soul into the very personal project that Papo & Yo has become.
Papo & Yo aims to retell Caballero’s childhood and his relationship to his alcoholic and abusive father as an abstract tale – swapping out Caballero himself with a small boy named Quico and his father with a huge colourful beast.
By and large, the vaguely Rhinoceros-looking beast is very friendly to Quico – helping him to scale tall obstacles and break through barriers with the sort of ease that the diminutive child is unable to muster. Yet, his one weakness is frogs which turn him into a raging, fire-spitting Efreet-type creature and make him every bit a potential threat to Quico as he was an ally before. The parallels that you can draw vis-a-vis his experiences with dealing with an alcoholic father are obvious, but the changes in temperament of this creature remain emotionally poignant and have a substantial impact on the gameplay. At its core, Papo & Yo functions very familiarly to fellow first-party exclusive ICO; in so far that the game is a platform puzzler with a dynamic NPC partner slant but its the various mood states of the monster that dictate how those puzzles are approached – if the creature is in a state of calm, puzzles become relaxing and chilled out affairs, if the creature is enraged however, everything goes out the window and self-preservation shoots up the priority list ahead of completing the puzzle itself.
This is an awesome dynamic and one that is carried through not just on emotional and gameplay terms, but asethetic ones as well. When the beast is calm, the music settles on a delicate tempo, lightly hitting relaxed notes and with whimsical strings providing a calming backing to the events unfolding on-screen, if the beast consumes any frogs however, the tempo ramps up and the music becomes much more immediate with an indelible sense of danger effortlessly conveyed to the player. On the note of the music also, Caballero promises a great deal of aural uniqueness even saying “You’ll hear instruments in this game that you’ve never heard before. Like the jaw of a dead cow.”
Jaw of a dead cow. How many games can say that they have that in their musical score?
Visually, the game is a complete treat for the retinas. Taking place in a surrealist interpretation of his upbringings in the colourful favelas of South America, colour and vibrancy are the order of the day here, as is unpredictability and chaos; with the scene sometimes turning in and on top of itself when a puzzle has been completed or when the beast indulges itself on some amphibian-powered intoxication.
There are more muted and delicate visual flourishes too. Chalk drawings appear on many of the walls in the favelas; depicting puzzles that must be completed and upon doing so, the components of those puzzles spring to life – with new staircases materialising out of the thin air, and small little gears sprouting legs and hurrying quickly to their required positions as fast as their tiny new found limbs will take them. Another example, is when Quico is sprinting along a pitch black corridor with a dipped light at the end of the tunnel; as he runs farther and farther down the tunnel, a section of the darkened wall opens up to reveal a menacing shadow of the monster following him.
If you haven’t picked up on it by now, let me tell you that I am completely entranced by this game. Very rarely have I seen such an awe-inspiring fusion of emotion and visual imagination outside of games such as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Even then, with this game drawing from a set of very personal experiences unlike the latter and the former, the emotional impact that this game delivers to the player with its visual allegories and character relationships comes across as a unique proposition all of its own.
Look at the trailer below and then put this on your radar and keep it there. I can’t wait to get my hands on this.
Papo & Yo is due to release exclusively on the PSN for the PS3 on August 15th, 2012. It is expected to retail for £11.99.
Sega Announces NiGHTS Into Dreams HD Re-Release For Later This Year – Forgets The Spit ‘n’ Polish
One of the most fondly remembered games from the Sega Saturn deserves more than just the ‘lick’ of HD paint that it currently has. Singular.
Sega has announced a HD re-release for their 1996 Sega Saturn cult hit, Nights Into Dreams, which is due to drop later this year on 360, PS3 and PC (via Steam) platforms.
As well as having all of the usual mod-cons like achievements, trophies and a new lick of HD paint, the game also bundles in the original Sega Saturn version with the original visuals intact as a freebie. Whilst any day in which anything remotely Nights orientated gets announced should be looked upon as a good day, i’m left distinctly underwhelmed by the title’s HD resurrection. The reason for my dissatisfaction is purely superficial – the supposedly ‘new’ high definition visuals look chuffing awful; drawing attention to the fact that this looks like the laziest and most cynical ‘HD update’ seen in a long while.
The whole thing has essentially been upscaled into 720p with the sixteen year old assets being brought along for the ride, kicking and screaming. That’s it – that’s the extent of these ‘new’ visuals – a resolution upscale. Thanks for that.
It looks fairly atrocious and this sad issue is exasperated by the fact that in the trailer below, footage is shown of the bundled Saturn version and it looks almost indistinguishable from the high definition version.
Not happy. In addition, to say that it doesn’t exactly light a fire of confidence regarding my hopes for a quality Shenmue HD re-release would be understatement of the year at this point.
Watch and cry below:
NiGHTS Into Dreams is due to be released sometime later this year on 360, PS3 and Steam. OR, you could just bring out your Sega Saturn and play it NOW.
Gorgeous Looking Water Physics Platformer ‘Walter’, Emerges From Former Test-Drive Unlimited Dev Blossom Minds – Debut Trailer Released
Blossom Minds, an off-shoot of Test Drive Unlimited developer Eden Games has today released the trailer for it’s inaugral effort – a water physics platformer that goes by the pun-tastic name of ‘Walter’.
Besides boasting a charming art-style and looking utterly gorgeous, Walter looks like on initial impression at least that it will play as well as it looks. Playing as a sentient blob of water with eyes, the titular ‘Walter’ can change his mass, form and density to suit any situation. See a long series of peaks and trough tubing that needs to be overcome? Walter can transform himself into a trickle of water to speedily race up and down the tubes far quicker than if he was to remain as a blob of water; otherwise forced to slowly plod through. Another great example of how denisty and form affect the gameplay is one instance in the trailer where Walter is required to maintain a frozen ice-cube state to complete the level and he does this by keeping under dynamically moving shadows in order to prevent himself from melting.
It really looks like compelling stuff and while no formats have been announced, smart money is on an XBLA, PSN and Steam release sometime during the vague ‘2013’ release window that has been pegged for the game.
The trailer for ‘Walter’ is embedded below:
Walter is due to be released on formats to be announced sometime in 2013.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter is now fully funded with 10 days to go.
For those of you missing your fix of gore splattered, pedestrian running down fun, Stainless Games has announced that their Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter has managed to meet its target of $400,000 with ten days left on the clock.
As of right now, the Kickstarter currently stands at $422,298, with additional funds going towards additional game features or a really swanky office party for the devs.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation is a remake of the original Carmageddon title which came out nearly fifteen years ago on June 30th, 1997.
Obviously elated (and sounding a little bit drunk) at reaching their Kickstarter target, an update on the official Carmageddon Kickstarter page said the following:
“We MADE IT! Thanks to ALL OF YOU for the support and backing so far! As you’ll see, I don’t have the power of speech or typing completely down at the moment (some would say, most of the time…) as I’m STUNNED at the speed it’s happened this weekend! FANTASTIC job everyone… AMAZING! We got there with 10 days still to go! Have a BEER and a GREAT DAY! I’ll be adding a message from the whole Stainless gang later, as we’re getting together to CELEBRATE what YOU’VE DONE! :D”.
Since then the developer has released two milestone and ‘Thank You’ videos that you can see below:
Carmageddon: Reincarnation is due to arrive on the PC in February 2013 and XBLA/PSN later on that year.
SHUT UP AND READ. Ron Gilbert has a new game coming out. It’s called The Cave and it’s being published by Sega for PC, XBLA and PSN release in 2013.
Double Fine, the devs behind Brutal Legend and cult favourite Psychonauts, have today unveiled a brand new title by Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert called The Cave.
Coming from the equal parts twisted and brilliant mind of Rob Gilbert, you would expect The Cave to completely and brilliantly off it’s tits. And you would be right.
The premise of The Cave, is that you assemble a team of adventurers, explore a subterranean amusement park which has long since been buried and in doing so you just so happen to come across inter-continental ballistic missiles. Also, as you might imagine, rappeling and spelunking in deep, dark rocky caverns also features fairly prominently. The game itself appears to be platform and physics based puzzler, but one that naturally bears Double Fine and Rob Gilbert’s unique flair and penache for the unconventional.
According to Gilbert: “The concept of The Cave has been bouncing around in my head for many, many years, and then the little voices that tell me to do things said it was time to make the game.”
Quite. You mad, mad sod you. Can’t wait to play your game.
Oh and there is a trailer too. Cast your peepers below:
The Cave is being published by SEGA and will release on PC, XBLA and PSN sometime in 2013.
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