Corpse Run 215: What’s in a game?
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Richard mentioned to me a few months ago that Sony was working on a game that could easily be seen as a ripoff of Super Smash Brothers. Initially, I scoffed and struggled to come up with a decent amount of characters to populate the roster.
I mean, you’ve got Nathan, Sly Cooper, Sweet Tooth, Parappa, Kratos… Fat Princess? Wasn’t that just a downloadable PSN game?
This isn’t meant to be a knock on small games, but rather a point that Sony doesn’t seem to have a ton of IPs to choose from. At the moment, this is the roster:
Sweet Tooth, Kratos, Nathan Drake, Fat Princess, Sly Cooper, Parappa the Rapper, Colonel Radec, and a Big Daddy from Bioshock (which is multi-platform, so I guess Sony got the license for it).
While having Parappa there is totally awesome, eight characters is pretty meager for a fighting game, especially when you compare it to the most recent SSB offering. I have to imagine that future character announcements will include Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot, plus some more licensed third party characters, but that remains to be seen.
Anyways, I had yet to see any gameplay videos of Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale (the game’s working title, updated from Title Fight) and figured that it would be unfair to call it a rip-off until I had. Then I saw this release from E3.
Check out the video and then tell me it doesn’t look exactly like smash.
Now, the dude that’s running the conference, Omar Kendall… I really have to give that guy some credit; I don’t think I’d be able to stand on that stage in front of all those people and keep a straight face while pretending that this game is totally new and unique. Strangely, I have yet to find any interview footage in which a journalist brings up SSB. If anyone happens to find one, please email it to me, I totally wanna watch that.
Just a note on the gameplay itself: Playstation All-Stars seems a bit stale. Sure the mechanics are lifted right out of SSB, but apparently (at least in the game mode they were playing) there was no way to track players scores during play; towards the end of the video Omar couldn’t tell who won after the match was over and had to wait for the victory display to show.
I feel like that would really suck the excitement out of a match; there would be no sense of urgency to score as the final seconds tick off the clock. Again, perhaps that was just one of many game modes, but this is E3, one of the biggest gaming events of the year, shouldn’t they want to show their most exciting modes?
Oh well.
Not to keep throwing criticism towards Sony, but I mentioned in a recent Kat’s Korner that I attended a Sony Tech Expo on Monday, where I got to see new products and software coming out in Q3 and Q4 of this year. Other than the graphical mishap mentioned in the Kat’s Korner post, the event was pretty sweet (and they upped their food offerings from last year!).
However, one fun little story you guys might get a kick out of. While discussing the features of Acid, an audio editing program that will be released as a part of the Sony Imagination Studio, a Sony rep exclaimed, “Acid is really cool with the kids.”
The theater erupted in laughter.
In an attempt to rebound he followed up with, “Well, at least it’s better than bath salts.”
Fantastic.
Just so you know, In Timed Battles for Smash Bros, you don’t know who the winner is until the end either. That’s the default setting. Later, you can unlock score display and see who is in the lead, but that’s not default. You may not even realize this since EVERYBODY plays Stock matches.
I’d be shocked if the Playstation game doesn’t have a Stock option like Smash does and that’ll be the de facto way to play.
And sure PS doesn’t have nearly the number of IPs to choose from but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a full roster of characters. There are four characters from Pokemon in Brawl; that’s four characters from a single IP. I’m sure Sony will do the same thing with their lineup.
Personally, I’m surprised at all the hate on this game I’m seeing (not saying that you are hating on it of course). I’m excited for a SSB clone, it’s my favorite style of fighter out there and there should be more games like it.
I wouldn’t say I *hate* the game, I think it would do Sony well, however, to just say, “Yeah, we’re making a smash clone.”
Listening to them tiptoe around the subject is awkward!
I know Im WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY Late on commenting but consider this:
Before they became mainstream, any FPS game was considered a Doom clone. Same with Super Mario 64. Any other 3D platformer was considered a clone of that!
Isn’t this the third SSB clone? The TMNT fighting game released a few years ago seemed to be lifted from SSB as well.
Wasn’t aware there was a TMNT game that was similar, I should check that out =P
Not to sound like a fanboy, but that is legit copyright infringement…
Chances are the legalities are all fine, but it really does look like Sony’s toeing the line.
I’d better see Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot announced. If not, I’m going to have to hurt people.
Ooooooooo Spyro would be pretty sweet!
Hmm, I knew Spyro and Crash since their beginnings. They were my first games. They even mixed up in a Gameboy Advanced game (Spyro Orange and Crash Purple). I haven’t seen much Crash recently, but Spyro I’ve seen moved on to the GameCube (unsure which) and Xbox 360 (Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon). I know they started in Playstation, but the spreading to other consoles has gotten them mixed with origin confusion.