This Week On PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Free Avatars, Oh Kratos... you continue to goof.

[Carbo]

I'm really not having fun with this beta.

I really hope the crossplay is fixed soon so I can see if it's just playing it on the Vita that annoys me, but so far this game feels like TMNT Smash Up all over again with a kill mechanic that's still as absolutely stupid now as it was when it was first mentioned.

I'll write some more concise thoughts after I get some sleep.

[Teoskaven]

Gameplay from the beta:

The audio sounds definetly better.

[Zone Seeker]

Even with it recorded with a cam those sound effects still sound better than the Hong Kong beta.

At least with Sly removed people dont have to experience his sometimes glitchy lvl 3 after its finished because of the camera, god that was annoying to try and play.

[FlameKoetsu]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/18/playstation-all-stars-30-minutes-of-expert-videos Don't know if it was posted or not, But IGN has been doing some character overviews with Seth here.

[sjmaster92]

It's nice to hear one of my biggest gripes with the game, the audio is improving.

[Red Cap]

Sony REALLY needs to hurry up with the NA BETA. I got a code for my EU account but it won't let me play because my PS3 isn't PAL. It really should have pulled up some message telling me I couldn't play it BEFORE I wasted my time downloading this so I could give it to someone who can actually enjoy it.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Red Cap-Blue Spikes

[Carbo]

The Online on the PS Vita is absolutely terrible. It easily puts Twisted Metal to shame. Santa Monica Studios have some incredibly shitty online management. I'd like to think they're going to improve this for the release but seeing how the beta issues of Twisted Metal carried over and how they spent so many weeks promising fixes and patches only to just give up and say "fuck it" kind of makes me doubt it'll get better.

A bug I encountered was picking Sweet Tooth to battle with, but the online somehow choosing Kratos.

I said yesterday the game really wasn't that fun to play and after doing some more rounds and getting the hang of how things work I still don't think it's all that great. Picking it up and playing does not hold that easy starter appeal because the dynamic elements and the meta of the game resides all in the combos which are completely impossible to pull off in a 4-vs-4 battle. The hardest challenge you'll face playing this game is trying to figure out how to properly operate your character. The controls are sluggish and floaty, although once you get the hang of them it's kind of fun to mess around in. But the thing is the game doesn't really reward you for it and it doesn't feel like it's giving you much of a leeway in playstyles. Also, despite the audio being improved I still don't feel like the game is giving me much proper feedback when every move in this game has set knockbacks.

I realize that this partially might be down to me being too used to how Brawl's fighting is managed as opposed to PSABR's more up-and-personal combo oriented fighting but the thing is, it seems out of place in a game like this and the game feels too much like a version of Smash Bros that's trying it's hardest to add and remove things just to disconnect that comparison, and it kind of suffers.

And of course, so many of the problems can still be boiled down to the kill mechanic which is completely, utterly stupid. It complicates matters way more than it should, building everything around a system that's obtuse. You get most of the meter by combo-ing but since figuring out how to combo in this beta is a journey of this own, including the cramped Vita controls and that you'll be flying all around the field in a 4-vs-4 battle, you'll be spending quite some time building it up. Chances are that if you don't like this mechanic alone, this game just isn't for you and you might as well skip out on it.

Lastly the UI is complete garbage. It's such a nothing interface and it feels like nothing, which is kind of an accurate depiction of how I feel playing this game. I don't know. I love Ratchet & Clank, I have a fondness for Parappa and Twisted Metal might just be my favorite PS franchise, but I don't feel like there's much of any thought put into the reverence for chemistry. At this point I don't even feel that putting in Kat or Crash would salvage the roster or the experience for me, because so far every character just feels like they're in there for the sake of being there and I'm just kind of not feeling the game here. It's pretty forgettable and unfortunately I don't think I'll be investing in it.

[Chooch]

Even if I ended up hating it, it'd be nice if I actually got a chance to play the damn game before it releases.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

*huge review*

What do you think are the chances that they can fix all these things by launch?

[Carbo]

What do you think are the chances that they can fix all these things by launch?

Well, none really. Apart from some online bugs and hopefully matchmaking bugs. I've tried for the last five hours to get into a new game to no avail, and when I did get in I got hammered by glitches that either made the game unplayable or turned all my opponents into clipping dummies.

The foundation of the game is my main problem and with two months from launch there's no way they'll do that around because this is the way it was built from the start. That's the key issue, if you don't enjoy how the game works, there's generally nothing else in it for you, and this all boils down to the kill mechanic being the biggest problem because the methods to go by achieving this becomes harder the more people are on screen, and it doesn't feel rewarding. Even if they add additional options, this is what's seen as the "normal" one and I honestly don't see why. It's like a mix of Smash Bros' Coin Battle and some imaginary mode where Final Smashes is the only thing that kills.

The UI might be improved but frankly it all still feels so bland that it's kind of disheartening to be around.

[Jango]

TGS trailer:

WARNING: NO CRASH.

[FlameKoetsu]

That looks pretty cool, the Sly stage mixes up with LBP2 I think (it looks like the villain from that game) and Loco Roco mixes with MGR?

Uh why do they mashup stages like MGR/LocoRoco and Parappa/Killzone, it looks really bad and the styles hurt each other. It ends up painful to look at.

Edited September 20, 2012 by FlameKoetsu

[Zone Seeker]

Music on that trailer sounds nice, granted its probably not going to be in the game since its just generic trailer music unless Im wrong and it actually belongs to a game then please, correct me.

Lighting looks good on certain stages, and yeah that is the Negativitron on the Sly stage so LBP2 it is.

ooooo and a slightly updated Logo, I like it a bit more.

[sjmaster92]

loco roco and mgs? that's the weirdest combo ever. hopefully the stage plays better than it looks.

[Teoskaven]

Sly and LBP 2? Very nice, i like it.

LocoRoco and MGS? Meh, but still funny because one LocoRoco smashed the Metal gear Ray

Still remains what is the mash-up of San Francisco and the remaining stages, but we will see.

Also, some alternate costumes: http://igogaming.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/original-2.jpg

[Marcello]

I don't like what they chose for MGS. I didn't even notice it was Metal Gear until I saw it mentioned here. Totally missed Ray during my first viewing. I think they should've taken something more iconic like Brawl did.

[Jango]

Yeah, I have to say, some mixed arenas are just too weird to watch. They should be mixing similar worlds.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Jango

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

You know, in some sense the way they're handling the stages compared to Smash Bros. kind of mirrors my own opinions. In Smash Bros., you could tell that Nintendo really cared about each place and put plenty of work into making iconic vistas come to life as battlegrounds. Each place had its own feel comparative to their respective series; the Mario stages were bright and cheerful, the Zelda stages were adventurous and grand, the WarioWare stage quirky and strange. It looked like a a labor of love, like they really appreciated all of these franchises, no matter how small.

I'm not sure yet if I can say the same for Sony Smash Bros. The stages, from what I've seen, are generic and lifeless. LittleBigPlanet's offering for example, looks like I'm playing a poor man's version of the create stages with Buzz taped on it. There's no character or life in these stages, they just look like mashed-up stuff from other series. Because that's all we wanted, right? Just throw some characters at each other and boom, instant fan and critical acclaim?

I dunno. I am a Nintendo fan-bot, so maybe I just don't get it. To me, this whole deal is like "what if a whole bunch of cool characters got together and did nothing of real interest?" There's a wealth of likable characters here (and Kratos). Why does this feel so... boring?

[Jango]

Why does this feel so... boring?

Because no Crash.

[Balding Spider]

Why does this feel so... boring?

Because you've had better.

[Carbo]

Crash isn't going to magically change that all the characters are in here for absolutely no rhyme or reason and that it's all unstructured. I really enjoy a good deal of Sony franchises but hell I don't feel like they really tried with this after playing it, and the best part about crossovers is that they manage to make me interested in franchises or characters I'd not know of or aren't interested in. MvC and SSB did this before to me, but this game is not even trying to manage that.

It's kind of weird actually, listening to the title screen music or watching that trailer. The music tries kind of hard trying to set the game up like its an epic showdown, yet it feels like it's forcing itself to be cool and hardcore. It's sort of cringeworthy, especially that vocal drop.

So basically I've come to the conclusion that this game is just Kevin Butler's ego manifested into a game.

[Marcello]

Do the colors look as washed out as the trailers make them out to be?

Edited September 20, 2012 by MarcelloF

[Carbo]

The contrast is a bit more powerful, most notably on the God of War stage, but the palette is mostly the problem. It looks gray and lifeless on the Ratchet stage and it's generally a bit too dull to even matter.

EDIT: You know I have to wonder whether or not all my complaints with this is going to make me look like an odd-out dumbass once the game launches or it gets a public demo. I almost feel like an anchor weighing down hype at this point and it makes me feel kind of bad.

[Candescence]

Eh, you're not the only one, Carbo. I may not have played it like you have, but I personally don't think this looks like a good game, or a good crossover, for that matter. It just feels like the developers don't have a clue about the first thing to making a good crossover, or a good fighting game, for that matter, considering the utterly stupid super-to-kill mechanic, which makes no sense on paper, and according to your criticisms, seems to not work in practice, either.

Edit: Wait, it's Carbo, not Sean, FUCK, how did I get you dudes mixed up.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Masaru Daimon

[Conando]

Don't worry about it, Carbo. I played the US Beta back in July (?), and I had a lot of the same complaints you did. Considering the game seems almost the exact same 2 months later, I'm not confident in there being any major difference (other than fixed netcode) at launch.