Hey guys.

Well the PSN update today had some pretty epic stuff. Well, mostly just the Mirror’s Edge demo, and the EndWar demo which I had no idea they were releasing. There’s also a WWE Smackdown VS Raw demo and an Alone in the Dark demo, but I don’t care about those.

So here i’ll be giving my first impressions on both those demos. And a little bonus after that

Mirror’s Edge

So like lots of people I was pretty hyped up for this. And strangely it doesn’t disappoint.
The demo starts you off with a tutorial (which you can skip) which shows all the basics: Jumping, rolling, jumping, sliding, jumping, wall running, wall jumping, using ziplines and a couple other things you’ll be doing in the game. The tutorial ends with some combat training (disarming, punch, jumpkick).

So the gameplay. Well the controls are great.  There’s lots of automatic stuff in there, but really it works well. Jumping is pretty accurate once you get used to the timing, and all the other stuff (sliding, rolling, wall running, etc.) is really easy to do when you get the timing(except for wall jumps, I suck with those). The platforming is really slick and really just as smooth as it seemed in gameplay videos they’ve been showing. I just didn’t find a real use for the Slow-Motion button (if anyone knows, leave a comment!).

The combat… well I didn’t do much of it, but disarming is really the most useful thing. When there’s multiple enemies there’s really no reason to be punching and kicking, since one of the enemies will be shooting at you while you’re trying to hit the other. Disarming knocks out an enemy in one hit, and it leaves you equipped with a gun, which you might as well just leave there and disarm the other people shooting at you.

Finally the presentation. Well the game starts off with an anime scene which isn’t too bad, and at the end it goes from the anime style and goes to the actual 3D, and it… pretty much looks exactly the same. The graphics are pretty cool. The environments look really cool and stylish, though everything seems to look the same(at least outside) and after a while it might get repetitive. Faith and the other girl are pretty well modeled(see above screenshot)… didn’t really checked the people shooting at me… since they were shooting at me all.. but at a quick glance they looked well done. The loading screens are pretty good too, you get to see a small stylish video where Faith kicks a guy’s(or 2 of them) ass. It plays in a loop but it’s pretty cool to watch.

The only thing I didn’t get to try is the time trial, since I didn’t pre-order the game and get the time trial code. So from what I’ve played, in the 4(or was it 5?) times I completed the demo, I was well entertained. You get pretty original gameplay compared to usual FPS games. The platforming is great and quite exciting, the graphic style is good, and really it’s just fun. I wasn’t sure until I actually played it, but I say this game is a buy.

Tom Clancy’s EndWar

This one I wasn’t exactly hyped for.  But the concept of controlling an army with your voice still got me quite interested in at least trying out the game, and having a demo is the best way to do that really, so I was pleased to see it released today.

So let’s go right in the heat of the game: How’s the voice recognition?
Well, when you start the game, you get a “tutorial” and  the game adjusts to your voice. To speak you have to press R2 and issue a command(if you have lots of commands to give you’ll be pressing R2 a lot). Basically you say stuff until the game recognizes it properly, and that… doesn’t really work. Okay, I’m being unfair already. Actually it works pretty well, but a LOT of the time the game won’t “hear” the same thing you’re saying.  For example, during the setup, I said “Unit One Secure Alpha” and the game heard “Unit Bravo”. Okay? In the setup it’s okay, when you speak nothing happens other than making you talk again. In the game itself, when the game “misses” a command, it’s still gonna issue the misheard command, which can lead you to sending units to attack units they’re weak to, or making them move to place you don’t want them to.

The gameplay itself is decent. You deploy armies (as the game goes on you can deploy more), you send your units to attack enemies, certain units are weak against others in a rock-paper-scissors kinda way (Gunship>Tanks>Transports>Gunship), and there’s a couple other units, and battles basically involve you having to destroy all of the opponent’s units. There might be other objectives later on in the game, but I can’t really say. The one problem with the game is the camera. Your camera follows one of your “units”(which is 4 vehicles or a bunch of soldiers basically)(you choose which unit by issuing the “Unit # camera” command), and you are constrained to a certain range around them, so you can’t look very far from them. To be fair, it’s not a bad idea, you shouldn’t see that much further than your own units, but I still feel it’s a bit annoying not to be able to move “freely”, or at least less restrained. Finally, deploying units is better done with the controller than your voice. Choose a free slot, press up, choose your unit, and voila, soon enough you’ll have some of them near your starting base.

Overall I did kinda enjoy the demo. Controlling with your voice is a great idea and if only it recognized your commands a bit better it could truly be awesome, let’s hope the retail version does a bit better on that aspect. The game itself has lots of potential and is pretty fun to play. And the voice commands aren’t mandatory, so if the game doesn’t listen to you properly, you can always just press R2 and choose the commands you want to do instead of pressing R2 and talking. This game is not a buy for me, at least not right now, I’ll wait for a lower price, but Tom Clancy fans or people wanting a fun console RTS might want to give it a try.

BONUS FIRST IMPRESSIONS! 
“Prinny: Is it OK if I’m the Protagonist?” demo on the PSP

A little bonus here. I heard this demo was on the japanese PSN and I just HAD to get it. Don’t know when it came out on the japanese PSN, but it must have been recently since I instantly found it in the japanese store.
Other than having the most awesome title ever, it’s based on the most badass peg-legged penguin things ever from Disgaea: Prinnies! You play as a Prinny with a red scarf in a platforming game. Being a big Disgaea fan, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw a prinny would star in his own game. Awesome.

It’s a pretty simple game. Controls are just as you’d expect from a platformer: X jumps (pressing down and jump while in the air does a ground bound), Square slashes your knives (if you’re in the air you shoot badass shockwaves and anyone who touches your blades get hurt), Circle makes the Prinny dance and makes him glow (if you’re moving while the Prinny is glowing you dash) and finally Triangle makes you carry/throw stuff (in the demo it’s bombs that you can OHKO enemies).

The gameplay is pretty damn good. It’s a normal platformer, but the gameplay is really smooth, attacking works like a charm whether it be on the ground or in the air. The jumping is really stiff though, but it reminds me of Ghosts n’ Goblins, just a bit smoother and you can hang from a platform if you miss it so you don’t need to be 100% accurate to do your jumps. The game can also be kinda challenging. The demo gives you only one stage, but 2 modes: One where you can take 4 hits(it can be attacks or just the enemy touching you) before you die and explode, and one where you get one hit and you’re done(and thrust me you’ll be exploding a lot). The demo gives you infinite lives though, so at least that’s not too bad, though I hope the final game isn’t that lenient. You also have a time limit but it resets when you die, even if you got a checkpoint.

That's pretty badass

The presentation is normal Nippon Ichi fare: high quality 2D sprites, nice music similar to their previous games, and enemies from previous games(not just disgaea) make an appearance.

Overall, from the demo, it’s really fun to play. Simple platforming goodness, a good challenge, nice graphics and just plain fun. NIS fans need to get this, it’s a must, and otherwise just check the demo (make a japanese account if you need to, you can find tutorials somewhere). It’s just 12 MB, so if you suck like I do and you only have a 32MB memory stick in your PSP you can STILL play it. Awesome.

 

That’s it for today, more badass stuff coming on Save Point in not too long.

jobocan Games