Playstation All-Stars Demo

I've recently gotten to spend some time with Playstation All Stars: Battle Royal, and I gotta tell ya, it's pretty fun. While a lot of people out there are still going nuts about it taking too much from Smash Bros.,  they have actually done a lot to it to make it it's own. 

The version here only has four characters and two stages. You can choose from Kratos, Parrappa, Jak, and a Big Daddy, with the levels being Hades (with the man himself being in the background messing with ya) and Metropolis from Ratchet and Clank with all sorts of nutty things happening.

The controls are simple. (X) is jump, with ([ ]), (/\), and (O) being your three basic attacks; R2 will activate your supers to score your points, L1 blocks/dodges and L2 taunts.If you want to make the Smash Bros. comparison, your three basic attack buttons have the same idea behind it here.   Neutral, left and right, up and down - those will give you variations on your attack.  For example, if you are playing as Parappa, one button is fisticuffs, another your skateboard, and your third will use his mic or jukebox in various ways. Hitting a direction will change how you dance between these attacks, and it works very similar while adding a little more to it.

While there will still be other modes in the game, the only one available now is basically a time attack - score the most points between getting K.O.s (2pts) and deaths (-1pt) to win in the allotted time.  And this is where it gets fun.  Every character has 3 levels for their supers each having different ranges and attack patterns. Scoring hits and even some moves on certain characters will boost your meter and you have to hit an enemy with a super to get the kill - the only way to take them out.   

My only complaint this far are the stages.  I'm not a huge fan of the mixing franchises idea.  Sometimes it's not bad; seeing some characters from Patapon interacting with Hades is kinda neat, but when the Hydra comes out to eat Quark, I feel like they could have used assets from the Ratchet games and went more in depth with the represented series.  It will be interesting to see how they handle the formula; all I'm thinking right now is how does a Jak and Daxter level fuse with Hot Shots Golf?

Overall I recommend this game. It's solid, fast paced fun that adds a nice little twist on the brawler style games.  I got hooked with Parappa myself, he plays to my play-style, but the characters are varied enough to suit any who give it a go.

-Eddie