Geek-Culture News
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Beta Impressions
Posted 10:10 am on Friday, October 19th, 2012 by Chris Del Castillo
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale has been under heavy fire for its similarities to Smash Bros. since its announcement at E3 (It’s been dubbed a Smash Bros. clone). The Beta was released for PlayStation Plus members and Vita users on Tuesday, October 16th, and next week everybody else will have a chance to check it out. What’s cool about the demo is that it’s a cross platform demo, meaning you can play against a Vita user via your PS3, or vice versa.
The Beta comes with a short training mode, so luckily you’re not thrown into battle to fend for yourself. In a few minutes of learning the moves, you’ll be ready to fight online (Sorry, no offline mode).
The game is easy to pick up, but the hard part is just going at it with opponents to raise your level bar in order to activate your finisher. When I was using the character special, there was no way to knock opponents off the stage or do enough damage to just finish them. You’ll need to explore and learn the different range and abilities of each character.
The beta features only six characters; Kratos, Sweet Tooth, Fat Princess, Sly, Radec, Parappa. I wasn’t surprised when I saw a ton of Kratos players online. There are two stages which has impressive graphics. The music is pretty good as well, as it uses music from games like God of War and Ratchet and Clank.
Overall, the Beta for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal was fun. What made Smash Bros. a fun game was the ability to use popular Nintendo characters and the simple move sets, which led to some crazy and powerful combos. Sony has taken this idea and included a lot of Sony exclusive characters. We also get Raiden from Metal Gear Rising Revengence, Big Daddy from Bioshock and plenty others.
It’s easy to lose your position at times since there is so much going on. Remembering your color and player number does play an important part in coming out on top.
The Vita version is almost the same. There are a few differences that include tapping the screen to pick up weapons. Too bad Crossplay wasn’t implemented yet, but for owners of both the PS3 and Vita, it’s nice to know if you buy the PS3 version you’ll get a free download Vita copy of the game to practice on the go.
The Beta ends November 1st, 2012, and the game releases November 20th.
Growing up Chris watched a lot of the original Saturday morning cartoons and developed a love for arts and animation. Growing up he tried his hand at animation and eventually script writing, but even more his love of video games, anime and technology grew.
