Gamesugar

June 9, 2012

E3 2012 – Sound Shapes

Sound Shapes E3 2012
Sound Shapes’ quirky visual style was seduction at first sight, a natural fit on Sony’s new handheld, with organic and charming designs that offered surface reminders of Sony Japan’s Patapon and Loco Roco, as well as the continuing work of Q-Games.

But while Sound Shapes has always presented easy eye candy for me, it’s never simply represented another pretty face at the dancehall.

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January 29, 2012

Mutant Blobs Attack Your Ears

Mutant Blobs Attack Shaun Hatton
Following up on last year’s retro science-fiction platformer, Tales from Space: About a Blob, Toronto’s DrinkBox Studios is unleashing another dose of blob mayhem and carnage this year, this time on Sony’s new handheld with the upcoming Vita release of Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!!!

In addition to the in-game soundtrack created by musician Peter Chapman, it was recently revealed that game journalist, musician, and long-time Sugarfriend, Shaun Hatton, will be lending his audio talents to the game by contributing a song for the ending-credit sequence of the game. This weekend I had a chance to catch up with Shaun to talk briefly about that project as well as his work for the upcoming Indie game, They Bleed Pixels – which I’ve since distilled into convenient MP3 format for your listening pleasure.

Catch a rare audio sugar fix below, along with Shaun’s track for Mutant Blobs Attack!!!

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April 21, 2011

Review – Patapon 3

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:01 pm

Patapon 3
I’m never long for thinking of Sony’s palette-perfect cave-art-in-motion Patapon without also thinking of that other treasure on the PlayStation Portable, LocoRoco – and vice-versa. Both titles livened up Sony’s handheld offering with a breath of fresh air, largely composed of daring dabs of color as vibrant as the twist of controls that presented both as prime reasons for early PSP ownership. But, both titles also offered an experience that seemed to leave little room for growth, largely saying all there was to say the first time around – though that didn’t stop either from broadening the brush strokes with sequels that struck a few new sparks for the trouble.

A third swing at the bat saw LocoRoco take a strange move off a cliff however, seeking to serve as some form of “lost levels” for that franchise, and directly creating a game with enough sadistic spirit to do the dark lord proud whilst also chasing many gamers away.

Where Patapon 3 could have taken a similar dive from the heights of previous critical praise – changing the beat for the sake of change – this newest march to war strays from the depth of previous entries to create a more ideally portable extension to the rhythm.

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December 7, 2010

Okabu

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:32 pm

Okabu
I just got handed a trailer for Okabu, which is in development exclusively for the PlayStation Network by Rolando developer HandCircus.

The release sees two characters, Kumulo and Nimbe, ride clouds to save their world from industrialization, and perhaps more importantly gives the impression of offering gamers a landscape filled with weird and wonderful ideas, the sorta stuff Sony Japan used to offer more of.

Okabu is due to hit PSN in 2011, and you can catch the trailer after the break.

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February 23, 2010

It’s The Little Things…

Filed under: Archives — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:28 pm

Ghost in the Shell
Moving boxes around yesterday turned up more than a few PS1 games I hadn’t seen in awhile – my life is mostly comprised of boxes in case you’re curious, and every so often I turn them over instead of writing semi-cohesive paragraphs about how important videogames are. Along the way I found the original Ghost in the Shell, which often gets labeled as a mediocre licensed title by people who haven’t played it.

In actuality the game is several shades of meeting and beating expectations, tossing players into a nimble tank, your trusty Fuchikoma, and offering up animation work from Production I.G – essentially making the game a precursor to all the work done on the Stand Alone Complex series.

The game was made by Exact in Japan, an internal Sony Japan studio that became Sugar & Rockets (the studio that inspired this site’s name) for awhile before apparently vanishing – but I’ve pieced that last bit together mostly from sugar packets given the fleeting and scarce nature of information regarding internal Sony Japan.

Anyway, what’s particularly special about this copy I turned up is that it’s an import from Japan. Not surprisingly, I’m a bit obsessive about collecting import copies of games whenever possible, but PS1 titles are one of the sweetest in my opinion. So long story short, I’ve tossed together some pictures of what certainly isn’t the rarest, but does qualify as one of the most impressively packaged games I own, which you can catch after the break if you’re into that sort of thing.

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January 11, 2010

Refresh Rate – Kartia: The Word of Fate

Filed under: Archives — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 4:14 pm

Kartia The Word of Fate
Reviewing and playing a year’s worth of RPG releases in various styles from numerous companies has left me feeling that the genre is a tired dog looking for a place to die – or at least I wish this was the case. Aside from a few titles that sought deviations in control and narrative development, there were and continue to be plenty that cram “me too” titles onto consoles, believing that narrative aspirations and a few modest features can sell to a sedated audience.

At best we get something immediately rooting into safer choices to furnish a series, and even if this provides a few pleasures to be found along the way, we’re living on the long end of a beast’s tail that took the fullest shape on the original PlayStation.

This might begin sounding like the typical “they don’t make them like they used to” ploy. I assure you that can’t be the case, because the problem is that they do make them like they used to quite a bit, with far less success for the trouble.

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