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.
There’s some humour in the idea that I traveled to Los Angeles in order to play a game being made in Toronto. Of course there were plenty of other reasons to make the trip, but catching up with the latest creation from Drinkbox Studios was high on my radar and necessitated a priority stop at Sony’s booth during E3.
Drinkbox’s Graham Smith was on hand to aid me in a co-op session of Guacamelee!, which puts players behind the mask of a burly luchador, but also offers the chance to transform into a chicken with the press of a button. There’s something rather joyous about running across the screen with your beak in the air – in fact Graham might have had to wait a few moments while I abused the opportunity to keep doing that.
Eventually I regained some composure though, and the demo was able to move forward.
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!!!
Essentially an updated, albeit portable, version of the console original, Continuum Shift 2 brings more of the same 2D fighting flash to series fans… but does this update bring enough to the the table to warrant the purchase?
The answer to that question depends on what kind of fighting game player you are. On one side of the argument, this portable update of the PS3/360 original would be the perfect way to get introduced to the series. It’s a near-flawless handheld recreation that boasts smooth animation, brilliant 2D sprites, tight controls, and even throws in the original game’s DLC characters.
These new-comer perks are also the biggest detriment to series diehards; there are just far to few updates to the console original, aside from the character DLC and a new game mode, to be considered a must have.
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