| Why this has piqued our interest A game Matt first played on his Mac has now come to the PlayStation family of consoles. After meeting the creator Olli Harjola at a Curve Digital event Matt decided this game would be his and so it was and you can read his thought's below. |
To say we have enjoyed Stealth Inc may be a little bit of an understatement. Jon has reviewed the game on different platforms and you can see these reviews by clicking the links below.
Curve Studios’ brutal action-platformer sequel coming to Wii U this year.
Released in 2012, Stealth Inc was created to answer a single question; “Why do Stealth games have to be so slow?” The original game introduced players to the trap, laser and death filled test chambers of the nefarious PTi industries, charging them with completing puzzles and platforming challenges across 80 different levels.
By Matt Taylor  Almost a year since it’s release on PC, Facepalm Games’ critical success, “The Swapper”, will be released on Playstation with help from London’s Curve Studios. I also had the chance to interview developer Olli Harjola which you can read here Returning to the lonely space puzzler, players will be able to use Playstation’s Cross-buy system to download The Swapper on their Playstation 3, Playstation 4 and the Playstation Vita. As well as transferring between platforms, save games will also share between the systems and allows players to continue their journey through the desolate space station from anywhere.
Puzzle games usually walk a fine line between boringly easy or frustratingly hard. The Swapper never falls into either category and manages to stay smart. Instead of overly complex and frustratingly hard solutions the game asks the player to think about your surroundings and use the tools given to you. In the whole time I played the game I have never felt cheated by complex or obscure puzzles, or felt that the game was holding my hand. It’s the perfect puzzle game, and it’s coming to Playstation.  I visited Curve Studios to check out the Playstation version of The Swapper. Walking into the dark office lined with couches, empty beer bottles sitting on the coffee table, the first thing I saw was The Swapper on the TV screen in front of me. I’ve played the game on my MacBook Air, which is admittedly the wrong platform to experience the game, but I’ve managed through on a trackpad and thought the game looked great. Then I saw it on Playstation 4. I could instantly see the difference in quality, with the colours bright and accurate, and the higher level of detail revealing Facepalm’s elaborate and beautiful design.
With the game already seeing success on PC, Mac and Linux, joining the growing library on the highest selling next generation console is an awesome opportunity for Facepalm, Curve and Playstation players who are aching for more titles on the Playstation 4 store. The Swapper will be available on Playstation 4, Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita from the 25th of June. All images courtesy of Curve Studios and are taken from the Vita version of the game.
Last night Curve Digital held a little event to showcase three of their upcoming titles. Matt and I both managed to get some hands on time with each of the games. Of the three games which are The Swapper. Titan Attacks and Mousecraft, my favourite by far was the last on the list Mousecraft. We will be bringing you impressions of the other titles but here I will concentrate on a game that's "Development is going grate!" 
Okay to get things rolling why Mousecraft? I am a puzzle fan I may not be the best at them but I love the challenge of trying to outsmart a level. This comes from my early gaming history with the monster that was Lemmings. Mousecraft as the developer mentioned was part of the inspiration for this title so immediately I was intrigued. However instead of copy and pasting the team at Crunching Koalas have put their own stamp on their title. First off are the actual mice although they are autonomous rodents but they are capable of tricks like jumping single blocks this pretty simple mechanic gives the puzzles an extra dimension The real star of the game though is the way the puzzles are solved, instead of controlling the mice you actually alter the level in order to get your mice to the cheese (the end point). The trailer below gives you some idea of the gameplay although it is rather sped up from the actual way you will play. I played the game mostly on the Vita and found it to be the best way to play the touch-screen integration worked really well and the game felt perfect for the handheld. Of course with most titles that Curve have a hand in the game will be Cross buy on the Playstation platforms. Overall this is looking like a great addition to the Curve line up and we will hopefully be bringing you more news and a review in due course.  Curve Digital has announced the third title in a month of announcements: Titan Invasion. The game is being offered for one price as a cross-buy title on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.
The Titan Invasion collection will include two action titles from UK developer, Puppygames: ‘Titan Attacks!’ and ‘Revenge of the Titans’. Titan Attacks! is an arcade action title inspired by games like Space Invaders and Galaga, but with many modern features including a full ship upgrade system, online leaderboards and stylish, neo-retro visuals. Revenge of the Titans keeps the frantic action and the distinctive visual style, but expands the game into a unique mash-up of Real Time Strategy and Tower Defence including over 25 different types of buildings and a deep upgrade system as players progress for 50 challenging levels. Titan Invasion will be available on all PlayStation consoles this summer. Curve Digital has also announced puzzle-platform MouseCraft and Stealth Inc: Ultimate Edition this month, with one more announcement to go. Curve's second announcement of their four week mega month was teased quite a bit on Twitter today. Tweeters had the chance to win the curve bundle if they could correctly guess the title that would be announced. This may have seemed like a very difficult task but their were more than a few clues most namely that the game was already in Steam Early Access. So now we know (& knowing is half the battle) that Mousecraft will be hitting the Vita in May. Below is the full release and we hope to bring you more details as the release date gets ever closer. 
Independent game publisher Curve Digital has today announced that puzzle-platform game MouseCraft will be coming to Vita in May, with a PlayStation 4 version planned for the summer. The PlayStation versions will be developed by London developer Curve Studios.
Watch out for our review coming very soon (as in within the hour of this post) 
Velocity Ultra launches on the Steam store at 6PM GMT (1PM EST) today, and will also be available from Today to buy on Green Man Gaming and Gamersgate. The game will be available in all regions for the excellent price of £6.49 / $9.99 / €8.99. Obviously Velocity is coming to PC the headline has already announced this but what the headline does not say is how great this is going to be. The best way for you to find out is to sit back and listen and watch to this video by Matt. Velocity Ultra touches down on the Steam Store on Thursday December 12th, priced at £6.99 / $9.99 / €8.99. Just the tip with Velocity Ultra  I remember playing Vertical Scrolling Shoot ‘em Up games on arcade machines. The player taking command of a World War II style fighter plane and destroying tanks and enemy planes, aiming to reach the Stratofortress at the other end of the level, where you’d line up the turrets and blast sections clear off the boss. How can Velocity Ultra revive the ancient gameplay mechanic? Velocity Ultra makes me feel like an intergalactic superhero. With it’s quick, tight controls and amazing soundtrack, I kept getting caught in it’s grasp. But occasionally I would slip. After an hour in it all started to make sense. Piloting the Quarp Jet, a teleporting spaceship, the players missions are set out before each of the levels. Most of these range from simple “rescue the survivors” (in the form of floating space pods), to time sensitive speed runs and shooter intensive kill fests. The game uses animated stills and text bubbles to give you the what and why, but most of the time it’s an A to B affair. At first. With simple but effective controls and my warp skills and weapons laid out in front of me in the first few missions, I was quickly firing lasers, dropping bombs and warping between sections of the screen in no time. The first few levels left me feeling kind of mixed. The game would be incredible one second, with the awesome soundtrack blasting through my headphones, only to let me down a moment later. I’d be flying along kicking ass, only to fire a bomb while using the directional stick and pull myself into an enemy turret, or warp into a pack of bad guys and get instantly killed. I could survive a laser blast, but be destroyed by tapping a turret while preforming a bomb run. I felt strong enough to let my guard down, weak enough to instantly regret it.  I couldn’t help but feel that the touch controls from the original title on Playstation Vita would be better suited to the narrow passages and rooms, but playing for another thirty minutes I discovered that I could use the right analog stick and save myself the painfully annoying kamikaze runs. Just as I was getting comfortable with what I had at my disposal, the game introduces warp gates.
After the hour I’ve played, Warp gates are my favourite gamely element so far. It’s a simple concept. The player is faced with two paths to choose. One might include rescue pods, or the second and fourth switch to deactivate a forcefield, while the other path if filled with enemy ships and the first and third with to destroy. I was quickly warping back and forth in order to hit the switches in their corresponding order and collect the goodies laid before me. Velocity Ultra contains fifty zones. In my first hour I reached Zone 18, Kerridge Gate. Only 32 zones to go. Playstation 3 players will be able to join in from the 12/13th of November and can purchase Velocity Ultra through the PSN store. To help paint the picture created by Jon in his review. You can also take a look at this gameplay video from the team at Curve Studios. |
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