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PSM Quick Play: Alien Breed & Panic!

Posted by Chris K on November 13th, 2012 | 0 Comments | Tags: Alien Breed , Panic! , quick play

‘PSM Quick Play‘ are impressions from newly released PlayStation Mobile titles and are based on roughly 20 minutes or more of playtime. Full reviews are available at a later date.

Alien Breed

$3.99 – Tested on PlayStation Vita (Game was purchased)

I never played the original Alien Breed, but I can see why it has such a following. The game at its core is really hard to mess up: shoot aliens, collect items, go to different zones. The PlayStation Mobile version gives you everything from the original plus some extra stuff that really makes this worth the $4 they are asking.

Controls are rather simple, left stick moves and right stick shoots. The dual analog controls give the game a great feel, making it less of a chore to dispatch hundreds of swarming aliens. If you are looking for that old school directional shooting though, don’t worry the face buttons also will let your gun rain bullets. I should mention that there are a couple different modes you can play: Enhanced and Classic. Classic is just that, the original game in all its glory (well for the most part it is widescreen and looks great on the Vita). Enhanced adds a few visual and audio enhancements that give the game a fresh look.

As I mentioned before the goals are simple. You collection items like keys, ammo and credits while going to different checkpoints on the map. Keys can be used to open doors, while ammo as you might have guessed is for your gun. Credits are used in the in-game shop to buy things like lives, ammo, keys and even weapons. There are in-app purchases to get some start up funds, but you really don’t need it as all of you items persist throughout all of your playing. So it is really easy to go and grind for credits, ammo or keys if you need to. But if you want to have big guns right at the start there is nothing stopping your from going down that route.

I am really enjoying what I have played so far with Alien Breed and with 8 new levels plus the tease of more to come will have me playing this for some time.

Hot: Loads of content with more to come, Game is fun even after all this time.
Not: Can’t use control pad on Main Menu, Award for buying an in-app purchase, can’t swap visual styles from in-game

[gallery_imgs dir=”http://media.psnstores.com/psm/alienbreed/” num=”4″]

Panic!

$1.99 – Tested on PlayStation Vita (Game was purchased)

Panic! is a game I have been looking forward to for some time now. In it you have to stop an alien slime monster from devouring townsfolk in 30 different levels ranging from a small town to a busy metropolis. To do this you will have to create paths through the city for the slime to ooze down. But you will need to be mindful of where people are at all times.

By touching the screen you can destroy a building where it stands. This is great for making paths or clearing obstructions. A swiping motion will level a building leaving its debris in the path of the slime. You will need to use a combination of both of these to successfully finish each stage.

Much like other mobile games, each stage is graded by a star rating. The better you do, the more stars you earn. This can be achieved by limiting loss of civilians and destroying as little as possible. The campaign does a pretty good job of introducing different elements, like the ability to have civilians run away or needing to protect certain structures on the map.

Besides the game’s campaign there is also a survival mode where you can play an endless level with the use of limited resources. It is best to finish up the campaign before heading into this as you will not know what everything does. It has all of the different items unlocked from the start. There are also “Rewards” to earn while playing. You can see that developers are gearing up for when PSM allows trophies and it is nice to see this. I do wish there were leaderboards, even local ones, for the survival mode so I can see how my scores stack up.

With some support down the line, like new level packs, I would definitely come back to this game time and time again. It has that “Angry Birds” sort of appeal.

Hot: Unique premise, great for quick play sessions, survival mode gives the game some legs.
Not: Touch gestures being easily confused by the game (tap vs swipe), loads are a little long, no leaderboards for survival.

[gallery_imgs dir=”http://media.psnstores.com/psm/panic/” num=”4″]

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