One of the first things I did on Thursday after being let into the New York Comic Con was head straight to the videogames.  One of the first games I tried was “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale”.  I was looking forward to giving the game a try for a while because of the “Super Smash Bros.” comparison.  Unfortunately this game is no “Super Smash Bros.”.

“Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale” is a crossover fighting game developed by SuperBot Entertainment for the PS3 and PS Vita.  It combines various videogame characters, and stages in a large fighting game similar to “Super Smash Bros.”.    You can play 2v2 or a 4 player Battle Royale.   There hasn’t been any information released yet on the single player mode of the game.

Some of characters include Dante from “Devil May Cry”, Raiden from “Metal Gear Solid”, and Big Daddy from “Bioshock”.  Those characters may seem weird, because they aren’t from PlayStation exclusive games.  I feel like the developer should have gone deeper into the PlayStation history to come up with more characters that were exclusive to PlayStation consoles.  Especially for a game called “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale”.

First I played on the Vita as Kratos, and everything started out just fine.  I was pulling off a lot of his standard moves that you see in the God of War games.  The Vita version unfortunately falls apart when characters get far away.  The screen pulls out to fit all 4 characters, and they become really hard to see.  At many points  I lost myself on the screen, and thought I was someone else.  While the Vita screen is big for a handheld, it’s not big enough to properly see things in this game.  It’s a good thing to that Sony is giving away the Vita version if you pre-order the PS3 version, because no one should buy this.

The PS3 version on what seemed to be a 55″ screen looked much better.   I chose Raiden, and wasn’t as familiar how his moves should look, but they still seemed impressive.  I rarely lost myself and because of that the game felt better.  Despite the fact that I was able to follow the game better, I wasn’t enjoying the game.  The big difference between this and Smash Bros. is that you have to use a special move in order to beat someone.  There aren’t any ring-outs or other things which removes the fun and complexity that Smash Bros. has.  Instead I beat you up to build up my special move meter.  Once the meter reaches at least level 1 (of 3 levels) I can pull of a special move that will take out 1 or more people.  The special moves are impressive to see, but it shouldn’t be the only way I can win.

I was looking forward to possibly buying this game in the future, but I think I’ll wait until it’s eventually free on Playstation Plus.  Right now if you are a Playstation Plus member you can get hands on with the beta and a limited number of characters.  To any non Playstation Plus member, you can join the beta next week.