FirstPlay And The Minis

FirstPlay, the innovative console-based magazine from Future Publishing, the guys behind the Official PlayStation Magazine, goes from strength to strength.  We’ll be the first to admit that the early issues aren’t nearly as impressive as the more recent ones, and as the service gains pace and attracts more features like the recent free Minis, initial perceptions make way for a comfortable, regular dose of PlayStation reporting, reviews and community bulletins.

It’s the Minis angle that interests me the most, and the current deal with wonderful Australian developers HalfBrick has seen their entire catalogue of PSP Minis incorporated into FirstPlay as free gifts over the last two episodes (and two more coming up).  These aren’t throwaway, simple games – Halfbrick’s library is unmatched, with gems like Blast Off happily sitting at the top of the Minis tree.  Issue 10′s Rocket Racing is a really nice treat, and it’s free when you buy FirstPlay.

I spoke to Halfbrick’s Phil Larsen about the collaboration, and starting by asking him how the deal came about.  “After we released our first three Minis,” he said, “I received an email from FirstPlay who had taken notice of our work. At the time we had more Minis than anyone else and were still working on more, so thankfully we were the first choice when it came to a collaboration with the FirstPlay team.”

“We’re often the first port of call when someone mentions a Minis developer,” says Phil, speaking to us about why he thinks they were chosen as the Minis showcase partner at this stage in FirstPlay’s life . “That’s a pretty big thing for us, and thankfully the feedback has been great. We have four Minis, the two most popular being Age of Zombies and Blast Off. We’re really happy to see the response to both of those titles, as we knew they were the strongest and had a great market on PSN.”

And while praise for Halfbrick’s Minis is pretty much universal, it appears the antipodean studio is full of good things to say about FirstPlay.  “It’s awesome,” Larsen told us.  “The PlayStation network is all about slick, well-presented and logical access to heaps of data, and FirstPlay embraces that same style. The content is there, the system is there and the production values are off the charts.”

“The cycle of receiving games content and reviews has gone from print to online, and I think Firstplay is a nice program that allows everything to be accessed from the console in a console-like fashion. No dodgy web browsing, but a solid next-gen content system.

And while clearly the cheapest way to grab these Minis is via the 99p FirstPlay download (or better still, a subscription which saves you more money) Phil isn’t worried that his games are currently being offered for free.  “That’s not actually how it works,” he says.  “As FirstPlay is a paid service, we have set it up so that users who purchase a FirstPlay subscription can then download the games as a free bonus from there. If you don’t have a subscription but still access the PlayStation Store, the games will be priced as per normal.”

You can buy single episodes of FirstPlay (or subscribe for 90 days) direct from your PS3 via the PlayStation Store.  For more information on FirstPlay, click here, or you can see what each episode contains and our thoughts on the service via this handy link.