Top 100 of 2012 Recap: 50-46 – Gravity Rush, Ruin and Paper Mario

Three Vita titles, one for 3DS, and one we should probably just forget all about. That’s right – we’ve crossed the midway mark in our recap of TSA’s Top 100 most anticipated titles of 2012! Missed numbers 55-51? Here you go.

50 Ruin
“You may well remember Ruin from this year’s E3,” says Kris in Ruin’s original Top 100 description from December. I really hope you do remember Ruin from E3 2011, because despite it being a pretty exciting-looking game, it has almost completely disappeared since. In fact, aside from a brief recap of the game’s social features in September last year, Sony hasn’t mentioned the game publicly.

So here’s what has happened since Sony went all silent about Ruin. Number one: the game’s name has been changed to the brilliantly generic Warrior’s Lair. I’m not entirely sure why, but releasing a portable dungeon crawler called Ruin not long after Square Enix’s portable dungeon crawler Heroes of Ruin probably wouldn’t have come across as being all that original.

Having said that, Heroes of Ruin released back in June and Warrior’s Lair is still nowhere to be seen – but that’s for later. In fact, we wouldn’t have even known about the name change if it wasn’t for the fact that Sony silently updated the game’s page on Playstation.com back in January.

Number two: the game has been removed from the original developers Idol Minds and passed wholly onto Sony’s San Diego Studio (who were previously supervising). While Sony confirmed the change back in April after Idol Minds were confirmed to be working on the Ratchet and Clank HD Collection, they have yet to give any explanation about it. In fact, IM’s website doesn’t appear to have even been updated since just after the R&CHD announcement, which doesn’t bode all that well for the studio.

The following silence from SCE on the game likely comes from some kind of significant reworking of the project, and so I wouldn’t expect to hear anything from Sony until they really figure out what they want to do with Warrior’s Lair. It’s a shame – Warrior’s Lair was one of the reasons I was originally interested in Vita, and I’d love to see it eventually see the light of day.

49 Paper Mario

I can’t really tell you anything new about Paper Mario – except that it now has the subtitle “Sticker Star” – than Kris could in December. That’s not through laziness, it’s just that we’ve not really seen all that much new about the game since that first showing. So, Kris:

Whilst the combat has returned to the series’ original turned-based system, it will feature a heavier focus on platforming and more action sequences than other Paper Mario games. As for new mechanics, the game adds stickers that will give Mario access to power-ups.

So, yeah – Paper Mario: Sticker Star is coming exclusively to 3DS at some point later this year.

48 Gravity Rush

I’ve seen plenty of people around the web dismiss Gravity Rush as “arty filler”, designed to show off the Vita’s unique features in the lull between launch and the big fall lineup. Those people could not be more wrong – yes, the game has a very unique visual style, but there is a whole lot of game in there too. But don’t just take my word for it, here’s a more fully fledged opinion from Al.

“Gravity Rush is a complete, thorough game that takes the free-roaming mission structure from the likes of inFamous and wraps it all up in a really clever central mechanic […] and an emergent, rich plot that brings in some great characters and a series of little sub-plots,” says Al in his not-quite-a-review. “If you’re after something meaty, this is for you.”

I’m gonna go out on a bit of a limb here and actually recommend Gravity Rush over any other title for those looking for something to pick up with a shiny new Vita. Shocking I know, but while Uncharted, WipEout and the others are great games, they are also more of a known quantity already for those with a PS3.

Whether you are a big PS3 player or new to the brand with Vita, Gravity Rush is something that shows of the potential of the hardware (and it’s inputs) as well as offering one of the most unique gameplay experiences I’ve seen in years. In fact, earlier this year I was actually finding myself playing less and less, and distancing myself from gaming entirely due to how similar, predictable – and brown! – everything seemed to be, and Gravity Rush was that one game that brought me back.

While we never gave the game a score, the Metacritic is sitting at a very respectable 84, and I’d agree with that. It may not be perfect, and it suffers just a little visually from its sub-native resolution, but it is one of the freshest gaming experiences in years, and well worth a try.

47 Game of Thrones

It sounds to good to be true – an action RPG set in the Game of Thrones universe that aims to make the politics just as important as the swordplay – and apparently it is. “This effort has a few interesting ideas and a reasonably accomplished plot, fairly well progressed,” is how Peter sums up his review of the game. “But it stumbles mechanically over every good idea it has and douses it in some genuinely shocking presentation.” Ah.

Mechanically, this game is far too complex and fiddly for how ultimately unbalanced it is. It spends far too long trying to explain the intricacies of an overly complex combat system and the character building of the two pre-set playable characters (some customisation for fighting style, etc. is possible) and it delivers that fairly engaging story through the worst voice acting I’ve ever heard.

Characters are monotonous, mis-timed and completely devoid of personality. At times, it seems as though dialogue was built with spliced together lines from disparate passages read into a microphone in a rented lock up on a rainy industrial estate in some drab, grey town.

I really do encourage you to go and read the whole review, as it reads like a laundry list of what can go wrong with a game, and it’s clear that the game was rushed out the door to try and cash in on the popularity of the TV show. Here’s a recommendation though: even if you do like the show, just read up on those added bits of plot online, and save your cash for something much much better.

46 Street Fighter X Tekken

From a fighting game outsider’s point of view, I think one of my favourite articles that we published this year was this one about Street Fighter X Tekken. Specifically, Capcom were complaining about the low sales of the game, which they themselves recognised as being down to the “large number of other games in this genre that were launched within a short time” – mostly by Capcom themselves. You can find the whole list over in Joe’s post.

But heh, back to the game, and it seems like Capcom managed to pretty successfully combine the two series. The sister game to the still-missing Tekken X Street Fighter, Street Fighter X Tekken takes characters from both franchises and sees them facing off in a 2D arena in the style of the former.

Capcom has often been accused of iterating on its fighting games too much, with SFXT that’s definitely not the case. This is a fighting game which truly innovates in a number of key areas. It attempts to make it easier for newcomers to find a path into the myriad options and tactical load-outs without sacrificing any of the complexities which could make this a viable long-term option for the tournament scene. There’s only so much a developer can do within a genre, of course, but this feels like the first time in a while that big changes have been made with such resounding success.

As you can see from the summary of Peter’s review above, the single-player is clearly something to be praised.

Unfortunately the multi-player component has not been so lucky; it seems like there have been more posts about the bugs, fixes, and game-breaking patches for SFxT here on TSA than there even was about the game before launch. “Street Fighter x Tekken is a mess,” says Del in one such post. It sounds like things are better now than they have been, but if you’re planning on picking up the game to play mostly online, I recommend a good read up online first.

Whilst the PS3 and 360 versions released back in March, and on PC in May, the Vita version is still on the way. Adding in some extra characters and supporting cross-play with the PS3 version, the Vita edition should finally make it out on October 19th.

Guess what?! There’s more tomorrow – see you then!