Posted by Al
Wed, 15th Sep 2010
Hi everyone,
Just a quick one to let you know that our fantastically mental rhythm action game, Vibes, is now on sale on the SCEE PSN Store for the bargain price of £2.49 (€2.99). My boss has asked me to point out that that's a wopping 38% off. Wowzers!!
For that you get 13 songs from indie bands, 3 difficulty levels, brilliantly designed levels (IMHO!) and some utterly insane background visuals (pulsating rubber ducks and dancing sumos? Check!).
If you never experienced Vibes the first time around, what are you still doing here? Check it out!
As a super-convenient reminder, the Vibes trailer can be viewed on Youtube by clicking here.
And finally, try to beat our very own Steven Barber's Hard play through of 'Itsuka' by Taro Gold if you dare! You can witness the epic genius of Steven's perfect run here.
See ya!
Posted by Al
Tue, 14th Sep 2010
Hello yet again!
As a challenge to those of you who’re already playing (and hopefully enjoying!) Ace Armstrong vs. the Alien Scumbags!, here are my very own personal-best high scores on the game:
Novice: 58232 (game complete)
Pro: 57931 (game complete)
Elite: 58121 (game complete)
A hint for when you are playing the game: you get points for every bullet that causes damage, so it’s worth firing at anything that’s unlucky enough to get in front of you. Some other hints for those who’re struggling with Ace’s old-school-awesome level of difficulty are:
a) Fire while using the Recycl-o-Ray! – You’re still able to fire Ace’s main cannon (X button) while using the Recycl-o-Ray, so do so. It’ll give you more time.
b) Fire the cannon and recycled weapons simultaneously when crowded! – Once you’ve picked up a recycled weapon you’re still free to fire the cannon at the same time (pressing X and O together). This delivers up to double the firepower of a regular weapon, so use to your advantage!
c) Ditch weapons if they’re no good in your current situation! – Sometimes you’ll suck up the wrong weapon or be left with a weapon that’s not useful for the current segment of the game. When this happens use Triangle to ditch it. This is also an invaluable trick in certain areas. The game favours different weapons at different times, so try to learn the best weapons to pick up and when.
d) Be aggressive and ‘zone’ space! – Don’t give the enemy a chance to swarm you. On Rookie difficulty regular Scumbags only take one hit so don’t let them anywhere near you. After just a few sessions you’ll know when and where they spawn on a level, so don’t give them the chance to get on screen! Be hyper-aggressive – Ace is all about ‘zoning’ (i.e. controlling space in the play area to your advantage) so keep this in mind. Find the best area on the screen and fight to control it. There’s always a way through the enemy waves that requires a minimum of enemy destruction – find it! :-)
e) You can’t kill everything! – There are some baddies in Ace Armstrong that simply aren’t meant to be killed. Many of the buzzsaws in particular are there to zone Ace into a region of the screen for gameplay reasons – while they can be destroyed you’re looking at 15-25 shots (depending on difficulty) to do this: you’re never going to get them all. Outside of buzzsaws and the boss’s body parts being brought on to screen during Level 3 it’s possible to destroy everything that moves in Ace. But you don’t HAVE to do this and shouldn’t even think of trying until you’re a lot more comfortable with the wave patterns and difficulty. Persevere and you will get there, I promise. :-)
That’s all for this week I think! We’ll be posting more hints and even videos if the demand is out there – if you want help let us know by dropping us a comment! :-)
Cheers,
Al
Posted by Al
Mon, 13th Sep 2010
Hello, hello,
Apologies for those of you who continue to wait for your hero, Ace Armstrong, to make his appearance on the PSN Store in SCEE territories.
There’s no easy way to say this – the game is now going to launch on 6th October 2010. :-( However, this is for a good reason – at least to me it is! ;)
To cut a long story short, SCEE are so pleased with what we’ve done with Ace Armstrong vs. the Alien Scumbags! that we’re now being given the benefit of pre-release marketing support (a first for a Minis title as far as I know) from SCEE's internal team.
As part of this, Ace Armstrong game codes will be sent out to around 800 (wow!) of SCEE’s Marketing contacts across the territory before launch (a service SCEE have never offered before) and we’ll also be able to issue our own press contacts with limited numbers of pre-release vouchers (incidentally, interested parties can contact us here on the blog and we’ll arrange something via email).
To cut a long story short, the PSN Store release date for SCEE has been bumped to give these press contacts time to look at – and hopefully report on – the game, pre-release.
We’ll also be getting extensive blog and banner support as well as offering PlayStation Plus users a 20% discount on launch day - another first! Yay!
While these measures do mean you guys have to wait two more weeks, we’re really excited as a company to be getting so much support purely off the back of the quality of a game we’ve created. This has all been offered to us out of the blue, so it’s kind of an honour for us, and something we'd be mad to pass up, so I hope you understand the reasons behind this. :-)
If there are any questions regarding this or general comments (I am readying my flameshield in anticipation as I type this!), please feel free to chip in.
Cheers for now,
Al
