Best of the Rest: NGP Games

Project: Sound Shapes

Why's this on top of a list that includes at least one already well-established title in the form of Super Stardust? Because Project: Sound Shapes (working title) was not only the surprise of the show, but also got the nod by some journalists as game of the show. And this is a day that included heavyweights such as Uncharted and Wipeout.

Stripped down to its barest form, Sound Shapes is a fairly basic 2D platformer, guiding a ball through a sequence of rooms towards a goal. The ball can stick to certain surfaces, bounce off others and is destroyed by anything that's glowing red. To understand the game's real mechanic, you've got to slip on a pair of headphones. See, Sound Shapes works as a low-fi Rez with music remixed with a scratch turntable. Each enemy movement is programmed to match the level's underlining beat, letting you time jumps based on rhythm alone. Collectables build on the initial basic soundscape, growing it in complexity as you progress.

All levels are created in an Level Editor that looks more like music editing software than anything, letting you drop in components based on particular instruments to build on the beat, changing their physical attributes through altering the pitch of the instrument's track. Anyone can take a level, build on it, remix it, and drop it back into the social networking mix that'll be the lifeline of the title.

It's one of those titles that'd defies usual descriptions and will likely need an entirely new vocabulary of terms (or at least riff off DJ magazines as way of shortcut) to describe accurately. It may not look, nor sound, like much, but this was the title, almost hidden between Super Stardust and an NGP tune-up of PSP's Resistance title, that caused the event to overrun by nearly forty minutes as a crowd gathered, purely through good word of mouth, to check it out. Again be warned though: it'll force you to buy a good set of headphones.

Super Stardust Delta

In between a collage of new experiences for Sony's new handheld sat an old familiar. Super Stardust Delta looked cracking on NGP's five inch screen. The Asteroids-style play that mapped a twin-stick shooter to a circular globe rammed with floating rocks to blow seven hells out of, one more found its natural home on the handheld, much as the HD version did on the PSP.

Obviously there's not much budging room to deviate from the central game mechanic, although the developer is promising new modes to coincide with the generational leap, but there's several nice new additions that play into the hardware's many abilities.

Thanks to the gyro-sensor, shifting the NGP lets you move the camera slightly to the sides to catch any incoming dangers, while shaking the machine triggers a screen-wide explosive. Tapping the touch screen anywhere on the map launches a missile (whether precision will hold up during an intense game remains to be seen). But it's the rear Touch Pad that offers the coolest little addition. Stroking up or down anywhere on the pad will extend or contract your attack beam. The former offers long-range shots, the latter forcing you up close but with the added incentive of multiplying the damage from its shortened emissions.

Little Deviants

It's a party title brimming with mini-games. Okay, initial inward groan out of the way? Great. It's a really fun party title brimming with cracking mini-games. The look is cutesy, granted. But it wouldn't be far from the truth to say Little Deviants offered the best application of the NGP's abilities. That's because it used every bloody one of them. The developer is apparently still working on mini-games as we type (thirty and change by the time of the event), suggesting an Acme factory worth of ideas worth mining by Looney Tunes, if ever that licence decides to invade the mini-game space.

Games vary in length, usually lasting around ten to fifteen minutes. Enough time to dip in without getting bored. In Hole Roll Control, we use the rear Touch Pad to create slopes on a flat plain to roll a ball past houses, around nefarious robots and into level-exiting portals.

House of Whacks drops you in front of a three by three grid of doors and with a Point Blank-style setup, requires you to knock out only the right targets that pop out from behind each, tapping the touch screen or rear Touch Pad depending on whether the critters are facing towards or away from you - this game proves to be the most mind-bending one to get your head around, and therefore the most fun.

Botz Blast is similar to the 3DS augmented reality games, overlaying nefarious flying robots onto whatever you're pointing the rear camera at and forcing you to spin the NGP using the gyro-sensor as the metal maniacs buzz around your head. Depth Charge is the longest of those we tried, forcing you to guide your character through underwater mazes to a ticking time bomb, dodging walls and whirlpools through shifting the NGP with - say it with us - the gyro-sensor.

Little Deviants was another title that surprised us for its level of enjoyment. Graft on online leaderboards and team-play on the same console and we're sold.

Reality Fighters

NGP's "clever use of the camera" game is also the portable's only one-on-one fighter currently, and is winning points on quirkiness. Sixteen fighting styles are represented, from your classic kung-fu to more oddball choices such as Disco and Zombie. Button layout tends towards the Mortal Kombat setup with two apiece for kicks and punches, one light, one heavy, with specials pulled off in classic Street Fighter quarter-circle fashion. Add onto this speciality weapons, and each character weighs in at around eighty moves total.

The game uses the NGP's two cameras to good effect. The front captures your face and plasters it to your custom fighter (ready to be decked in whatever fighting style and unlocked clothing items you have to hand) but its the rear camera that's fancier in its use. While you can use it to set the fights on AR placement cards, letting you move the camera round the action any way you see fit, point it anywhere else and whatever it sees is captured and used as the 3D fighter's arena.

Our representative for the day uses the street outside the presentation hall as background, the pedestrian walkway between two traffic lanes perfect for etching a narrow path for our competitors to fight. Its a good effect but with its limitations; the fighters will block anything behind them from view, but won't be blocked by anything passing by in front of them (and obvious issue, but breaks the illusion too easily) and once hands get tired holding the NGP straight, the perspective can become skewed.

Yet there's a fancy addition that looks like the NGP will use something similar to the 3DS Street Pass. Your custom fighter can be picked up by any other person's NGP in the vicinity, and challenge their fighter to a match when they next play. If they win, your character is added to their roster and any unlockables that character has earned.

As far as the fighting system goes, Reality Fighters is unlikely to give any of the top tier brawlers a run for their money, but its good to see developers are choosing to think outside the ring rather than replicate another game for an easy cash-in.