Tag: Playstation 4

#WeeklyGameMusic: Time Unfolds (Arrangement 1) (Birthdays the Beginning)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Allow time to fly by in this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic with the relaxing track, Time Unfolds (Arrangement 1) by Takayuki Nakamura. It’s the most common song that plays while playing TOYBOX Inc. & Arc System Works’ sandbox game, Birthdays the Beginning: a bizarre simulation about birthing new animals and species through terraforming. The music matches nicely to the mellow theme of the game that, quite frankly, is a lot more complex than the cutesy-graphics imply.

Like many highly-customizable games, Birthday the Beginnings have a story and creative mode. The narrative for the former stars an unnamed protagonist, who comes upon what seems like a mysterious treasure map. Curiosity gets the better of them, and they decides to follow its directions into a mysterious cave. When our hero delves too far into it, they seemingly get teleported into a new dimension where they can fly over a blank cube, and get pestered by an annoying Navi-like character explaining the rules. Our lead plants the “seed of life” handed to them onto the cube and starts terraforming in hopes of finding an escape from this dimension.

Birthday the Beginnings is essentially a simulation of evolution. Building mountains or digging valleys affects both the temperature of the new terrain, and the overall temperature of the cube. Balancing this aspect is critical to deliberately unlock more creatures, as older ones may need to die off. Aside from simply changing the land’s elevation, items are provided to augment the landscape slightly, including seeds of water and life to make waterfalls and new species accordingly.

Birthday the Beginnings was released on Steam for PC and Playstation 4. It’s sequel, Happy Birthdays, is seemingly only released in Japan for the Nintendo Switch.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Planet Novalis: Tobruk Crater (Ratchet & Clank)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Back to them classics! This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic is from Insomniac Games’ classic, Ratchet & Clank. Planet Novalis: Tobruk Crater, composed by David Bergeaud, merges together action, thrills, and a little bit of swing to create a unique track like no other. Come take a listen:

Ratchet & Clank stars a humanoid feline creature named Ratchet, and his robot buddy, Clank. The story begins with Clank crash-landing onto Rachet’s home planet. Fortunately, Ratchet is a very handy repair-creature, and fixes up Clank in no time. Thankful, Clank informs Ratchet that a greedy race of aliens are planning on overtaking Ratchet’s planet to use up all its resources. The two agree to team up and defend their home from these incoming forces, which of course meant they’ll have to up their…arsenal.

Ratchet & Clank is a third-person collectathon, much in the same vein as Banjo-Kazooie. Platforming and swinging wrenches will be one of the early moves the player will be learning when starting this game series. That said, perhaps the most stand-out feature the series has is its creative library of long-range weapons. That’s right, that raunchy pun in the prior paragraph isn’t just for show (or a reference to a subtitle in one of the series entries): these games are all about guns, and lots of it! Get ready to pummel aliens in sci-fi city environments, all bundled with wonderfully smooth and expressive animations that really adds to the cartoon-factor.

The first Ratchet & Clank was originally released on Playstation 2. It has been re-released for Playstation 3, Vita, and 4.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Song of the Ancients ~ Fate (NieR)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

In celebration of the upcoming NieR remake coming up…albeit, the Japan-only version instead of the better-liked Western one, this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic celebrates the game’s most memorable boss battle theme, the Song of the Ancients, Fate variation (this game also features an adoptive soundtrack). Composed by Keiichi Okabe, Kakeru Ishihama, Keigo Hoashi, and Takafumi Nishimura, this track from now-defunct Cavia classic fits well with the tragic undertone behind this Drakengard spin-off series.

In a future only a couple decades from now, Japan is totaled by the constant snow, lasting well past the summer. In addition to the uncomfortably consistent weather, humans has been haunted by a growing and deadly population of ethereal creatures, shades. In this mess, begins the survivalist journey between a man and his daughter…or brother and sister, depending on which version you’re playing (Gestalt and Replicant respectively). Unfortunately for our hero, the daughter seems to be suffering an incurable disease.

Oh, wait, nevermind: the actual game takes place a full millennium past modern times. And, uh, apparently magic exists? Huh, that’s weir-*shuffles notes*…no, the plots still the same. Our hero, Nier is still trying to keep his sickly daughter/sister, Yonah, alive. Shades still haunts the town Nier lives in. The world is in a constant state of decline. So, uh, how did they survive for so long? Are they amnesic? Why are we suddenly in a fantasy town setting? This…this is still Japan, right? And why is the opening dialogue filled near-back-to-back with slurs?

NieR is an action JRPG renowned for its innovative narrative techniques. At first blush, the game appears like a simple hack-and-slash. Those who’ve played the highly acclaimed NieR: Automata knows, however, the game rapidly changes gameplay, with an eccentric set of party members following along your bizarre adventure. In addition, the series’ trademark multiple endings, each providing a new perspective in the main story, is here as well. Much like how the gameplay changes perspective frequently, so to will the player’s understanding of the overall plot.

NieR was originally released in the US on the Xbox 360 exclusively. It’s remake, NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… will be released soon for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Always Been, But Never Dreamed (Tetris® Effect)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic is a start of a spiritual journey. This transforming song, Always Been, But Never Dreamed — composed by Noboru Mutoh and Yukitoshi Kihana, and sung by Kate Brady — marks the end of the incredible experience, Tetris® Effect, developed by Enhance Games, Monstars, and Resonair. Besides, it’s Tetris®; what could you be afraid of?

Much like prior Tetris® entries, Tetris® Effect is a block-based puzzle game where the player rotating and dropping Tetrominos — shapes consisting of 4 squares — into a grid in hopes of creating a horizontal line of blocks. The biggest twist this entry introduces…is the virtual reality experience. Co-produced by Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Rez and Lumines fame, and designed for Playstation VR, Tetris® Effect has Tetsuya’s patented visual-auditory experience. Just imagine being surrounded by a colorful, zen environment where every detail in the game reacts to the slightest change the player makes. The video above merely provides a preview, an emulation of how the track might be presented to the player; but it’ll likely change based on how they actually play.

Other inspirational features this entry adds includes actual levels, speed progression that more closely follows a narrative arc — e.g. speed increases in the rising action stages, then provides a breather in the falling actions — and the Zone mode, where the player can “stop time” to create as many lines as they can. Once the Zone expires within a certain time limit, all the lines are accumulated and scored as if the player created it all in one block drop.

Tetris® Effect is available on the Playstation 4 and PC via Epic Games Store. It’s compatible with PS VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: AIN’T NOTHIN’ LIKE A FUNKY BEAT (Lethal League Blaze)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Need a little more funk this week? We’ve got you covered! This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic is from Team Reptile’s Lethal League Blaze. The highlight? AIN’T NOTHIN’ LIKE A FUNKY BEAT, composed by Hideki Naganuma, of Jet Set Radio fame. Definitely keep those ears peeled, because the moment you blink, you’l-

Lethal League Blaze is a fast-paced, innovative fighting game that’s shockingly easy-to-learn (even simpler than Super Smash Bros.!), yet hard to master. First, the iconic weapons each selectable cast member wields cannot be used to hit the other opponents directly. Instead, the objective is to hit a PONG-like anti-gravity ball into three (or less) other players like a baseball. Players who gets hit will lose health: when it reaches zero, it’s game-over.

But wait, there’s more! The move-set all characters share — strike, bunt, and throw — effectively acts as rock, paper, and scissors: useful for catching your opponents off-guard. Furthermore, each time the ball gets hit, it’s velocity increases. Meaning as time marches on, the ball will get faster, and the matches become less predictable. Lastly, every character has their own special, which spices up the way they hit the ball in unexpected ways. Utilizing all these tools effectively should help you overwhelm your opponents!

Lethal League Blaze is available on PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam. It’s also available for download and purchase on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Finally, the game has quite a following, including competitive tourneys. For more info, I highly recommend checking out Akshon Esports’s primer on it.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Lone Survivor (Lone Survivor)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

It’s been a couple of weeks now since you’ve locked down in your own apartment. How long can you go like this? To ease your mind, you turn on your favorite music collection, “#WeeklyGameMusic.” Superflat Games’ melancholic theme song for their game, Lone Survivor, plays. A fitting theme by composer and game designer, Jasper Byrne.

As you settle down, you think to yourself, where does it all begin? It started with a contagious infection. At first, it was just on the news. But you then hear a friend of a friend catch it. Then your neighbors. And now it’s just you. You, a lone man with a surgeon mask on at all times so as to not catch the virus. All of your friends, now violent monsters…

You snap yourself out. No! Focus on surviving through this terrifying apocalypse! What do I need to do? Well, obviously, you need to collect some food. With monsters infesting your neighborhood, that’ll mean stealthily crawling through every nook and cranny to find what limited resources you can find. Fortunately, you have a pistol to incapacitate the monsters. It’s not much, since you’re a bit short on bullets…and said monsters are probably your friends…and you’ll probably lose your sanity shooting them…but it should help.

Well, you have to start somewhere. Saving at the bed all day isn’t going to get you anywhere. Time to open the door, to the sanity-slipping outside world…

Lone Survivor is available on PC and Mac via Steam. It’s also downloadable on Playstation 3, 4, Vita, and Wii U.

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