I really like it when publishers are kind enough to sum up their game so everyone can know what they’re getting into: NormalTanks is a fast-paced multi-directional arcade shooter featuring classic run’n’gun gameplay with 3 difficulty settings. There are 8 challenging, dynamic and hazardous environments to tackle and inside every enemy base or forests and mountains, you have to choose your battle tactics carefully to survive! Over the 30 dangerous enemies types on your heroic way, including various tanks, heavy war machines and helicopters, robots and biomechanical creatures, pillboxes and SSM missile sites and every level ends with its own, unique boss to defeat. Crash, kill and destroy them all to move forward! By using special power-ups, you can upgrade your tank abilities: cannon, machine gun, and armor to help you progress. Some levels transform you to tiny bot to stealth pass near the enemies and deactivate energy fields or to giant walking robot, which demolish everything on his way to the alien’s hive! Now it’s reviewing time! Review Liked the video? Ok, now let’s find out how to engage in this action packed roll around the dirt stained warzone. Since this is a minis, dual analog controls are out and we must use the following setup: Move with D-Pad, rotate turrets with right side buttons, autoaim by hitting the analog stick, fire with R and, finally, switch weapons with L. Controls take about 5 minutes to sink in since this is one of those games where dual analog control WOULD have been welcome… but that has more to do with the hardware itself and how it doesn’t have said control input available. As soon as you’re dropped into the action you’ll notice an ammo counter on the upper left part of the screen for your two available weapons and this in turns helps you KNOW you must always be on the lookout for ammo pickups and not go around firing like crazy all over the place just for kicks (well, at least that’s true when playing on the higher difficulties, especially if you’re going for a single life speed run). But wait, what is that next to your ammo counters? Why, it’s a Health bar! Get hit X amount of times (X = Health Bar minus Health Square Lost divided by being too slow to dodge) and you’ll be vanished from this earthly plane and must pass the rest of eternity surrounded by the dark flames of… what? Wrong game? Oh, my bad! You just continue right were you got destroyed if you have extra lives to spare on you. To make things interesting, you can actually power up your weapons, health bar, total amount of lives left, current health level or tank speed thanks to pickups that become available as you go along each level or that are placed when they pop out after shooting down and enemy. Died? Then you just lost all your power ups! Since the game isn’t a “one shot and your dead” type of game you can plan accordingly and be more cautious when low on health as loosing all your power ups would certainly put you at a disadvantage. Don’t know about you, but the game reminds me of the Contra/Ikari Warriors franchises which, as a child of the 80′s and beyond, is always great news. Once you find your second Cannon power up things get even more fun and the “run, blast and crush” feeling from back in the day comes to life in many, many colors and shades of said colors that are colorful… color! Be careful as trees (color coded green!) and other elements can provide cover for your enemies and you won’t be able to spot them until it’s too late, just like in the old days! As it has been said, you only have two weapons available: * Cannon: Stong but a bit slow and it has low ammo. What can it take out? EVERYTHING! * Machine Gun: Lots of ammo, very fast but does about 1/10th of the damage the cannon just got us used to. It’s better for smaller, weaker or faster moving enemies or to take down missiles that are making their way towards you. You don’t just run into the usual enemies here and there and call it a day as some of them pop out of the ground below you, and try to be as sneaky as possible about it, with the only goal of exploding once they’re touching your beautiful “jungle green” tank finish and take down your health along with them. What is very fun is spoting one of them damn spiders and racing backwards while your frantic self tries to shoot it as it zig-zags and wobbles on it’s way to your awesome killing machine. Another great thing is how there’s actual Boss battles sprinkled around the game that test you every now and then. Bosses are usually big, wide and powerful… but they also tend to not only get weirder but crazier as you progress on and on. What is the easiest way to defeat them? Lots of power ups, lots of extra lives, slurpee, practice, perfection, non-aspirin and a will of steel. Stay alert! There’s three difficulty settings to choose from with Easy being very, very easy, normal taking things closer to the extreme and hard running the difficulty dial off a cliff, past the extreme and onto the masochistic realm of NES games… and we like it like that! Level 4 introduces another element to the mix: park your tank and take control of one of those annoying, burrowing spider mines! Use your new found “friend” to take out barrier generators so your tank can continue to make some progress and help enemies go BOOM! Eventually actual mines start popping up everywhere which forces you to take things slowly and watch were you step… or force you to just go forward like crazy and hope you have enough health left as to not go BOOM yourself. NormalTanks is a fun, old school, fairly priced, addictive and fast paced game you should add to your collection if you own a PS3 or a PSP. I’ll leave you with this final comment: That Contra vibe I talked about earlier? Tooooootally off the charts once you get to level 8. I smiled oh so much once I got to that final point that it made my day. Review Pros Cons Fun, pick up and play game Old School! Great price Only two weapons available Rating 81% Published by Beatshapers Cost – $2.99 Available on PSN (for PSP or PS3) Want to get this game? The you can: Buy a $20 PSN Card! Buy a $50 PSN Card! Other Information Disclaimer – A copy of the game was supplied by the publisher for this review. – Game was completed before writing this review. – Total amount of time played: 3 hours. Giveaway We also have a US PSN Code to giveaway to a lucky member from PS3Blog.net. Just a FYI you can play the game on a PS3 or PSP. It will be simple to enter this giveaway. You have until midnight on June 29th to enter. Winner will be picked at random on June 30th. Details below: Worth 1 Entry: Just leave a comment below on what you would do with a tank. Worth 1 Entry: Tweet this message and include a link to your tweet with your comment below. Follow @ps3blogdotnet @Beatshapers & retweet for a chance to win NormalTanks! Then post a link to your tweet here http://bit.ly/jTdXod To find a link to your tweet, just click the date under your tweet Worth 1 Entry: Leave a reply on this Facebook Status update with a link to your PS3Blog.net Profile Good luck!

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NormalTanks Review (minis) + Giveaway

As a follow up to my Amy Preview and Impressions post , the official PSblog posted their own preview . This video displays the great visuals I mentioned, while showing Lana’s progression from “Healthy” to “Zombie.”

Continued here: 
Amy “Zombification” Video

Great game! Beatshapers, enlighten us! StarDrone is a high-speed action thriller with a mix of arcade action, pinball, breakout, physics and collect-the-objects. PlayStation 2 version is compatible with PlayStation®Move motion controller and playable with normal DualShock or SixAxis controllers and created for HDTV and stereoscopic 3D (coming with separate patch). The game features over 50 levels of unparalleled gaming experience and extraordinary replay value. Cause your attackers to crash with rapid speed while collecting gems and power-up enhancements. Overcome perilous hazards and elude zillions of enemies in an effort to complete each stage with a record score. With simple gesture controls and unique, intuitive game play mechanics, StarDrone is friendly to beginners, at the same time challenging enough to bring you back for more and more. What you really want to know RIGHT NOW is… how do you play? You can control the action with the Dualshock 3 by moving the analog stick to choose the beacon you want to use as a traveling aid and press a button to go round and round, like a record . Star Drone is also PS Move compatible. How compatible? You point at the screen to highlight the beacon you want to use as an anchor point so you can orbit around it and press a button to lock your on it. Letting go of the button will send you flying depending on at what angle and direction your unit was before being sent on a journey through the stars. This video will help you understand how the game works: I like the music and so will you! StarDrone has some fast paced and exciting music to go along with all the bright colors and effects displayed on screen. Said music had the advantage of never feeling dull, repetitive, shallow, unnecessary, “just because” or all of the above at any time during my many hours of game playing. The levels start out very small and take just a couple of seconds to be completed but this is mainly to allow you to get the hang of things. Said threshold is reached once you’re at either level 3 or 4 at the latest. Then you like, totally, like, find your groove at level 6. You even get to see a map for the level you’re currently hovering over on the level select screen which helps you get an idea of how difficult said map can be once you go, go, go! Want some extra motivation? You can obtain medals for your fast paced effort… which is a bit hard at first. You see, medals are tied to your completion time for each level and since you have to finish them very quickly to make the grade. You might be a bit annoyed when you don’t get a medal on your first try. It pretty much seems like the game is asking for perfect, synchronized runs but eventually you get “in the zone” and find yourself obtaining silver or gold medals on your first try. There’s four levels types available: – Collect all stars: Get ALL stars on the level to progress onto the next one. – Destroy all enemies: It’s payback time! – Collect all star shards: You see, there was this big star that got shattered so we would like you to go and gather all the pieces and bring them back. Thanks! – Get to the finish line: Race for the giant green GOAL circle at the end of the path. Easy, right? Oh, you’re so, soooooo wrong. The fact that collecting stars isn’t the main objective of the level doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go out of your way to obtain as many as possible. First of all, they add up to your score total for the level and that in turn allows you to go up on the leaderboards as you shoot for the number one spot. Second of all, collecting enough stars will allow you to enter Comet mode so you can start to sparkle and grow spikes that help you destroy your enemies simply by saying hello to them as closely as possible. Eventually you realize you actually have a health bar that needs to be carefully managed. Hitting a Creeper (creepy spherical baddies), being blasted by a rocket or thinking mines are your friend (they’re NEVER your friend, ok? Not even when they bring a bottle of wine or some sweet, sweet cake to a small get together) takes some of that away which is why you must then start to take into consideration that there are health recovery items sprinkled around each level that will prevent you from ending your tale oh too soon… restarting the level is what it is called. FYI: as Mega Man has taught us, spikes are a one hit kill so you must avoid them or else suffer the wrath of the pointy tyrant! There are three power ups available to help you out on this endeavor: Berserk: You go crazy! Watch as rage and anger enter your unit and suddenly transforms it into a lean, mean killing machine. Any enemies near you are instantly taken care of as you dash into one after the other until either they’re all gone or your Berserk time runs out. Magnet: Having trouble reaching for the stars all around you as you fly? Grab a Magnet and then stars will want to be near YOU. Any stars even remotely near your unit will be drawn closer and added up to your collection with the greatest of ease. Invisibility: Sneaky move! Enemies will be unable to see you which makes each trip easier on your thumbs BUT if you, for some reason, decide it’s a good idea to crash into them without having entered Comet Mode… you’ll get hurt, and pain is not something you want right now. Avoid floating mines, rockets and the turrets from which they spawn, Creepers and other hazards to fulfill your destiny and complete all 53 levels included with your purchase, just as the prophecy had established all those centuries ago! Just be careful of level 39. Had to do that one over 100 times before finally being able to bid it adieu. It was the ONLY level I had a problem with so maybe it was just me being “off” for a moment but ooooh how I never want to see good old 39 again. Still, one level out of 53 that gave me a hard time isn’t something to dock several points out of a game that carries around lots of Fun-Fun with it. Review Pros Cons Very fun and fast paced game Great music Lots of content for the asked price Damn you 39! Rating 92% Published by Beatshapers Developed by Beatshapers Cost – $7.99 Available on PSN Other Information Disclaimer – A copy of the game was supplied by the publisher for this review. – Game was completed before writing this review. – All trophies obtained. – Total amount of time played: 5 hours.

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StarDrone Review

The video after the jump is a collaboration of the social aspects to the Playstation Vita detailing cross game voice chat, party chat, game sharing, invites and online multiplayer. About 1 minute in the video there is a little skit on the multiplayer aspect of the Vita showing off Resistance. Now I’m sure it is in the pre-alpha stage at this time but this confirms that they plan on putting competitive multiplayer in Resistance which has not been mentioned before. This is great news and I’m sure we can expect many more announcements and hidden gems like this for some time to come.

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Resistance on the Playstation Vita Will Feature Online Competitive Multiplayer

Battlefield 3 will be featured on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on tonight as part of video game week on the show. EA’s Kevin O’Leary and DICE’s Johan Dohl will be showing the first Playstation 3 footage of Battlefield 3. Last week at E3 was amazing for Battlefield 3, but there was one question that stood out from the rest of the pack: When do we get to see Battlefield 3 on consoles? Well, you may want to pay attention to this next bit… This Thursday night (June 16), Battlefield 3 will be appearing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but more importantly, we’ll be playing the game on the PlayStation 3. That’s right! We’ll be giving you the world premiere of Battlefield 3 on consoles this Thursday night when DICE’s Johan Dohl takes the stage and gives Jimmy the first crack at Battlefield 3 for the PlayStation 3. Be sure to tune in, or set your DVR to record, for the world premiere console gameplay of Battlefield 3 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this Thursday on NBC at 12:35/11:35C! I’ll put up the video tomorrow, when it goes live on the web.

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Battlefield 3 on PS3, Tonight, 12:35 EST!

First off check out our very own Eddie Live Blogging during the Sony Press Conference! The main event starts at 5:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM ET but Eddie will be there before hand covering things. For example the pre-show from 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM PT Here is a list of live video streams of the Sony Press Conference. If you find any others, please let me know and I’ll update the list. g4tv Gamespot livestream / gamespot us.playstation.com blog.us.playstation.com IGN 1up sceainvites Live Video Embed after the jump! LiveStream

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[E3 2011] Sony Press Conference Live Stream/Live Blog List

As if this game didn’t already look awesome, the newest Assault Horizon trailer still focuses a bit on cinematics and storyline with a few gameplay pieces thrown in, but what it shows is downright amazing. The game comes out in October, and I will most likely be picking that bad boy up. Be sure to check the rest of this article for the video (as we’ll be doing that with videos until after E3 to help make sure the site doesn’t get overloaded).

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[E3 2011] Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Trailer

The Twisted Metal series has always been about armored vehicles that were bristling with more powerful weapons than your average local gun store. Sweet Tooth, being the literally fiery headed clown that he is, upped the ante in Black with a robot mode for his vehicle. In the next Twisted Metal he meets up with someone who may just prove to be more than a match for him and his transforming ice cream truck. The game’s arsenal of weapons make for more creative kills, from missiles and miniguns to huge magnets and flying mascots. It will also mark the first time a Twisted Metal vehicle takes full advantage of flight with the addition of the minigun-quipped helicopter, Talon.

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E3 2011: Twisted Metal ‘Revenge’ Trailer

The North American Special E3 2011 site of Kojima Productions is now up and running. Within the site you will find more information about Kojima projects such as the “ Fox Engine ” (pictured above) and details about the High Def remakes of Zone of Enders and Metal Gear Solid. Also includes the video from the Pre-E3 Konami presentation with English subtitles and Hideo Kojima’s voice dubbed. Reminds you of a kung fu movie.

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Hideo Kojima E3 2011 Site Now Up & Running

EA’s PWNED show, has finally posted their video showing their visit to DICE . The 17 minute concentrates fully on Battlefield 3 and does show new footage. The PWNED Show Video Notes Notes: Animation: 1:40 – 2:38 Destruction: 2:39 – 3:17 Audio: 3:18 – 4:00 Scale: 4:01 – 4:36 Rendering: 4:37 – 5:21 BF3 Back to Karkand: 5:36 – 9:25 Weapons / Alan ‘Demize99′ Kertz / Physical Warfare Pack: 9:26 – 13:20 Battlefield History / Lars Gustavsson: 13:26 – 16:34 BF3 Strike at Karkand (Pre Alpha Footage) – 7:00 Rush confirmed for Karkand – 8:07 Karkand in FrostED (Map Editor) 8:27

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New Battlefield 3 Footage!