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Techtite's PS3 Reviews! |
"The only good thing we can say is: it's exactly like we remember it. Unfortunately, we really can't say more." ---from the review ----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------ Sidebar:: ----------------- Pros: Sound and graphics are everything we remember from the arcade classic, right down to the gibberish Q-Bert utters when hit. Cons: Yet who knew that making an exact replica of the original game also meant bringing back poor joystick control, and a six axis tilt option that is pretty problematic at best? |
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Q-Bert(PS3 Download)
A Techtite ReviewWhen it was first revealed that the Playstation 3 would have its own online "Playstation Store," people wondered the obvious: what classic arcade games would be available that wouldn't be simple rehashes of the same arcade games now on X-Box Live? Sony resolves this classic arcade limitation with Q-Bert. The good news: it's everything we remember it to be. The bad news...is pretty much the same. The original game was a perfect "fit" for its era. In a day and age where everybody was Rubik's Cube happy, here was an arcade game about a little critter jumping atop several colored cubes. His mission was to change all the cubes into a different color. Opposing him on this mission were creatures who either changed the cubes back to their original color, or just wanted to pounce on poor Q-Bert, and end his cube jumping days permanently. Every time this happened, though, no blood or gore was involved; you'd just have Q-Bert utter some digital gibberish, along with a cartoon balloon "expletive" like: @#$%!!! Those were the days of classic arcade fun...perhaps. "Perhaps"...? To be honest, Q-Bert had his problems, and no, we're not talking about springy snakes named Coily. For one thing he was from an age where joysticks were not "Six Axis." Four axis is more like it. This made controlling Q-Bert a bit of a challenge back in the day, when joysticks were made for up and down, left and right movement. It was actually pretty daring to offer a game back in those days, which had the character move diagonally, on his isometric pyramid of faux "3D" cubes. 1980's gamers shrugged of sluggish controls because we anticipated them. Over two decades later, will gamers holding their wireless "Six Axis" controllers be as forgiving? Without beating around the bush about this game's biggest flaw: PS3's Q-Bert is hard to control, period. While there is the option to enhance the experience with the Six Axis controller's "tilt" option, this turns out to be merely a novelty. You will play a game or two and utter something like, "Hey, fancy that; the PS3 controller can be tilted like a Wii remote!" Then after the "Game Over" screen appears for the third time in just 90 seconds, you'll realize this only makes the controls worse. Not that we don't want other games to allow us to tilt the controller whenever needed, though let's just say that whatever control limitations Q-Bert has, are only made worse with the "tilt" option. Yet as much of a spin control as it may appear to be, we must say that this game is affordable, and on a masochistic fanboy level, pretty fun. It is frustrating to a point, yet is a wonderful stroll down memory lane at the same time. The sound, graphics, and overall "feeling" of the original classic Q-Bert title are all there. Sure, the shaky controls are there too, though that, oddly enough, is the strongest memory we have of Q-Bert. In conclusion, we can only say this: things look good for the online Playstation Store, if just because they're making the same successes and failures that X-Box Live did, back in its early days. Sure, by now they're all playing Castlevania and Lumines, yet in the beginning there were XBLA titles as totally frustrating as Zuma; a similar control scheme mishap, which was originally meant for computers with a mouse, yet on the X-Box ---with its control stick---was just plain aggravating. X-Box learned its mistakes in time. So will the Playstation...eventually. ---Techtite
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