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Vib-Ribbon launching in North America via PSN tomorrow
At last, Vibri is free. Sony announced today that PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura's vector-graphics rhythm game Vib-Ribbon will hit the PlayStation Network tomorrow, marking its long-awaited North American debut. Released for the original PlayStation in 1999, Vib-Ribbon puts players in control of Vibri, a bizarre rabbit-like creature who must vault on-screen obstacles in time to a backing music track. In a novel twist at the time, Vib-Ribbon allowed players to insert their own music CDs and create playable levels based on individual tracks, often upping the game's challenge far beyond the difficulty of its default soundtrack. Though Vib-Ribbon was released in Japan and Europe, a North American version never surfaced. This week's PSN release will be the first time Vib-Ribbon is officially available in the United States, and Sony notes that its CD-scanning feature will arrive on the PlayStation 3 fully intact. [Image: Sony / NanaOn-sha]
Strider 2, original arcade Strider team up on PSN next week
Capcom's over-the-top arcade side-scroller Strider 2 will launch for the PlayStation Network next week as a PSone Classic, the publisher confirmed yesterday. Released in arcades in 1999, Strider 2 chronicles the unlikely acrobatic adventures of its ninja star Strider Hiryu, who scales gigantic structures and battles robotic creatures within a futuristic cityscape. The latest series entry, Strider, premiered earlier this year as a downloadable console and PC release. Hiryu also appears in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, most recently returning in 2011's Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The PSone version of Strider 2 includes a port of 1989's Strider arcade game, which will be bundled with next week's downloadable PSN release. Strider 2 will be available for the PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS Vita on October 7. [Image: Capcom]
Six more import PS1 games slated for PSN release
Publisher GungHo Online America continues its campaign to bring under-the-radar, import-only classics to North America, announcing that six more Japanese-language PSOne games will hit the PlayStation Network soon. The company's upcoming re-releases include the Recettear-like item shop RPG Dungeon Shoutenkai: Densetsu no Ken Hajimemashita, pinball game Dragon Beat Legend of Pinball, terrain-shaping planetary simulation Neo Planet, oddball rock-paper-scissors action-RPG Tokyo 23ku Seifuku-Wars and idol-raising strategy games Heroine Dream and Heroine Dream 2. GungHo hopes to "bring over as many PSOne Classics as possible," and previously spearheaded North American releases for games like Zanac X Zanac and Makeruna Makendo 2. GungHo's PSOne import games are priced at $5.99 apiece. [Image: GungHo]
PlayStation 99-cent sale discounts Tokyo Jungle, Super Stardust, more
The PlayStation Network Store is hosting a flash sale for dozens of games this weekend, each discounted to 99 cents. The sale spans PS3, Vita and PSP games as well as both PS2 and PSOne Classics, such as the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon series. The sale features standout gems like PopCap's Plants vs Zombies, Jonathan Blow's Braid, Sony's own Tokyo Jungle and Housemarque's Super Stardust HD. It also includes full seasons of episode Telltale-developed games Back to the Future and Jurassic Park as well as the adventure studio's five-game Tales of Monkey Island bundle. The full list of games included in this weekend's sale can be found after the break. [Image: Sony Online Entertainment]
Bust-A-Move 4 on the PlayStation Network this spring
Natsume announced that it will release a digital PSone Classics version of Taito's Bust-a-Move 4 this spring, bringing the classic bubble-bursting puzzler to the PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS Vita. Bust-a-Move 4 expands on the color-matching gameplay of Taito's arcade-born Puzzle Bobble series with new pulley mechanics, challenging players to balance bubble clusters throughout its single-player Puzzle mode. The game also includes a friendship-straining competitive Versus mode, along with an Edit mode that allows players to create and save up to 25 custom level layouts. A specific release date for Bust-a-Move 4 was not announced. [Image: Natsume / Taito]
PSN Tuesday: Thief, Pac-Man Museum, Lords of Shadow 2
The PlayStation Store updated today with new games across every platform, led by the launches of Thief and Basement Crawl on PS4. Thief joins another new release in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 on PS3 this week. PS3 owners can pick up The Batman Bundle, which includes Batman: Arkham Origins and the Batman: The Dark Knight Returns animated film as well as the Tales of Symphonia Chronicles bundle that comprises both Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Rounding out this week's PS3 additions is Magus and Pac-Man Museum, the latter being a $20 pack of games spanning the yellow gobbler's series. Vita owners only get one new game this week: Mahjong 2 World Contest, as well as PSOne Classic Herc's Adventures, also available on PS3 and PSP. Though Vita owners can now download the Crackle app to watch movies and TV shows, the marquee media streaming addition this week is the WWE Network app on PS3 and PS4. [Image: Square Enix]
Tomba 2 caps off latest PSOne retro batch from MonkeyPaw
Niche-focused publisher MonkeyPaw Games has revealed a slate of six classic PSOne games set to launch digitally via the PlayStation Network through January and February. The studio's Retro Rush campaign will conclude on February 18 with the PSN re-release of Tomba 2: The Evil Swine Return, a cult-favorite platformer originally released in 1999. MonkeyPaw previously oversaw a PSN reissue of the original Tomba back in 2012. Building up to Tomba 2's return, MonkeyPaw will launch a new PSOne import game weekly, starting with tomorrow's release of Double Dragon. No, it's probably not the Double Dragon that you're thinking of – it's a port of a Neo Geo fighter loosely based on the 1994 film adaptation of Double Dragon, not the original 1987 arcade game. MonkeyPaw will finish out January with PSN releases for Toshiba EMI's beat-'em-up Lucifer Ring and Human's firefighting sim The Firemen 2: Pete and Danny. February will see the release of Nichibutsu's arcade revamp Hyper Crazy Climber and Data East's horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up Wolf Fang before Tomba 2 hits on February 18.
Get three PSOne games free via PlayStation Home scavenger hunt
PlayStation Home has been updated with a virtual PlayStation 4 area, where users can embark upon a most mighty and epic quest. A "Quest For Greatness" as Home calls it. Okay, so maybe it's less "epic" and more "find 13 hidden cards," but PSOne games Twisted Metal, Warhawk, and Destruction Derby are yours for the taking should you complete the hunt, along with lots of PS4-branded virtual swag. The Quest For Greatness can be accessed via the Experience PlayStation 4 area, which is connected to the Home main hub. Inside the Experience PS4 area is a giant PlayStation Vita, and it is here your quest begins. Reddit posters have claimed that the ordeal shouldn't take more than roughly 10 minutes, so if that amount of time for three PSOne games playable on your PS3 and Vita sounds worth it, log onto PlayStation Home and get to collecting.
Sony parties like it's 1999 with PocketStation app on Vita
The PocketStation was a small memory card with a monochrome LCD screen and five buttons that launched for Sony's first PlayStation console in 1999, allowing players to complete mini-games while away from their systems. Clearly feeling a little nostalgic, Sony has launched a PocketStation app for Vita in Japan. The app is free for PlayStation Plus users, and is compatible with classic PS One games that used the device in its heyday like Final Fantasy 8, Ape Escape and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. The hardware manufacturer teased a return of the handheld device last week, though it was unclear whether Sony's plans involved a new physical device at all. As it stands, the PocketStation app is limited to Japanese Vita owners, and there is no indication yet that it will come stateside or launch on PS3 or PS4.
PSOne Imports get extra challenging this week
Looking for a new challenge from an old game? Gungho Online Entertainment has a new batch of PSOne Imports this week, which includes Sentimental Graffiti, a dating game that is, as far as we know, untranslated. Do you dare attempt to scale the walls of Japanese text?You can also try your kanji dictionary skills with RPGs First Queen IV, Rung Rung: Oz no Mahou Tsukai, and Favorite Dear: Enkan no Monogatari. For a full-on language and culture shock, here's a mahjong game, Mahjong Uranai Fortuna: Tukino Megamitachi. Or a more familiar (but still Japanese) card game, Trump Shiyouyo!Somehow, the DICE-developed racing game, Motorhead, got mixed in with these imports, all coming Tuesday.
PSA: Two Tomba games out now on European PSN
Tomba! and Tomba! 2 are out now on the PSone Classics section of the European PSN for £6.99 each, a MonkeyPaw Games rep told Joystiq today. The games, ports of the original NTSC versions, had some emulation issues but are now available for download on PS3 and Vita.Additionally, Tomba! 2 is being discussed with SCEA for release in North America, and would be available on PSN for PS3 and Vita as well. Tomba! was originally scheduled to launch on the European PSN in September.
GungHo on its new PSOne import initiative
Welcome to Living in the Past, a weekly column about what's new in old games. Now get off our lawn. Last week, GungHo Online Entertainment America joined the ranks of PSOne Imports publishers with a bumper crop of six Japanese games, all available on the PlayStation Store for $5.99 each. Since it's so rare – an initiative only taken to heart by MonkeyPaw Games in the past, and one that requires extensive licensing work for a potentially niche product – I asked Gungho president and CEO Jun Iwasaki about the company's plans."We are hoping to bring over as many PSOne Classics as possible," Iwasaki, who previously ran XSEED, told me, "but oftentimes these releases require license deals." He explained that the somewhat unusual collection of games, ranging from shooter collection Zanac X Zanac to dekotora board game Art Camion Sugorokuden, wasn't curated according to some unifying theme. "We were able to secure the licenses for these particular PSOne Classics, so we went ahead and released them first."So far, Zanac x Zanac seems to be getting the most attention out of the six titles," Iwasaki added.
Solving the 3D platforming problem in Jumping Flash
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. I never owned a PlayStation during the 32-bit era. I had a Sega Saturn, which I loved, though that didn't stop me from envying my PlayStation-owning friends. I was lucky enough to play a handful of games on friends' consoles – Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Vagrant Story – but I missed out on most of the games that would help solidify Sony's legacy in the game industry.One of those games was Jumping Flash. It was a platformer, and it was in 3D, a mind-boggling concept back in 1995. With no PlayStation, all I had were magazines filled with glowing reviews and screenshots, showcasing a beautiful, colorful world and a cool mechanical rabbit. With YouTube still a decade away, I couldn't even watch a Let's Play. All I could do was imagine, imagine what it must be like to leap and soar over those wonderful floating islands.Now, thanks to the magic of PSOne Classics and a Black Friday Vita purchase, I can play it pretty much whenever I want. I've done so for the past few days, and it turns out that Jumping Flash holds up surprisingly well. Not only that, it makes for a great portable game.
Gungho releases six PSOne imports
Joining the esteemed ranks of Capcom and MonkeyPaw Games and nobody else ever, publisher Gungho Online America has released a suite of weird, random Japanese games to the PSOne Imports Store on the PlayStation Network.The six simultaneous releases include shmup compilation Zanac X Zanac, Kendo Rage sequel Makeruna Makendo 2, mech vehicle combat game Vehicle Cavalier, Art Camion Sugorokuden – a board game about the garish "dekotora" trucks in Japan – and no fewer than two games with stars in their titles, the match-three puzzle game/platformer hybrid Lup★Salad and the action rock-paper-scissors game Finger★Flashing.All six will be available on PSN today when the store updates, for $5.99 each.%Gallery-172607%
Sony adds 26 more PSOne games to Vita store
The North American PS Vita store launched its PSOne Classics section this week with a ... modest selection. However, SCEA is showing an impressive effort to fix the situation, adding 26 more games to the store for download today – on a Thursday, not the usual PlayStation Store update day.The newly buyable games include classics like Klonoa, Alundra, Grandia, Tomba, and several others that don't end with the letter A. The full list is after the break. Of course, there are still dozens of other games that you can get on your Vita by buying them on PS3 and transferring – and it's still a phased rollout of games that are already on PSN – why? But this is a step toward making them available in a sensible manner.
Vita's PSOne support is a Classic blunder
Welcome to Living in the Past, a weekly column about what's new in old games. Now get off our lawn. The PlayStation Vita officially supports PSOne Classics games now. But not all of them, at least not officially. As of today, you'll be able to get .... thirteen of them from the PlayStation Store directly through the Vita. You can get many that aren't on the store, if you have previously bought them on PS3 or PSP, by checking your account's download history and downloading from there.But that doesn't work for every game – many PSOne games are not available for download onto Vita through your history. Many of those can be copied to Vita from PS3 ... if you happen to have them sitting on your PS3 without installing them. And that doesn't cover all games either.This is absurdly complicated, and doesn't make a damn bit of sense. And it's completely familiar to any Vita owner who has tried to copy their digital PSP collection over.
Report: Vita workaround lets you transfer more PSOne games from PS3
A YouTube user found a way to transfer more PlayStation 1 games to the PlayStation Vita using yesterday's firmware update, as opposed to the nine listed on the PlayStation blog. YouTube user FistFullofPotions discovered that downloading PSOne games to the PS3, leaving them uninstalled, then transferring them from the PS3 to the Vita seems to work across the board. As he notes in the video above, this is done at your own risk as these games haven't gone through Sony's quality control. We've confirmed the method with a couple of games, while NeoGAF and Twitter users also had success with it.The workaround does more than enable more PSOne games on the Vita – it serves to highlight the strangely low number of PSOne games available on Vita in the US, especially when compared to the 129 listed in Europe and the 200+ in Japan. We also discovered at least a couple of unlisted games, Cho Aniki and Money Idol Exchanger, can be downloaded to Vita the usual way and apparently run OK. These games can be downloaded from the Vita PS Store. As long as there is a download button next to a PSOne game on your download list, it can be downloaded straight to Vita, no PS3 required. This is the same 'side-loading' method used to get PSP games that aren't available on the Vita store onto VitasUpdate: NeoGAF has a users-confirmed list of PSOne games that can be transferred using the PS3, and those that can be downloaded from the Vita store as well (in bold). The full list is after the break.
PS Vita v1.80 update now live (Or, say hello to PSOne Classics!) [update: More games playable]
The first round of PSOne Classics is now available on the PS Vita. The 1.80 firmware update is now live, making available nine different PSOne titles on the PS Vita: Arc the Lad, Cool Boarders 2, Final Fantasy VII, Hot Shots Golf 2, Jet Moto, Syphon Filter, Tomb Raider, Twisted Metal 2 and Wild Arms.Outside of the addition of PSOne Classics, v1.80 also adds the option for d-pad navigation. Users can go into settings and enable d-pad controls for menu navigation, which was previously touch screen-only. The PS Vita browser has been expanded, as well – all of which is demonstrated in the video above.Update: As always seems to be the case with Sony backwards compatibility, it's more complicated than release lists make it out to be. Two games from our previous download list, Cho Aniki and Money Idol Exchanger – both PSOne Imports published by MonkeyPaw – downloaded to Vita from our accounts. We've only tested Cho Aniki so far, but it runs. Neither of these games are on either Sony's or MonkeyPaw's list of supported games.Um Jammer Lammy, another PSOne game missing from today's release list, was not downloadable on Vita, proving that not all PSOne games are active – but some that aren't listed are.
Arc the Lad series, Tomba among Vita PSOne Classics launch lineup
MonkeyPaw Games will make five of its PSOne Imports and Classics available to Vita users tomorrow, when the new firmware adds PSOne support to the handheld. Alundra, Arc the Lad 1 and 2, Vanguard Bandits, and the recently released Tomba will all be playable on Vita in North America starting tomorrow, the publisher told Joystiq.The overall list of supported PSOne Classics for tomorrow's Vita launch, outside of MonkeyPaw's offerings, is largely a mystery. When announcing the feature at E3, Sony showed off a selection of games including Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy VII, Wild Arms, Twisted Metal 2, Cool Boarders 2, and Jet Moto, but didn't say if those games would be part of the launch lineup.MonkeyPaw hopes to have the rest of its PSOne games on Vita "soon."
PSOne Classics come to Vita August 28
The long-awaited, gradual rollout of PSOne Classics for Vita will begin on August 28, Sony revealed today.
