Shatter ( PSN )

[MisterBubbles]

first thing to say about this it's AWESOME, for 4.79 id say its the bargain of the year in fact GOTY for PSN with flower tied with it.
So what is shatter well it's a breakout/arkanoid block breaking game, but the 1st levels start off like yars revenge, so you use the ball the shatter bricks, but inovation you can do multi-balls for score multipliers. L1 and L2 lets you suck fragments of the bricks you shatter and R1 and R2 lets you blow the ball away, collecting fragments increases your power bar fill it and you can shoot fragments at the bricks with triangle, you have the usual score multipliers and 1ups to keep you going, get to level 7 and its a boss fight,complete this you have a bonus Pong like level with 3 arrow-balls to keep in to increase your score.
All this is done in the free dev kit the Sony Phyre engine which looks amazing and the guys have given it a Rez feel to the worlds, go buy this game NOW it's the best 5 quid ( 4.79 ) you'll have spent on PSN.

[jim g]

completely agree! Just a quick go and got to second world. The whole package is superb, music, gameplay and graphics. Best ?4.79 I have spent in a long time.

[Number45]

I've only played this for a short while (Game's been paused since half seven, I'm waiting to get the TV back!), but what I've played so far has been great.

It's 720p @ 60fps, it really does look stunning and the music is fantastic. As has been mentioned the basic mechanics are that of Breakout/Arkanoid, although your plane of movement switches between horizontal, vertical and circular at fairly regular intervals. Main aim of the game is to clear the screen of bricks without losing all of your lives.

There are different powerups (Extra lives, a ball that you can fully manoeuvre, added multipliers or a ball that will break through all bricks without stopping amongst others), all of which are positive - you'll constantly find yourself getting into the age old trap of trying to get them all and losing lives in the process! Each brick that breaks shatters into shards, and you can suck (See below) these in to build your power meter, which at maximum allows you to unleash a HUGE volley of laser fire in the direction of the enemy (You can also use the power to gain a shield, which lasts as long as you press Square and have the power to maintain it).

What makes the game different to the norm though is the suck/blow mechanic, as has been mentioned. L1/L2 will suck the ball (And ALL other objects) towards you, while R1/R2 will blow them away from you - this allows you to get a reasonably fine amount of control on the shot, often without it coming back to your ship (Which is a godsend on the busier levels) and makes getting those stragglers a little more manageable. It takes a little getting used to (There's a marker that tells you the current impact point of the ball), but eventually you should be able to do some crazy stuff.

The game also allows you to use your lives to get multiple balls onto the screen, which is exactly as hectic as you might imagine. Haven't dabbled with this a great deal, but I expect this is where the big scores will come from eventually.

There's a boss at the end of each stage, most of which force you to use the suck/blow mechanic to get the ball to it's weak spot (Which is nicely targetted for you in case you can't spot it). One of the bosses I've fought (World five, I think)

->Open Spoiler<-

you need to blow at a part of the boss to turn it around and expose the weak spot, but of course you also need to make sure that you can get the ball into that spot, which is hard if you're constantly blowing, so there's an element of strategy in there as well

.

My only complaint at the moment is that it might be a little on the easy side. I'm on world six (Of ten I think, there are 7 waves and a boss per world) on my very first go (No continues, the extra lives seem to be fairly liberally spread) with a score of 190m and counting.

Aside from the story mode there's a Boss Rush mode and a Bonus Mode, which I assume lets you try and get as large a multiplier on the bonus rounds as possible (Bonus rounds see you trying to keep three balls in play at once - not easy!).

Anyhoo, that's more than I planned to write. Shame there's no demo at the moment (Apparently one's planned down the line) because this is the sort of game where even a short demo would sell most people - but this is definitely worth the ?4.79 I'd say. Leaderboards should give the game some life as well.

[cavalcade]

I think I'd agree with most of the above.

I'm still undecided about the difficulty. It's possible to sleepwalk through the first 20 minutes of the game. In the end I lost all my lives on about World 5 because I was starting to doze off. I then felt little incentive to play it again, as it did feel rather patronising. I think it's nice that a game like this doesn't have to be punishing, but I *know* I'm terrible at this sort of game so the fact I'm breezing through makes me worry that anyone with a mildly hardcore gaming set of credentials will find it laughable. I can see how perhaps the scoring aspect (e.g holding multiple balls in play) might keep the hardcore interested, but I'm not sure.... I guess we need to wait for the NTSC-UK crowd who finished Space Giraffe blindfolded to assess the situation there.

The music is nice, but selling it as a synaesthetic (if that's not just a word I've made up) experience like Rez (as I've seen elsewhere on teh Internets) is perhaps putting a little bit too much peanut butter on the sandwich. Graphically I think it has a few niggles with the colour balance, there's a bit too much yellow for my liking, and I often lost track of the ball with all the yellowness flashing up on the screen - hardly a gamebreaker, but it doesn't feel as highly tuned visually as something like Geometry Wars. Overall though the visuals and sound work well, and the gameplay mechanics are undeniably excellent.

So yes. It's a nice game. Shame there's no demo, but for &#163;4.79 it's worth a punt on originality alone.

[saturn-gamer]

Bad timing, Sony.. bad timing.

I bought Fury and Killzone 2 pack. I knew Shatter would also rock, it just looked brilliant.

Sigh..

[mugetsu]

having known very little about this i took the chance and bought it and it's absolutely stunning to play and its by far the best ?5 i think i've spent in a long time.

[Darwock]

I'm with saturn-gamer, too much on my plate after buying the two sets of DLC and Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman! last week (not to mention still caught up in Blazblue)

I'm really tempted by this but just not got the time right now

[Spatial]

This is sublime - a cracking little title. So simple yet so very clever and the level of control you're given makes this way more than the Arkanoid clone that some people seem obsessed with pinning on it.

I see they're also going to release the gorgeous soundtrack. That's getting bought when it hits the PSN (and apparently that'll be DRM free too).

[merf]

not sharing the love for this wouldn't call it a waste of money as fairly cheap but don't think I'd have bought it if there was demo to try.

nice enough HD Arkanoid with bells on but just leaving me a bit cold at the moment.

[SCCAAMMM]

Soundtrack avaliable here: http://sidhe.bandcamp.com/

Minimum price = $9.99.

[Spatial]

Soundtrack purchased! I've used the word before and I'll use it again - sublime

[Number45]

Yup. Managed to get a little further earlier, back up to #318 on the leaderboard (277m, my 199m initial score put me at #28) but not quite finished on a single credit yet - I refuse to use a continue!

I take it those tracks come down in standard MP3 format?

[SCCAAMMM]

Yup. Managed to get a little further earlier, back up to #318 on the leaderboard (277m, my 199m initial score put me at #28) but not quite finished on a single credit yet - I refuse to use a continue!

I take it those tracks come down in standard MP3 format?

You may choose your format.

[hush]

this game is ssooooo good and it lots really good to

[Mr M0by]

I'm enjoying it too.... I've put in a few hours of play but my best score so far is around 199m. How does the multiplyer work? I generally end a phase with around x25-35 but clearly some of the high scores must be achieved with far higher than that. I did get a 10m bonus on one of the worlds but was unsure what for, I assumed I must have got through the world without losing a life. What strategy do you guys adopt?