Smash is dead!

Back in September, Sony had quietly put up notices on the PlayStation store that a select few games would have their servers shut down. These games included Warhawk, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and Twisted Metal. Originally set to be discontinued on October 25, 2018, the date came and went, but th?e games remained online.

Now, Sony has sent out an official message stating that these three games along with Sound Shapes will have their servers remain online until January 31, 2019. I had heard a rumor from a community member abo?ut this change, but there wasn't ??any official declaration that the games were being given a few more months of life until recently.

In my research about the change, the one point I saw repeated a few times was that Sony had promised to give 90 days notice for any shutdowns as per the box for Warhawk. The official note read, "SCEA reserves the right to retire the online portion of this game with 90 days notice. Online play requires ?Broadband Internet connection." Since the notice had only been posted 30 days in advance, fans were furious.

Whether Sony was legally required to do this or not doesn't matter, as the games will be up and running for the next few months. If you still have to collect some trophies or just want to relive Sony's attempt at tackling Smash, make sure to do it now!

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More hot deals than can shake a PS Move controller at

Sony came out of their E3 press conference smelling like roses. Capitalizing on the miscues of their competitors, the platform-holder seems poised for a resurgence this winter with the PlayStation 4. In the meantime, Jack Tretton and compa?ny are showcasing their Midas touch with one of the most impressive PlayStation Store updates in recent memory.

As previously reported,  Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception,XCOM: Enemy Unknown, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and Machinarium are joining the Instant Game Collection this week. Starting today all four titles will be free for PlayStation Plus Members. But that's not all, Sony is also kicking off a massive sale in celebration of E3 and there are some crazy g?ood deals to be had.

Highlights include: Tomb Raider for roughly $20, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Far Cry 3 for $30, and indie-darlings Sound Shapes and The Unfinished Swan for less than a fiver. Has anyone me?ntioned that Sony is killing it?

??PlayStation Plus: E3 2013 Sale, Free Machinarium, Uncha??rted 3, XCOM, More [PlayStation Blog]

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And some '80s sounds for good measure

As Queasy Games' musical platformer Sound Shapes continues to grow, it was only a matter of time before dubstep found its way in. The wubs are coming by way of a $0.99 Sound Pack that's out right now as DLC. Get out of that refrigerator right now!

And if dubstep isn't the sort of addition to bring you back into the game, there's also a separate '80s Sound Pack available. Later this month, Sound Shapes will get a player-centric update to complement these new sounds for content creators. Milkcr?ate albums that compile hand-picked community levels will be out for free on May 28.

Sound Shapes: Spring Has Sprung New DLC [PlayStation Blog]

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And it looks awesome

On the PlayStation Blog, we're told about some new content for Sound Shapes that you're going to want to take a look at. Namely, the game has gotten vehicles (!!!) with a $1.99 Car Mini-Album & Creator Pack that is a bit crazy -- but in a good way. If the game's slower pace bothe?red you, this add-on might be m?ore your speed.

Additionally, there's a free update that introduces six hand-picked albums created by the Sound Shapes com?munity. Can't argue with that price. The game has also been given an Offline Play option, which is always nice to see.

I was able to snag a copy of Sound Shapes during a sale, and although ??the purchase was easily worth it for the Beck album alone, it was difficult not to be left wanting more content, even with the community-made levels. So, yes, this new stuff is relevant to my interests.

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Includes five new Christmas-themed instruments

Sound Shapes is a really special game. Even more special is the game's community, which supports it with absolutely amazing new levels/songs every single day. Queasy Games has realized this, and to show their undying love for the community they're releasing the free Holiday Sound Pack right now. Just start your game up (while connected to the internet), and that's it! It's like Christmas morning, except it's December 19th and you're probably still at work or scho??ol.

What exactly will you be getting in this pack? Well, you'll have five brand-new Christmas-themed instruments from classic carols that you and your peers of the Sound Shapes community get to play with. I can't wait for someone to recreate Led Zeppelin II or something with them. Actually, I think that'll ??now be my goal for the rest of? the day.

Happy Holidays right back at all you guys over at Queasy Games. Oh, and quit being so freaking ador??able.

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Only one buck apiece

Three new Sound Packs and a Curved Terrain Pack are now available for the music/platformer Sound Shapes, out now for the PS3 and Vita.

The three Sound Packs are priced at $0.99 a piece in the new in-game Sound ?Shapes Music Shop. Each features five new instruments, Beat School levels and new Trophies. There's a Drum Kits pack, and Acoustic Sound pack, and a chippy 8-Bit Sound pack to pick from.

The Curved Terrain Pack is free to download, and it gives y??ou the ability to curve a?nd bend shapes.

Finally, the upcoming Community Milkcrate section will house th??e best user created levels for Sound Shapes. Next year, expect albums created by industry stars, developers and composers.

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Innovation. Smart develope??rs seek it out in the hopes of capturing ligh?tning in a bottle: that one grasp at a title that will delight and entertain the masses with its unique, fun take on a familiar theme, heightened through innovation.

Sound Shapes treads familiar g?round, but combines ideas in a ??seemingly innovative way to evoke a new love for something we may have seen before.

Problem is, it doesn't always work out that way.

Sound Shapes (PlayStation Network, PlayStation Vita [reviewed])
Developer: Queasy Studios
Publisher: SCEA
Released: August 7, 2012
MSRP: $14.99

At its simplest, Sound Shapes is a platformer, where gathering coins add notes? to an overall musical score that permeates the level. Each piece you collect builds the musical composition, and environm?ental obje?cts bop and wiggle to the beat to further fuel the cacophony of rhythm. You maneuver a small blob through 20 levels, each based on a musical composition by artists like Beck and deadmau5, with accompanying artw?ork by PixelJam, Superbrothers and others that compliments the tunes and fits the style of the musician and their compositions. There are five "albums" which all have distinct graphic styles an??d contain between three to five songs each.

The platforming is fairly basic. You roll your little blob around, jump with X, and you can boost with square or the right shoulder button. However, when boosting, this also drops your weird little blob aura, which lets you to stick to certain things. This allows for a certain strategy in maneuvering through the levels, but nothing too brain bending. There's really only one hazard in the game: the color red. Anything red, once you touch it, kills you. However, the game is fairly forgiving, with multiple respawn points in each level. It's like a simplistic form of LocoRoco, just with building m??usic as the main level goal.

Levels aren't particularly difficult, but some designs are truly inspired, while others are sadly quite flat. The Beck levels in particular are some of the most amazing and engaging levels I've ever had the pleasu??re of sco?oting a little blob thing along to. There are sections of his songs that have minimal lyrics, and in certain settings, these lyrics come alive as platforms that spawn, swivel, and die out until the chorus repeats again. It's a neat bit that I wish was repeated more in the other levels.

As you capture each note coin and build up the music, you're also collecting the environments and beats to be used in the level editor. While it's no LittleBigPlanet, there's a certain satisfaction to creating a sequence of music that builds as your gather items. There's already a nice little community effort, and some familiar non-Sony tunes have made their way into the stages that can be downloaded. Again, there's not a ?whole lot of innovation going, but there certainly is the potential for it.

Sad thing is, I think that's one of the problems with this title. Sound Shapes doesn't quite reach its potential. There are some truly great level designs here (some with the occasional ship to pilot, avoiding hazards in space or water) but there's not e??nough of them, and before you know it, you've finished the ma??in campaign. In fact, the majority of the level designs are more of a chore to grind through than the occasional visual and auditory delights. There are only three Beck levels, and of those, truly only two are worth playing, as they're the best levels in the game.

Granted, after beating the main campaign, two new modes open up: Beat School and Death Mode. Beat School plops you in the editor and gives you a song. You then have to plot out the song yourself, guessing what notes the song is playing to create it. Death mode i??s the campaign all over again, but now with a timer and the added objective of forcing you to grab every note collectible in each ??stage. Both are unique, but more levels with compelling designs would have been more welcome.

I can only hope the community breathes some life into this title. While the few songs that are included are a decent afternoon distraction, in the end, it feels like a wasted effort; the illusion of innovation wrapped in the familiar shell of LocoRoco, LittleBigPlanet, and to a lesser extent, Frequency. Innovation is one thing, but familiarity breeds contempt.

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As you might recall, one of the musicians involved with Sound Shapes is none other than Beck. He has contributed three separate tracks to the music-centric platform game, the first of which, "Cities," is detailed in the video a??b??ove.

Developer Queasy Games tapped production studio Pyramid Attack to create artwork that fit with Beck's songs. You can judge the work for yourself, but I think they did an excellent job; the music and aesthetics seem to mesh well based on this short amount of footage shown here. The PlayStation Blog has more details on this collaboration.

Sound Shapes is out for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 on Tuesday, August 7. Time to procure a Vi??ta.

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Sound Shapes seems to be one of those games most PlayStation Vita owners are excited to get their hands on, and for good reason -- just look at it! Developer Queasy Games has announced the release date:?? August 7. Better yet, ??it's coming to PlayStation 3 as well.

Priced at $14.99, if you purchase either version of Sound Shapes, you'll get the other one at no additional charge. It feels as if ??it's been a long time coming for this one, and although August isn't exactly right around the corner, I'm so ready.

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Sound Shapes has impressed us time after time, and it's only getting better for the PlayStation Vita platformer. The folks who brought us the remarkable Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP have joined up with developer Queasy Games to create ??a series of? levels in their familiar style.

The PlayStation Blog has a post detailing what?? the design process was like -- this time, Jim Guthrie's audio work came after the art assets had already been produced, not the other way around -- and there are a number of lovely screenshots to look over as well.

Queasy was responsible for putting all of the pieces together to form full-fledged levels, so the end result should be quite interesting. My expectations for Sound Shapes are getting unrealistically high at this point, not that that's a bad thing ne??ce?ssarily. "Available before too long" isn't soon enough!

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Toronto-based developer Queasy Games recently showed off their upcoming Vita title, Sound Shapes at a media showcase in New York City. While we've already had some hands-on time with the game, new footage courtesy of the PlayStation Blog gives us a look at one of?? the ??game's high-profile cross-sensory collaborations.

This particular stage blends visuals from indie dev PixelJam with the sounds of electronic musician deadmau5. A??nd rather than just taking popular songs of the artist's previous work and inserting it into the game, the music will respond to the progress players make whilst traversing environments, allowing for eac??h playthrough to become its own unique arrangement. Sounds good to me!

Hands-On Sound Shapes Brings the deadmau5 [PlayStation Blog]

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Platformers?  Love 'em. You can't make enough. Platformers of any type appeal to the gamer in me. But upcoming PS Vita game Sound Shapes also speaks to the musician in me. It's slick platforming and musical creation. You can? create music that actually becomes the levels that you platform in. Afte?r spending a bit of time trying both sides of this game out and then seeing how they come together, it has moved up to be one of my most anticipated titles. 

Sound Shapes creators say that it is both a 2D platformer and a musical instrument. Several games have attempted to mix musical elements into gameplay, but this one goes a step beyond and gives the player total freedom to cre?ate a sequence that actually becomes the level. It's not some kind of abstract thing where some somewhat random musical cue will sound after being triggered, either. In this game you're platforming to "play" the music.

The platforming side plays out with a little rolling ball...thing that sticks to all surfaces. The problem is that all the surfaces are small, and that there's always danger (any platform or obstacle colored red) nearby. As the player, you want to avoid red, but look for other environmental pieces to come in contact with. Each one touched initiates a new sound to be played, triggered in its own time in a 16-bar musical loop. You want to come in contact with all of the musical elements so that you are ?able to hear every bit of the intended composition. The goal is to come in contact with all the musical elements while surviving challenging 2D plaforming levels

What's really cool about Sound Shapes is that the physical placement of each of these musical elements directly corresponds to their musical placement on a 16-step musical/beat grid. That wasn't apparent to me until I saw that each dot on the musical grid was placed exactly where the musical element was in the game stage. In this editor you ar??e able to plunk down dots that trigger notes from several musical instruments or drums, and it gives you just as much creative freedom as any musical sequencer would. Musicians will be impressed by the level of musical freedom provided here, as there's really a full-featured music making program within the level editor.

Your music becomes a level when you throw in background patterns and foreground obstacles, platforms and more. The Vita's touch screen lets you plunk down any object from the menu, while the back screen lets you use multiple fingers to move and resize any object freely. At any time, a soft butto??n on the touch screen can be tapped to try out your level. 

Using these tools I was able to compose a short loop of pretty music, add in a solid beat, throw in some platforms and obstacles, and then try it out for myself. That's great about Sound Shapes is that level design can be approached from either the musical or platforming side. Those that are musically inclined will get a kick out of how robust the tools are for creating songs, and then they can make a level around the so?ng, but those into making a deep, challenging  platform??ing can just as easily focus on the level design tools, with the music taking a back seat. Either approach is going to make a stage that looks and sounds cool, and will most likely be fun to play through. 

Sound Shapes will take full advantage of the Vita's online connectivity. Uploa?ding and sharing of levels will be supported. You could even take someone else's song or lev?el, remix it and then re-upload it. 

I think it's apparent that I'm more excited about the musical side of Sound Shapes than the platforming side, but this title i?s looking so good that I think any fan of either music or challen??ging platforming action will be pleased. 

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Jonathan Mak, the designer behind the musical shooter Everyday Shooter, has got something in the works for Sony's upcoming handheld. It's a musical platformer tentatively being called Sound Shapes, and? it's on?e of the NGP's most surprising and hypnotic launch titles.

Gameplay is not entirely unlike Gish, with players controlling a little amoeba-like blob through a musical world that's brought to life as players progress. You can make your little glob hop with the X button, and wil?l stick to and roll across any surface, including ceilings and up walls. Pressing square gives you a quick burst of speed, and also will release your grip.

By moving through the world and collecting little dots scattered about, you'll build upon the music track, adding things like melody and bass line as you progress. You'll have to avoid hazards, including enemies and lasers, some of which pulsate to track's backing beat. You can even customize the musical experience by hopping on sample pads that add euphonic stabs or drum fills to t??he bac?king beat.

The pre-loaded levels, with visuals and sounds designed by Mak, are as enchanting as his work on Everyday Shooter. Prominent melodies and thumping beats kept me wanting to move through the levels, simply to se?e where the music was going next.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Sound Shapes is the game's create modes, which allows you to develop music and game levels in tandem and in real tim??e. After selecting from a number of different instruments (bass, guitar, and more), you'll simply tap areas of a blank screen to add notes/pellets to your track/level. The higher you place the notes, the higher the pitch; using the back touch panel, I was able to grab and reposition note?s on the fly. By layering various notes across the level (which acts as something of a musical sequencer), I was able to quickly create both gameplay and music simultaneously.

The next element is putting down th?e play space, again using a combination of the front and back touch screens. The tools were simple to use, but robust, and experimenting with different available options quickly changed how the level both looked and sounded. By stringing together various "rooms," it'll be possible to create stages that can run ?anywhere from two to seven minutes long, I'm told.

Sound Shapes will also support song/level sharing by letting you tag and upload levels to the cloud. Levels created will be tagged with unique meta-d??ata identi??fying the creator, and can even be "remixed" by other users and re-shared on the network.

Mak's Everyday Shooter turned heads because of its distinct aesthetic ?and intriguing use of sound not seen i??n the shooting genre. Depending seems like it will be different things to different people. If you're an artist by nature, it's a musical and level creation tool that also happens to be a game. If you're a gamer foremost, it's a unique platformer game that just happens to have creation tools.

Whatever the case, Sound Shapes is already standing out as one of the most notable games in the NGP library. Considering it's up against the likes of world-class IP like Uncharted, that's saying a whole hell of a lot. 

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