Lego Marvel Super Heroes Format - PlayStation 4 Genre - Action & Adventure Release Date - 04/12/13 You may also need: The Last of Us RemasteredWe’re just a little over a week away from the launch of PS4, and I can’t wait for everyone to finally get their hands on Knack. If you’re looking for a taste of something different, something a little more old-school, Knack is the perfect PS4 game for you. With Knack, not only are we taking gamers back to the days of classic games like Crash Bandicoot, we’re also introducing some new and unique ways to experience the game. We have a unique two-player coop mode that puts a fun twist on traditional co-op games and is a great reason to pick up an extra DualShock 4 controller. If you own a PS Vita, there’s of course Remote Play, which can even work in conjunction with our two-player co-op. We have a fun social connectivity feature that lets you unlock collectibles faster through your network of PSN friends, and finally, we have a brand new standalone mobile game app called Knack’s Quest.
I’m here to talk about all of these today. Knack’s co-op is a little different from some cooperative games you may have played. From the very beginning, Knack was meant to be both a challenging and rewarding old-school style character action game, as well an accessible “gateway” title for gamers to initiate their friends and family members into the joys of true console gaming. On Normal or Hard, the game can be brutally challenging and very rewarding. But with simple controls and Easy mode, even new players can experience the world of Knack. In Knack, our two-player cooperative mode was designed in a way that accentuates the vision for the game. A second player can drop in or out at any time, and control Knack’s shiny metallic helper, Robo Knack. Robo Knack has a move set somewhat similar to Knack’s, but can donate parts to Knack and heal him with a touch of the Triangle button. If there’s a non-gamer or light gamer in the house, this is a great way to introduce them to the world of Knack – just start the game on Easy and drop in from time to time to help them through the game.
Oh, and if you enjoyed the smack fests in LittleBigPlanet, you’ll find some fun in smacking your on-screen partner when he or she least expects it. As you play through Knack’s story mode, you’ll no doubt find walls and doors that are begging to be smashed, burnt down or otherwise destroyed. There are over 60 of these rooms — some are out in the open, but some are a little trickier to find. Inside these rooms, you’ll find a chest that holds a collectible item: either a gadget part, or a rare Crystal Relic. There are eight gadgets in all, and each requires anywhere from 3 to 7 parts to complete. Once you complete a gadget, Knack can equip it to enhance his abilities or add new ones. A few of my favorite gadgets are the Combo Meter, which allows Knack to boost his attack strength by hitting enemies 8 times in a row without taking damage himself, and the Harvester, which lets Knack collect sunstones from defeated enemies. In these chests you may also find Crystal Relics, like diamonds or rubies.
If you find enough of any single kind of rare Relic, you’ll unlock a new form of Knack to use in a second play-through of the game. Each Knack variation has different characteristics such as super strength, super fragility, etc. Finding these secret rooms and collecting gadget parts and Relics is fun, but it’s even more fun when you have friends playing the game as well. Whenever you find a secret chest, you’ll be able to either take the item you found in the chest, or choose any item a friend found in that same room the last time they played. This can really come in handy when you’re trying to complete those gadgets or unlock that last Knack variant. Your gadget collection even carries over to new playthroughs, so you can work on getting all eight handy gadgets. You’ll also find secret areas holding more parts to help you heal and grow, as well as Sunstone crystals to fill up your super move gauge. Lastly, we just launched a new mobile game app called Knack’s Quest as a FREE download for iOS devices (Android version coming soon).
This game is a standalone three-in-a-row jewel game featuring Knack himself. Gather parts to help Knack grow before the time runs out to clear the level. Unlock endless mode by beating all levels, and post your scores in global and friend rankings. What’s more, you can also unlock gadget parts and rare Relics for use in the full Knack game on PS4. Once PS4 launches on November 15th, there will be an update to the mobile app that connects it to the PS4 game, allowing you to transfer all of your unlocked items over to your full game. Even if you don’t have a knack for these kinds of games (excuse the pun), you can enlist a friend or family member to work on unlocking items for you. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the game and co-op mode in the comments below! Look out for Knack on November 15th!While the PlayStation TV may essentially just be a PS Vita inside its casing, unfortunately it’s not capable of running every title that is available for Sony’s wonder handheld.
There’s no getting away from the fact that the PlayStation TV has no touch screen or rear touch pad but there’s still a lot that will run quite happily either just with the DualShock 3 or DualShock 4 or by using the emulated pointer available or making use of the DualShock 4’s touchpad for games that do need touch controls. When it comes to knowing what can be run on the console, here at Vita Player we’ll be testing as many titles as possible in order to bring you a “real world” checklist of what does and doesn’t work on the system and we’ll update this as often as we can as new games come along or patches are brought out making more titles compatible. Please note that all of the titles listed here are products released in the EU – there will be differences between territories in terms of PlayStation TV compatibility so please only use this as a rough guide if you live outside of the EU. For AAA titles, where possible we have based our tests on physical copies rather than downloads from the PSN Store.
There are many more games that do work in the EU but these are the ones that we have tested here at Vita Player and we will only include titles we have tested personally as a team. There will be rare occasions where we will test international versions of games. These will happen if games are only released in physical form outside of the UK or if we have been unable to source / test a UK copy but we will endeavour to obtain a UK copy of the game as quickly as we can. At the moment we do not know if compatability is locked to the version of the game itself or the region which the PSN account is registered to which is why we have pointed out these versions of the games that we have tested. There are titles listed here that we have logged as being compatible with the PlayStation TV that do not appear in the PSTV’s own version of the PSN Store which is missing a large number of available titles at present and isn’t representative of the full range available for the console. These are games that you will need to purchase on the web-based store or on a PS3 / Vita and then download them using a PS3 or PS Vita and access them by using your existing memory card on the PlayStation TV.
Alternatively, once purchased you can access them on your PlayStation TV through the Store and checking your Download List where your purchases will be available. One thing that we would like to stress is that you should not use the PlayStation Network Store or Sony’s previously published list as a definitive guide when it comes to PlayStation TV compatibility. Sony’s official list has not been updated since November 2014 (and this fails to mention many of the nuances we have found with our own tests that we believe need bringing to your attention with many games) and many games listed on the PSN Store as being incompatible are actually compatible with the console (both of the Joe Danger games and the digital edition of Killzone: Mercenary, for example). To ensure that our guide is as complete as possible, we have also included PlayStation Mobile titles which Sony have failed to mention in relation to the PlayStation TV both in their marketing or their own official compatibility list and despite the format being removed from sale this coming July there are a lot of great games that PlayStation TV owners shouldn’t miss out on.
Finally, we have also included titles that have now been deleted from the PSN Store but that we have also been able to test for those of you who may still have these available for your one of your current systems. If you are looking for a list of games compatible with the PlayStation TV in the US, our friends at Vita Reviews have compiled one and you can find it at http://vitareviews.net/playstation-tv-compatible-games-north-america/ Quick Links: PlayStation Vita – PSP – Minis – PS One Classics – PlayStation Mobile The three games in the Dissidia series are temperamental games and occasionally need a “workaround” to get them to load properly. We have posted a fix for this elsewhere on the site and you can find that here. From what we have found so far with PS One Classics titles, if the original games supported them, when running on the PlayStation TV they make use of L2 and R2, the vibration function of the controller and games also seem to support multiplayer functionality using two DualShock 3 or DualShock 4 controllers.