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" Release Date: November 23 (Europe), November 20 (North America) Platforms available on: Vita, PS3 Developer: SuperBot Entertainment Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Genre: Fighting Sony&amp;#039;s crossover brawler PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale isn&amp;#039;t the most original game you&amp;#039;ll play. Everything from its premise to the core mechanics have been shamelessly pillaged from Nintendo&amp;#039;s Super Smash Bros series, but that&amp;#039;s not to say it&amp;#039;s without merit or a few creative ideas of its own. Developer SuperBot Entertainment has been granted access to an impressive cast of characters and given a mandate to create a title capable of rivalling the Nintendo team-up series. The studio has gone about this task in the right way, crafting a robust scrapper that hits all of the right notes and offers some interesting multiplayer options. The roster of fighters is both fan-pleasing and varied, if a little incongruous. It comprises characters created by Sony&amp;#039;s first-party studios, including God of War&amp;#039;s Kratos, Uncharted&amp;#039;s Nathan Drake and Infamous&amp;#039; Cole. These gaming icons duke it out with more cartoon-like mascots such as PaRappa the Rapper, Sackboy and Jak and Daxter.  Relative newcomers to the gaming world such as the new-look Dante from Devil May Cry and the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance incarnation of Raiden also make the cut. While it&amp;#039;s difficult to imagine the sheer brutality of Kratos thrown into the mix with the cartoony PaRappa, it actually works in a comically dissonant way. Gameplay bears more than a passing resemblance to the aforementioned Smash Bros titles. The control system is simple and intuitive, but there&amp;#039;s some scope for tactical combos. Three of the face buttons deliver blows of varying power, with the other used for jumping. Blocks and evasive manoeuvres can be performed with the left shoulder button, while the right delivers a single-button finishing move, once you have built up a power gauge. There are no health bars in the traditional sense, so the objective is to pummel your opponent until your power metre has reached the appropriate level, and dispatch them with a finishing move. There are three levels of fatality, each more powerful than the last and taking more off your gauge. The core game modes have players doing battle against the clock, ranking them based on the number of kills they racked up after the timer has run down.  PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was clearly developed with multiplayer in mind, as the solo campaign doesn&amp;#039;t hold up particularly well on its own. The option to combine your attacks with directional buttons adds some strategy to the game, yet simple button-bashing usually sees you come out on top. Even on the higher difficulty settings players will still find they have the edge over their computer-controlled opponents, so contests boil down to maintaining a lead while waiting for the timer to run down.  Pummelling so many famous faces is undeniably fun, and some of the animated backdrops are fantastic, but all of this is easier to appreciate once you venture online.  Smooth online connectivity and cross-play with the PlayStation 3 paves the way for readily available multiplayer bouts, and this is where the game shines. Taking on other human players is far more entertaining, not to mention incredibly addictive. Contests are usually decided on a last gasp finishing move that will leave you cursing out loud, yet utterly determined to turn the tables in a rematch. Developer Superbot Entertainment has thrown in a host of unlockable bonuses as an incentive for players to battle their way through all of the game modes on offer, but the promise of additional fight cards and costumes isn&amp;#039;t quite enough to facilitate much single player longevity. However, the promise of new fighters via future DLC will no doubt give it some extra mileage. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale achieves what its sets out to do for the most part. Sony now has its answer to Super Smash Bros and PS3 and Vita owners have a place to turn to for accessible multiplayer bawls. It&amp;#039;s a well-presented game that does justice to its cast of characters, but it could have been something more with a solo campaign of greater substance.    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/review/a440369/playstation-all-stars-battle-royale-review-vita-friends-save-the-day/>