Well Played, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Well Played
You couldn’t force me to buy a Smash Bros.-style 2-D brawer to save my life (not that I have any moral problem with them, I’m just terrible at them) but I have to admit the opening cinematic of Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is actually pretty damn cool. Sony doesn’t have the particularly robust character library on Nintendo, but there are some neat additions, and I can’t be too disdainful of any game that features a Sackboy getting chased by an enraged Big Daddy. But the real kudos are for the final boss, the floating head shown in shadow at the very end. SPOILER, KIND OF — that’s Polygon Man, the short-lived American PlayStation mascot that was used before the first PSX even went on sale. The idea that Polygon Man is insanely bitter about being dumped and is now forcing the more popular PSX characters to fight to the death is, simply, fantastic. If only he had the cast of Battle Arena Toshinden as his minions… (Thanks to SlyDante for the tip.)
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.