Rainbow Islands Evolution on PSP – First Screens
Bub and Bob take on the evil music industry in lovingly updated classic
Aaaah, Rainbow Islands! The mere mention of this game in the SPOnG office causes grown men to wax lyrical about this classic game. So it’s nice to hear that the title is being updated for the PSP (following the DS update earlier this year) by the good people of Rising Star Games.
You can check out the first screens from this lovingly updated classic to the right (and at the bottom of) this very news story.
Rainbow Islands Evolution follows in the footsteps of Bubble Bobble Evolution, in terms of “marrying the original's much-loved vintage gameplay mechanics with the formidable horsepower of Sony’s portable wonder,” according to Rising Star’s press release which just landed.
The first details on the game’s storyline sound rather promising, with Bub and Bob now under the shadow of an evil record company “polluting the ecosystem with a constant, mass-produced musical dirge….causing the flora to wilt and the fauna to mutate into aggressive enemies.”
It seems that only Bub and Bob have the experience to take on the record company and its seven evil bosses.
In terms of gameplay, perhaps the most revolutionary (evolutionary?) change is that the strict vertical ascents of the original have been expanded and extrapolated into three dimensions. Each level’s building-block platforms now follow perspective and disappear into the distance. Platforms scroll into the playable foreground as they become accessible.
Whooah! Three dimensions?!
Rainbow Islands purists might well baulk at this, but SPOnG will reserve judgement until we get some hands-on time with the game in the very near future.
Rising Star’s Tony Byus, producer for Rainbow Islands Evolution, tells SPOnG, “We’re overjoyed to be updating Rainbow Islands for the PSP… We’re passionate about keeping the classic gameplay intact, whilst updating and modernising the design without affecting that essential gameplay. In effect, our goal is to produce what Rainbow Islands could have been if the PSP’s amazing power had been available in 1987.”
So, just to reiterate, they want to keep the gameplay as good as it always was. We’ll be taking off our rose-tinted specs sometime next month to try to let you know if they’ve achieved this honourable goal.
You can check out the first screens from this lovingly updated classic to the right (and at the bottom of) this very news story.
Rainbow Islands Evolution follows in the footsteps of Bubble Bobble Evolution, in terms of “marrying the original's much-loved vintage gameplay mechanics with the formidable horsepower of Sony’s portable wonder,” according to Rising Star’s press release which just landed.
The first details on the game’s storyline sound rather promising, with Bub and Bob now under the shadow of an evil record company “polluting the ecosystem with a constant, mass-produced musical dirge….causing the flora to wilt and the fauna to mutate into aggressive enemies.”
It seems that only Bub and Bob have the experience to take on the record company and its seven evil bosses.
In terms of gameplay, perhaps the most revolutionary (evolutionary?) change is that the strict vertical ascents of the original have been expanded and extrapolated into three dimensions. Each level’s building-block platforms now follow perspective and disappear into the distance. Platforms scroll into the playable foreground as they become accessible.
Whooah! Three dimensions?!
Rainbow Islands purists might well baulk at this, but SPOnG will reserve judgement until we get some hands-on time with the game in the very near future.
Rising Star’s Tony Byus, producer for Rainbow Islands Evolution, tells SPOnG, “We’re overjoyed to be updating Rainbow Islands for the PSP… We’re passionate about keeping the classic gameplay intact, whilst updating and modernising the design without affecting that essential gameplay. In effect, our goal is to produce what Rainbow Islands could have been if the PSP’s amazing power had been available in 1987.”
So, just to reiterate, they want to keep the gameplay as good as it always was. We’ll be taking off our rose-tinted specs sometime next month to try to let you know if they’ve achieved this honourable goal.
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Comments
SPInGSPOnG 20 Nov 2006 17:08
1/1
Let's pray that they don't fick it up like whoever developed Rainbow Islands on PSX did.
I waited eagerly for that title, only to discover that it was all but un-playable (for me) due to a poor choice of control method. All would have been saved if they had let the user re-assign the buttons - but no, stupidity or laziness prevented them doing this.
I waited eagerly for that title, only to discover that it was all but un-playable (for me) due to a poor choice of control method. All would have been saved if they had let the user re-assign the buttons - but no, stupidity or laziness prevented them doing this.