PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale GTTV

After being rumored relentlessly over the last few weeks, PlayStation fans and owners finally got the word they've been waiting for: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal (aka Super Smash Bros. incarnate) will be releasing in the 2012 holiday season, and it's assembling the hoi polloi of iconic PlayStation characters for a party fighter that aspires to be the platform's quintessential side-scrolling brawler.

As expected, the announcement - along with a video exposition - came during Thursday night's episode of Gametrailers TV as host Geoff Keighley traveled to developer SuperBot Entertainment's California studios. While there, he met with SuperBot president Chan Park and director Omar Kendall to discuss the various features planned for the single-player, co-op, and multiplayer components of the game.

Among the inevitable comparisons to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros., many are likely to judge PlayStation All-Stars on its breadth of character selection. Rest assured, it was one of the first aspects that Park touched on. The list, though certainly not complete, would indicate that every genre and time period in the PlayStation mythos is being represented.

The "All-Stars" locked in so far:

Notice any big names left out? Aside from the game being in its marketing infancy, it might not be a coincidence. Park declared that All-Stars has a secret boss character guarding the gate at the end of the single-player campaign - and he/she might just surprise many fans. He also mentioned that several third party characters will make an appearance - but SuperBot isn't willing to divulge any more information on the subject.

It's par for the course that everyone be endowed with a basic set of moves and attacks (i.e: jumps, meleeing, a weapon with some degree of range), but SuperBot was able to delve in to some of the "super" moves that will be unique to each fighter. Kratos, for instance, has three levels of super attacks: a level-one sword swipe, slightly enhanced in strength; a level two ground strike that sends a damaging tornadic dust plume up in the air; and a level three super that essentially morphs him into a god, donning the armor of Ares and slaughtering enemies like old times in Olympus.

The preview features maps from LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet and Clank, God of War 3, and Patapon - all of which look richly designed, with evolving constructions and background figures constantly influencing the action. In what seems like a fan-favorite frontrunner, the LBP map starts out on blank slate, intricately builds itself as the match progresses, and then culminates with a mid-fight trivia sequence from Buzz!, the comedic game show host. Because sometimes it's better to build brain cells before bashing them in.

Chan and Keighley concluded the interview by broaching the subject of online, 4-person multiplayer and co-op - which can be divided into any combination of 1 player vs. 3 and 2 vs. 2. Unfortunately, it sounds like we'll have to wait until SuperBot shows off the game at E3 to hear more. In the meantime though, check out the full GTTV preview of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal. Keighley confirmed that it runs at a silky-smooth 60 frames per second - and it certainly shows in the early footage they've presented.

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Ranters, our Riley Little authored his wishlist of features for the upcoming All-Stars; does the game appear to meet your expectations? What new characters and features do you want to see announced down the road?

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal releases this holiday season for the PlayStation 3.

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Follow me on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.

Source: GTTV