Welcome to AR Play on PS Vita!

Hi Everyone.

When PS Vita launched in February, bundled free with every console was a set of three exciting games that each used the cool new features of PS Vita to introduce a new type of augmented reality gaming. These games and the plans for further innovative AR experiences in the same vein over the next few months introduce a brand new category of gaming for PS Vita that is to be known as AR Play.

During the course of this year there will be many more of these clever augmented reality experiences to be enjoyed. We recently saw the release of Table Top Tanks and I am pleased to confirm that incoming we have a brand new title known as PulzAR plus brand spanking new DLC for one of the aforementioned free to own release titles – Table Football.

First up let’s take a look at PulzAR…what is it?

Well the storyline is that Earth is in grave danger, somewhere just beyond our planet’s outer atmosphere 5 giant asteroids are heading on a deadly collision course with the planet. It’s up to you, the player, to command a network of laser powered rockets to try and blast the asteroids into a harmless meteor shower before they hit the Earth.

The first AR Play Card placed is used as the Arena card and draws the level out, then the puzzles use up to 5 AR Play Cards to place the 3 types of objects in the game; Reflectors, Splitters and Colour Filters.

There have been other laser and light based games before, but none of them have let you see the game world and play it on your table top, something that can only be done with PS Vita. The original iteration of the puzzles just used Reflectors with the Splitters and Colour Filters part of the Arena; we expanded that to allow the other objects to be placed by the player too.

Moving the PS Vita around the play area will let you visualise the world in true 3D, you may see a solution you previously hadn’t thought of. Tilt the PS Vita up to the sky to view the asteroids bearing down on you. We hope you enjoy PulzAR and manage to solve all of the puzzles. If you need to get the AR Play Cards or want create a huge arena to play in (by scaling up the cards) then you can download them from here.

PulzAR is released today for £1.59/€1.99 complete with trophies!

Next up and likely to help feed the football fantasies of everyone currently glued to the European Championships is the brand new DLC for Table Football, the Match Day Game Pack.

Following the launch of the initial free to own title in February we’ve been listening to our players to find out what they wanted to see in future versions of this game, and in response to the feedback we are happy to announce new content in the shape of the Match Day Game Pack – a downloadable pack for Table Football featuring a host of extra content.

You want to play in the rain or snow? You got it. You can turn your AR football pitch into a mudbath as the rain falls or cover it in ice in a snowstorm. Watch out for that wind now, you’ll have to adjust for it when you’re passing long and shooting – although it might help you pull off some crazy shots at goal. Mud and snow can affect the game in many ways so you’ll have to adapt your play style to the weather conditions.

The existing tournament mode has now been expanded to allow you and three friends to compete with each other and versus the AI in the definitive battle to discover the champions. Using one PS Vita and a set of AR Play Cards you can compete in your own mini world tournament against the best of the best. We have also added 20 new teams to the roster, including five special continental “All-Star” teams to give even more choice to all game modes. Combine all that with new stadia that are more detailed than ever, with new scoreboards and extra match balls to make up a huge batch of new content for Table Football.

We have also added extra game options allowing you to configure the matches to suit your taste by altering the number of players per team, moves per turn and length of the match. Table Football and the Match Day Game Pack is perfect for that five minute quick match or a long tournament session.

We feel the Match Day Game Pack offers an exciting new element to Table Football and will add even more playability to the game. The Pack is out today at price of £0.79/€0.99.

So there you have it, two great titles from the new AR Play range – I hope that you enjoy them and be sure to check out the spectacular PulzAR video below: