Hustle Kings (PSN)

[Arwin]

Hustle Kings was released on the European PSN yesterday. It's a Pool game featuring various pool variantions, trick shots, bonus games, online play (set up your own tournaments, private and public rooms, bet money on the outcome, etc.), replay saving (with detailed playback controls during playback), detailed stats tracking (on and offline), an interesting points system that rewards trick shots, xmb music and youtube uploading of any section of your replay, and of course really good physics.

Very annoyingly however, Eyes and I discovered that it does NOT yet support voice chat (let alone video chat that was initially mentioned when the game was first announced). I wonder if this means that XMB voice chat is coming soon or that they are going to patch it in later, but for the online it is a huge oversight right now that is really annoying.

That's about the only problem I have with the game so far though - otherwise it is rather excellent.

Here's a really short test video that I recorded - better stuff should come soon.

Some interesting comments from the developers:

The more pressure you apply to the circle button when lining up the shot the more fluid yet slower the movement of the cursor will become.

Hey, try pressing the the Circle Button quite hard but using the D-pad to get finer movements. I find this to be more accurate when trying to line up intricate shots.

 

[Antan]

Another highlight to end the year on!

I had a few online games late last night, and was about to pot the black but the other guy quit! Oh bugger i thought...........But to my delight i was awarded the win and gracefully took his money! all 160k of it 8). Aside from the voice chat feature Arwin mentioned, it would be most beneficial if there was an "amount of disconnects" added to the player stats, just so you can further gauge what type of player you`re u against.

 

[Arwin]

Good news! Not only did the game get a patch on the 19th (haven't checked it out yet), but on 2 June the Snooker expansion DLC will be released! Very happy with that, as I love me a Snooker sim, and this one should be rather excellent going by the quality of the Pool in there already. Can't wait! It will have the new chalk mentioned below included ('second sight') and comes with new Trophies too.

19th of May patch details:

on the 19th of May at around 5pm a new patch will be made available which contains the following features and changes:
Improved Breaking : the pack has now been adjusted so that instead of the rack being perfectly spaced every time, a very slight variance has been introduced between the balls which causes almost every break to be different
You can now replay the shots that are played in attract mode
Even more stats during loading screens
Game options can be modified in online rooms
Watch other people’s matches in the all new Spectator Mode!
Plus a new loading icon, viewing player’s profiles during an online match and more
But that’s not all, there is a brand new chalk coming to the in-game store. Second Sight allows you to see the path of an additional ball… really helpful on those tough trickshots and plants.

Official story: http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/05/19/hustle-kings-breaking-news/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This game kinda needs Move, doesn't it? The screenshots are commendable with proper reflections.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblogeurope/4606721708/sizes/o/
Anyone know what underlying tech they're using?

 

[Arwin]

This game kinda needs Move, doesn't it? The screenshots are commendable with proper reflections.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblogeurope/4606721708/sizes/o/
Anyone know what underlying tech they're using?

It doesn't need Move at all, and I think using Move for it effectively could prove difficult, especially without 3D depth perception! However, with some visual clues I do agree that it could be an interesting showcase for Move's precision.

I can't remember reading much about the rendering tech in 'tech words'. There have been some interviews but they never went far beyond 'state-of-the-art' rendering tech, I think. But that some kind of ray casting or ray tracing is involved seems obvious.

 

[patsu]

Yap, I'd love to see a demo of 3D + Move pool game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can't remember reading much about the rendering tech in 'tech words'. There have been some interviews but they never went far beyond 'state-of-the-art' rendering tech, I think. But that some kind of ray casting or ray tracing is involved seems obvious.

That's the most obvious choice. Maybe DF can give them a poke and see if they talk?

Edit: As for motion control, I wouldn't expect proper cueing which would mean lots of people unable to pot a ball, but to hit the ball with desired strength, the move of the Move controller seems perfect. 'Programming' the shot loses the feel of the game, whereas prodding the ball with Move will at least preserve the feel of the game, like swinging a virtual bat in baseball.

 

[Arwin]

Snooker is up! And it's awesome! Load-times are much improved also!

 

[slider]

Thanks Arwin; how big an update/dl is it?

I think I'm gonna uninstall this. It's great fun but the constant messages I'm getting about having less than 500mb free space on my HDD is hampering game installs!

I'll make a concerted effort to remove that damn blue screw this weekend. Wish me luck.

 

[zed]

This game kinda needs Move, doesn't it? The screenshots are commendable with proper reflections.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblogeurope/4606721708/sizes/o/
Anyone know what underlying tech they're using?

no theyre not raytraced, it looks like theyre generating a few cubemaps at various positions (not even one per ball, which seems strange),
The balls are just asking to be raytraced

 

[Arwin]

It's pretty small actually, 66mb or so

 

[JPT]

I got the snooker update, if anybody is up for a game, or rather wants to beat me senseless, my psn id is Eyes

 

[Arwin]

I got the snooker update, if anybody is up for a game, or rather wants to beat me senseless, my psn id is Eyes

Weather is way too awesome right now, but tonight I'm up for it!