Quick n Dirty (Games): Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale

Super Smash Bros is one of the most popular fighting games out there and with the recent release on the 3DS and all its attention it has gotten lately for the Wii-U release, I somehow found myself playing the underwhelming Sony knock-off: Playstation All-Stars Battle Royal.

The game isn't bad, it's just not great. If I were to give it a letter grade, a C+ would feel appropriate. A small level of enjoyment comes from the fact that the characters are very imbalanced and that I have the most fun when annoying my roommate with particularly annoying characters like Nathan Drake.

Despite having it for almost a year, I haven't really sunk any time into this game until recently. I dabbled in the single-player stuff that nets you some small extra stuff within the game, but nothing of significance. All you'd really want are more characters anyway. Much like its inspiration, the multiplayer is where it's at.

Pros

• Similar system to Smash Bros lends itself to some fun times on the couch, albeit, not quite as good as the original source material might provide
• Some time and effort has been paid to developing the characters' moves and stages. As absurd as some of the abilities may be--considering most of the characters are from action adventure games and are now in a fighting game--they all make sense for the characters

Cons

• The system changes from Smash Bros to this reduce a fair amount of the fun and strategy normally involved--no ledges to fall from, no boundaries. It's all based on getting kills with your super moves.
• Super moves are extremely imbalanced from character to character, forcing you to save up your power for more effective moves in some situations. While Smash Bros is not 'balanced' by any means, more of the characters are well-equipped to win under the game's conditions than here.
• Items are unimpressive and forgettable.
• Roster seems to be missing some prominent characters from Playstation history. 

Additional Comments

The mechanics are really the problem here. The way the game is designed, All-Stars was destined fade under the shadow of Smash Bros. Sure, it can be annoying when people keep you from reaching solid ground in Smash Bros. Although All-Stars avoids that by not having ledges altogether, chasing the ledge was half of the stress/fun and it never quite reaches the crescendos of hype that Smash can achieve as a result of the wins being based on sending people out of the ring. Plus, it's more satisfying to sent an opponent flying through the air to their doom, instead of just around a ring to power up your meter.

Not to mention, the super moves are really all over the place in quality. Some characters, like Heihachi from Tekken, are better off cashing them in the early levels rather than wasting it on a level 3 super, while others, like Sackboy from Little Big Planet, don't have much of worth until level 3. This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the fact that Sackboy's regular abilities have trouble comparing with the rest of the roster, and he's not alone in this category.

On another note:

For real though, what's the deal with the roster? Some big players in the success of the Playstation are woefully absent, yet other characters feel like they were just (bought) thrown in there. For example: Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy heroes/villains, to name a few, are missing. Some of these wouldn't be a surprise to be absent if it weren't for the unexpected additions to the roster like the Big Daddy from Bioshock, Raiden from Metal Gear Solid, or Young Dante from DMC: Devil May Cry. Why not older Dante from the original Devil May Cry? Why not Snake from Metal Gear? Or is that TOO much like Smash Bros since Nintendo already used him?

I'm just saying, if they could get the weird ones, why is it that the only pair of characters from the same game happen to be Good Cole and Bad Cole from Infamous? How did they settle on making the only two characters that inhabit the same game be the same character when they had numerous other options?

Regardless, this is all nit-picky stuff. The game can still be fun when played in the setting it's intended to be played in: as a group in the living room with every setting turned up to 11.

Should I play it and when?

If you're aching for another Smash Bros game to keep you busy in between releases, Yes.
Otherwise, skip it.