How would you like your Muramasa Rebirth for PS Vita - normal or limited edition?

The upcoming action RPG Muramasa Rebirth is an easy game to get excited about, thanks to its chanbara style of gameplay and gorgeous graphics.

If you've ever wanted to splash those graphics all over the outside your Vita - and you happen to live in the United States - you're in luck.

Siliconera reports that a limited edition version of Muramasa Rebirth appeared on Amazon.com that includes a custom-designed PS Vita face cover and a skin featuring art from the game.

As if that wasn't enough, it also comes with a drawstring pouch to keep your skinned-up Vita free from dirt and smudges, and a Muramasa lithograph drawn by Vanillaware's George Kamitani.

Break the limits
As with most limited edition versions of games, this bundle is more expensive than the normal edition ($59.99 / £39.70 vs. $39.99 / £26.46).

This wouldn't be a bad price to pay if the limited edition included the four additional DLC chapters promised back in January, but it looks like those will still need to be purchased separately.

If you're in Europe and feeling jilted that there's still been no news on an EU release of Muramasa Rebirth, you're not alone.

A search on Amazon.ca (the retailer's Canadian website) shows no listing for either the normal or limited edition of the upcoming Vita game.

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Sneaky platformer Stealth Bastard to be renamed for PS Vita launch this summer

Curve Studios's sneaky platformerStealth Bastard is set to skulk onto PS Vita sometime this summer.

In this port of the cult PC sneak-'em-up, Curve Studios tells the story of a begoggled clone who must escape from a sadistically designed laboratory.

And when we say 'sadistic', we mean it.

Lasers fire from the facility's walls, ready to burn our unfortunate hero to a crisp. Spinning spikes and aggressive robots lie in wait, hoping for an opportunity to pwn a clone.



When it was released back in 2011, Stealth Bastard was described by many as a combination of Super Meat Boy, Metal Gear Solid, and Portal.

And while that inevitably meant the game came under increased scrutiny, reviews for it were roundly positive.

What's in a name?

However, while Stealth Bastard's eight worlds, devious levels, and frequent instadeaths will make it across to Vita intact, the game's name has been deemed too rude for the PlayStation Network.

To avoid falling foul of Mr Sony, then, Curve Studios is asking fans to email in suggestions for a new name. You've got until April 14th to think of the perfect title, and win a PS Vita in the process.

We like the sound of Sneak Git, Skulk Jerk, or Shadow Berk. See if you can do better. (You can't - it's impossible).

Stealth Bastard will sneak onto PS Vita (complete with new name) this summer.

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20 Unity-powered games we'd love to play on PS Vita

Just the other week, Unity Technologies announced that it's working closely with Sony to bring its hugely popular game engine to PS Vita and PlayStation Mobile developers.

The Unity engine powers some of our favourite Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac, PC, and - of course - mobile titles, including the likes of Beat Sneak Bandit,Pid, and the rather excellent Year Walk.

Naturally, we'd love to be able to download these - and many more Unity-powered titles - from Sony's PlayStation Store and play them on the company's latest handheld.

Here are the 20 Unity-powered games we'd like to play the most.

Year Walk



Year Walk doesn't hold your hand. There's no tutorial, hint system, or even a map in this first-person adventure title from the creator ofBumpy Road.

You're left on your own to unearth clues, solve mysteries, and complete puzzles in a bleak 19th-century Swedish forest that houses mysterious creatures.

The Room



The Room is an excellent point-and-click adventure game in which you're presented with a series of boxes. Yeah, you have to open them. Good guess.

Unfortunately, you can't just lift their lids. You have to solve puzzles and crack multiple brainteasers before you can peek at the treasures within them.

Temple Run 2



So, you can run on a treadmill for 60 minutes. Well done to you.

Can you sprint around a series of dilapidated ruins; avoid deadly obstacles and hazards; and avoid a bloodthirsty pursuer for more than 60 seconds, though?

That's a true test.

Ravensword: Shadowlands



Ravensword: Shadowlands is basically a mobile version of Bethesda's super hit The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

It's a portable action-RPG, then, in which you explore a vast world; battle enemies and interact with NPCs; and continuously upgrade your skills and abilities.

RAD Soldiers



Brink developer Splash Damage brought this turn-based multiplayer shooter to Apple's App Store in December of last year.

RAD Soldiers isn't a serious title. Expect humourous, over-the-top deaths, and gorgeous comic book-style visuals.

Orc: Vengeance



You're Rok. You're a fierce Orc Warchief (with a penchant for sharp objects) who's on a mission to defeat The Dark Lord and free your captured bretheren.

This RPG-style dungeon-crawler thrusts battle axes, swords, shields, and warhammers into your sweaty hands, and pits you against waves of genuinely menacing monsters.

Total War Battles: Shogun



This spin-off from The Creative Assembly's real-time strategy series for PC offers quick-fire combat scenarios that are perfectly sized for mobile and portable devices.

There's more to Total War Battles than just tactical battles, mind. You'll need to farm valuable resources and train troops if you wish to progress far.

Beat Sneak Bandit



Every single clock in the world has been stolen by the evil Duke Clockface. Everybody is now late and the world is - naturally - in chaos.

Your aim in this rhythm-based title is to take control of a master thief and steal the clocks back by tapping your device's screen in time to an infectious beat.

Pid



Pid is a magnificent-looking game. Just check out the cropped screenshot above this paragraph if you don't believe us.

Gameplay-wise, you assume the role of a young boy who must battle robots and make allies that will help him shed light on a grand - and rather unbelievable - conspiracy.

Slender: The Arrival



Slender: The Eight Pages hit the web last June and subsequently scared the pants off pretty much everyone who played it in a dark room.

This sequel is - in all honesty - more of the same, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This first-person survival-horror title would make toilet trips a scarier experience.

Ski Safari



Ski Safari is a pretty simple endless-running title. In it, you have to avoid a range of snowy obstacles and stay one step ahead of a deadly avalanche that's threatening to end your life.

Along the way, you can grab hold of penguins, eagles, and even yetis that will all aid your escape. Well, until your inevitable death, at least.

Super Crossfire



No, you haven't taken a bad acid trip. Arcade-style shoot-'em-up Super Crossfire really is more colourful than a bag of Skittles.

This psychedelic title has a pretty nifty gameplay mechanic that allows your weapon-clad ship to avoid fire by instantly jumping between the top and the bottom of your gadget's display.

The Drowning



The Drowning is an upcoming free-to-play iOS shooter that ditches conventional FPS controls in favour of a tap- and gesture-based scheme.

So, you tap your screen with one finger to move around the game's environment, pinch to look down your rifle's scope, and tap with a second digit to fire off a round.

Dead Trigger 2



This yet-to-be-released mobile shooter is packed full of zombies and other plague-ridden monsters; more guns than you can shake a stick at; and some seriously impressive graphics.

You know the drill. Take down geeks with headshots; collect and protect supplies; and - ultimately - survive a world-ending apocalypse.

Cordy 2



The PS Vita already plays home to a number of quality platformers. There's always room for more, though. That's particularly true in Cordy 2's case.

This title is as smooth as melted butter and a new-born baby's freshly oiled tushy. Seriously, your on-screen avatar glides through levels and over obstacles almost effortlessly.

Gears



Gears is a game all about rolling a ball around a variety of vibrant stages. That may sound boring, but believe us when we tell you that it isn't.

Each stage in Gears is packed with obstacles, hazards, and collectibles that you avoid or pick up by tilting your device from side to side.

Shadow Era



Shadow Era is inspired by the über-popular Magic: The Gathering trading card game. Hell, what modern-day card battler isn't?

Your aim in developer Wulven's take on the genre is to meticulously craft a deck from over 200 different lovely-looking cards, and use them to defeat waves of real-world opponents.

Breach & Clear



A tactical shooter co-created for mobile devices by former Call of Dutyspokesman Robert Bowling. What more do you need to know?

In this title, you're tasked with recruiting authentic military personnel; equipping them with real-world weapons and equipment; and sending them into increasingly difficult close quarter battles.

Bad Piggies



If you're tired of firing birds at wooden planks and you think Rovio's swine are being unfairly treated by some seriously miffed avians, you need Bad Piggies in your life.

Your mission - if you choose to accept it - is to build makeshift crafts and other vehicles, and help some grubby pigs steal themselves a tasty egg-based snack.

The Swindle



In The Swindle (which is a physics-based platformer), you sneak into guarded facilities and steal wads of cash from under the big noses of rich fat cats.

You can do this by sneaking in through skylights and vents or by hacking cameras and taking down security systems. Either way, you're a criminal. You naughty boy, you.

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Review: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time for PS Vita

It might be more than seven years since we last saw Sly Cooper in action, but not a whole lot has changed in the weird world of wise-cracking raccoons, turtles, and hippos.

For reasons not worth dwelling on, the gang is forced to get back together one more time to maintain the legacy of the infamous Thievius Raccoonus book. This time, Sly, Bentley, and Murray wind up on a time-travelling adventure that takes in the Wild West, Feudal Japan, Paris, medieval England, Ancient Arabia, and pre-historic times.

The locations have changed, new playable characters have entered the fray, and a multitude of new abilities have been added, but Thieves in Time remains resolutely consistent with the previous titles in Sony's routinely overlooked platforming series.

Whether that's a good thing or not depends entirely on how much you enjoyed the PS2 originals, or the more recent HD remakes on PS3.

Personally, I always thought Sucker Punch deserved far greater recognition, and I'd place all three of the Sly games right up there with any of the more celebrated (and more commercially successful) Ratchetor Jak games of the era.

Taking the baton

With its beautiful cel-shaded visuals, challenging-but-fair level design, superb controls, and sharp banter, it felt very much like a thinking-person's platformer - and Thieves in Time picks up the baton seamlessly.

Despite development duties being handed to Sanzaru Games, it's impossible to see the join. The added visual prowess of the Vita and PS3 have allowed the team to move away from the cel-shaded visual signature, but apart from that this looks and feels every bit as charming as it ever did.

As with all the Sly titles, the game sees you engaging in a sequence of quickfire tasks to scope out the activities of certain key enemies. The formula repeats itself throughout the game, where Sly has to creep around doing stealthier jobs, before giving way to Bentley's hacking and Murray's brawling prowess.

To add to the variety, though, each of the game's five main worlds throws in an extra playable character, allowing Sanzaru room to explore different game mechanics and one-off mini-games.

For example, playing as Bob Cooper, Sly's caveman ancestor, has you engaging in a series of quckfire training missions to get him back in shape, while the Wild West's Tennessee Kid Cooper focuses firmly on his six-shooter and rail-grinding skills.

Stay fresh

This pot-pourri of occasionally used game mechanics helps keep the experience fresh, and ensures that Thieves in Time never settles into the kind of monotonous rut that's the bane of many a promising title.

But while the game's never afraid to throw new mechanics in your direction, it rarely presents you with much of a challenge. Much of your progress through Thieves in Time feels like a procession, with generous auto-aiming and dim enemy AI the order of the day.

It's not until the inevitable boss battles that a real test emerges - and even then you'll emerge unscathed after a few attempts. Frustration might be at a minimum, but it comes at the cost of genuine satisfaction. You'll chip through the game quite happily, but without really breaking sweat.

Want to know what definitely is great, though? Cross Play. For the week or so I spent playing the first new Sly Cooper title in over seven years, I've spent most of it road-testing Sony's strangely unheralded new feature that allows you to play the game on both the PS Vita and PS3 for one all-inclusive price.

Value pack

Happily, it's one of those initiatives that's every bit as good in practice as it sounds, and gives you the very welcome ability to enjoy the game wherever you may be. For players with possibly limited game time at home, being able to whip out the Vita and pick up from where you left off is an absolute godsend.

Unlike certain Cross Play games we've tested to date, synching progress between systems in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is a flawless process. You simply upload your progress to the cloud when you're done playing, and download it on the other system once you're ready to resume. Easy.

The seamlessness of the Cross Play implementation is really important in a title like this, because of its quickfire, piecemeal design.

Anyone familiar with the 'snacky' nature of handheld gaming will definitely appreciate this, and it makes the restless, fragmented approach work much better than if it were a typical home console game. You can just pick it up for ten minutes, complete a job, and make similar incremental progress over dozens of sessions.

Given that some retailers are offering Sly Cooper for a shade under £20, die-hard platformers are getting a real bargain. If more PS3 games were to offer a cross-compatible PS Vita version free of charge, it won't be long before people see the Vita in a very different light.

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Over 3,500 dig 3DS platformer Shovel Knight, game is funded and stretch goals announced

About two weeks ago we brought you a story on Shovel Knight, an upcoming 3DS platformer that looked pretty exciting.

Sure, the so-retro-it-hurts art style caught our eye, but what really helpedShovel Knight stand out was the fact that it was a 3DS game seeking funding on Kickstarter.

After a compelling pitch video, the dev team at Yacht Club Games opened their hearts to 3DS owners and hoped that these gamers would open their wallets for Shovel Knight.

After 19 days, Shovel Knight secured more than $81,000 (£53,265) in funding and was officially announced for development.

Shovel it on

In celebration of the successful funding, Yacht Club Games announced a series of stretch goals that will expand the version of Shovel Knightthat's seen by the gaming public.

Possibilities like a challenging New Game+ Mode, playable Boss Knight characters, and a Gender Swap Mode that lets you play as a female hero are all in play, as is a 4-player co-op mode.

Some of these are a long way off, like the co-op multiplayer which requires an additional $120,000, but the first goal - a bonus music player - was already funded at the $80,000 mark.

If you're interested in helping Shovel Knight reach these goals, or just want to watch how deep its supporters can dig, there are still 12 days left in Shovel Knight's Kickstarter campaign.

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Etrian Odyssey IV takes the long road to Europe, won't arrive until the summer

European JRPG fans were no doubt happy to hear that Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan would cross the pond and come to Europe in the spring.

With that season already upon us, however, NIS America announced that it now planned to publish the 3DS JRPG throughout Europe sometime "this summer".

The reason behind the delay of the Pocket Gamer Bronze Award-winner wasn't specified, but Joystiq reports that it will be available for purchase through retail or as a direct download through Nintendo's eShop when it arrives.

Double the fun

As Europeans 3DS owners look forward to the arrival of Etrian Odyssey IV, many Japanese gamers will be waiting on the recently announced release of New Etrian Odyssey: Millennium Girl.

The reboot of the first installment of the popular RPG franchise is slated for a Japanese release on June 27th, although there have been no announcements regarding whether Millennium Girl will be localized for the west or not.

We'll be sure to keep you updated with a firm release date for Etrian Odyssey IV and any announcements of a western localization ofMillennium Girl as soon as we have them to report.

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'Multiple trusted sources' indicate that Bravely Default Flying Fairy will fly to the west

The 3DS's collection of roleplaying games is about to receive a substantial, and much requested, boost.

While there's no official announcement from Square Enix just yet, Siliconeraconfirmed - through "multiple trusted sources" - that Bravely Default Flying Fairy will be localized for English-speaking audiences.

This cryptic news from GDC 2013 follows a series of equally cryptic Tweets from a Square Enix employee that strongly hinted at a western release of the game.

Chasing the Flying Fairy

Although not a Final Fantasy title, Bravely Default shares many similarities with the Silver Award-winners Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V.

Turn-based random encounters abound in Bravely Default, and serve as an excellent way for characters to progress through an intricate job system that allows players to switch character classes on the fly.

Further in the Final Fantasy III vein, Bravely Default features exaggeratedly cute, but intentionally deformed, character models to add to the storybook feel of the narrative.

We don't know when the Flying Fairy will land in North America or Europe, but we'll be following news of its release closely.

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