Hello Gamespotters!

I picked purchased 2 new games from the PSN store last week:

Lunar Silver Star Harmony, PSP/VITA, $15

Hot Shots Shorties Yellow Pack, PSN/VITA, $5

I'm a big fan of Lunar, and Silver Star Harmony is perhaps the best version of the game ever. It sounds fantastic, love the new graphical look, and the game is super polished all around. I'm incredibly addicted to it as of late - and even though I've finished Lunar many times before, I'm gonna play this one through to the end. A great game will never let you go. I'll dive into the game more into my blogs later, but folks, this game is worth the $15 pricetag. A must have for any RPG fan.

Hot Shots Shorties is a series of mini game packs that I've been quite addicted to as of late. You can purchase all 4 packs for a price of $15, but I recommend to go my route and focus on the two I have: The Green and Yellow packs.

Hot Shots Shorties Green Pack features 3 games: K.O. Derby, Rush Hour Master, and Counter Crusader. The main reason you should purchase this pack is due to the K.O. Derby boxing game.

K.O. Derby is simply the best arcade boxing game you've never played, or possibly seen. Featuring unlockable boxers, multiple difficulty paths, and fantastic gameplay this game is a gem. The x button is the punch button, the normal punch, while the square button is the power punch, hold for a knockout or super punch. Up on the D pad blocks high attacks as well as changes your attack to high attacks, while down guards low hits, and can change your hits to be lower as well. Taping left on the D pad at the right town allows you to do an dodge, allowing you to quickly attack, while at the wrong time, leaves you open.

While it sounds so simple, what makes it a gem is how fluid the game is, has hilarious the knockouts can be, and how insane the combos can get. Continuously stunning an opponent can lead you to do a super knockout that can send the enemy flying out of the ring, or set them up for a ridiculous, street fighter like 20 plus hit combo that looks insane.

As the fights go on, the battles get more intense, and above the 60 round tier the opponents get very tough. But overall it's a fun addicting game and worth the $5 alone. If you love punch out, you need to buy this.

The pack also comes with two other mini games, albeit no where near as good as the boxing one. Counter Crusader is a dynasty warriors type game as you try to cut up the legions of veggies and fruit of various sizes trying to clutter the counter. It's fun for a few plays, but quickly wears out. Rush Hour Master is better, but not by much. You race through traffic like the old arcade days trying to pass as many cars as you can. Your car can jump, speed and gain the ability to crash through other cars without penalty. Again it's good for a few rounds but is no where fun and great as K.O. Derby. That said, it's worth a purchase and is quite the gem for the fantastic boxing game. If them had a game like this when i was a Kid, during the 8 bit, 16 bit eras I'd be playing it every day.

Overall, I give Hot Shots Shorties Green Pack an 8.0/10, for the $5 price, K.O. Derby is a fantastic arcade boxing game that is worth every cent, even with the other two games being a throwaway on the pack. It's worth having on your PSP or PS Vita.

Hot Shots Shorties Yellow pack consists of: Clean-Up Hitter, Vacuum Dash, and Tillage Pillage.

Unlike the other pack, this one has two pretty good games and one throwaway. Clean-Up Hitter is a home run derby game. Featuring two players, left or right handiness, and multiple speed modes (Auto, 50 MPH, 62 - 75 MPH,, 75 to 88 MPH, 50 - 88 MPH, and 100 MPH or more) the game is more addictive then you might think. Given 25 pitches to work with you try to either hit the home run signs at the end of the park, or out of the park. X button is normal swing, and Square is power, which if timed right, will always send the ball out of the park (vs the normal swing). In the beginning you are given 10 power swings to work with, but the more HRs you make over time, you can unlock additional ones to use in other playthroughs. Holding the d pad in one of the directions while swinging allows you to guess where the ball will be placed in the strike zone to ensure a good hit. Every ten pitches a special round pops up that changes the signs to special ability signs for 1 throw. If hit it'll active a special ability: Super Size Home Run Panels, Broken panels rover immediately (vs every other throw), down the middle pitches for three throws, 5 Additional Power swings, and the dreaded 100 mph pitches for the next three throws.

The multiple modes, and the special rounds allow for unpredictably in a game that would be repetitive if left out. Overall, Clean-Up Hitter is a pretty fun and addicting mini game. Good stress reliever.

Vacuum Dash is an mini game that could only come from Japan, as a robot, you go around cleaning rooms under a time limit, while not sucking up important objects that the owner of the room deems important. It sounds stupid and boring in text, but is surprisingly fun, and a bit hilarious when you get to play it. As you clean rooms you can pick up abilities like supercharging your vacuuming to "super suck mode" drawing in everything around you. Again it sounds silly, but trust me, it's a pretty interesting mini game.

Tilliage Pillage however is a bore. You go around as a man trying to pick up veggies from numbers 0 to 9 as quick as possible.

And yes that one IS as boring as it sounds.

I give the pack a 7.5/10. While the pack doesn't have a game that is pure genius like K.O. Derby is, Clean-Up Hitter and Vacuum Dash are pretty fun at $5.

Check them out if you want, sadly there is very little pictures or video of the packs on the web - the only place that had even a few pictures and info was IGN and a few vids on youtube.