PAX 2012: Frobisher Says Preivew – Vita Killer App

While wandering the Vita area of Sony’s booth this year at PAX I discovered Frobisher Says from Honeyslug, which is the greatest surprise and most smiling and laughing I had with a game at the show.

Most of the game kiosks in the Sony booth were taken and had long lines, so I headed to the empty stations labeled Apps. Most of the apps on the Vita are pretty useless if you have some other smart device on your person, so I wasn’t expecting to find anything of value here. I was very glad to be wrong.

Frobisher Says is a bizarre collection of mini games where players have to react to the situation quickly with very little instructions on how to succeed. It is  easy to make comparisons to Nintendo’s successful Wario Ware series and Frobisher is definitively in the same genre but has a more entertaining production level.

The art direction and style of the game is wonderfully charming. Bright colors, and odd creatures give the feeling of a strange cartoon.

The quality of the art in Frobisher is astounding, but what really stood out to me was the audio.

Each mini game starts with the main character, Frobisher, telling you how to play the game. He has a very fun sounding voice and the way he barks orders keeps me smiling and laughing even though I’ve already heard the commands before. The mini games are strange, and fun and make use of every part of the Vita’s unique hardware.

Some of the minigames include pulling the plug to drain a bathtub after Frobisher’s bath (using the front touch screen), scratching his back (using the rear touch pad) and finding something that is the color green (using the rear camera). Other games use the buttons, the microphone, the front facing camera and the motion sensors.

The game also supports pass and play mulitplayer, so if you are comfortable throwing your Vita around with your friends, you are sure to have a fun time all laughing at the games absurdity.

The game was released on the PlayStation Store in Europe earlier this year for free. The free version doesn’t come with all of the available mini games, but it does give players access to a good chunk of the game; it’s more than just a demo. An additional game DLC pack is available for purchase.

Honeyslug has said that while the US version has been in the process of being released for a while they don’t know when it will be released, but they do think it will be ‘soon.’

If you are desperate to play more Frobisher before its US release, you can go through the frustrating, convoluted process of wiping your US Vita to put a UK PSN account on it to download the game, but you’ll need an additional memory card if you want to keep your saved files from your US account.

Frobisher Says: “Play My Stupid Videogame” and you better listen to him if you want to have fun.