Ten Minute Taste: Kick-Ass (PSN)

5:20 PM on 04.30.2010   |   Nick Chester

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Frozen Codebase's Kick-Ass just hit the PlayStation Network yesterday, and here are the first ten minutes of the game.

Available as a download-only PS3-exclusive, the game is based on both the recent film and the comic series, borrowing more heavily from the former. It plays like your basic role-playing game beat 'em up, similar to Activision's Marvel Ultimate Alliance series. Players can choose from one of three characters -- Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, and Big Daddy -- earning experience points to level up defense, offense, and special abilities.

Controls are about as straight forward as you can get -- there's one button for light attack, one for heavy attack, and one for jump. Holding R2 and using a combination of the face buttons will launch your character's special attack. And that's basically it. It's mindless, to be sure. The first ten minutes of the game as I've played so far is mindless button mashing, which isn't as bad as it sounds... if that's what you're expecting going into it

Whether or not the game opens up and introduces other elements later remains to be seen. By using points to level up special abilities, it seems it only upgrades how effective they are; you don't seem to get any new abilities. Button mashing is fine, but without new combos or attacks to add to the mix, things could get stale quick.

I'll have a more detailed review next week after I've played with all of the game's characters, as well as spent some time playing the game's single-screen co-op. Kick-Ass is available now on PlayStation Network for $14.99.