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PlayStation Plus subscribers can snag a free copy of PSP (and PS Vita-compatible) fighter Soul Calibur Broken Destiny tomorrow when the PlayStation Store update drops. Soul Calibur Broken Destiny launched on PSP in 2009 with a feature set largely similar to its console predecessor from 2008, Soul Calibur IV.

Curve Studios' port of Mike Bithell's BAFTA-nominated puzzle-platformer Thomas Was Alone makes its debut on PS Vita and PS3 this week. The cross-buy enabled game takes place within a computer mainframe, tasking players with escorting erratic AI entities to their destinations.

Finally, PSN's Spring Fever sale continues unabated, slashing prices across the entire Resident Evil series this week. Highlights include Resident Evil: Director's Cut for $5, Resident Evil 6 for $21 and Resident Evil 4 at $14.

Most interviews with game developers are stuffed with predictable hype about how wonderful everything in their game will be. It's pre-release time. A season for optimism! Here's something different—something brutal yet refreshing... ...from Mark Pacini, former game director of the incredible Metroid Prime games. His studio's now making a side-scrolling Metroid-style Batman game for the 3DS and Vita for release this fall. This is from a chat between an editor at Game Informer and Pacini regarding Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate, the first original game from Pacini's five-year-old studio Armature, which is led by three former creative leads of Nintendo's Metroid Prime games. Even though you don’t want to be seen as the ex-Metroid Prime guys, fans are going to be excited when they know ex-Metroid Prime guys are going to be making a Super Metroid-style game. I hope so. I hope we don’t disappoint them. That’s always my fear, because I think everything we do sucks. But that’s just me because I thought all the Prime games suck. At the end of the day all I see are all the bad things. Prime 2 was a blur to me. It was so quick, it was so fast. That thing just went out the door and it was a very divisive game. People either liked it or thought it sucked, and I can completely agree because I couldn’t tell you what that game was because it happened so quickly. Prime 1 was the best designed game. Prime 3 I feel is the most fun one to play. Prime 2 is divisive. You either like it or you don’t. That’s kind of the way I look at it. It is the same thing here with the Arkham game. All I see at this point, because we are knee deep, we’re in the woods right now in development, and all I see is all the crap that’s wrong with it. In my gut I feel like, yeah, it’s going to be cool. I’m excited for it. But at the same time, I hope we don’t disappoint people and I hope that they like it. We’re trying our hardest. I would like to play a game like this, so hopefully everyone else will, too. If I might chime in... Metroid Prime 2 was fantastic. Especially that level in that high-tech city. Oh, and that last visor! Yeah, that didn't suck. Here's to future Armature games "sucking" just as bad as the Metroid Primes! And here's to Mark Pacini's brand of refreshing frankness when doing interviews about gaming. That he admits things aren't always rosy makes these kinds of conversations—and the games his studio is working on—all the more interesting. Batman Meets Metroid In Arkham Origins Blackgate [Game Informer]

Star Trek, the co-operative action title from Digital Extremes (and Namco and Paramount) graces the top of the lineup for the week, followed by some downloadable content and digital releases. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is a re-release of the 2012 game featuring new content. Today • LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins (Mac) Tuesday • Star Trek (360, PS3, PC) • Dead Island: Riptide (360, PS3, PC) • Don't Starve (PC) • Dead Island: Riptide - Fashion Victim (PC DLC) • Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (360, PS3) • Puzzler Brain Games (3DS) • Puzzler World 2013 (3DS) • Draw Slasher (PS Vita) Wednesday • Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine (XBLA, PC) Thursday • XCOM: Enemy Unknown—Elite Edition (Mac) • Mega Man 4 (3DS) •Neogeo X Classics Vol 4 • Neogeo X Classics Vol 5 Friday • StarDrive (PC) Follow Dealzon on Twitter.

Having previously showcased the Fighter and the Sorceress, Vanillaware beat-em-up Dragon's Crown moves onto another player class: the Dwarf. While he's not infirm in the slightest, the sudden gymnastics halfway through does remind us of that bit from Attack of the Clones.

The PlayStation Store gets a beefy update today with the full games Injustice: Gods Among Us and Sniper Ghost Warrior 2, along with pre-orders for Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, the expanded re-release of Dragon's Dogma, live now for $40.

PSN gets Mad Dog: The Lost Gold and Sacred Citadel, while Dragon Fantasy Book 1 is a cross-buy game for Vita and PS3, out today for $10. RPG Maker 3 comes to PS2 Classics and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge bundles up for $40. Of course PS Plus members get special deals, this week snagging a free copy of Malicious, and the Spring Fever sale is ongoing.

Raunchy puzzler Catherine is one of the five games coming to Europe's PlayStation Plus next month. The not-so-sheepish Atlus game joins Malicious and the previously announced Hitman Absolution in the PS3's Instant Game Collection on May 1.

Meanwhile, Vita-owning subscribers can power up with a couple of shoot-em-ups. First up is the oddball steampunk of Sine Mora on May 8, and that's followed by Velocity Ultra on May 15. The Vita upgrade of Futurlab's Mini was penciled in for May in North America, so its arrival on PS Plus EU likely means it'll be released on PSN the same week.

As ever, newbies shooting up the place forces old stuff to scream in terror as it flees the service. F1 Race Stars, Okami HD, and Quantum Conundrum leave a collective puff of smoke on May 1, with Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward and Thomas Was Alone soon scampering after on May 8 and May 22 respectively.

Tuesday's PlayStation Store update in North America is delayed due to extended PSN maintenance in some areas. The PS Store updates on Tuesdays usually, but this week's additions are in limbo while PSN maintenance runs over from Monday, April 15.

When the update does come, it'll bring a Soul Sacrifice demo, Sacred Citadel, Mad Dog 2, and others to the Store. While you may be able to sign into PSN currently, you won't be able to acquire these games until the Store updates.

Tuesday's PlayStation Store update is delayed due to extended PSN maintenance in some areas. PS Store updates usually occur on Tuesdays, but this week's additions are in limbo while Sony continues maintenance running over from Monday, April 15 in certain areas.

When the update does come, it'll bring a Soul Sacrifice demo, Sacred Citadel, Mad Dog 2, and others to PSN. While you may be able to sign into PSN currently, you won't be able to acquire these games until the Store updates.

There is nothing in life more important than the birth of new humans. It's how we keep the species going. But as crucial as it is to our continued domination of this planet's food chain (suck it, chimps), it can also be a tiring, stressful and emotional time. But it's OK. Video games are here to help. My wife recently gave birth to our second child, and unlike the first - after whose arrival came three months of waking and unrelenting hell - this one was a relative breeze. Experience, classes and calmer heads meant that his first few weeks in the house were a far more bearable time, but helping out most of all was the fact that this time, I was able to play video games. Looking after a newborn baby is hard work, yo. They don't sleep right. They need to be fed. They cry all the time. For no reason. They shit their pants. And not regular shit. Weird, demonic, black tar. They vomit all over the place. In short, until they learn to start sleeping at night, and stop screaming like banshees, your life can be hell. It's a hell that video games can really help you get through. Take your mind off the stress, occupy those precious moments of downtime. Which may sound obvious, but when there are new humans around, conditions aren't normal. You might be up in the middle of the night. You might have your hands full. You might be exhausted, short on faculties. So your go-to game, or even platform, might be out of the question. Yet as many of us on staff can testify to, playing games can be the only thing that keeps you sane at a time like this. Meaning you need to work around it. Here are some tips should you be in, about to be or will one day be in the position to try and juggle a fresh human being and a career mode. The Best & Worst Platforms For days/weeks after the birth of a new child, you'll often find your hands full. Usually with said child. They're cold and clingy, so every time you look down, there they'll be, lying on your shoulder or clutched to your chest. Comforting for them, maybe, but it makes playing certain systems more difficult than usual. You'll also find that when you don't have them, you're probably exhausted. And with relatively short periods of downtime. Console are OK. If you've got a kid slung over your shoulders, you can still hold a control pad. If you're on the couch, you can even raise your legs and rest the baby between your thighs. The only downside to console gaming is that many titles might ask a bit too much time from you; kids can be asleep one minute and screaming/full of poop the next, so you've got to be ready to move. Don't expect to settle in for a ten-hour romp through Skyrim. Phones and tablets are even better. Most phones can be used one-handed, as can tablets if you put them on your lap or on a table. They might not have the greatest games available, but they're there in a pinch. My favourite this time around was the Vita, though, because it was a control pad that I could take anywhere. In the kitchen when I was rocking a kid on my shoulder, in his room when I was feeding him, on the couch if I was lucky enough to get five minutes on the couch. The handheld's standby mode was also invaluable for those moments when I had to shut my game off right that second and not have to worry about saving. And unlike most games on my phone, the Vita (and PS3) games I was playing had some meat to them. The Wii U's own "remote play" features are just as handy, I guess, but I can't testify since I didn't really use one during my latest ordeal. Ditto for the 3DS, though with the caveat that any game requiring use of a stylus is going to be rough. My PC, well...it's hit and miss. I found that most PC games were off the table because they required some degree of two-handed input, mostly thanks to WASD commands. So mouse-only games were the way to go. I say that as someone with a standing office, though; if you've got a nice big comfy chair, you could probably get away with two-handed control just like you can with consoles. As for Kinect, Move and certain Wii U titles...hahaha...hahahaha....no. The Best Games There are two main things to consider here. One is the ease with which you can play a game if your hands are full. The other is how suitable that game is to the timetable you'll be on for a few weeks. If it can't be paused, takes hours at a time to finish or needs you to physically move around, forget it. Other concerns might be your online habits, if applicable - your friends will be asleep at 3 in the morning, so won't be there to game with - and stuff like volume. If the kid is asleep, they need to sleep, so you'll need headphones. That also means competitive multiplayer is likely a no-go, as shouting into a microphone is not advisable. On the PC, you're looking at games that only use a mouse. SimCity was a good one, at least until I quit, fed up with the AI. Its place was taken by Civilization, which had the added benefit of "turns", meaning you can start and stop playing at clear, clean breaks. Or, being Civ, at least try. Which leads me nicely to my absolute favourite new-kid game, the title that saved my sanity almost single-handedly over the past few weeks: Persona 4 Golden. It's an epic game that will take you weeks to complete, but is structurally divided into tiny bites. It's played using only the Vita's stick and face buttons, meaning no contortions necessary if you're playing while nursing/feeding. And because it's entirely text-based, you can play and follow along even if you need to turn the volume off or forgot your headphones. I cannot stress enough how perfect the game was to these circumstances. Thanks, guys. What To Avoid I've touched on a few of these already, but here they are again: avoid long, drawn-out games like Skyrim. You won't have the time or the stamina. Avoid games that need you to be sharp, because again, you might be exhausted. Avoid multiplayer gaming in almost all forms, even MMOs, because you can't shout, and you can't be relied upon to finish games or raid dungeons. Basically, avoid being Michael Fahey. And that's about it! Remember: nothing can prepare you for the shock and awe of having a tiny baby in the house. But video games can, when used properly, at least dull the pain.

This week's free North American PlayStation Plus game is Malicious, a third-person action game in which players defeat an eclectic collection of bosses and pilfer their powers.

Meanwhile, the Spring Fever sale event continues for PlayStation Plus with a series-wide sale on the Grand Theft Auto games, including recent PS2 Classics GTA 3 (for under $5) and GTA: San Andreas (for under $8).

Superbot, the developer behind PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, is a smaller studio following its split with Sony earlier this year, which saw the Culver City-based outfit make a number of positions redundant. Its next step is to work on a new property.

"We have substantially shrunk down our operations but are still going strong while we work on a new IP," director of operations David Yang told Edge.

Superbot was formed in 2009 as Broodworks, a studio focusing on developing video games for Sony handhelds. The studio was later renamed Superbot Entertainment and made its debut with PlayStation All-Stars.

DC Comics' story-driven fighter from NetherRealm Studios hits shelves on Tuesday, dominating a week lacking any other major first-run PC or console release. Dishonored's Knife of Dunwall extension arrives for all three platforms, too. Monday • ArcaniA: Game of the Year Edition (PS3) Tuesday • Injustice: Gods Among Us (360, PS3, Wii U) • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner—Soul Hackers (3DS) • Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall (XBLA, PSN, PC DLC) • Victoria II: A Heart of Darkness (PC DLC) • Dragon Fantasy (PS3, Vita) • Pandora's Tower (Wii) Wednesday • Sacred Citadel (PC) • Machines at War 3 (PC, Mac) Thursday • Papo & Yo (PC) Friday • Eador: Masters of the Broken World (PC) • God Mode (PC) Saturday • Train Simulator: London Faversham High Speed (PC DLC)

Rockstar has released the soundtracks for its most recent Grand Theft Auto games onto Spotify and iTunes. Sadly, just the tunes from Grand Theft Auto 3 and every entry since are here - none of Rockstar's zany commercials or satirical talk radio stations.

The only place to get the full soundtracks still is through Rockstar's box set releases; however, if you want to just listen to the ads, you can point your browser to The Advertising Council.

Rockstar recently revealed the box art for Grand Theft Auto 5, due on September 17 for Xbox 360 and PS3. Even though over 100,000 have signed a petition calling for a PC port, Take-Two has not announced Grand Theft Auto 5 for the PC at this time.

So here's our problem with Dragon's Crown. The art is technically very well-done, and almost entirely, unreservedly beautiful to look at. It's one of the most impressive 2D creations ever. But there are also ... problematic aspects to it.

And by "aspects" we mean the Sorceress, whose carefully drawn voluptuousness and general lack of clothing makes a game we'd think everyone should see just that much harder to show off. Speaking of which, maybe don't watch this at work.

The PlayStation Network is doing some spring cleaning on Monday, April 15. The service is going offline between 11AM ET (8AM PT) and 11PM ET in North America. PSN's Euro side is evidently a bit filthier, as it needs a further 3 hours of sprucing; maintenance starts on that side of the ocean at 2PM UK time on April 15, ending at 5AM the day after.

As usual, the PS Store, Home, and account management aren't accessible during the downtime, but online play is as long you've signed in prior to the maintenance beginning.

Is there anything more paltry than the video game chicken? Guacamelee lets you kick the poor featherballs, lock them in your log-like luchador arms, and pile-drive them into the ground so hard they bounce around the room. In the presence of a protagonist, the only thing worse off than a chicken is a vase.

Guacamelee doesn't have much to say about vases or any sort of pottery, but its Mexican fairytale offers some spiritual redemption for the down-trodden chicken. This overdue kindness is reflected in the game's eclucktic characters, and in the hero's typical ascent to spandex.

In Juan, you inhabit a slouching, mild-mannered man and earnest collector of wrestling paraphernalia. The villain kills him immediately. Upon his resurrection - via mystical luchador mask - a swaggering Juan learns to leap through the dual worlds of living and dead, and finds reason to punch them both.

Is there anything more paltry than the video game chicken? Guacamelee lets you kick the poor featherballs, lock them in your log-like luchador arms, and pile-drive them into the ground so hard they bounce around the room. In the presence of a protagonist, the only thing worse off than a chicken is a vase.

Guacamelee doesn't have much to say about vases or any sort of pottery, but its Mexican fairytale offers some spiritual redemption for the down-trodden chicken. This overdue kindness is reflected in the game's eclucktic characters, and in the hero's typical ascent to spandex.

In Juan, you inhabit a slouching, mild-mannered man and earnest collector of wrestling paraphernalia. The villain kills him immediately. Upon his resurrection - via mystical luchador mask - a swaggering Juan learns to leap through the dual worlds of living and dead, and finds reason to punch them both.

Take a look at the different camera views for MotoGP 2013.

Hitman: Absolution is the latest coup for PlayStation Plus in Europe. Agent 47's latest adventure sneaks onto the service on May 1, joining four other as-yet-unrevealed games next month. Considering it only came out in November 2012, Absolution's impending arrival marks another strong entry in PS Plus's European line-up, with Dead or Alive 5, Sleeping Dogs, Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Arkham City all coming to the subscription service in recent months.

In the meantime, both Plus subscribers and others can take advantage of a new PSN sale for the region. The 'Declassified' sale starts today and runs until April 24, bringing savings to Crysis, Hitman, Metal Slug, and Tom Clancy games among others. Standout discounts include Hitman Trilogy HD for €11.99/£9.69, and €19.99/£15.99 for the Splinter Cell Complete Pack, which includes SC Trilogy HD, SC: Essentials, and SC Double Agent. As usual, those prices and all the others in the sale drop a further 10 percent with Plus.

You can snoop a full list of discounts on the PlayStation Blog.

Guacamelee didn't just appear like the chips and salsa do before the chimichanga arrives at your favorite Mexican restaurant - it took work, and it took a solid idea. The above proof-of-concept video shows Guacamelee before it got gussied up, demonstrating the game's mechanics and moves without any flashy art to get in the way.

Guacamelee is out today on PSN, as a cross-buy title for PS3 and Vita. Apart from all those sweet luchador moves, the game is stuffed with classic video game and internet references.

Guacamelee puts PSN in a headlock today, receiving top billing in this week's content dump. The PS3 and PS Vita cross-play game is available for $14.99, or at $11.99 for PS Plus subscribers as part of the "Spring Fever" promotion.

Downloads for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Anarchy Reigns, Fatal Frame on PS2 and a few PS Imports also make their debut today.

This week's free PlayStation Plus game is Labyrinth Legends, the dungeon action game from Creat Studios - the Russian outfit responsible for Biker Mice from Mars on PS2 and a bunch of PSN games like Cuboid, Magic Orbz and others.

These screens for Lego Legends of Chima: Laval's Journey offer a taste of the action in the totally original adventure from Warner and TT Games. The game will be coming to 3DS and Vita this Summer and to DS this Fall.

Vanillaware scrolling beat-em-up Dragon's Crown features six classes, and this video shows off the Fighter one. It doesn't matter the voiceover is Japanese, because the game's hand-animated art speaks for itself. Dragon's Crown scorches PS3 and Vita this summer.

The English version of the newest Dragon's Crown trailer adds a little bit of context to the storyline - mostly "you're going into a labyrinth." It doesn't really need all that much context anyway.

A Virus Named Tom developer Tim Keenan stepped out of his comfort zone during PAX East - literally - to set up shop in the tabletop gaming summit, with two paper prototypes of ideas for his next big project. At the end of a long row, in the heart of tabletop territory, Keenan demonstrated the mechanics behind Scavenger, a top-down, rolling tower defense game set in space, and Chess the Gathering, which played exactly how it sounds and definitely won't have that name if it enters official development.

Chess the Gathering featured an iPad showing off the game's digital prototype, including a level editor. The gameplay is a spatial representation of Magic the Gathering, on a chessboard and with a myriad of creatures and "twins." For a rundown of Chess the Gathering, check out Keenan's YouTube playlist, and sign up to get an early (digital) prototype here.

Keenan convinced a pair of Magic fans to play Chess the Gathering, and as we talked, they remained riveted on the rudimentary gameboard, cards and characters. When they finished, they concluded that they loved it. "If this were a board game, I would buy it," one of them said.

Scavenger tells the story of a Han Solo-esque character as he travels the galaxies looting spaceships, attempting to pay off his debt to vicious collectors. It's a top-down, tower defense game where the protagonist sits in his spacecraft and sends out drones to infiltrate the victim ships. The player defends his own ship from enemies, while directing drones throughout the other ships, in search of money. See the Scavenger playlist here.

Keenan has a third game in the works, an action title that he said wouldn't work well as a paper prototype. He and his wife, Holly, plan to ask the community which project sounds best, and then launch a Kickstarter to develop that game under their studio, Misfits Attic. Currently, the Misfits are working on the Vita port of A Virus Named Tom.

Check out the paper prototypes for Scavenger and Chess the Gathering in the gallery below.

Hotline Miami designer Jonatan Söderström - perhaps better known by his prickly development alias, Cactus - began his career in freeware, developing smaller, experimental games that anyone with the appropriate hardware could download and play at any time, game-development hippie-communism style. Some of his games include Norrland, Shotgun Ninja, Psychosomnium, Minubeat, Clean Asia! and Keyboard Drumset *crag*ing Werewolf. That last one, created in three weeks in October 2011, features art by Hotline Miami co-creator Dennis Wedin.

Together, Wedin and Söderström form Dennaton Games, and they are part of the rising cult of indie superstars. But the draw of fame and fortune wasn't why Söderström stopped making freeware games.

"I didn't want to become homeless," Söderström told Joystiq at GDC. By February of this year, Hotline Miami clocked 300,000 PC sales, and PS3 and Vita ports by Abstraction Games are currently "pretty much done," expected to hit in May, Wedin said. Söderström isn't in danger of being homeless right now. Still, reverting to freeware development poses an interesting challenge.

"I kind of want to start doing freeware games again, but when you put so much work into something that turns out really good, it feels hard to do smaller things that won't be as good," Söderström said. It's all about "finding the inspiration to do something that seems worthwhile," he continued. "When you work on a big game for a long while, you start thinking in ideas that only work if they are big. It's difficult to turn to the other mindset, especially when you are still working on the next big thing."

Dennaton is digging into development on the sequel to Hotline Miami, a large game with parallel plots taking place in the early 90s, and after that Wedin and Söderström have ideas for fresh IPs. They'll probably be bigger games, even if Dennaton doesn't intend for them to be.

"Hotline Miami wasn't meant to be big," Wedin said.

The malignant majesty of Demon's Souls becomes free to North American PlayStation Plus members in today's PSN update. The servers for From Software action-RPG are staying online for the foreseeable future, so there's no reason to pass on a PS3 game we described as a "leather-clad mistress" in our 2009 review - unless, perhaps... you're scared?

Less sadistic Plus entries coming this month include Zombie Tycoon 2, which comes to PS3 and Vita via PSN on April 30, Malicious and Labyrinth Legends for PS3, and PSP game Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny for Vita. There are no PS Plus ETAs for those last three.

As ever, new stuff coming in pushes old stuff back out. If you want to grab Spec Ops: The Line from PS Plus, today's your last chance to do so. Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition dragon punches out on April 9, while Anomaly: Warzone Earth flees on April 16.

Finally, today's PSN update brings discounts to The Walking Dead, Rainbow Moon, and the Söldner-X series, including the first season of Telltale's zombified adventure for $14.99, a price that drops to $10.49 with Plus. For all those deals, check out the PlayStation Blog.

Curve Studios is working on the port of Thomas Was Alone for PS3 and Vita, but it's also working on a PlayStation version of its own indie game. Stealth Bastard, a side-scrolling stealth platformer, is due on both PS3 and Vita this summer, with the clone-versus-robot sneaking intact, but one very important element missing.

"We'd like to present our fans with an opportunity to be a part of Stealth B**tard's journey to PlayStation," lead designer Sam Robinson writes on the PlayStation Blog [censorship his]. "We want to rename Stealth B**tard to something less profane... it's just too rude!" Submit the winning title by April 14, and you get a Vita, a copy of the game, and a credit. Plus the lingering guilt of being responsible for the death of a title like "Stealth Bastard."

The sequel to Hotline Miami tackles the more touchy-feely aspects of the early 90s, Dennaton Games duo Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin tell Joystiq at GDC. The gameplay will stray in a few different directions, with parallel plots built around the first game, and more attention on emotional experiences.

It's planned for PC, although Abstraction, the company currently porting Hotline Miami to Vita, can now work on the sequel's port "right away," Wedin says. Dennaton is in talks with Sony, but if all goes well the sequel may ship day-and-date on PC and Vita, Wedin and Söderström say. Devolver Digital is on tap to publish again, and Dennaton is still talking with them, too.

"They've been super nice," Söderström says. Wedin chimes in, "They let us do whatever we want."

The protagonist of Hotline Miami - Dennaton is cool with the name "Jacket" - has a minor part in the next game, but he won't be a playable character. The music will feel familiar, too, with a few bands recycled from Hotline Miami and some new groups, but no original score.

If any of that is unsatisfactory to any fans of the series, chill out - the sequel is lucky it even exists, at least right now. Söderström and Wedin both wanted to work on a brand new IP, but they couldn't stop talking about Hotline Miami, so they decided to finish that project first. This sequel marks the end of Hotline Miami for Dennaton.

"It's the grand finale, for us," Wedin says.

Iron Galaxy Studios' Divekick, which started out as a purely independent Kickstarter success story, pokes fun at the aspects of the fighting genre that people both love and loathe. It competes well in the genre it trivializes, and it does so with both hands in its pockets.

The build I played at PAX East used a fight stick with two buttons slightly larger than the palms of my hands. That underscores the key ingredient to Divekick: it introduces an appropriate level of depth for a fighter that only uses two forms of input. Smacking one button down would tell my character to jump in the air, while the other had them hopping backwards. Combinations of these buttons resulted in jumping in the air and kicking downward at an angle, or activating a character-specific ability when the "kick meter" filled up. Successfully kicking my opponent just once in the cat-and-mouse fighter won a round, with the match going to the first character to win five rounds.

Instead of memorizing button combinations, the playing field is leveled for all combatants, as timing is everything in this game. I found myself adopting familiar fighting game strategies, attempting to lure my opponent in before nailing them with a quick hop and kick. Other times, I would close the gap between us with a high vertical jump and kick, a risky proposition given the amount of time available for my enemy to counter. Kicking my opponent in the head wasn't just satisfying, it was a tactic that carried over to the next round, as the player suffering the blow began the first four seconds of the round in a daze. The daze slowed their movements, giving me a clear, but not absolute advantage.