The PlayStation 4 NEO hasn’t been officially announced but hints keep getting heavier and heavier as this being Sony’s next big move. What do the upgraded specs mean for game developers and what kind of improvements will be seen?

GamingBolt spoke to Ratloop co-founder Sian Yue Tan who recently worked on Rocketbirds 2: Evolution for the PlayStation 4. Based on reports of what the PS4 NEO may offer, Tan said that, “According to this sheet, we can expect games with higher resolutions, instead of revolutionary game play.

“And those GPU-bound games will receive a boost in framerates as well. From this table it looks like it would benefit games that need additional visual speed to hit those higher framerates and resolutions needed for VR, where your game would need to render left and right eyes for stereoscopy to work.”

The PS4 NEO will apparently be unveiled at this year’s E3 though Sony hasn’t given any indication that it exists. What are your thoughts on the impact that it could potentially bring to game development? Let us know in the comments.

Ratloop games has officially announced they are going to be launching Rocketbirds 2: Evolution on the Sony PS4 and the PS Vita on April 26. Along with the announcement of the release date, the company took to the PlayStation blog to share a bit more information about the game, particularly one mode known as rescue mode. The game is going to have a six chapter story mode, but the rescue mode appears to be the mode the company is most proud of.

In order to show off this mode, the company put together a video titled “A Chicken’s Guide to Killing Penguins.” This mode is one where four friends, either offline or online can team up and basically go loot hunting. The loot hunting can lead to finding a number of different items as well as hostages that were being held behind enemy lines. When players do find a hostage, they will actually be able to join the team as a character you can then customize.

Ratloop also unveiled a number of new weapons that are going to be included in the game, such as the Mossy Shotgun. You can check out more about this sequel to Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, in the video below. The game will have crossave and cross buy features, meaning getting it once will give you access to both the PS4 and the PS Vita versions.

These 2D side-scrolling games never strike as unique to me. They always end up resembling some other game in the genre. That’s not a bad thing, though. You can only innovate so much in the genre in the first place. Rocketbirds is an interesting new 2D side-scrolling game that reminds me of Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Shank for reason. While the art style and the general visuals may be drastically different, the core gameplay is very similar. Ratloop have managed to create a fun game however, as Rocketbirds is one hell of a budget game.

It has an interesting backstory, as the main protagonist’s main goal is to take down hordes of evil Penguins. Your goal is to take down their leader and free Albatropolis. This is pretty much out and out an action game, as you will be pretty much loaded and hardcore from start to finish. The difficulty is tough and will be extremely challenging as you try to clear the game’s 15 chapters. You really can’t go all guns blazing though, as the enemies can make mincemeat of you very fast. The main campaign is quite varied, as the art style really sticks out here.

The only way these 2D side-scrolling games can differentiate among themselves is via the visual flair and the clear unique combat. Fortunately, Rocketbirds manages to do this, as the developers here have tried to make it stand out as much as possible. There are some jetpack levels thrown in, which brings a good change in the pacing and is a lot of fun. You will be killing a lot of enemies here, as they come from both directions and you need to play with the crouch mechanic smartly if you want to survive here.

The game isn’t that long, but it is slightly above average for what a PSN/XBL game should be. It took me a while to finish the game, as some of the levels were slightly getting on my nerves, but overwhelmingly frustrating. There is also a co-op mechanic here, which is one of the best additions any developer can do. The settings are different however, so your experience in the main campaign doesn’t count here. Some of the levels are a real eye candy, so it’s certainly commended the way Ratloop have approached this game.

One of the best things about the game is the music. It’s composed by New World Revolution and features their new album, Karmakaze. Surprisingly, it got me really immersed in the game, so I can’t really argue with the choice to use this music in the game. Along with the spiffy art style and the cheery music, the game’s production values are much better than you expect from most arcade games.

The game is reasonably priced on PSN, so if you love 2D side-scrolling games that offer a good challenge and also try to attempt to distinguish itself from the rest of the games out there, do give this a try. There is also a demo available, so check it out if it matches your taste or not.

This game was reviewed on the PS3.