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• The Japanese PlayStation Store Gets Final Fantasy VII, Life Declared "Unfair"

  Let's face facts; the American PlayStation Store is...not so good. Just take a look at the number of original Playstation games you can download in Japan, compared to what's available here. Go ahead, I'll wait. Surprised? Then you probably haven't been paying attention. No offense intended, of course, but if you've been following PlayStation Store release news since the PS3's launch, then you're probably familiar with the disappointment all PS3 owners feel when they see so many of their favorite games just out of arm's reach. Of course, it's always possible to go through the rigmarole of creating a Japanese account and "tricking" the PlayStation Store into thinking that you deserve access to its superior Japanese marketplace, but you shouldn't have to. Hell, if Sony got their act together and started pimping the PS3 as the place to get your affordable fix of their respectable and immense library (especially the PS2), I'd consider adding their new console to my rickety fire hazard of an entertainment center. Read More... Posted Apr 13 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: sony, psn, ps3, bob mackey, square enix, playstation store

• The Art of Heavy Rain

  We have absolutely no clue what Heavy Rain is going to be. Well, we have some idea, sure. We know that Quantic Dream’s unsettling detailed three-dimensional characters and environments recall the world on its most, dreary rain-soaked day, shades of grey and brown and green. We know that the character’s have facial expressions that dip so low into the Uncanny Valley that they stop being repellant and become entrancing. We know that the game will be played predominantly through quick time events. We know that, if Indigo Prophecy and Omikron are anything to go by, Heavy Rain’s going to be, if not good, one hell of an interesting game. Truth is, we know so little because Quantic Dream hasn’t shown the actual game to anyone besides a small handful of journalists and employees of Sony Computer Entertainment. They’ve shown two demos as examples of the technology and style that will make up Heavy Rain. That’s it. No actual game. Quantic Dream are mysterious Frenchmen, so they are. Today, we can add some new pieces to the Heavy Rain puzzle. This concept art may not tell us a whole lot about the game’s story or what it will actually be like to play, but they speak volumes about its tone. This game is going to be unsettling. How unsettling? Follow the jump. Read More... Posted Apr 06 2009, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, uncanny valley, sony, indigo prophecy, heavy rain, quantic dream, omikron, ps3, scea, Fahrenheit

• BREAKING NEWS: Sony Announces Potential Price Drop for the PLAYSTATION............2. oh.

  I have been waiting for a PS3 price drop, nay, expecting one for a few months now. I just want to see a show of hands here. Who out there, like me, is all ready to pick up a PS3 but only if it is priced within the range of sanity? The PS3 wasn't exactly setting the world aflame in sales prior to the global recession and so one wonders at Sony's stubborn refusal to accept that people, especially in this economy, are not willing to work extra hours just to afford their machine. Read More... Posted Mar 31 2009, 05:00 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: amber ahlborn, Playstation, ps3, price drop

• Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy--The Beatles: Rock Band Priced and Dated

  MTV Games and Harmonix have dropped a handful of details on The Beatles: Rock Band, the official name of that Beatles game that was announced last October. Key among those details was the fact that it would be called The Beatles: Rock Band. That certainly doesn’t sound like the “new, full-grown, custom game built from the ground up” that was mentioned back then, but I’ve spent the months since that announcement dreaming of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club RTS so it’s possible that my disappointment is not exactly, um, sane. I’ll get my other crazy compliant out of the way now, too: the release is scheduled for 09/09/09, which is cute and all but totally conflicts with the Decade of Dreamcast blowout party I have been planning in my mind since, oh, January 1st 2009. But maybe that is just the ship date and everything will be fine! Read More... Posted Mar 05 2009, 02:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, rock band, the beatles, harmonix, ps3, joe keiser, rhythm action, the beatles: rock band

• Jerking Your Fans Around

  Console exclusivity; to gain sole rights to that singular game with hopes for drawing in the crowds. Game and franchise exclusives have been part of the strategy to gain fan following since the first video game machines began competing. In the early days, consoles had pretty distinct catalogs. It was easy to determine what games would appear on what systems and pick where to spend your dollars. These days almost everything not developed by a first or second party is cross platform (for the moment, we will be ignoring the Wii which plays by its own rules). However, don't think for a moment that exclusivity is a thing of the past, it has merely evolved into a new, sinister form. Read More... Posted Mar 03 2009, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, amber ahlborn, tomb raider, ps3

• The 61FPS Review: Noby Noby Boy—Part 2

  Over the weekend, I spent half an hour tying my body around a cloud. I’m not really sure why I did it, and I’m not particularly convinced I enjoyed it. Something inside me told me to do it, and after a fashion I succeeded. And then I played Noby Noby Boy for a few more hours. And when I put down the controller I came to a realization: this is not something that can actually be reviewed. Let me be clear: I am not the sort of person that believes that reviews should not have scores or grades at the end. I believe that most games are built with specific goals in mind, and that the value of those goals and how successful the game was in achieving those goals can be measured in a relatively standard way. It’s not objective, and there are exceptional games that bring trouble to the grading system, which is why you see so much hand wringing about review scores (note: that hand wringing is also valuable—it keeps scoring models contemporary and reviewers on their toes). It’s the same thing that happens at almost any school. Noby Noby Boy is one of those exceptional outliers. There’s no implied contract here: you’re not trading $60 for the promise of a solid genre entry that meets all the bullet points and marketing hype. Noby Noby is $5, with the marketing hype being that it is “inexplicable” and the bullet points being “relax” and “have fun”. Without any expectations, it can’t be said that Noby Noby Boy is a failure. But can it also be said that it is a success? Read More... Posted Feb 23 2009, 12:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: review, 61fps review, katamari damacy, psn, ps3, joe keiser, noby noby boy

• The Console Wars Made Adorable

  Everyone gets embroiled in a console war once in a while. We have some kind of inborn instinct that causes us to rush to the defence of our beloved consoles as if they were a damsel cornered by a dragon. It's interesting to wonder what system-associated developers like Miyamoto think about such behaviour. “What, do you people have deep-rooted problems revolving around peer approval or something?” When you think about how silly the console wars ultimately are, you really do have to duck your head in shame for participating (shortly before you go back and do it all over again). Or, sometimes, you might receive another reminder of how easily we can all get along if we just try. For instance, through an art project. Read More... Posted Feb 19 2009, 07:50 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, microsoft, xbox 360, wii, psp, Playstation, ps3, fan stuff, nadia oxford, fanboys, console war

• Video Games: Bigger, But Still Not Bigger Than Movies

  It seems like every year somebody tries to tell us that this is the year games got bigger than movies. It’s never true. Usually that headline is followed up by some cooked numbers comparing overall game hardware and software sales to just first-run movie tickets. It’s not even apples to oranges. It’s more like apples to entire vegetable aisle. This year’s take on the theme is that boxed videogame sales finally exceeded DVD and Blu-Ray movie sales in 2008. It’s a much more honest presentation than we’re used to getting with this story, but it’s still worth breaking down so we know exactly how the industries compare. Read More... Posted Jan 27 2009, 09:00 AM by Joe Keiser with | with no comments Filed under: retail, statistics, ps3, sales, joe keiser, winning at any cost, blu-ray

• A Playstation Tradition

  It's official, I am committed to buying a PS3...eventually. I'm pretty darn optimistic that, considering the current US economy and Sony's own financial problems that we'll be seeing another price drop for the PS3 and that will be enough for me. Now if only I could afford an HD TV I'd be set. Though I may not have the system yet, today two games I ordered came in the mail: Ratchet & Clank Future and Devil May Cry 4. As I unpacked these games, I realized that, starting with the first Playstation, I seem to have created a bit of a buying tradition. Read More... Posted Jan 22 2009, 09:30 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: wii, amber ahlborn, Playstation, nostalgia, ps3

• Facepalm: PS3 Hard to Program for "On Purpose"

  Kaz Hirai: "We meant to do that." Read More... Posted Jan 21 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: sony, console wars, ps3, bob mackey, hardware, pr, insanity, kaz hirai

• Sign of the Times: Current Gen to Stick Around a Little Longer

  It wasn't too long ago when Sony produced a commercial for the fictional Playstation 9 during their initial Playstation 2 campaign; that's right--the company was once so successful, it had the funds to advertise things that didn't even exist. But these were far different times, before the dot-com bubble completely burst; back in those days, you simply had to log onto the Internet and wait for padded envelopes full of money to arrive at your house (who knows where they came from). But in our modern times of economic disparity and joblessness, the evolution of entertainment technology is not one of our biggest priorities. And, according to a San Jose Mercury News report from yesterday, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, recognizes the current problem with the standard five-year hardware cycle: "Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient. The life cycle for this generation of consoles — and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well — is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations." If you've ever been around casual Wii gamers, then you probably realized that the one factor nearly every console war has been fought over is now completely irrelevant: graphics don't matter. Read More... Posted Jan 13 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: microsoft, xbox 360, sony, console wars, xbox, ps3, bob mackey, hardware, economy

• Life Without Playstation

  The future is a funny thing. If you had told me back in the fall of 2005 (what I regard as the height of the PS2) that Sony would be a money-bleeding mess three short years later, I probably would have slapped you out of pure contempt. It wasn't that I was a Sony fanboy, you see; it's just that the thought of a powerful company taking such a fall from grace was something once regarded as sheer lunacy--hell, even when Nintendo was sucking with the N64, they at least had the Pokemon brand to pump billions of dollars into their coffers. Sony? ...Not so much. Read More... Posted Jan 07 2009, 08:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, sony, sega, ps2, ps3, Saturn, bob mackey, economy, business

• The 61FPS Review: Valkyria Chronicles – Part 1

  It’s clear right from the outset that Valkyria Chronicles shares a most important trait with the best games in Sega’s legendary catalog: it’s absolutely fearless. It takes its strange concepts—its hybrid third-person action/turn-based strategy gameplay, its unusual pencil sketch artwork, its World War II-inspired mythos—and explores them confidently. It immediately brings to mind the Sega that once upon a time made games about near-future rollerblading graffiti gangs and RPGs where you sailed the clear blue skies. Valkyria Chronicles does a lot of very smart things, but the smartest move here was combining the turn-based strategy of something like Advance Wars with third-person action-based unit control. As soon as you select a unit, you’re on the field with them, controlling where they move, dodging suppressing fire, giving orders. This alone rips away layers of abstraction that normally dog the genre, and as a result, characters feel less like chess pieces and more like, well, characters. The battlefield is made a real place to be understood, and even the war itself feels more terrifying and real. And Valkyria Chronicles, despite its charming pastels and pencil lines, is not afraid to make the war terrifying. It proves this in its earliest cutscenes, when it shows you acts of horror that will leave you wondering exactly what sort of game you’re playing. It’s also not afraid to be completely and ridiculously hard. The threat of permadeath hangs over every unit, and as for the battles themselves, let me give you one example. In one particularly lethal mission, you are left to find the weak points of a seemingly invincible enemy contraption. As soon as you find them, reinforcements come in to stop your assault—and the reinforcements are actually invincible. Surviving the remainder of this battle (and I didn’t survive, not the first three times) requires the sort of lateral strategic thinking that is guaranteed to leave you feeling smug for the rest of the day. Read More... Posted Jan 07 2009, 04:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: 61fps review, sega, ps3, joe keiser, valkyria chronicles

• New Year's PS3 Wish List: part 2

  The first part of my list featured games that have already been released. I'll now end with some titles scheduled for release this year. Read More... Posted Jan 06 2009, 09:30 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: beyond good and evil, final fantasy, amber ahlborn, ps3, top 10, afrika, jak & daxter

• New Year's PS3 Wish List: part 1

  I was planning on putting this up before the new year started but I had an end of the year computer melt down. Maybe I should add “get a new computer” to my resolution list. I have no idea if that'll happen but I do know what I'd like to pick up this year: a PS3. It took a long time, but Sony's expensive machine has accumulated enough of a library to interest me with quite a few more good looking titles set to come out this year. With high hopes that the PS3 will see another price drop, I present my list of PS3 gems, old and new, to snatch up in 2009. Read More... Posted Jan 06 2009, 09:00 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: devil may cry, prince of persia, amber ahlborn, ninja gaiden, ps3, littlebigplanet, top 10, ratchet & clank future

• Home: Your Virtual World Sucks

  So it looks like Sony's Home is having a few problems, though I could have told you this was going to happen a year ago--and smugly, too, because I'm a jerk.  But rest assured; I'm not the only one on the Internet who thinks he knows everything. The general consensus with Home since its initial announcement has been "Really? They're still doing that? Well, good for them, I guess."  In this case, I think the poor developers can be excused; you have to really feel for them on this project, what with its monstrous scope and need for indefinite maintenance as a permanent beta.  What's blameworthy in the whole Home fiasco is the fundamentally flawed idea of a virtual world, which seemed like the coolest idea in the world until we all got computers and discovered all the things we wanted them to do were completely asinine.  As a society, we shared a day of lament for ever liking Lawnmower Man. Read More... Posted Jan 02 2009, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: home, persona, ps3, virtual reality, virtual spaces

• Worst Christmas Ever?

  Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome back. Hope you had a wonderful holiday. Mine was great, except for one thing: This was the first year in my entire life that I didn't get a single video game! Read More... Posted Jan 02 2009, 12:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, xbox 360, wii, cole stryker, ps3, braid, christmas, nobi nobi boy

• Holiday DLC for You and Yours

  Harmonix has just announced that next week’s Rock Band DLC content will be holiday themed, proving once again that they really get it when it comes to the music game market. The songs are, of course, pretty decent: Barenaked Ladies – Hanukkah Blessings Billy Squier – Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You The Pretenders – Blue Christmas This is the kind of thing that DLC is built for, especially for games that have built a business model around frequent DLC updates. Such a model allows for the industry to indulge yearly in a little bit of seasonal content, the same way Hollywood spews out the same cheaply-made movie about holiday family awkwardness every first weekend of December. I’m no fan of Christmas movies, but I’m happy and eager to drape games I already like in festive colors for a few days every winter. After the jump there are a few other 2008 holiday DLC things to fool around with next to the fireplace this year. No, Guitar Hero isn’t getting anything (humbug). No, Rock Revolution isn’t getting anything either (hey, if you were Konami, would you support that game?). Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 02:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, rock band, lips, ps3, dlc, joe keiser, christmas, santa hats on pretty girls, soulcalibur iv, singstar, holidays

• Sackboy Vs. Muhammad Round 2

  Leave it a representative from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to sum up much more succinctly what I tried to take on a few days ago. Edge Online recently posted a reaction from said representative, M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., who weighed in on the whole LittleBigPlanet controversy: “The free market allows for expression of disfavor by simply not purchasing a game that may be offensive.” Jasser, who has also appeared on CNN, in the Washington Times and National Review, said that not only does the First Amendment support freedom of expression, but Mohammed also “defended the rights of his enemies to critique him in any way even if it was offensive to his own Islamic sensibilities or respect for Koranic scripture.” And, as with most cases like the LittleBigPlanet fiasco, the object of censorship is getting much more attention than it ever would have before the scandal. According to a news post on Edge this Monday: The track in question, Tapha Niang by Malian kora player Toumani Diabate, has seen a surge in sales on the iTunes website. The track features two passages from the Islamic religious text: "kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt," meaning "Every soul shall have the taste of death"; and "kollo man alaiha fan," meaning "All that is on earth will perish." Three cheers for freedom of speech! Now if we could only convince uptight book-banners that their actions are just as useless... Read More... Posted Oct 22 2008, 11:45 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, religion, ps3, censorship, bob mackey, islam

• Sackboy Vs. Muhammad

  The recall--and subsequent delay--of LittleBigPlanet due to the presence of Qur'an quotations in one of the game's licensed tracks has angered gamers, and rightfully so. While some of the fan hostility is coming from having to wait nearly a week to get their hands on such a long-awaited title, much of the anger--including my own--stems from the senitment sent by Sony's course of action. In a medium still trying to mature, how will progress ever be possible when content is being kept in check by special interest groups (as violent as their extremists may be)?  As I griped about in this post, there's something about how games are still viewed as products--as opposed to entertainment, or art--that's keeping their content watered down when compared to what's seen in TV, movies, music, and other media. And content is soon going to be a problem for both Sony and LBP users due to the unfortunate bigotry this incident has caused. Just go check out any of the blogs/news sites that have reported on the LPB recall; nearly half the user comments carry a creepy anti-Islamic message that will undoubtedly carry over into the game's user-made content in the weeks to come. Read More... Posted Oct 20 2008, 01:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, nintendo, religion, ps3, censorship, bob mackey, islam

• Mirror’s Edge: Everything You’ve Heard Is True

  Since the beginning of 2008, I’ve been watching Mirror’s Edge from a distance, pining away for its delicious cityscape, smitten with its sterile and pristine blues, whites, reds, and yellows. It was, and is, a visual panacea to cure the over-bloom-lit, over-brown, over-textured HD gaming landscape. When the first gameplay videos started hitting the net at the beginning of May, Edge’s smooth parkour action and emphasis on non-violent flight transformed my infatuation into full-on love. I needed this game to be as good as it looked, to deliver on its proposed fluid play. I’ve been dreaming about a game based on momentum and escape for years now, and here it was in action. But the proof, as always, is in the play. After playing Mirror’s Edge at EA’s fall preview event today, my first impression is it’s exactly what developer DICE has been promising. Everything you’ve heard is true. Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, ea, dice, xbox 360, e3, ps3, parkour, mirror’s edge, daivd belle

• Little Big Planet Meets FFX

  I'll admit that I'm not very hyped about Little Big Planet; it could be the curmudgeon in me, or just the fact that I'll have no goddamned time to create anything cool with the game on my busy schedule. The silver lining to all of this is that I won't need to plunk down the cash for both a PS3 and a copy of the game to be entertained--all I need to experience LBP's user-created content is the entirely-free YouTube. Expect the majority online streaming video services to be completely loaded with content from Little Big Planet for the next year or so. A good example of this trend of this already in action is the following video, which takes the best part of Final Fantasy X--the music--and transplants it into a baroque music player created through hours and hours of hard work and block placement in Little Big Planet. Sure, I can hear the same thing by looking this song up on iTunes, but I gotta give credit to all of the makeshift music box crafters out there: Now, if someone out there would somehow turn Little Big Planet into a rhythm game using the same technology, I'd be motivated to smash in the window of my local GameStop and steal a brand-new PS3. Read More... Posted Oct 08 2008, 09:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, music, final fantasy x, ps3, bob mackey

• Little Big Planet is Insane

  610 Magnetic Switches 500 Wires 430 Pistons 70 Emitters ?? Hours Some magnificent nerd has built a basic calculator using the above ingredients within Little Big Planet. Watch the video from start to finish, it gets better in the latter half.  In the words of commenter, "njoivids": "gotta lot of time on ya hands aint ya lad sure ur clever but uve just proved to the world that u have never had sexual relations" I'm not sure what this mans for Little Big Planet. I thought I had finally figured this game out, but I didn't think users would be able to build anything quite like this. If users are as enthusiastic within LBP as they were within Spore's Creature Creator, then I guess this video only scratches the surface. Could this ever be big enough to draw casual gamers away from the Wii? Maybe if it were released in tandem with a price drop... Related Links: The Natural World of Little Big Planet Create Unholy Life With the LittleBigPlanet Sackboy Generator SCEE Playstation Day 2K8 Roundup: Killzone 2, Home, Little Big Planet Dated Posted Oct 07 2008, 07:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: little big planet, nerds, cole stryker, ps3

• Facepalm: 360 vs PS3 Boob Physics Comparison

  Sometimes I come across things on the internet that just make me want to throw my consoles out the window and never play another video game. For those moments, I've created a new recurring feature: Facepalm. This comes courtesy of the scholars at Digg (where else?!). It's a video comparing the, uh, jiggle factor of Soul Calibur's leading ladies on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Why? Because, shut up, that's why. Insightful commentary: thankuvrylittle: In all honesty, the 360 ones definitely move in a more sexually appealing way. spikyvashy: I'll tell u which game has girls with some nice boobs, The girls from the DOA' franchise spvn: damn it's hard to keep track of all 4 of them at the same time... Hurr hurr hurr! The offending video, after the jump: Read More... Posted Sep 24 2008, 01:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, cole stryker, ps3, diggbait, facepalm, jiggle factor

• Whatcha' (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?

  Last night, PS3 owners got a special treat in the weekly Playstation Store update, and no, I'm not talking about the Street Fighter IV system theme – a downloadable demo of the newest game in the PixelJunk series, Eden. While I am enthused by the PixelJunk concept of innovative idea-based reasonably priced games, Racers and Monsters just didn't grab my attention. With my first playthrough of Eden last night, however, I was instantly smitten. In this garden-building action-puzzler, the player controls a small "Grimp" character, swinging on silk threads and jumping from calligraphic leaf to calligraphic leaf of thoroughly modern stylized garden. Crashing into pods releases clouds of pollen, which is gathered in seeds which can then be activated to sprout new plants, which allow you to travel farther, to even more seeds, pollen, and techno-organic bliss. It sounds complicated, and at first it feels like it too. I'm not ashamed to admit that I failed the first garden miserably (twice!), but the environment and surprisingly compelling physics were just so captivating that I couldn't stop. Read More... Posted Jul 25 2008, 03:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: whatcha playing, derrick sanskrit, ps3, eden, pixeljunk

• Fat Princess Gobbles Her Way into Blog Drama

  You know, you just can't please these feminazis! All they do is whine about how women in video games all wear bronze bikini armor and boast gravity-defying boobies. Right guys? Enter Fat Princess. Finally, a game highlights a cake-guzzling damsel in distress, and they're still up in arms. From Shakesville via Kotaku: I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It's not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery. Way to go! The Fat Princess of Shakes Manor salutes you. Read More... Posted Jul 24 2008, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: kotaku, cole stryker, feminism, salon, fat princess, women, ps3