Playable demos for Madden NFL 09 and Facebreaker have hit Xbox Live and the Playstation Network today.

Madden NFL 09 is due to hit stores on August 12 and Facebreaker just a few weeks later on September 5.

Check out our hands-on previews of Madden NFL 09 and Facebreaker from E3 to see how impressed we were by both EA Sport Titles.

Source: Majornelson.com and Playstation.Blog

Though the drought continues on the European PlayStation Store (the late arrival of echochrome is certainly cherishable) the US PlayStation Store is painted with four PS3 demos. 

Of course, it’s quality not quantity and I’d hate to impose my opinion on whether all the following games are of the former. Siren: Blood Curse, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Wall-E, and Monster Madness: Grave Dangers will have demos available for download today.

The episodic title Siren: Blood Curse (four downloadable episodes at $9.99 each, or $39,99 for all) tops the billings this week and if Eurogamer’s review is to be believed, it could be a sleeper hit.

This weeks US PlayStation Store Update is as follows:

Demos:
- Siren: Blood Curse
- The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
- Monster Madness: Grave Danger
- Wall-E

Downloadable Content
- Rock Band ($1.99 each)
“Snow (Hey Oh)” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Tell Me Baby” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Closer to the Heart” – Rush
“Working Man (Vault Edition)” – Rush

-Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Gift Pack (3 multiplayer maps) (free)

- Burnout Paradise Cagney Update (Available in-game) – includes three new game modes, 70 new challenges, new vehicles, and adds custom soundtrack support.

Game Trailers:
- Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway Destructible Cover Gameplay Video
- Dead Space Dev Diary #1
- Elefunk Official Trailer
- Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution Launch Trailer
- Siren: Blood Curse Story Trailer
- SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation Assault Trailer
- Super Stardust HD Add-On Intro
- AST Dew Tour – PlayStation Pro Moments, Behind the Scenes with Spinner, Bilko’s Road to Finals, Burnquist Talks

Movie Trailers:
- Quarantine

Europe’s Store is graced with the following:

Games:
- echochrome (€9,99/£6.99)
- echochrome micro (PSP) (€7,99/£4.99)

Demos:
- Top Spin 3

Downloadable Content:
- High Velocity Bowling Character: Amber Vorhees (€0,99/£0.69)

Game Trailers:
- echochrome

Movie Trailers:
- Kung Fu Panda

Music Videos:
- Movement: Paris
○ In The Bag (395 MB)
○ The First No-Show (501 MB)
○ Sna-Fu Interview (285 MB)
○ Sna Fu: Transcending Reality (379 MB)
○ Sna-Fu: Dorian (336 MB)
○ Gush Interview (393 MB)
○ Gush: I Just (268 MB)
○ Gush: Blow Frankie (341 MB)

This week’s Japan PlayStation Store Update is as follows:

Games:
- Elefunk (¥800)

PSone Games: (¥600 each)
- Wizard’s Harmony R
- Brave Fencer Musashi (PSP only)
- Ehrgheiz
- Raycrisis
- Aquanaut’s Holiday Memories of Summer 1996
- b.l.u.e. Legend of Water

Demos:
- Gundam Battle Universe (PSP)

Game Trailers:
- NBA 2K8

Music:
- PixelJunk Monsters Soundtrack (¥300)

“Heroes?! In MY Labyrinth?!”

Have you ever gotten lost in a dungeon? Frustrated, confused, swamped by enemies with not a single health potion left in your inventory? Well, have you ever wanted to be the jerkface that designs those soul-killing labyrinths you loathe so much? If so, then you clearly need to play “Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki da,” or “Brazen In Spite of Heroes.”

In this puzzle-RPG hybrid from Japanese developer Acquire, you play the role of a quite-possibly-evil dungeon master trying to build the ultimate hero-killing maze. Laid out in Dug Dug-styled strata, you carve out all the tunnels yourself, culling slimes from moss-covered rock. These most-basic-of-basic RPG baddies will then proceed to ooze around and fertilize other tiles or feed on them and multiply. When rocks start to turn white from this process, you can break them to release nasty bugs or even more effective lizardmen. Figuring out how to structure your dungeon and cultivate more powerful creatures is the key to success. It’s a delicate ecosystem so think of it as a kind of “monster ant farm.”

Soon enough, the surface’s mightiest champions will descend into your lair in an attempt to abduct you and drag you topside for some buff rewards from the locals. Yeah, now you know how all those bosses you’ve killed over the years feel. Anyway, once they enter, you’re asked to place yourself somewhere in the dungeon, and though the grace period has ended, you can continue to create new tunnels and unleash new monsters as the adventurers hack their way through your minions. Each hero type has different attributes and weaknesses, as well as the ability to level up, increasing their strength and restoring their health. Striking a good balance between having monsters powerful enough to pose a challenge and not littering your dungeon with experience point fodder takes some getting used to.

Though it may sound somewhat complex, it actually plays out quickly. This is an arcade game through and through, which means it’s hard to tell exactly how deep it gets from the three-level demo. But, hey, it’s got great aesthetic appeal (original Dragon Quest era sprites and pipey music) and hallowed review house Famitsu gave it an impressive score (36/40). Try it for yourself in Japanese (it has a low language barrier) and hope that someone plans to publish the full game in the West at some point. Below you can find the promotional trailer and instructions on how to obtain the demo yourself.

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As getting demos, especially foreign ones, on to your PSP can be a trial of patience, you can try following these instructions:

1. Download this file to your PC. That’s the EBOOT file you’ll need to run the game.
2. Stick your PSP-formatted Memory Stick Duo into your computer if you have an appropriate reader OR use a mini-USB->USB cable to connect your PSP (with Duo inserted) to your computer.
3. Either way, the Memory Stick should show up on your list of drives. Open it and go to the /PSP/GAME directory.
4. Create a new folder with the title “NPJG90009″
5. Place the EBOOT file in that folder.
6. On your PSP, go to “Game” on your XMB and scroll down to “Memory Stick.” You should now see an icon for the game.
7. Click it and play!

By the way, you’ll need Firmware 3.72 to run it!

There has been some discussion about the recently released demo of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction for the Playstation 3 on the well known gaming forum Neogaf. A very select few have been having some visual troubles with the game, resulting in a pixelated mess on their HDTVs. This is surprising, since most who have experienced the beauty of Insomniac’s game can see that it is very sharp and pretty damn special to say the least. So what is going on here?

On some 1080p HDTV’s Ratchet and Clank appears to be pixelated, or in the best possible words – a garbled mess. Now reports of this have been few and far between, but it seems that although being a 720p game, when 720p is selected on the display options for the Playstation 3 the game does not appear as it should on some HDTV’s (a 52inch 1080p Sony Bravia is one of the mentioned televisions). When 720p is unchecked, leaving only 1080i and 1080p the picture in fact clears up but at the bottom-right of the screen is a block of broken up, fuzziness.

What could be the problem? Well some research has been done at the Beyond3d forums, suggesting that Ratchet and Clank is 704p or 704by1280 pixels instead of the regular 720by1280. This is unlike the Halo 3 problem of being a 640p image (or even Conan at 576p) being upscaled to 720p (and higher) since Ratchet and Clank is not upscaled by the Playstation3.

Upscaling from 640p to 720p would cause some strange exaggeration of aliasing, and other minor problems with picture quality. Instead, Ratchet and Clank cuts off 8pixels above and below, meaning the remaining image will still be rendered at 720p but with small black bars above and below, such as you would see when you watch an HD film on your television. A 1080p film will have black borders above and below, thus not using all the pixels, but the quality that is displayed still means it is 1080p. Ratchet and Clank is even less extreme than this, since the black borders would be almost unnoticeable if your HDTV didn’t use overscan to remove them completely. This image is sent from the Playstation to your television, and then the overscan of your television will make the final picture fit the screen, thus not showing the black bars.

Ratchet and Clank being 704p is thus a clever way to save some pixels without impacting visual quality, for Ratchet and Clank is so gorgeous to experience, especially at 60fps, that you will double check to make sure you are not playing through a Pixar film. But could this be a problem for some 1080i/p HDTV’s? It’s not clear if it is, but it could be due to these televisions upscaling from 704p without overscan.

Whatever the problem is, Insomniac seems to be keen to get it fixed for every HDTV out there. While we have yet to confirm that the following is indeed from an employee of Insomniac, it appears that one One of the Insomniac team members has personally posted on the Neogaf forum asking exactly what the trouble is. If it is a member of Insomniac, it would be This is proof of just how down to earth the developer is.

“Hey guys,

Can you send me any brand/model numbers of TVs you have if you are having issues and what the issue is, plus what settings you are running (screen caps are helpful too).

We believe the lower right corner garbling issue appears to only be happening with 1080i/p output forced and with no-overscan. The vast majority of people shouldn’t experience it, and we highly recommend ensuring your PS3 has 720p output enabled as RCF will look best at that resolution and it should correct the issue.

If you’re having the strange pixelation issues, we want to try to replicate that here. We’ve never seen it in-house on all of our various HD sets, and knowing what TVs we need to track down would be helpful.

Appreciate your help
JS”

So let’s hope Insomniac gets this fixed for those that have the problem, otherwise some sorry sods will be missing out on one of the best looking games the Playstation 3 has to offer.

(Note: Insomniac has not confirmed that the game is rendered at 704p.)

Sources: Neogaf, Beyond3d

Update – 10/16 7:36 PM EST
The poster on the Neogaf board has been confirmed as an actual employee of Insomniac. Well known to the board, and featured in several of Insomniac’s Podcasts.