The PlayStation Blog have announced that the full HD re-releases of God of War and God of War II on a single Blu-ray disc will be coming out on November 17. They’ve also released a list of Trophies, which can be seen after the jump.

I think they’re a bit rubbish, to be brutally honest. I think Trophies and Achievements are better when they’re used to point out silly things you can do in the games, or used to reward those who have completely mastered the game. There’s a little of this in these ones but not nearly enough; most of them look like they’re just for stuff you’re highly likely to do when just playing through the games.

Still, I’m looking forward to the release, since I haven’t played the games yet and I’m told they are great.

GOD OF WAR

Bronze

• 1.21 Gigawatts – Acquire Poseidon’s Rage
• Rocking Out – Acquire Medusa’s Gaze
• Bolt Action – Acquire Zeus’ Fury
• Sword Man – Acquire Blade of Artemis
• Soul Search – Acquire Army of Hades
• Matador – Win the first Minotaur fight
• Scape Goat – Win the first Satyr fight
• Roll Over … and Die – Win the first Cerberus fight
• Don’t They Ever Shut Up! – Defeat the Desert Sirens
• Beat a Dead Horse – Complete the Centaur sacrifice to Hades
• Kickboxer – Complete the Spike Room Box Puzzle
• Rockin’ the Boat – Complete the Sex Mini-Game
• Don’t Leave Her Hanging – Rescue the Oracle with 10 seconds to spare
• Get the Ball Rolling – Complete the Challenge of Atlas
• Totally Baked – Complete the Human sacrifice
• Splash – Kiss the Nyad
• Get Me a Beer Kid – Free yourself from the depths of Hades
• Zero Health = Bronze Trophy – Open a Health Chest when your health meter is already full
• Hitman – Get a 100 Hits Combo
• Getting My Ass Kicked – Die enough times to get offered Easy Mode

Silver

• Kratos’ Marble Collection – Collect all the Gorgon Eyes
• Stick it in Your Cap! – Collect all the Phoenix Feathers
• It’s the HUGE One – Retrieve the Captain’s Key
• Take the Bull by the Horns – Defeat Pandora’s Guardian
• God Killer – Kill Ares
• Head Hunter – Obtain the head of the Architect’s wife
• The Power to Kill a God – Retrieve Pandora’s Box
• Hitman 2 – Get a 200 Hits Combo
• Legend of the Twins – Watch the ‘Birth of the Beast’ Treasure
• Seeing Red – Max out all Weapons and Magic

Gold

• Prepare to be a God – Beat the Game on any Difficulty
• You Got the Touch! – Climb the Spiked Column in Hades without taking damage
• I’ll Take the Physical Challenge – Complete the Challenge of the Gods
• Speed of Jason McDonald – Beat the game in under 5 hours on any Difficulty
• Key to Success – Collect all of the Muse Keys

Platinum

• Trophy of Zeus – Unlock all God of War Trophies

GOD OF WAR II

Bronze

• Breaking Wind – Acquire Typhon’s Bane
• Big, Tuff, Buff and Rough – Acquire Rage of the Titans
• Blue Balls – Acquire Cronos’ Rage
• Shiner – Acquire the Golden Fleece
• Rock their World – Acquire the Head of Euryale
• Learning to Fly – Acquire the Icarus Wings
• Shaky Ground – Acquire Atlas Quake
• Death from Above 2009 – Defeat the Dark Rider for the first time
• Resurrection – Climb from the pit of Hades
• Rock Hard – Defeat the Titan Minotaur inside Atlas
• Pick’n on the Little Guy – Win the battle outside of the Palace of the Fates
• Watcha Got on the Hot Plate? – Solve the riddle of the Fire Phoenix Statue
• Whip it Good – Whip the Steeds of Time
• Lift with Your Knees – Topple the Temple in the Bog of the Forgotten
• Swinger – Cross the collapsing Grapple Bridge
• Stoner – Stone and Shatter 30 Enemies
• Super Sized – Get a 500 Hits Combo
• Hitting Your Stride – Power up any item

Silver

• Eye Can’t Believe it – Collect all the Gorgon Eyes
• Go Make a Pillow! – Collect all the Phoenix Feathers
• Eye Sore – Collect 20 Cyclops Eyes
• Boss Batch 1 – Kill the Colossus of Rhodes, the Dark Rider, and Theseus
• Boss Batch 2 – Kill the Barbarian King, Euryale, and Perseus
• Boss Batch 3 – Kill the Kraken and all three Sisters of Fate
• Daddy Issues – Defeat Zeus
• Rise and SHINE – Awaken the Phoenix
• Spread ‘Em – Open the wings of the Temple of the Fates
• Shine King – Open the door to the Temple of Euryale
• Blowin’ Your Wad – Max out all Weapons and Magic

Gold

• The End Begins – Beat the Game on any Difficulty
• Feel the Urn – Collect and use at least 2 Urns of Power
• Bleeding Thumbs – Beat the Challenge of the Titans
• 15 Min Fight Scene – Battle your way to the Loom Chamber in under 10 minutes
• You Know the Germans Make Good Stuff… – Collect all Uber Chests

Platinum

• Trophy of Gaia – Unlock all God of War II Trophies

Good news, everyone! Well, at least to the people who haven’t yet played the God of War games on the PS2. Sony today announced that they will be releasing anti-aliased and 720p-resolution updated versions of both God of War I and God of War II. Also included is a set of trophies for those who care about their e-peen.

I’m going with this being a good thing, despite the fact that it’s milking a franchise, simply because I was told about how good these games are just after I put my PS2 away, and I am quite lazy. This saves me the trouble of not only getting out the PS2, but buying two discs to put in it. Laziness wins in the end.

Rumor has it that the God of War games, including a demo for the upcoming third game in the series, are coming to the Sony PlayStation 3 on a single Blu-ray disc.

The rumor comes from a translated post on the Twitter account of MarkPlayStation, the supposed manager for Sony Mexico. This “trilogy” would be coming this December.

With a little over four months to go, you’d think that Sony would’ve formally announced this by now. I certainly hope it’s true, as I’ve only ever played part of the first God of War and I’m not lucky enough to own a backwards compatible PS3.

PSX Extreme via Gamezine

You read that right Killzone 2 fans! After just releasing the third DLC map pack “Napalm & Cordite” yesterday for their highly popular PS3 shooter, Guerrilla Games is celebrating by giving players a double XP weekend starting today.

The double XP weekend will allow players to earn a 2.5 multiplier with a team win and with a loss you’ll be granted the normal multiplier for a win which is 1.5. So even with a team loss you still get extra XP, which is always a plus. Now get online and start ranking up and unlocking those badges!

Source: PlayStation.blog

While nothing official has been announced, it looks like Swedish Heavy Metal band Opeth may have spilled the beans on an upcoming Saints Row PSP game.

Opeth gave the go ahead for their song The Lotus Eater to be featured in the game, saying:

“We may not like playing videogames all that much but we do like it when our music is featured on them! Makes us a bit proud even when it’s a game as big as Saints Row for the PSP… So if you love playing videogames: the game is expected to hit the streets around March 2010.”

We’ll let you know when an official announcement is made.

Gamer Center Online

So, last week I had a post up about the new Killzone 2 update and DLC and in that post I told you all that the DLC and update would be available on July 14, this past Tuesday. Well, it seems like I was only half right. The 1.28 Patch was up and ready, but the Napalm & Cordite DLC was no where to be seen on the PlayStation Network.

Okay, my bad, but I just discovered today this new trailer for the Napalm & Cordite DLC, showing off the two new maps (Suljeva Cliffside and Arctower Landing) along with two new weapons (the VC1 Flamethrower and the  Boltgun 4400), which were previously only available in the single-player campaign. Look for the new DLC on the PlayStation Network on Thursday, July 23. I repeat Thursday, July 23. See ya’ll online!

Source: PlayStation.com

Of course, by “frolicking”, I mean “killing gods and monsters”. And by “field of sunflowers”, I mean “mythical mountain of the Gods”. But that’s a simple mistake anyone could’ve made.

Sony put out a Fan Kit Starter Pack [update: back at E3, apparently. Whoops.] full of God Of War concept art, logos, and other assets, but the best part of the bundle is probably the 19 screenshots from God Of War III, complete with Kratos’s blade-slinging badassery. Hit the jump for the gallery and see the images yourself, which each feature an insane amount of HD next-gen bloom.

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Time to get excited Killzone 2 fans! Guerrilla Games is releasing a new DLC pack called “Napalm & Cordite”, featuring two new maps and a new patch. Already the third DLC pack for a game that has just been out since late February, GG is doing a great job giving to it’s Killzone 2 community and really supporting it’s PS3 shooter.

Patch 1.28 will contain many new fixes and features, including the support for the Napalm and Cordite maps. Hit the jump for a picture of Cordite (the above pic is of Napalm)  and the official press release from Guerrilla Games detailing Patch 1.28.

Cordite

On Tuesday, June July 14th 2009 at 8AM Greenwich Mean Time, Guerrilla Games will release the 10th update for the visceral shooter, Killzone 2.

Patch 1.28 will be 91MB in size (316MB for Asian release) and will be released worldwide simultaneously pending a server update. There will be an anticipated server down-time of about 2 hours while the patch is rolled out and the server updates are completed and tested. The following fixes and features are included in this latest release:

• Feature - Code support for DLC pack III “Napalm & Cordite”. The update will enable players to create games with the newest maps “Suljeva Cliffside” and “Arctower Landing”
• Feature - Code support for DLC to allow the additions of the Flamethrower and the Boltgun to multiplayer.
• Trophies – New trophies added for DLC pack III “Napalm and Cordite”.
• Feature - Detailed information screen when browsing games. Items displayed include: Friendly Fire, Faction Balancing, Custom Weapons and Custom Badges as well as the region, game size, selected maps and allowed Missions and Badges.
• Feature - Higher values for Bodycount mode. Players can now create games with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, 100 and 200 points to increase the time of the mode for 32 player games.
• Feature - Moderators can now create double-points events.
• Fix for persistent squads now working correctly when users using separate Japanese accounts join Friends.
• New loading screens.
• Moderation – Additional powers and functionality for online moderators.
• Fix for Clan Leader leaving his clan before an active Tournament of Clan Challenge.
• Fix for score replication on different clients.
• Fix for a Clan Challenge results displaying a won/lost games as a ‘Draw’.
• Fix for incorrect Tournament timings being displayed for (semi)-final.
• Fix for an empty message pop-up being displayed.
• ‘High Precision Mode’ now defaulting when requested.
• Fix for stuttering audio on the Asian version.
• Fix for network error displayed when trying to log in with another users account.
• Fix to reduce network traffic and improve performance.
• Fix for occasionally being displayed an empty background when ‘Join Friend’ via Communications tab.
• Exploit – Pyrrhus Rise map boundary fix.
• Exploit – Radec Academy collision fix to prevent players being revived inside a pillar and using it to their advantage.
• Cosmetic fix for Medic Gun visual effects.
• Cosmetic fix for Search & Retrieve object being cloaked by the Scout.
• Cosmetic fix for Scouts body remaining cloaked after being mortally wounded (i.e. headshot).
• Gameplay – Damage from Sentry bots tweaked back on request of the community.
• Collection of minor code fixes.
• For the latest new content, news and all things Killzone, visit www.Killzone.com which will also reflect the changes made to the game such as being able to view Battle Replays of games played out on the new maps or being able to use the new settings to create Clan Challenges or Tournaments. Further features and fixes to www.Killzone.com include:
• Feature - Tournaments – Full tournament functionality enabled once again.
• Feature - Upcoming Tournaments are now displayed in a clan’s calendar.
• Feature - Upcoming Tournaments are now displayed in My Killzone upcoming events.
• Feature - Upcoming Tournaments are now displayed in clan communication center.
• Feature - Tournament and Clan Challenge support for DLC Pack III “Napalm & Cordite”.
• Feature - Additions of sounds in Battle Replays.
• Feature - Additional animations in Battle Replays.
• PlayStation®3 landing page updated.
• Higher selectable Bodycount values when creating Tournaments or Clan Challenges via www.Killzone.com.
• Various bug-fixes and minor updates.

Source: Playstation.com

Remember how awesome God of War III looks? If not, play along for a second. Here’s some footage of the game- and it’s not just a trailer. It’s game play footage, the best kind of footage there is (at least in the videogame world). There’s not much else to say, but there is plenty more to watch- thirteen minutes, to be exact. Do go ahead and hit the jump.

Sucker Punch’s original IP for the PlayStation 3, inFamous, saw a surge of sales its first week, topping out around a shocking 176,000 units. This gives inFamous more voltage than other IPs like LittleBigPlanet (110,000) and MotorStorm (107,000). This also puts the static charged game among the top five selling PS3 exclusives.

Hmmm, something about wattage, maybe?

PSX Extreme

The new SoulCalibur game for the Sony PlayStation Portable, SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny, will feature the God of War protagonist, Kratos, as a playable character.

Joystiq reports that the classic PS1 title Metal Gear Solid is coming to the PlayStation Network as a downloadable title. The game will be coming to the North American PSN on June 18 for just $9.99, but there’s no word on the European release just yet. Since Metal Gear Solid is pretty much the best game that was ever released for the PS1, this is a great chance for those of us who foolishly sold their MGS1 disc in their naive youth. Of course, that doesn’t apply to me. I live in Europe.

E3 is back, and so are our glowing and always insightful predictions. These are from the heart people. Grab a Kleenex and hit the jump.

Beau Rosser

Nintendo will make me feel nostalgic, Sony will excite me, and Microsoft will show me games I don’t really want to play, but they’ll insist that I get in the movies… again. Oddly enough, there will be plenty of iPhone games that use the hardware for its strengths – and I will be excited.

That’s it.

–

Sam Naylor

E3 predictions are getting easier and easier. Microsoft will disappoint fans, Sony will disappoint fans, and Nintendo will disappoint fans.

But seriously, Microsoft will disappoint by announcing nothing of real value, Sony will disappoint by announcing okay stuff in an awful way, and Nintendo will disappoint with, well, whatever they announce. For people who aren’t fans, each company will have some good things and some boring things to say.

–

Chad Lakkis

My prediction. The seats will be uncomfortable on the flight there and back. The conferences themselves will be full of people that look like me (unshaven and with a musky smell).

Nintendo will reveal a line up of porn inspired titles and finish their presentation off by shooting random attendees in the head.

Microsoft will blow the casual doors off the place by introducing a $99 easy bake oven adapter (chocolate frosting not included).

And last but not least, Sony will force people to adopt Home by taking all of E3 hostage and demanding the world’s population to register for the service in exchange for their safe return.

–

Sean Mitchuson

Microsoft will have fancy pictures, Sony will have fancy ladies, and Nintendo will announce Fancy Boy for DSi. If you cant tell, I have no idea. Heh.

–

Demi Adejuyigbe

Microsoft will announce a sequel to Alan Wake. This sequel will be released before Alan Wake is. They’ll also announce Alpine Legend to be a real game, and it will become one of their Greatest Hits games only days after its release. The Zune HD will be presented to the convention-goers, because of its connectivity with Xbox Live. Unfortunately, that’s all it does- Microsoft forgot to implement music, photos, and videos into the device. When started up, all you see is a 10min. long loading video that takes up all of the HD space.

Nintendo will bring out Cammy Dunaway, and she’ll break her jaw within seconds from smiling too hard. They’ll announce a new Mario Kart game for the DS, and bring it out on the stage to demo, but they won’t hook it up to the screen, so everyone can only see what appears to be Cammy having a seizure. Reggie will come out and announce the Wii Micro. It has Wii Sports and Smash Bros. built in, and doesn’t have a CD drive, but that’s okay, because those are the only two games people play on the Wii.

Sony will show off an LBP sequel called BigLittlePlanet. In which you play the Earth, as it rotates. Soon after its release, gamers everywhere will develop carpal tunnel from the game’s “Infinite Rotate Mode.” They’ll show off MAG, and when they try to set up the game with 256 people, the game will lag out, When they try to set it up again, we hear someone screaming “GIANT PENUS” into their microphone. They’ll also announce the PSP go to the audience, but the leak will have progressed so far at this point, that everyone in the audience will already have one. The real announcement will come from the crowd, as someone announces instructions for hacking the PSP go.

Ubisoft will announce Imagine: Assassin’s Creedz for the DS, which targets young children and teaches them how to kill silently, Activision will announce Guitar Hero 6, 8Bit Hero, and Guitar Hero: Nickelback, all to be released on Christmas Day… 2009. Taito will announce Geriatric Ward Mama, where you play Cooking Mama’s Mama, as you deflect old pervs from hitting on you. Pandemic will announce Exploooooodo!, a game in which you drive a car down a straight track, and blow up stuff around you. THQ will announce MX vs. ATX 5. It sucks.

–

Rangebar Merani

I’ll keep my predictions short and straight to the point. Nintendo will announce a new Mario and Zelda game, both for the Wii. Sony will officially announce the “slim” PS3 model that has been floating around the internet. And as for Microsoft, they will announce some sort of new Xbox Live experience, something even more casual and family friendly as they try and take more of Nintendo’s ideas. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the new Mario and Zelda game though!

–

Jonathan Zungre

I only have one prediction: You think Microsofts press conference is over after they show clips from Halo 3: ODST, until all the lights go off and a guitar wails in the darkness. Then the entire stage blows up, including the presenters, and Duke Nukem, the real Duke Nukem climbs on top of the rubble and says, “hail to the king baby.” Duke writes “Duke Nukem Forever, 360 exclusive, fall 2009″, in the far wall with 50 cal bullet holes. Then the entire convention center explodes.

–

Patrick Steen

PSP Go (hehe – not a prediction)
PS3 price cut (PS3 slim at TGS)
Microsoft’s motion sensing camera with voice activation
New Zelda for Wii
Two new big game announcements for PS3
LBP, MGS on PSP
MGS on PS3
MGS on 360
Epic to announce new 360 exclusive
Crysis 2 for PS3, 360 and PC

–

More predictions from additional writers here will be added as the crystal ball reveals them.

[Post updated with a better quality video of the June 2009 episode of Qore. The audio's off, but you can still get the gist of what's occuring.]

I’m sure that Sony won’t be too happy about this, but it seems that their video news service, Qore, has accidentally leaked the PSP Go only days before it was supposed to be shown at E3. Someone over at the Gaming Console Network managed to get their hands on the June episode of Qore, where Veronica Belmont and John Koller talk about the new handheld.

A couple of tidbits from the video – slide out controls, 16GB of internal memory & a memory card slot for more, no UMD, release in Fall 2009, and it won’t replace the current PSPs, they’ll be sold simultaneously. The video also announced LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo, and Metal Gear for the PSP Go, and said that we’d see GTPSP at E3, which is exciting for those of us that have been waiting upwards of 4 years for it.

Of course, many of us saw this coming, since we’ve been hearing rumors about the PSP Go for about a year now, name and all. Hit the jump for a gallery of 19 images of the PSP Go.

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Industry respected analysts, Macquarie Research, have predicted that Nintendo will announce WiiFit Plus along with a new Mario or Zelda game for the Wii at next week’s E3.

After last year’s less than exciting E3 announcements of Wii Music and Wii Sports Resort, we can tell that Nintendo might have learned their lesson, so I can’t disagree with Macquarie and that we should see either a new Mario or Zelda (hopefully both!) announced for the Wii.

Other predictions from the analyst include a new PSP with a “sliding screen” and “no UMD”, but instead with downloadable games only. They also go on to say they believe there will be no PS3 price cut, however, an announcement is expected for a new Playstation 3 Slim model, which could be the same one we got a sneak peak at earlier this month. As for the 360, the rumored motion sensing camera/controller is expected to be unveiled, which wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

E3 starts next Monday, June 1, so we’ll just have to wait ’til next week to see what predictions come true.

Gametrailers TV reports that Killzone 2 will be receiving DLC, hitting this month. The “Steel & Titanium” pack will add two maps; ‘Wasteland Bullet’, with “fast-moving trains”, and ‘Vetka Cruiser’, with a big ISA battle cruiser (the ‘New Sun’). Another pack was mentioned, and hinted at having a retro theme, perhaps with maps from Killzone 1. I didn’t really connect with the maps in Killzone 1, since I found them rather generic, but perhaps Guerilla can make them a little more entertaining this time around.

Via Giant Bomb

Famitsu reports that on April 10th (today) you can enjoy Final Fantasy VII on the PS3 for a small download fee.

It will run you about $15 US, but it is the Final Fantasy VII International edition and is downloadable through the PlayStation Store, which is pretty cool. So for those of you that haven’t played it yet, you might need to get a Playstation Network Japan account. At least you won’t need to change discs.

Source:  Famitsu

I decided after getting my Japanese stimulus check that I should use it for something good, like video games.  I chose to pick up another new PSP and the games Final Fantasy: Dissidia, and another secret game that I will review at another time.  Dissidia turned out to be more than I thought it was, which was great.  The game looks beautiful, plays pretty well, has a mediocre story, and lots of extras to keep the player interested.

The Basics

Dissidia lets you control one of ten characters from the first ten Final Fantasy games.  Some are main characters and some are not.  There are a couple secret characters as well but I won’t be dropping any hints and ruining it, so if you wanna know who they are, sorry!  As you complete the game you can unlock the ability to play the bad guys that are also a big part of the game.  All in all, though, there are 22 characters to choose from, so it’s a pretty decent selection.

The story is a pretty standard affair.  Good, evil, crystals, and fighting.  There really isn’t too much to say about it, it’s really just there to keep the game rolling instead of moving constantly from fight to fight for no reason.

The Fighting

The battle system in Dissidia is very action orientated.  This is very different from the RPG games that the characters involved in the game are used to, but if you have played Kingdom Hearts or Crisis Core you will pick up on the combat really quick.  Combat can become repetitive if you just feel like winning as opposed to trying different things with your character. 

As you level up you unlock and master abilities.  You can completely change the play style of each character from how they act when you start with them, but it takes so long to get into the interesting abilities, you have already programmed you’re muscle memory to a certain play style so it may make you feel weaker to change it up a lot.

Each character has two modes in battle. One is your regular look which you will see most often.  As you beat on your opponent, though, they lose small crystal flashes or something which you collect to fill your EX gauge.  When that gauge fills, you can go into “EX mode” which is a buffed version of your character with a different outfit (which is usually a lot flashier).  Also, your special attacks get much more interesting in this mode. 

Square really thought about its fans with the EX attack.  Each character has their own cut scene-style special attack — you participate in this attack which reminds me of the limit break attacks.  You either do a combination button press, or a button mash, etc. to try and get a perfect attack.  Those of us that aren’t very good at these sorts of situations, have no fear — there is an ability the characters learn at later levels that does this automatically for you, but as another neat little thing thrown in by Square, until you master the ability, the character can screw up the limit break.

You also get the ability to equip armor and weapons on the characters along with rings that make the character stronger throughout the game.  Something I didn’t like about this was nothing changes on the character when you equip new stuff.  Something I really liked in FF7 and beyond was seeing a new weapon in the characters hands when I upgraded, not a big deal but it would have been nice to see.

The characters to me are very unbalanced.  This is honestly not a con to me.  It just means that I will have an unfair advantage against some characters and others will have an unfair advantage against me.  This may ruin the multiplayer mode for a lot of people, but really that mode isn’t the point of the game or even really focused.  It does make the story mode annoying sometimes when you get stuck on a character that you aren’t good against and they just mash you into the ground for hours at at time.

Some characters are able to easily tear through the game.  Onion Knight, for instance, has moves that really don’t require you to get near the enemy if you don’t feel like it, thus winning every match for you easily.  Characters like Squall and Cloud seem really weakened and are expected to get in rather close to fight their opponents.  Their specials are nice, but working up the combo takes a lot of work.  The characters can level up to 99 which I thought would take a very very long time. Luckily, as you level the stuff the character can do scales up so you are always gaining large amounts of experience for them.  I took Warrior of Light from level 45 to 89 in about two hours on a lazy Saturday.

Graphics, Music, and Other

The graphics are superb in this game.  Models look a little sharp and jagged but as this is a PSP game, this is to be expected.  Otherwise the game has very well done cut-scenes and character design in general is rather pretty.  The music is all songs taken from the games and some wonderful vocal tracks for important boss battles.  Honestly, though, if I have to hear that choir sing about Sephiroth one more time I’ll probably smash the game.

The main point of the game, it seems, is to play until you unlock everything.  One of the first things you do when you start the game is tell it what day you will play the most often and how often in general you will play.  This will help you get through the game faster and help you unlock more items in the catalog.

The PP catalog is where you unlock all of the goodies that come with the game after you finish the story mode.  You can unlock all the “evil” characters to play with them in quick battles, unlock items for the calendar, unlock icons to decorate your multiplayer card, etc.  There is a ton of things to unlock, and of course after you unlock a bunch of different things, you unlock the ability to unlock more stuff, so you need to play the game more to pay for the rest of the stuff.

All in all this is a really good game.  It is a bit repetitive, though.  You fight the same battles over and over for ten stories with five chapters each.  I think the average amount of fights per “chapter” is around five so that is 25 fights a story, at 10 basic stories that is 250 fights.  Those ten stories, though, aren’t the end of the game, and you have a few more modes to go through to clear all the fights.  To even begin to unlock everything, you better be ready to play well more than 1000 matches.

On the Ripten scale I give this an 8.  It’s easy to pick up and play whenever, and you get a lot of fan appreciation.  It can get boring, but it is just a fighting game, the only reason there is a story seems only to force you into taking a break every few minutes.

Polyphony Digital is not just in the game-making industry anymore; now they’re in the restaurant business. At the Twin Ring Motegi race circuit in Japan, they’ve opened the Gran Turismo Cafe.

The cafe opened last week, with staff being equipped with the image of Gran Tursimo. Other than food, they have PlayStation 3 play booths where visitors can play some Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

We’re waiting on actual pictures of the place. I’m sure they’ll appear on the internet soon enough.

Source

The 2.70 update for the PS3 is now available, and includes a host of new features. The update features in-game text chat for up to 16 people at one time, and allows three text chat boxes per PS3, for use with the wireless keypad, the on-screen keyboard, or any keyboard peripheral you might have that works.

Finally, Sony. Sending single message after single message to my friends when trying to set up a game with them was tedious and stupid. See the rest of the new features after the jump (and a demo from Eric Lempel).

Friends list on the XMB (XrossMediaBar)

* Sort your friends via their online status
* Attach larger files to the messages you send to your friends (file size will increase from 1MB to 3MB)

Video delivery service on PlayStation Store

* Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future
* Videos you’ve purchased for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback

The Playstation blog announced today that High Impact Games are in the process of developing a brand new Jak and Daxter game for the PS2 and PSP. Called ‘Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier’, the game takes the player to “the edge of the world.” There you’ll fight “air pirates and sinister creatures in [your] quest to find a cure for the world’s eco shortage”. The game will release later this year.

I’m going to go ahead and assume the screenshots given are from the PSP version- even the first Jak and Daxter game looked better than that on the PS2. The developers are the ones behind the well-recieved Secret Agent Clank, so I expect this to at least be a decent PSP platformer, and probably a mediocre PS2 one.

A week ago,we reported the rumor that Sony was going to make an announcement on March 31st/April 1st, and now we know what that announcement is. Fortunately, it wasn’t a crudely made April Fool’s joke, (we hope) it was a price drop for the PlayStation 2.

Although the chances are that anyone that was going to hop on the PlayStation 2 bandwagon has done so already, the fact that Sony isn’t discarding the PS2 yet is still comforting. If you have been waiting for the PS2 to drop in price before picking one up, starting tomorrow, April 1st, you can pick one up at your nearest retailer for $100, 30 dollars less than the previous price.

Source: Destructoid

Sony has told gave notice that on Tuesday, March 31, 2009, they will be making an announcement. It’s odd because it is several days after the Game Developers Conference.

They didn’t give any hints or details on the announcements, so all that’s left to do is speculate. What do you think? Price-cut? New game?

Source

The PS Blog reports that LittleBigPlanet will be receiving an update soon, including a multitude of fixes and improvements. The update notes are after the jump, and include such things as ‘the game doesn’t break much now’ and ‘it’s a bit better now’. Not really, but that’s the gist of it. The patch includes the ability to listen to your own music in some sections of the game, and a better way to manage clothing, as well as a few improvements to the UI and community aspects of the game.

This update addresses several outstanding issues with the game:

* There is a new music player which lets player’s choose their own music from the XMB to play during create mode and in their Pod
* Improved decoration mode makes it easier to customize your Sackboy

New options to help prevent profiles becoming full of unwanted community objects:

* Option to delete all (unhearted) community objects and photos
* Option to select whether to automatically collect community prizes and photos
* A number of improvements have been made to make profiles more robust and to recover from certain errors
* We now support Japanese and Korean IME for text chat.
* Emitter prediction has been improved (this should help fast-moving projectiles e.g. in MGS levels)
* The player proximity switch now has a ‘require all’ option in it
* An option has been added to cycle between various level information when viewing community levels on the earth
* Various LittleBigStore improvements

Via Dtoid.

The above video shows leaked footage of the much-anticipated God of War 3. It;s not just a trailer this time, though; it’s gameplay footage. Nothing spectacular, but gameplay footage nonetheless. The video shows Kratos fighting some enemies, and then fighting a bigger enemy by bashing it’s head for about thirty seconds. Supposedly the game runs at a smooth 60fps most of the time, with a minimum point of 30fps in the more hectic scenes- if you care about that. Just watch the video before the leak is snatched away from us.

Activision has announced today that Guitar Hero fans will have a place to rock out and bob their heads in unison in Sony’s online service, PlayStation Home. The Guitar Hero room is called “Backstage with Guitar Hero”.

“Backstage with Guitar Hero” will grant VIP access to both a themed backstage lounge and massive concert venue where they can meet up, hang out, check out videos for upcoming titles on the franchise, and share their rock and roll secrets.

There is yet no word on the release date for the room.

“BACKSTAGE WITH GUITAR HERO®” TO DEBUT IN PLAYSTATION®HOME

SANTA MONICA, CA – March 25, 2009 – Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced that Guitar Hero® fans will have another virtual destination to join together and rock with the launch of the franchise’s very own space in the PlayStation®Home, the 3D social gaming community that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences together online for the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system. “Backstage with Guitar Hero®” will give Guitar Hero rock stars around the world exclusive VIP access to both a themed backstage lounge and massive concert venue where they can meet up, hang out, check out videos for upcoming titles on the franchise, and share their rock and roll secrets. “Backstage with Guitar Hero” will continue to evolve over time adding new functionality.

Siliconera reports that Katamari will make a triumphant return to the Playstation later this year with Katamari Damacy Tribute. It will be the first in the series to feature full 1080p resolution, and is likely to feature a ‘best-of’ selection of levels and music from the series. The text from the magazine scan apparently mentions a “new visual presentation”, although this could just be referring to the HD shininess.

I just have two things to say- new Katamari is always something to look forward to, and also, Keep on rollin’.

Via Destructoid.

In the depressing economic times that the United States is currently going through, not a lot of money is being spent by consumers today, especially when they can find a similar item for a lot less.

Speaking to Games Industry Biz, Electronic Arts’ Redwood Shores general Manager, Glen Schofield, released his feelings towards Sony’s PlayStation 3 platform and its status during this hard economic times.

“I’m really not sure what’s going on with Sony,” he said. “They’ve been such a great, great partner and PlayStation 2 being such a great machine that, God, I hope they get out of this and they figure it out and they’re around for a long time.”

When asked about a PS3 price cut, he commented with, “You know, I can’t tell them what to do. I don’t know their finances.”. He later clarified that by having all three major consoles doing well in the market, it sheds great light on the videogame industry, “I love having the three major machines like that.”

I’m no financial genius, but common sense would tell me that if Sony is expecting to come out on top or at least have a decent performance, they will have to do something about the price before it will look attractive to the consumers. This is not the PS1 and PS2 generation where consumers bought the product on name alone; the Xbox brand has came a long way and Nintendo is back in business, so Sony is going to have to take some bolder moves this generation.

Source:  GamesIndustry.Biz

Joystiq reports that a demo of the much anticipated (by some) Killzone 2 will be hitting the European PSN on February 5. In the US, PS3 owners will have to pre-order the game at GameStop to get the demo on the same day, or wait until 27 February. Of course, cunning PS3 owners will find a way of downloading the European demo on their Euro accounts, I’m sure. Hugo Bustillos, a UK Sony representative, has noted that we’ll see the first two areas of the game’s first level, ‘Corinth River,’ with a beach landing and a warehouse. Also, the demo will include a tutorial, although I doubt it can match a certain game’s tutorial.

This is good news for people like me, who haven’t really seen much about the game, but want to know why people are talking about it so much. If the game is anything like the mediocre last game, even if it does look pretty, it won’t be getting a free pass from me. That said, pretty graphics!