Playstation 3

BF3: Back to Karkland DLC Hits Tuesday

Battlefield 3 is getting its first big DLC expansion  next week on Tuesday, December 6th.

“Back to Karkland” will include four popular maps from past Battlefield games, three new vehicles, ten new weapons, five trophies and a new optional element to game modes called Assignments. The maps in question are Wake Island, Sharqi Peninsula, Gulf of Oman, and the DLC’s title map, Strike at Karkand, all of which are fully re-imagined for BF3 with the impressive Frostbite 2 engine.

Need for Speed: The Run – Review

I had a lot of hope for Need for Speed: The Run, because I had some hands-on time with the game at PAX Prime and was really surprised by how the game looked running on Frostbite 2.  Although the car models don’t hold up to Gran Turismo 5 standards, they are still impressive, as are the damage models, lighting and environments.  Damp roads, rocky canyons, and snow capped mountains are all rendered with very pretty textures.  The Run also features a system called Autolog, which tracks the performance of your friends so you can compare your times and compete for top spots as it ranks individual stages and overall Run time.  Known as the “Speed Wall” it will show where you rank between each stage during The Run.  Like Most Wanted and Undercover, The Run is centered around a story campaign.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review (PS3)

The Elder Scrolls series has a pedigree
of excellence.  So it came as no surprise to me when the hype for Skyrim
was otherworldly from the second the game was announced.  To say that
Bethesda had a lot of pressure to deliver the goods would be a
monumental understatement.  Industry pundits and fans were chomping at
the bit for Skyrim.  Our waiting and enthusiasm has not been in vain.

Modern Warfare 3 Outsells Ni No Kuni in Japan

A recent tweet that led to an article by Game Informer had me a bit baffled, as the numbers have come out and Modern Warfare 3 sold nearly triple the copies in Japan than the hotly anticipated Studio Ghibli and Level 5 title Ni No Kuni.  The reason that this news shocked me so much is that, while I knew that the Modern Warfare series was highly successful in North America and Europe, I did not think that its global sales would be as significant.  Now, I know that the sales numbers from Japan are nowhere near the multiple millions of copies sold in the US and Europe, but the fact that it can outsell a game like Ni No Kuni is a bit surprising. 

While the US has not received a solid release date for the PS3 version of the game, the “Early 2012” window that has been thrown out may put it right in the release window of many other big titles such as Max Payne 3, Jak and Daxter HD Collection, and Mass Effect 3, but will it be able to separate itself from those titles and still sell well in the US, or will it fall by the wayside to the giants that will be right around the corner?

Sly Cooper HD Collection Coming to PSN

On November 29th, PSN users will be able to download the Sly Cooper HD Collection for $29.99 US or $10 each if they aren’t sure about playing all three. I played all the Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter games on my PS2, so you’d think another cartoony action platformer series like this would have really interested me, but for one reason or another I just never got around to them. This may be the perfect chance for me, and anyone else who missed out, to give them a try. Exactly as Sony planned.

Fan Requested Uncharted 3 Patch Coming

I and many other people who have played Naughty Dog’s latest entry in the monkey climbing adventures of Nathan Drake were quite surprised at the major changes made to the feel of Uncharted 3’s shooting mechanics.  Those who have spoken out about this agree that, while the general control scheme remained identical, the dead zone of the reticule and all kinds of other subtle and technical aspects that go into every games interaction were definitely altered substantially from 2009s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.   

To deal with this, Naughty Dog actually offered to fly the most vocal of the games community to their offices to help them figure out exactly why the shooting didn’t feel right for so many, the conclusion being that for those gamers who enjoyed Uncharted 2 simply felt the way it played was superior to that of Uncharted 3 without actually having the knowledge and experience to explain how and why.  Naughty Dog set out to find the answer and after many tests have decided to release an update to Uncharted 3 that will tweak how the game’s shooting feels in order to closer mirror Uncharted 2’s.  Like Killzone 2, which also had its shooting tweaked, this will be an option that players can choose to toggle on and off in an upcoming patch.

Jak and Daxter Collection Officially Annouced by Sony

In a move that is not surprising to anyone, and that has been leaked multiple times before its official announcement, the Jak and Daxter HD Trilogy is coming to Playstation 3 this February.

  The contents of the package are each of the three original Jak and Daxter games. With the last game in the package (Jak 3) being released in 2004, it does give each of the games a sense of nostalgia, which is ultimately what Sony wants to happen. On the Playstation Blog (where this story was officially dropped), the response has been overwhelmingly good, which in my opinion is what is needed at this point in time.  As of right now, the video game market has slowed down, but a large resurgence will come in February with releases likeMass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite and (a bit later) Max Payne 3, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony timed the Jak and Daxter Collection to release at that time to boost first party support.