PS3 News

Ridge Racer Unbounded Coming March 6th

I’ve been curious to see what exactly Ridge Racer Unbounded would turn out to be for some time, and come March 6th, I and everyone else will find out.

For those of you who aren’t aware, this Ridge Racer is the first in the series not made by one of Namco’s teams and has been outsourced to American studio BugBear Entertainment, creators of the Flatoutseries. The big selling point behind Unbounded is the game’s track creator, which allows players to build entire cities’ worth of tracks and share them online.  If done well enough, this sort of thing can result in near limitless replayability, though I don’t think it will be quite as insane as something like Trackmania. It’s still nice to see other devs take a crack at giving players these kinds of features in a racing title rather than just shipping a boxed product with a set number of tracks you’ll eventually grow really tired of.

Job Posting Reveals New God of War Game?

A posting put up earlier on a site called Creative Heads (a
site used for recruitment to specific jobs) could have lead to the
unintentional leak of a new God of War game.  The posting was put up by Sony Computer Entertainment
America – Santa Monica, the company who made the first three GoW games, and the
posting lists the start date as “immediately”.  Fingers point to the project being God of War IV, as the
first paragraph in the description says “Join the GOW Team!” and “Join us as we
embark on our next project.”

If the project is true, could this mark the fact that the
next generation of consoles is coming sooner rather than later?  While three games is not necessarily
enough to make generalizations about how the GoW series works, God of War 2 did
come out on the PS2 after the PS3 had already been released.  Because the job posting was set as
immediately, could they be looking for a 2013 release with the new PS3 coming
out sometime in the widely assumed 2014 range?  It doesn’t necessarily say which specific platform the game
will be developed on, so could it also reveal that the company is making the
game on both systems simultaneously? 
While the last statement is much more of a long shot, the fact remains
that there will be a new God of War game, and it will be coming to you much
sooner than you may have imagined.     

Dust 514 Attempts to Take Epic Scale to Epic Levels

If you haven’t already heard about DUST 514, it’s a new FPS that takes place in the universe of EVE Online.  EVE Online is an MMO sci-fi game with its own economy of corporations and populations spread throughout.  The premise of DUST 514 is that corporations will literally battle over  important worlds, handing out contracts to DUST mercenaries to do their  dirty work. 

DUST 514 offers a unique gameplay hook.  The skirmishes and battles players take part in will actually have an impact on the world of EVE Online.  Planet side battles can be influenced by players in EVE via support roles.  An EVE player with a warship can provide orbital strikes to opposing forces and swing the tide of battle.  If the EVE player gets distracted though, his allies on the ground could be overwhelmed instead.  It’s a brilliant idea and developer CCP thinks DUST 514 will be a less intimidating and more accessible entry into the EVE universe.

Long Live Play Goes Next Level

Think you have HOP potential?  Sony thinks you do!  Today, the next phase of the Long Live Play campaign rolls out with the Hall of Play.  An obvious pun on Hall of Fame, the Hall of Play is an online lounge designed for gamers.  Announced on the PlayStation blog by Scott Steinberg, Hall of Play also includes a Facebook app that will enable you to create your own “To Michael!” video that has been well received as Sony’s new ad campaign starts to get under way.

Get the PS Vita a Week Early if You Pre-Order

Those who are especially excited to get their hands on a PS Vita are in for a rare treat.

Starting today, anyone is able to pre-order Sony’s next handheld, slated to be released February 22 next year.  Do so, however, and you will get yours a full week sooner than everyone else (on the 15th) which is pretty awesome, I have to say. Of course, the craziest of Sony fans will probably just import a Japanese model Vita in December.

4 New PSN titles coming from Ubisoft

Ubisoft has four exclusive games coming to PlayStation Network in the coming months.

The titles in question are: I Am Alive, Shoot Many Robots, Babel Rising and Project Haste.  I Am Alive in particular has generated interest as it is a somewhat unusual and new type of survival game.  Rather than be centered around horror, as such games usually are, it follows a cataclysmic event that turns the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland and the player must find ways to stay alive in the harsh environment.  Finding food, collecting water and traversing hazardous landscapes are all central to the game’s overarching experience.  I Am Alive has been in development for some time, having been rumored to be canceled on more than one occasion, but after the latest trailer showcasing the Uncharted-esque climbing and combat, the game seems to be well on track to be released.

Ezio Becomes Newest Addition to Soul Calibur V Cast

Whether you have played any of the Soul Calibur games or not, chances are you probably know that sinceSC2, one of the quirks of the franchise has been the use of recognizable special characters, starting with the inclusion of Link, Heihachi Mishima, and Spawn in the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox versions of Soul Calibur 2, respectively.  Well, those looking forward to the January 31^st, 2012 (or February 3^rd in Europe) release of Soul Calibur V who are curious about new guests to the roster need wait no longer, as screenshots were leaked last week that show Ezio Auditore da Firenze of Assassin’s Creed 2 fame as one of the secret characters.

Digital High Episode 14

Rumor: PlayStation 4 Projects Underway

With many sources claiming the next Xbox will be out by Christmas 2013, it makes perfect sense Sony would also be prepping for the next console cycle.

While there hasn’t been much in the way of rumors regarding PlayStation 4, aside from it likely be released in 2014 rather than 2013, it is a safe bet that the prototype hardware is already in the hands of several developers as games being developed for the device are already well underway, according to a well-respected source via develop-online.net.  Of the sixteen first party studios owned by Sony, none have come out and said “yes we are making a new game” naturally, but the source claims many are in fact being developed already.  With developers such as Cliff Belinski saying Unreal Engine 4 will be ready some time in 2013 along with his team’s first next-gen title and studios such as Ubisoft already talking at length about their interests in better hardware, it’s pretty obvious that 2012 will be the final year in which we see PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 being the focus of the industry. 

Would you like to Touch My Katamari?

Remember back to the Tokyo Game Show when Namco announced a new Katamari
game was going to be coming to the Vita?  The game only had a working
title at the time but no more.  Touch My Katamari has been announced as the official title in the U.S. on the PlayStation Blog by Namco’s community manager Rich Bantegui.