PS3 News

Shareholders Tell Sony CEO to Step Down

If
you were a CEO of a company, it’s never good to hear your shareholders
tell you to quit your job and let someone else take over.  This happened to Sony CEO Howard
Stringer recently. Sony’s current image
and future plans were topics of concern at their shareholder meeting,
held, most notably, after the PSN hacking debacle. Stringer commented: “I think you see that cyber
terrorism is now a global force, affecting many more companies than just Sony.
If hackers can hack Citibank, the FBI and the CIA, and yesterday the video game
company Electronics Arts, then it’s a negative situation that governments may
have to resolve.”

‘Bodycount’ Coming August 30th

I
have to admit every time I hear about or see a new shooter now I’m
finding myself audibly sighing louder and louder, but thank God at least
this one isn’t brown and about the exact same group of modern military
or space marine tough guys. Bodycount is
being (strangely enough) developed by Codemasters, and if you don’t know
who they are it’s probably because you’re not a fan of off-road
simulation racing games since up until now that’s all they’ve really
been known for with the likes of Dirt 3 that came out not long ago. I’m genuinely interested to see what Bodycount
is like as it’s the first shooter Codemasters has made and, looking
over their history of past games, it seems to be a huge departure from
their usual offerings. As far as I know, the only other developer who is
known for racing games that decided to make a shooter was Burnout creators Criterion when they released Black last generation. Amazingly Bodycount looks to be quite similar to Black,
with the weapons being relatively realistic but the look and style of
the game being much closer to a comic book. Destruction seems to be a
big selling point with all the footage of the game demonstrating walls
being blown apart and stuff flying in all directions with but the
slightest hint of gunfire.

Limbo Comes to PSN

The previously XBLA exclusive title
Limbo is set to be released on PSN, which should apparently create a unified chorus of joy from PS3-only owners, as I do hear the
game is quite good. Its arrival was made official with news from a Korean
ratings board. Limbo sold over 750,000 copies on XBLA
and it is sure to repeat a somewhat similar success on the PSN, where
Limbo will fit in nicely. It joins other highly praised downloadable
titles, Braid and Castle Crashers, as games that have jumped to PSN
after experiencing a period of exclusivity on Xbox. It is a shame
that these quality games have to be hidden away from PSN for so long
but it is better than never experiencing them at all, right? Owning an Xbox I
have most certainly had the chance to play Limbo, but it just
never interested me. The art and atmosphere the game offers always
intrigued me but the gameplay seemed a little listless, flat and
unforgiving. Perhaps this new PSN release will encourage me to play
it; however, somehow I doubt it.

This Week on PS3 – June 28th, 2011

We seem to have finally reached that gap before Madden
comes out and the fall rush returns, but there’s still plenty of content
to check out on the PS3 this week, especially if you haven’t played one
of the last generation’s overlooked classics. Let’s take a look.

In the Wake of the Outage

PSN is back, and we’re happy. We were even happy to hear Sony apologize to it’s partners, and especialy to us gamers. However, Sony still faces significant hurdles. Ones that could mean very big problems for the company.

Winners of the 2011 E3 Game Critics Awards

I don’t know about you, but personally I felt a bit more distant from
the whole E3 hoopla this year than I have in years past. Still, lots of
interesting games were shown, and some of them were interesting enough
to pick up a handful of awards from critics at various recognizable
American game publications. Bioshock: Infinite was the big winner this time, picking up all four awards it was nominated for, including Best of Show.

PS3 Collections Coming in July

So let’s say you bought a PS3 not so long ago or you’ve simply not
gotten around to playing some of the big exclusives the platform is
known for. Well hold on to your money a little longer because Sony has
three collections slated for release in July you might want to get. They all come with some decent PSN bonuses and content for their upcoming sequels too.

Beyond Good and Evil on PSN, BioWare Emails and PS3 Firmware 3.66

Not much in the way of big news so here’s three smaller things you might want to know about. Beyond Good and Evil
has been given the HD treatment and was released on Xbox Live for well
over a month now but only just today was it stated the game would
finally be making its way to PSN on June 28th.  Originally slated for
May it has been delayed for unknown reasons. Whether this was a business
exclusivity deal or technical issues, no one knows.  All that matters
is this cult smash hit will be playable by PlayStation-only people now
and this is a good thing.  I remember thoroughly enjoying BG&E
for its relatively unique mix of mechanics and interesting story and
cast of characters back in the PS2 days, and yes like all the other crazy
gamers I’m still waiting for those gosh darn Ubisoft people to stop
obsessing about Italians who like to poke things and give us more sweet
sweet Jade and Pey’j action in awesome modern form.

Free Motorstorm: Apocalypse DLC Released

Free DLC for Motorstorm: Apocalypse has just been recently announced on the Playstation Blog. Originally stated for release tomorow, it has been changed to today. 

The DLC will include a brand new day-and-night track called The Rock,  expansion of the games special events, all new weekly challenges, a re-tuning of vehicle performance that will apparently be most noticeable for the superbike, dritbike and supercar classes, aswell as improved game servers and connectivity to ensure a smoother online experience.

Killzone 3: “From the Ashes” DLC Preview

The
latest map pack for Killzone 3 has been unveiled and is
scheduled for release on June 21. This pack dubbed “From the Ashes”
will feature 2 brand new Guerrilla Warfare and 2 Warzone maps and
will cost only $4.99 at inception. The developers have stated that
the new DLC is provided to reinvigorate the KZ3 online experience
with maps that are both “fresh and familiar” to users. The new
pack is also being bundled with the previous DLC content “Retro”
pack and “Steel Rain” pack as well. The bundle will cost only
$9.99 and will allow new KZ3 players, along with those who may have
missed out, the chance to get up to speed with DLC at a reduced
price and will contribute to a total of 8 multiplayer maps available for
the game. More details regarding the newest maps will be released
soon, but Guerrilla Games has already showcased a couple of their
latest creations in a set of videos on the game’s official site.