As the
PlayStation Network finally starts to get up and running again Sony have
detailed the free games that they promised all PS3 and PSP users as compensation
for the inconvenience of 25 days without online gaming.
After a
3-week outage, Sony has finally started restoring PlayStation online
services in phases, and will continue their efforts worldwide until
the systems are fully operational. It could take until the end of the
month to fully restore PSN, PlayStation Store, Qriocity and other
services to all its customers, but all U.S. states and other regions of
the world should be seeing partial restoration as the result of phase
one. Sony has been updating a set of map graphics which show the
areas where service is live, along with web updates, and the United
States is now in the green zone. As announced prior to restoration,
all users will be required to download a firmware update and to
change their passwords in order to connect to the servers. This comes
as the first step in ensuring data security and protecting user
information.
Has the attack on Sony’s network been getting you down? Well things are looking up because Sony has restored some of the network!
Sony sent out a press release detailing the restoration and Sony’s
Kazuo Hirai gives a round down of what to expect in the video above. The
phased restoration will be on a country by country basis and
begins with America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.
Namco has officially announced that Soul
Calibur V will be arriving on Xbox 360 and PS3 next year. The game will be
set 17 years after the events of Soul Calibur
IV with some of the main characters having aged significantly and the power
struggle having shifted towards the younger generation.
One of the major differences from Soul
Calibur IV will be the inclusion of a more reactive combat system with
combos that are simpler to perform. The game’s producer, Hisaharu Tago, admits
that in Soul Calibur IV there was some delay in the time it took the on-screen characters
to react to the player pressing a button and he insists that Soul Calibur V will feel “much
lighter, sharper and more elegant.”
Sony has reported that the online
services will most likely remain down for the next few days, and may
not be entirely restored until the end of the month. The company is
still working around the clock in efforts to bring the new systems
online, but at this point everyone is frustrated with the progress.
The outage officially hits the 3-week mark tomorrow and there doesn’t
seem to be a lot of good news circulating. A few websites have
reported other security breaches occurring over the last few days but
the details are highly speculative. The bad news is that new releases
such as Brink, Portal 2, and SOCOM 4 rely
heavily on online connectivity and as a result have suffered in sales
on the PS3 because of the attack. It’s unfortunate that consumers are
being directly affected but it’s an important lesson for Sony and
proves that nothing is off-limits when dealing with hackers.
The internet is once again alive with rumors that suggest a new game in the Call of Duty franchise will be announced soon. There has recently been a lot of buzz about a possible reveal at the Activision Blizzard first quarter conference which took place yesterday, but in the end almost no new information was given away, other than Activision saying we will be told more about a new Call of Duty soon (probably referring to E3). But another story, which originated from the UK Official PlayStation Magazine, suggests that the new game will in fact be Modern Warfare 3 and the magazine even goes as far as giving it a release date of November 8 of this year.
The
Darkness II is a first-person shooter and horror title being
developed by Digital Extremes; is based upon a comic book of the same
name. The game serves as the sequel to 2007’s title The Darkness,
and will not be tied to Starbreeze Studios—the development body
behind the first game. It features the story of Jackie Estacado, a
young mobster in the Mafia who was possessed by an entity known as
“The Darkness” and who now, harnesses the ability to summon the
demons or “Darklings” to protect the ones he loves. Now he is
thrown into the middle of a mob war as the result of an unprovoked
attack on his family and is unable to dispatch the thoughts of his
deceased girlfriend. Jackie must use his powers once again to
discover the source of The Darkness itself and to survive the horrors
it conjures.
Set for a November 2011 release on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Assassin’s Creed Revelations has been referred to by Ubisoft as “the final chapter in the Ezio trilogy”. In the official press release
that accompanied the games initial announcement some hints of the new features
we can expect were given by Ubisoft: “Assassin’s Creed Revelations presents the
most immersive experience available in the series to date and the culmination
of Ezio’s adventure”
three new packs of downloadable content for Fallout:
New Vegas. All three will be released on the games three supporting platforms:
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The first to arrive is titled Honest Hearts and is due to be released May
18 on the PS3. The second is called Old
World Blues and will arrive in June, and the third is titled
Road
I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it is good in a sense that more people will be on the servers to be able to do the game’s content, but also bad because the game may not have the amount of people that company was expecting. As for the PSN people hopefully the game becomes playable soon.
