onAXIS

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

High Stakes on the Vegas Strip Coming This Thursday

SOE's multiplayer poker game, High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition will be released this Thursday through the network's PlayStation store. The title will go for $9.99 and supports a variety of features, now fairly standard for Sony PSN releases. High Stakes will support 1080p resolution, online play with up to six people, audio chat and online leaderboards.

[Via PS3Fanboy]

Sony Chiefs on Web 2.0 and Gaming

The semi-offical Sony company over at ThreeSpeech has managed to get an interview with Sony. Here is the opening of the interview:

Q: The whole Web 2.0 influence: was it initiated by the massive success of things like My Space and YouTube? What was the thinking behind it?

Paulina Bozek: For SingStar, it was a combination of two things. Our two main features in SingStar for PS3 are downloading the tunes you want – obviously, it’s always on – and the community uploading of content to share with your friends at My SingStar Online.

Q: Which is classic user-generated content?

PB: Yeah. Yes, it was emerging as a big cultural trend, but we started working on it quite early, and now we’ve finished the title. It has been in production for two years so, two years ago, it was early days. We were already looking towards that. With SingStar, in particular, it wasn’t just about the big online names like My Space and YouTube: people were spontaneously sharing and forming communities. We were constantly getting videos on a Monday morning, saying: “This is my SingStar party,” so it was natural for SingStar to go that way.

Read the full interview at the link.

[Read Sony Interview]

Ratchet & Clank PSN Demo on October 4, 2007

Sony's told IGN that a demo of upcoming Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction will hit PSN on October 4, 2007. Thats great news as we've all been wondering where it is.

[Via IGN]

Uncharted Gets Firm Release Date

According to game director Amy Henni, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune will be released on November 20th, 2007 in the US and is still down for release this Christmas in Europe. Thats good news.

[Via EuroGamer]

Beautiful Katamari & Eternal Sonata Coming to PlayStation 3?

According to Namco Bandai's official game sites, Beautiful Katamari is listed as a PlayStation 3 title. Hopefully, that means it will also be coming out for the PlayStation 3.

[Via Beautiful Katamari]

And on this side, the official site for Eternal Sonata lists the game as a PlayStation 3 title. Could that mean this wonderful RPG will soon be playable on our consoles? We will keep you informed with an update.

[Via Eternal Sonata]

[Update: PLAYSTATION 3 has been removed from both the games official pages.]

Monday, September 10, 2007

GameSpot Reveiws Heavenly Sword an 8/10

Well, another Heavenly Sword review has been done, lets take a look at the goods and the bads from the GameSpot review giving it an 8 out of 10:

The Good:
Superb presentation and excellent acting make the game feel like a movie
Having three different attack stances works well and keeps the combat fresh
Sixaxis motion controls are implemented nicely
From the moment it starts until the moment the credits roll, the game never lets up.
The Bad:
So short it can be finished in an afternoon
Not enough variety to the bad guys' design and attacks
Some bosses feel a little cheap.

Seems fair enough, no? I guess we will have to decide on Wednesday, when the game releases. Read the full review at the link.

[Read Heavenly Sword]

PlayStation 3 Failure: The Japan Book

A book was recently released in Japan called "プレステ3はなぜ失敗したのか?" which translates too "Why did the PS3 Fail?". It's a little early to decide a winner or a loser in the war yet, so the book is a little unfair.

Sure, the consoles sales were not to Sony's expectations, but things can change at any given time.

[Buy プレステ3はなぜ失敗したのか?]

L.A. Noire Delayed Till 2009

Team Bondi's PLAYSTATION 3 detective thriller L.A. Noire has been "moved out" of Take-Two's fiscal year 2008 release schedule, announced today during the company's financial conference call. L.A. Noire, which will fall under the Rockstar Games banner and touts former Team Soho developers—of The Getaway fame—, was first announced in the summer of 2005 for a release on the PS3, part of an agreement to develop multiple Sony-exclusive titles. Little has been shown of the game outside of a pair of trailers and it doesn't look like we'll see much more of it any time soon.

[Via Kotaku]

EGM: LittleBigPlanet Interview with Pete Wilson

Electronic Gaming Monthly has posted an interview done with Pete Wilson, Media Molecule Senior Producer, about LittleBigPlanet. Here's a sneak preview:

EGM: Since we aren't all game developers, will you include some type of in-game hint system so our creations don't suck? Pete Wilson: Actually, you'll be introduced to the creation tools just by playing the premade levels. We call it creativity by stealth -- you won't even notice it but, after playing LBP for a while, you'll probably be pretty good at making stuff. You definitely don't need to be a game developer to make stuff in LBP -- there is no separate editor for example; you just create everything very physically using your character, in-game. And we want to keep the creation systems very simple so that users aren't daunted by the prospect of making a level. Because we know that, although people do like to create stuff, we don't want anything as complex as a Quake level editor.

Read the full interview at the link.

[Read LittleBigPlanet Interview]

Amazon Begins Pre-Orders for Gran Turismo 5: Prologue

Amazon have started to do pre-orders for Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. The title is said to feature 16-player online races, 50 vehicles, five tracks, and 1080 high-definition resolution.

Surprisingly, the title is for order of $59.99 and it's release date states June 28, 2008. This is probably another of those release mix-ups though.

[Buy Gran Turismo 5: Prologue]

Sony: No Demo for Warhawk Coming

With Warhawk, one of the PlayStation 3's highly anticipated titles, being released two weeks ago, people are expecting a demo. But Sony tells us otherwise, and explains why they cannot release a demo for Warhawk:

"Warhawk was designed to support up to 32-players online simultaneously. In a demo version of a multiplayer only game, there is little control over how many players will be on a dedicated server at a time, potentially leading to smaller online battles that do not fully do justice to the title's fast combat and frantic play. Additionally, Warhawk development underwent an extensive beta trial that included nearly 10,000 participants, which offered a wide audience ample opportunity to experience the game and provide valuable feedback to during Warhawk's development."

The Beta was really the only chance players had at a demo. Hopefully the Lair demo will come soon and calm you down though.

[Via GameDaily.biz]

Europoean Release for Blast Factor: Advanced Research Revealed

ThreeSpeech have revealed the release date for Blast Factor: Advanced Research. The game will be available for download on the Europe PlayStation Store on September 20, 2007. That day is also the start of the Tokyo Game Show, so now you guys have more to look forward to on that day.

[Via PS3Fanboy]

Saints Row 2 to be Revaled in November Electronic Gaming Issue

XboxKings has received an e-mail today from Electronic Gaming telling them that the latest installment of the Saints Row series, Saints Row 2, will be revealed in next month's Electronic Gaming Monthly.

The first details will be given in an exclusive article about this free-roaming game.

[Via XboxKings]

Epic's Rein Warns of Unreal Tournament III Delay

On the official Epic Games forums, in a topic where they were debating about the countdown till Unreal Tournament III, Rein posted in to settle the debate:

"We do not know exactly when the game will be completed. All we've said is that we're hoping for a November release but as you know we value getting it right over getting it right now so there's no guarantee of that."

Hopefully, it will still come out this year in time for the holiday season. All I know is you readers better get prepared to get your ass whooped when that time comes.

[Via Epic Forums]

Rumor: 40GB PlayStation 3 with Spider-Man 3 this Christmas?

Straight from Kotaku.

Ars Technica's mole, who previously tipped them off on HDMI for the 360 and wired Xbox 360 Rock Band controllers is now telling them that Sony will be releasing yet another version of the PS3 for the holidays. This time it is a 40GB system for only $400 with a possible Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray pack-in. Also in the cards is a supposed price drop to $99 for the PS2. Here's what the mole says the holiday season will look like for Sony consoles:

- 80GB PlayStation 3: $499.99
- 40GB PlayStation 3: $399.99
- Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray movie pack in with one, or both
- PlayStation 2: $99.99

Many analysts have been predicting an 80GB price drop and it seems it may happen. But whats the point of releasing a 40GB version when they could just use the 60GB?

[Via Kotaku]

SCEE's Risky Marketing Ploy

It's taken from a Blockbuster store in the UK. Pretty weird approach for Sony, even if it is Halo 3.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Insomniac Games Interview about Ratchet and Clank

The Mad Gamer was lucky enough to get an interview with the highly respected Insomniac Games. They open with these two questions:

Firstly : this title marks the start of a brand-new series of next-generation games for our heroes. What will be the first thing we will notice when we slide the title in the PS3?
The first thing anyone playing the game will immediately notice is the beautiful, highly detailed worlds that we have brought to life in Ratchet & Clank Future. Our tools and technology teams have done an amazing job continuing to develop our proprietary engine technology, and combined with the creative imagination of our artists, we are able to create an all-new galaxy begging to be explored.
Tell us about the overhaul of the engine technology to take advantage of the new console?
We are continuing to build our Insomniac Engine and have made many improvements to it since Resistance: Fall of Man. The one huge focus for us has been moving more of our processes over to the SPUs on the CELL processor. This has allowed us to get our physics and effects systems running roughly four times faster than it did in Resistance at nearly double the framerate, which is something you can see in weapons like the Tornado Launcher.