PS2 Game News
Mar
Live Streaming by Ustream.TV
The 2010 Game Developers Conference is taking place in San Francisco this week, but you can watch Sony’s press conference today in whatever room of your home you deem fit thanks to the glorious live stream above (and yes, pants are completely optional, provided sans-pants is appropriate attire for the room you pick).
The conference kicks off at 4PM PST (7PM EST), so come back in a few hours to watch whatever big reveals and announcements Sony has planned as they happen. Will we get more info on their motion controller? Maybe the first official motion controller games? Maybe an actual name besides “Sony Motion Controller”? Or maybe new games that don’t have to do with the motion controller at all!
Come back at 4PM, and we’ll all find out together.
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Mar
Developers have often struggled with game demos, and for good reason: It can be enough of a challenge hand-picking the segments that best represent a game, but if the demo winds up being too good, players might not ever invest in the retail product at all.
Sony aims to fix some of that, assuming they ever act on a patent recently discovered by Siliconera. Their plan is to offer something called “degradable demos” — complete or nearly complete games in demo form, allowing players free access to a product’s full breadth of content for a limited amount of time. As time passes, however, the demo will automatically begin to pare down certain in-game features, like which levels are available or how powerful the player character is. There’s even talk of introducing more subtle tweaks like adjusting audio and video effects like brightness, color depth, and volume. All of these ideas are meant to offer consumers a broad look at a game while still encouraging them to make a purchase.
One example in the patent depicts a racing game demo that, at first, has all of the tracks and cars unlocked. Those options start to disappear after a few races, leaving just one or two tracks until the full game is purchased. Another possibility shows a character brandishing an enormous sword, only to have it replaced by a wimpy dagger after six hours of demo play. Both of these scenarios allow players to stick with just the demo if they want, but anyone seriously interested in the product will be able to cough up some money to remove all those restrictions and handicaps.
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Sony has coveted Apple’s spot at the top of the handheld electronics for much of the decade, having positioned a wide variety of gadgets opposite the iPod. Now it seems they may be readying an answer to the iPad and the iPhone.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony is working on a device that’s described as being part netbook, part e-reader and part PlayStation Portable. Sources within the electronic giant also report that Sony is working on a “PlayStation Phone,” which would be capable of downloading and playing PlayStation games.
Sony has been trying to overtake Apple since roughly 2005, when they first introduced the PSP. At that time, the iPod could not yet play video, which appeared to give Sony’s handheld a significant advantage. However, the UMD format proved to be a major achilles heel for the platform.
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Mar
Square Enix may already be hard at work on their next massively multiplayer RPG, Final Fantasy XIV, but their current MMO Final Fantasy XI is still alive and kicking. And today, Square Enix announced three new battle scenario add-ons that’ll all release throughout 2010.
The first add-on will be Vision of Abyssea, which is set to launch in early summer. This will be followed by Scars of Abyssea and Heroes of Abyssea (Abyssea will be kind of important, in case you didn’t pick up on that) later this year. Each scenario add-on will bring “new stages for epic combat, providing high-level players with new equipment to collect and challenging monsters to battle.” You know, like every other add-on ever released for any other MMO in existence.
Each new scenario will run you $9.99, and will be available for purchase on the PlayOnline Viewer. The previous FFXI expansion packs Rise of the Zilart and Wings of the Goddess will both be required to play them.
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Mar
Sony’s PlayStation 3 marketing has touted that their system “only does everything,” but here’s one thing no one would ever want to a see PlayStation used for: detonator for an improvised explosive device.
During a Fox News report (yes, Fox News, but bear with us) of a raid of a home suspected of stocking bomb-making materials in Afghanistan, a PlayStation controller was found that one soldier explained would have been used to detonate an explosive. “Something as simple as what a soldier may’ve thrown out because their PlayStation was broken can be used as an initiator device,” the unidentified soldier says while holding the controller (which, to be specific, appears to be an original PS1 controller since it lacks analog sticks).
In truth, it’s not very surprising to see a videogame controller could be reconfigured into a detonator — it’s been well documented that otherwise innocuous electronics (like cell phones) are often used by enemy militants and insurgents for detonating IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it certainly doesn’t make it any less disconcerting to see something as harmless as a PlayStation controller turned into a weapon.
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Jan
After a little over three years of rappy hunting and MAG feeding, Phantasy Star Universe’s PlayStation 2 and PC servers are about to permanently go offline. The developers recently tossed up a note on the game’s official website announcing a shutdown date of March 31, 2010.
Anyone who still has a Phantasy Star Universe subscription as of January 29 will be able to continue playing the game for free until the servers go down in March. No additional subscriptions may be purchased following the January 29 cutoff date, however.
The Xbox 360 version of Phantasy Star Universe remains unaffected by these closures. In fact, Sega has pledged to continue offering further content updates and support for customers on Microsoft’s console.
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Jan
After a little over three years of rappy hunting and MAG feeding, Phantasy Star Universe’s PlayStation 2 and PC servers are about to permanently go offline. The developers recently tossed up a note on the game’s official website announcing a shutdown date of March 31, 2010.
Anyone who still has a Phantasy Star Universe subscription as of January 29 will be able to continue playing the game for free until the servers go down in March. No additional subscriptions may be purchased following the January 29 cutoff date, however.
The Xbox 360 version of Phantasy Star Universe remains unaffected by these closures. In fact, Sega has pledged to continue offering further content updates and support for customers on Microsoft’s console.
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Jan
Top 5 Scifi Cliches That Need to Die
Scfi standards due for retirement.
By Scott Sharkey
Between Mass Effect 2, Star Trek Online, and a bunch of other pending launches, I’m planning to get my sci-fi right the hell on this spring. While it’s sure to be a grand old time, there are, however, a few things I can absolutely rely on encountering. Old friends who, unfortunately, have long overstayed their welcome.
5. Where Someone Has Gone Before
Earth has been pretty well explored for a while now, and it’s more or less a given that no matter where you go someone was there first and, most likely, set up a T-shirt shop. The rest of the galaxy, on the other hand, has the appeal of a fresh new frontier. Which makes it a little frustrating when it turns out that some ancient, technologically godlike race has already been everywhere, done everything, and left the architectural equivalent of Kilroy Was Here on the face of every interesting planet in creation. It’s even more galling when they invariably turn out to be the long lost ancestors or creators of mankind. Sure, it’s a neat idea, and it makes a great setup for some kind of mysterious peril that wiped them out, but we’ve seen it played out so many times that it’s long since ceased to capture the imagination and comes off more as, “Oh, an ancient, powerful race that mysteriously fucked off back before the dawn of time. Must be Tuesday.” Just once I’d like for it to turn out that after conquering the universe they decided to settle in for a blissfully uneventful retirement on Earth, where they slowly degenerated into the ancestors of modern domestic cows. We may never know their secrets, but at least they’re delicious.
4. In Space Everyone Can Hear You Asplode
I have a pulse, so it probably goes without saying that I’m a fairly huge fan of explosions. The thing is, while a great big gaudy fireball, adorned with an expanding (and inexplicable) ring accompanied by a hearty “Kra-Koom!” is nice and all, it’s a bit like eating steak every night. Anyone with a passion for blowing shit up knows that explosions come in great variety, and I can’t help feeling a bit robbed that we’re seldom treated to the peculiar sight and sound of an explosion in a vacuum. The perfect silence of space can be used to instill a sense of loneliness and awe that can’t quite be matched by the whoosh of engines, zap of lasers, and deafening booms of yet another Death Star getting blowed up. We’ve become so used to it that it’d really stand out if, just once, we got something like the silent space scenes of 2001 and Firefly, and maybe, if we’re lucky, the distant, silent flash of a really good explosion followed by a long tense quiet, finally broken by the arrival of a wave of particles and debris impacting against the hull. Maybe if we’re really good and eat our vegitables we’ll get to hear the ominous whistle of air escaping the perforated hull.
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Jan
Heihachi Voice Actor Found Dead
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Gouri Daisuke, the voice of Heihachi from Tekken, has passed away. According to reports from Chunichi Web (via Versus City), the Japanese voice actor was found in the streets of Nakano-ku yesterday, where he bled to death from a wound on his arm. A knife and written will were found near the body, leading the authorities to believe this was a suicide.
The 57-year-old actor was best known for his work on Tekken, as well as for several parts in the Kinnikuman and Dragon Ball television series. He’d been in the voice acting business for decades now, with credits in everything from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Our hearts go out to the friends and family of the deceased.
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Nov
Despite Mercenaries developer Pandemic being shut down just a week ago, a new Mercenaries game called Mercs Inc. has been announced today. More than likely, EA had no intention of making an announcement about the game at this point, but the video above (which leaked earlier today) undoubtedly forced their hand.
The announcement didn’t actually reveal much of anything about the game, unfortunately. But between the video and the description written by the video’s original poster (via Bitmob) of a “multiplayer sandbox game,” it looks to be a new Mercenaries game with a heavier emphasis on multiplayer than what we saw with the simple two-player co-op mode found in Mercenaries 2. According to Bitmob, “two dozen or so” former Pandemic staffers who weren’t laid off have headed to EA LA to continue working on the game.
“We are very excited to announce a new installment in the popular Mercenaries series because it demonstrates our continued commitment to Pandemic’s rich catalog of intellectual properties,” said EA senior VP Nick Earl. “From the studio at EA LA, a core creative team is forging new ground and conceptualizing new ideas for this exciting franchise.”
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