All Entries Tagged With: "PSN"

A Proposition for Sony: Worldwide PlayStation Store

One of the most appreciated aspects of Sony’s consoles this generation – and this applies to both the PS3 and the PSP – is that, when it comes to games, they are “region free”. What does this mean? For those of you who don’t know, various forms of media are typically locked into one region, and can only be played on devices that originate in that region. If you look on the front and/or back of any DVD or BluRay you purchase in North America, you’ll typically see a “Region 1” somewhere on it. This means that it can only be played in DVD or BluRay players native to “Region 1”, which is basically all of North America.

Cladun: This is an RPG Pushed Back Two Weeks

Cladun, the retro-style, dungeon-crawling RPG in your pocket from NIS America, has been hit with a two week delay. The cause for this delay? Two letters. Two itty-bitty letters. During the character creation screen, you are unable to use the “Y” and “h” characters to name your little guy (or gal?). To allow the final version of the game to go up on the PSN for public consumption without those errors, a new build of the game is being produced and submitted to Sony for approval. This process apparently takes exactly two weeks.

We’ll have a review coming for you for this title before the release date, so stay tuned. Just for the record, ours is the buggy copy, but I’m sure this won’t affect our review at all. Well, unless Jon is extremely partial to “Y” and “h”. If that’s the case, heaven help us all.

Valkyria Chronicles II is Now Available

Words fail at describing the awesomeness that the concept of Valkyria Chronicles contains. If you are a fan of the original you will undoubtedly have high hopes for the sequel. Check out our demo impressions of the sequel (which takes place two years after the setting of the original) , now available for PlayStation Portable on UMD as well as digital distribution on PSN. Enjoy the latest screens after the break!

Shank Review

During this year’s inaugural PAX East show in Boston, there were tons of games on hand. All of the heavy-hitter publishers were there with their fancy gigantic booths trying their best to get the gamers in attendance excited for many of the Summer’s and Fall’s biggest titles. Although there was tons of variety, nothing really caught our collective eyes. That was until we piled into a hotel room that was adjacent to the Hines convention center, where we interviewed Jamie Cheng, the CEO of Klei Entertainment and checked out a rather unknown title by the name of Shank. We all left the room knowing that we just saw the game that was official our pick for “Best of Show.”

It’s felt like forever since we checked out Shank. So was it worth the wait?

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Parasite Eve 1 & 2 May See a PSN Release

Speaking to VG24/7 recently, the producer of Square-Enix’s upcoming action/shooter The 3rd Birthday, Yoshinori Kitase, mentioned that they are actually looking at bringing the two core titles in the Parasite Eve franchise to the PSN. Apparently these games are in high demand to be re-released as PS1 Classics on the PSN store, so Square-Enix is looking into the possibility. This would be a pretty nice thing to do to drum up excitement and fan support for the next titles that is based in that world, which is The 3rd Birthday.

To make things doubly fine, Tetsuya Nomura himself mentioned on his Twitter feed yesterday that they would “like to do something for the numerous requests for the archives of 1st and 2nd”. Take that as you will, but these two titles would make excellent additions to the PS1 Classic lineup.

Dungeon Defenders Announced w/ 3DTV + Move Support

Dungeon Defenders is what happens when tower defense and role playing game mechanics fall in love, get married, and pump out their first beautiful newborn. To put it mildly, this is one sexy looking game that could only have come from two hot parents such as TD and RPG. I’m personally not huge on tower defense, but it always had that potential in my mind and I’ve seen quite a number of decent TD concepts, this one absolutely takes the cake so far.

Perhaps the most obvious feature that should be pointed out which gamers are going to love is the drop-in, drop-out online and local multi-player hybrid model the game boasts. Play online with split-screen at the same time and join/leave at any moment to keep the action fresh, fun, and full. There will be castles to defend, towers to build (of course), and players take direct control of characters with the classic magic and weapons you’d expect as well as some less than common gear. And as always a game of the RPG nature just wouldn’t be an RPG without leveling up and treasure!

The basic concept is to defend your base as packs of enemies attack (think Gauntlet on steroids) and even bosses of epic proportions including an Ancient Dragon clamoring to join in on the madness. The art style is looking beautiful so far and one of the great things about Dungeon Defenders is the fact that everything you do is being tracked dynamically to provide real-time stats that go beyond your achievements to give you that in-depth report of just exactly what kind of damage you’ve been administering. If you are wondering why I’m so excited about this title heading to PC, consoles, and mobiles, you will want to hit the break for a further breakdown of this title’s features across various formats (including PC and PlayStation 3) accompanied by screens and a trailer featuring game-play!

Hulu Plus on PS3 – What Can You Expect?

A couple months ago, when I found out Hulu Plus was going into a closed beta test of sorts, I signed up. Hulu had always been somewhat of a foreign land to me, even though it supplied a service similar to Netflix streaming, which I use frequently. I rarely, if ever, sit in front of my computer to watch TV. But, as the summer wore on my thoughts turned to getting rid of cable TV altogether to save a boat load of cash each month. Most of my favorite shows were available on Hulu in some form or another so I wanted to check it out.

Late last week I finally got an invite. The main way I’d use it, of course, is on the PS3, which annoyingly requires a PSN+ subscription, but only during this trial period. Once Hulu Plus leaves beta, it will be available to everyone without PSN+. So, I signed up for a three-month PSN+ subscription just to try this out. An investment, sure, but even having both Netflix and Hulu Plus, as well as Xbox Live Gold and PSN+ was still infinitely cheaper than our cable bill every month, believe it or not.

So, enough about that – how does Hulu Plus stack up to Netflix? What are the pros and cons of the service? Is it worth it?

Castle Crashers for PSN Dated

Mark your calendars now folks because, according to the latest PlayStation blog, Castle Crashers for PSN has been dated to release on Tuesday, August 31st. One of the best downloadable games for Xbox LIVE arcade will finally be available for all the brothers and sisters who are on the PlayStation 3 side of things.

Behemoth’s Kelly Revak states:

“We’ve been working on Castle Crashers  for the PSN for about a year and a half. In that time I’ve had the fortune of meeting everyone at tradeshows and lots of people will ask me, “C’mon, what is taking so long?” I have to say that we’ve felt the same way — our whole team’s goal is to make you all happy so we want to share it right now!! We’re super antsy. But like all of our games, we can never rush anything as it’s necessary to make sure that every little piece is airtight. And fun!”

It’s never too late to play an amazing game.

[PlayStation.Blog]

Are Xenogears and Other PS1-era RPGs Coming Soon to the North American PSN?

Suikoden II. Vagrant Story. Xenogears. What comes to your mind when you think of these three classic RPGs? Probably something along the lines of missing the hay day of RPGs back in the PS1 era, before voice acting, before such a focus on pristine visuals and before games started putting those two things above any substance at all.

You may or may not know, then, that two of these three titles are available on the PSN in regions outside North America. Hopefully that will change soon, and we have a few hints from Sony that it will. In the comments on a recent post on the PlayStation Blog about updates to the PSN, Sony’s Ro Hernandez had a few choice remarks to make when anxious fans inquired about these PS1 classics.

A fan asked if there was anything new to report on PS1 classics like Xenogears, which has been available on the PSN for over two years in Japan, and the reply was:

“Unfortunately not, still being tested…”

On the topic of Vagrant Story, which is already available on the Japanese and European PSN, he replied:

“Hopefully soon??”

And, finally, in regards to Suikoden II, it was said:

“We’ll see what we can do!”

So, take those comments how you will, but one thing is sure – Sony knows that fans in North America want these classics added to the PlayStation Store sooner rather than later, so hopefully we’ll see some movement in that regard in the coming months.

[Examiner]

Interview: Creator Reveals Inspirations, Atmosphere, and Technology of Replika

DualShockers recently had the pleasure and the privilege to speak with Biodroid Entertainment’s Bruno Patatas, Creator of Replika, in an in-depth interview that shines light on upcoming Action / Strategy game for PSN with a cyberpunk theme and a dedicated focus on single player experience. We found out a lot about the game and the universe it takes place in during this interview including the inspiration behind the story and atmosphere, the implementation of Stereoscopic 3D HD, what it’s like working with the PS3, and much more. We hope you enjoy this interview that should bring Replika out of its shrouded mystery and give some intimate insight on the game as well as the creative process behind it. We even got to learn about some of the technology in the game including the LIFE engine. Bruno was a great sport with our bombardment of questions and gave us a great read in response!

Red Faction: Battlegrounds Announced by THQ (w/ Trailer + Screens)

Gamescom will be a place of many wonders this year and among those will be a title announced today called Red Faction: Battlegrounds to be published by THQ on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011. The famous fan-favorite destructibility will make its triumphant return once again in Red Faction: Battlegrounds and is accompanied by the addition of mechs, tanks, and other annihilation-based vehicular weapons. This title will be digitally distributed across the PSN and XBLA store and marketplace respectively.

Combat will take place below and on top of Mars territory as developer Volition Inc. executive produces the project developed by THQ Digital Studios UK who sets out for players to experience a four-man (or woman)  local / online multi-player experience across game modes like Survival, Annihilate, and Flag Frenzy. Ranking up will unlock bonuses for the upcoming full title Red Faction: Armageddon. The aim of is to provide a totally easy-to-get-hooked version of the franchise and interest old players and new alike with the downloadable entry Red Faction Battlegrounds.

Hit the break for the announcement trailer and screens released today for this title.

Young Thor Review (PSP/PS3)

Young Thor is a PlayStation Mini title that can be played on either the PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable. The game is a throwback to Norse mythological history which adds a cutesy-theme to the Action you can expect from hammering trolls, unleashing lightning attacks on arachnids, and more. In this brief yet satisfying title you are faced with a decent degree of challenge as well as re-playability and though the PlayStation Minis have no trophy support (at no fault to the developer Frima Studio) this game does feature a built-in Achievement system that will further extend the play for perfectionists and those who seek a higher degree of completion from their games.