PSP

Why Go Outside This Summer?

EA has let us know that there’s a swarm of new titles releasing this summer that might pique your interest. Whether or not they keep you indoors on sunny days is a question of how excited you are for them. I know for sure that Battlefield: Bad Company and Spore will be on my list. I might even withhold from picking up Spore on a console, if officially announced, and go straight for the Mac version.

Battlefield: Bad Company - Xbox 360 and PS3
Ship Date – June 23, 2008

Burnout Paradise - PC, Xbox 360 and PS3
Downloadable Content in June.

Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath - Xbox 360
Ship Date – June 2008

Mass Effect - PC
Ship Date – May 28, 2008

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames -PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 2
Ship Date – August 31st 2008 in North America; September 5th 2008 in UK and Europe

Rock Band - Wii
Ship Date – June 22, 2008

Spore - PC, Macintosh, Nintendo DS and mobile phones.
Ship Date – September 7, 2008

Ones to Watch on PSP and PS3 for May 2008

April was nearly devoid of releases thanks to the massive landing of GTA IV but May is looking pretty heavily laden with titles that have some sleeper hit potential on both the PSP and PS3.

Echochrome lands on the PlayStation Store today, May 1st, with separate $10 versions for the PS3 and PSP. The levels on each are supposed to be unique, and just looking at a couple of screen shots makes my head hurt. You puzzle fiends out there will love it, I’m sure.

The movie tie-in Iron Man lands on May 2nd on several platforms, the PSP and PS3 among them. The demo for the PS3 version appeared on the PlayStation Store last week. CheapyD and Wombat on the CAGcast weren’t too unkind in their description of it, though, saying that while there was something to it and it had potential, it didn’t quite click, probably due to being rushed to meet the film launch.

May 6th is showing a Call of Duty 4 Game of The Year Edition, which should include the map pack currently being sold separately on the PlayStation Store. This edition is already available on the Xbox 360 and I imagine if I ever get around to renting COD4 I’d consider buying it in this pack instead of the original.

Also hitting on the 6th is the PSP’s R-Type Command from Atlus. There’s quite the buzz-generating preorder bonus for it, something called an R-9A.
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New Ghostbusters Screens

We’ve got some new Ghostbusters screens from the folks at Vivendi Games to show you. I’m really looking forward to this one as the movie, cartoon and toys were a big part of my 80’s childhood. Heck, even my younger Brothers had the full Ghostbusters costumes and weapons - crazy. Look for this game on multiple platforms this October.

Favre Confirmed for Madden 09 Box Cover

After so many athletes have been on the cover of the Madden box, only to end up injured, EA has come up with a new way to avoid the so called “Madden Curse” - use an athlete that is no longer in football.

For those that are uninitiated, every year, there is a big process where EA goes through all the possible candidates to have on the cover. But as it is with Sports Illustrated, whoever ends up on the front of the Madden box has issues in the upcoming season. Read more here on the whole “Madden Curse”.

Brett Favre is a good selection for the box, considering it is the 20th anniversary of the Madden franchise. Favre is coming off one of the best year’s of his career, even while playing for a less than average team. He has also missed being on the box several times, due to another breakout star emerging at the time of the box selection process. Congrats Mr. Favre, you do deserve this honor.

While Brett is not playing football now, I do sit on the edge of my seat, waiting for the inevitable article on ESPN some day in the near future, “Favre blows out ACL tripping over John Deere lawnmower at his house”. And with that, the Curse will abide.

Time Heals Most Wounds

So I’m waiting in a Best Buy for a friend to show up, standing in the video games aisle, and I’m easily able to resist buying anything at all. It’s April, GTA IV is coming in a few short weeks, I’m up to my neck in work from my day job most evenings over the past week, and I haven’t looked at God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PSP for a couple of days. I still have Patapon unplayed, a side of Dead Head Fred also picked up dirt cheap on the PSP, and The Darkness lingering by my PS3. My friend isn’t late, but I have a moment, so I do what comes naturally. I read strategy guides, briefly reading about the final boss fight in Chains of Olympus. It sounds complicated, and when my friend does show up, I relate how stuck I am on it.

I did finally overcome the final boss fight this evening and maybe it was just the time off I took from it but I did really well at it, dying only three or four times during the process. I was very, very happy to find checkpoints in the middle of the boss fight which, combined with what I remembered from the strategy guide I glanced at last Monday, basically turned the opening segment where you whittle the boss down to half its health into the hardest part.

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Chains of Olympus Goes A Bit Too Far

The superior design behind the God of War games continues to shine through the latest chapter in Chains of Olympus. Just as reviewers said, the single flaw in the controls centers around using the analog nub to perform kill moves needing a half-rotation or full-rotation. It doesn’t work about half of the time, leaving you bloodied and battered by the creature that wrestles itself free from your kill move. I’m very thankful that the medusae didn’t need the twisting move in their kill move (unlike in God of War I and II), so I think they knew it was a problem, but taking it out entirely might have struck them as “giving in” to the limitations of the PSP. That’s not the only thing they stubbornly held out on when bringing God of War to the handheld.

I was really enjoying Chains of Olympus until I hit what is apparently the final boss fight of the game. I’d died before up against some pretty tough enemies, especially when peppered with other enemy types, and I’d appreciated the challenge, but the fight against the final boss dishes out the cheap shots just about as much as it was done in God of War I and II. Stumble once with the timing of dodges or attacks and you’re ventilated to the tune of 15% of your health in one go. Boss fights are cheap like this in many games, and it often takes very careful timing and move execution to finish it up, put it down and say “Whew, glad that crap is overwith, and oh yeah I’m glad I finished the game too.” The big difference between God of War I and II and Chains of Olympus is that the former games were played with a real controller.

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Ones to Watch on PS3 and PSP for April 2008

I’m just a few days late with my heads-up on big titles coming to PS3 and PSP this month but it really doesn’t make a difference. How is it I can be so nonchalant? Because very few titles are showing up on the PS3 and PSP this month. The decks have been cleared for a game landing very close to the end of the month on the PS3 and Xbox 360 and in case you’ve been living under a rock I’ll tell you that it’s Grand Theft Auto IV.

With lots of positive buzz from preview builds seen by the folks on some podcasts like 1Up Yours — including positive buzz on the PS3 version running just as well as the 360 version — and unconfirmed rumors of a wide variety of online multiplayer modes, and even hints in the May 2008 Official PlayStation Magazine that it will have voice support, it looks like GTA IV will be a huge seller.

I feel bad for anyone hoping to release anything in May or June because it’s looking like I won’t be alone spending late into the night immersed fully in another compelling and morally gray story and chasing down my friends online in Liberty City.

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Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G sells 1 Mil In First Week

Remember how Monster Hunter Portable in Japan showed that the PSP wasn’t a failure? That was cemented by the off-the-charts sales of its sequel Monster Hunter Portable 2nd and this week Capcom has released what amounts to an expansion pack for the second game with Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G. This sequel has now broken the already impressive record set by MH2P by selling over a million copies in its first week in Japan.

I’m still unimpressed with Capcom’s desire to avoid adding online multiplayer to the title. It would make more sense if their Monster Hunter MMO was actually available in the US, but since it isn’t it just leaves adult gamers like me who can almost never get together live with gamer friends out from being able to enjoy this game fully. Online play would make this a ridiculously killer app for the PSP or any other platform it comes to. I’m hopeful that Capcom puts online play into the Wii version but I’m not holding my breath.

Capcom has also noted that all of the MH games have sold about 6.3 million units. That’s a lot of oversized swords chopping down on dinosaurs, -er I mean monsters.

See also:
Sorry PS3, Monster Hunter 3 Only on Wii
Is Capcom Holding Out On Monster Hunter Fans?
Capcom Offers Weak Excuses for Ad-Hoc Only In Monster Hunter
Need More Proof The PSP’s Future Is Secure?
Define, “SPANK”

Source: PlayStation Universe and GI.biz linked to by Kotaku

No. Multiplayer is Not Always Necessary

Enjoyable experiences are something to be shared. Few people would find as much enjoyment in going to a theater alone as they would by going with a group of friends. The existence of book clubs enforces the idea that more satisfaction can be derived from literature by discussing it with others and sharing ideas. When it comes to videogames, there exists a unique capacity for cooperation and competitive engagement that simply doesn’t exist in other media. With this distinct and wonderful characteristic of videogames, it makes perfect sense to include a multiplayer component in all games to make them as enjoyable as possible. Yes…? No.

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Cory Barlog Just Wanted More Variety and To Direct

The Level Up blog is running a set of interviews they did with Cory Barlog just after he left Sony and it’s very interesting. And timely, as I’m just starting to play my rental of God of War: Chains of Olympus. That’s no accident, of course, but back to the interview. In it, Cory basically says he left Sony for pretty similar reasons to why David Jaffe left. He wants to have the ability to work on a variety of interesting projects and while staying at Sony would have been safe and lucrative for him, and he would have worked on one of the most popular franchises in Sony’s possession, he wouldn’t have been able to get the kind of creative variety he wanted.

It’s a very interesting pair of interviews and I highly recommend you sit down with a cup of your favorite beverage and read them. While some of his laments may sound a little bit whiny for someone with so much success, hear him out, especially if you saw how tense and tough it was working on God of War II in the behind-the-scenes DVD that shipped with that game.

Source: Level Up Blog: Part One and Part Two.