For the full details check the press release below.

Xperia(TM) PLAY 4G Keeps Favorite Video Games at Your Fingertips Beginning Sept. 18

First PlayStation®-certified smartphone from AT&T available for $49.99 in AT&T stores and att.com

DALLAS, Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ –

Key Facts

— The Xperia(TM) PLAY 4G, combining a PlayStation®-certified gaming
device with the capabilities and portability of an Android smartphone,
arrives in AT&T* stores, and online on September 18 for $49.99 with a
two-year agreement.
— The Xperia PLAY 4G has dedicated gaming controls built into the phone
through a slide out controller including directional keypad, dual analog
touch joystick, two shoulder buttons and the four iconic PlayStation
symbol keys: circle, X, square and triangle.
— Running the Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) platform, the first
PlayStation-certified smartphone in the world features a brilliant 4″
480 x 854 screen and stereo speakers.

AT&T Exclusives

Only AT&T customers can choose the 4G-capable Xperia PLAY, offered in an exclusive “stealth blue” color. The smartphone package is complete with bonus accessories including the Sony Ericsson Multimedia Dock DK300 and MC100 music cable. In addition to providing a convenient charging station, the DK300 converts the Xperia PLAY’s screen to a large clock display, and the music cable lets you connect to external speakers.** The DK300 and music cable come in the Xperia PLAY box, only from AT&T.

In addition, the device is pre-loaded with seven games, some of which are exclusive, at no additional cost including:

— Dungeon Defenders(TM) Second Wave by Trendy Entertainment
— Asphalt(TM) 6 Adrenaline by Gameloft
— Star Battalion by Gameloft
— Madden NFL(TM) 11 by Electronic Arts
— The Sims(TM) 3 by Electronic Arts
— Tower Bloxx(TM): My City by Digital Chocolate
— Crash Bandicoot® by SCEA/Naughty Dog/Universal

AT&T customers will have access to 150 Xperia PLAY optimized games including Minecraft(TM) Pocket Edition, Battlefield: Bad Company(TM) 2 and Dead Space(TM) 2 for download and purchase through the “Get Games” recommender screen, easily accessible when you slide open the Xperia PLAY’s game controller.

Handheld Gaming and Smartphones Converge

The Xperia PLAY 4G offers a gamer’s wonderland by providing the on-the-go capabilities of an Android smartphone with the immersive entertainment appeal of a portable gaming device.

— Snapdragon chipset including a 1GHz CPU and Adreno 205 graphics
processor (GPU)
— Runs on the Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) platform
— Sight and sound: 4″ 480 x 854 screen, up to 60 frames per second
graphics, stereo speakers
— Dual camera: 5MP rear and VGA forward-facing, with video recording and
chat capabilities over Wi-Fi
— Hundreds of Xperia PLAY optimized games through Android Market or
directly from the publishers
— Pre-loaded with seven Xperia PLAY optimized games from publishers such
as Gameloft and EA.

Along with the great gaming and Android capabilities, the Xperia PLAY 4G from AT&T includes Facebook Inside Xperia, a suite of Facebook functions integrated into various applications, such as friends’ birthdays in the phonebook, a “like” button in the music player, photo tags in the media gallery, and YouTube video recommendations from friends.

Pricing and Availability

The Xperia PLAY 4G arrives in AT&T stores and online on Sept. 18 and will be available for $49.99 after a two-year contract with minimum data plan.

Quotes

“Gamers and smartphone fans alike will delight in the Xperia PLAY 4G’s instant access to gaming and entertainment,” said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president, Devices, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “We’re excited to offer a device that allows consumers to have fun while still staying on top of everything in their life.”

“Our fans on AT&T have been asking for Xperia PLAY and now we’re giving them everything they need in a smartphone with what they really want – an immersive gaming experience on AT&T’s 4G Network,” said Peter Farmer, Head of Marketing for North America, Sony Ericsson. “In addition to a constantly growing list of games exclusive to and optimized for Xperia PLAY, we know AT&T customers are really going to enjoy the uniquely Sony Ericsson social experience, including Timescape and Facebook Inside.”

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

**External speakers not included.

4G speeds delivered by HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul. Available in limited areas. Availability increasing with ongoing backhaul deployment. Requires 4G device. Learn more at att.com/network.

References to screen size are measured diagonally.

Important Information: Limited-time offer. Mobile broadband coverage and other coverage not available in all areas. See coverage map at store for details. Two year agreement with qualifying voice plan and a minimum $15 a month smartphone data plan required. Subscriber must live and have a mailing address within AT&T’s owned wireless network coverage area. Up to $36 activation fee applies. Equipment price and availability may vary by market and may not be available from independent retailers. Early Termination Fee: None if cancelled in the first 30 days, but up to $35 restocking fee may apply to returns; thereafter up to $325. Some agents impose additional fees. Other conditions and restrictions apply. See contract for details. Sales tax calculated based on price of unactivated equipment.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T |DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.

© 2011 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. Mobile broadband not available in all areas. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. Xperia and the Sony Ericsson liquid identity logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. PlayStation and Sony are the trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Corporation. Ericsson is the trademark or registered trademark of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericson. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

About Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson celebrates its 10th year as a joint venture between Sony Corporation and Ericsson in October, 2011. Over the years Sony Ericsson has brought together the best communication technologies with superior entertainment user experiences to create its Xperia(TM) line of the ‘most entertaining smartphones’ in the mobile handset industry. With its global corporate functions in London, Sony Ericsson has sales and marketing operations in all major regions of the world, as well as manufacturing in China, and product development sites in China, Japan, Sweden and Silicon Valley, California. For more information, please visit: www.sonyericsson.com/press.

SOURCE AT&T Inc.
AT&T Inc.

Sony has also started talking about the lineup of upcoming titles for the system at Gamescom in Germany today, including Resistance: Burning Skies, which stars a firefighter and is set between Resistance 1 and 2. For more hit up the PlayStation Blog.

Details are on the PS Blog.

I went into Alien Zombie Megadeath with little to no expectations, as I had never really heard of the game before the review code showed up in my email box.  I remembered that there was a Mini title a way back from the same developer PomPom, but beyond that I knew very little of the game, or even its core mechanics.  After several hours with the game, I can say that I was very entertained, if not a bit frazzled by Alien Zombie Megadeath.  It is a great, quirky platforming title that offers up a ton of replay, but only at the cost of your sanity.

Alien Zombie Megadeath at its heart is a platform title that mixes in some weapons and spawn-happy enemies that come to attack you from every direction.  The game starts with a very simple learning curve, having you mop the floor with the enemies on the first few levels, but it becomes deceptively challenging as you work your way from the tenth level on. 

Each level has you moving around a line grid of stacked levels, where you move up and down between the levels.  To show you simply use the right stick to shoot left or right, or you can use the right and left triggers to shoot in the corresponding direction.  There is not much else beyond that regarding controls.  From there, it becomes a race to see how long you can survive, or at worst case, how long you have before you lose your sanity.

While Alien Zombie Megadeath is simple in its core concepts, it does mix things up quite a bit from the standpoint of the stages.  Many times, there will be new types of objectives to perform, like moving babies to a ship, or another level will fill with more flaming asteroids while you have to circumnavigate the level to get all the jewels.  Each level continues to add new sorts or mission types or perks making the game feel fresh all the time, which is a good thing for a game that has very repetitive mechanics.

I also loved the groovy soundtrack that was running throughout the course of all the levels.  It is a great mix between current electronica and disco fused together with an arcade vibe of the 80’s.  I would love to see the soundtrack for this game show up at some point on my shelf. 

The only two detriments that I came across with Alien Zombie Megadeath would be difficulty balancing and multiplayer issues, although only one is a development issue.  As stated earlier, the game is devilish in its smooth ramp up to get you the basics of surviving the world, but around levels 10 to 20, the game becomes abnormally difficult and out of whack with the pacing originally set for the earlier levels.  It is not a huge issue, but it does make you a bit sore after replaying a level two dozen times.  The other is multiplayer.  While the game does support it, there are either two few players out there to get a match going, or it is completely broken.  I doubt that it is broken, and instead, Alien Zombie Megadeath may not be at the top of everyone’s to-do list at this time.

Alien Zombie Megadeath is a great title that offers up a lot of gameplay for a relatively low price.  I would compare it to the recent XBLA release Adventures of Shuggy as providing a ton of play value for its price.  The difficulty goes out of whack towards the end of the game, but overall, it is a great experience with a ton of rewards for the patient gamer.  Alien Zombie Megadeath gets 4 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Check out Alien Zombie Megadeath  and other PSN reviews at Test Freaks.

I am confident enough in my gaming cred to admit that I have enjoyed the Bloodrayne games from Majesco.  Both Bloodrayne 1 and 2 were based around the sensual title character and her ability to beat, main, slice and dice her way through waves of enemies, all in the greater good of defeating either the Nazis in the first one or what I thought was her father figure in the second one.  They were never great games, but they were popcorn fun where you could check out mentally and just have a good time kicking the crap out of enemies in interesting ways.  Bloodrayne Betrayal turns the series on its head a bit, going with a side-scrolling view, new art style and a new delivery route via the console marketplace, and all of these choices bode very well for the return of our favorite gaming vampire vixen.

Sitting down for my presentation with the guys from Way Forward, the first thing you get right from the start with Bloodrayne Betrayal is the new presentation for the game.  Gone are the environments that you explored in a third person view – instead the game eschews that style for 2D, side-scrolling view with a handcrafted animated look.  The new look for Bloodrayne could be a hit or miss with faithful fans of the series.  I found it to be a striking difference for the series, and a very good one at that.  The cell-shaded look makes the game standout from the crowd, with a nice color palette, and over 4000 unique animations for our main hero.  In comparison, we were told that a prior game from Way Forward, A Boy and His Blob, used 1200 animations total throughout the entire game.  Here, we are getting almost four times as many animations for just the one character.

The fluidity of the animations is amazing to watch in action as Rayne, our main character, works her way through mobs of enemies.  Her move set never felt repetitive at any point, and it was a treat to watch how smooth the movement worked in the game.  Games in today’s market always seem to need a hook, and I think that Way Forward definitely found a way to set BloodRayne Betrayal apart from other games in the crowded console marketplace, as the look of the game will become one of its major selling points.

Of course, looks cannot sell people on a game all the time, and Way Forward dropped a few specifics for BloodRayne Betrayal.  The game will consist of 15 levels, which will show up over five distinctly different environments.  On average, a gamer should be able to get through all of this in about 6-7 hours, but there is added replay value with all kinds of unlockables and power upgrades that give players more incentive for their dollar when looking at a potential purchase value.

I was able to watch one of the earlier levels in the game, as Rayne arrived in the level via her Coffin Rocket, which shows that there are still some sexual innuendo jokes to be had, as the coffin looked akin to a certain male appendage.  Along the level, I watched as Rayne used a plethora of attacks and moves to defeat a lot of enemies.  Standard enemies were easy enough to dispatch, but others required making use of Rayne’s full move set to defeat them.  Enemies can also use certain weapons to their advantage like light.  Since Rayne is half-vampire, she can be destroyed by prolonged exposure to light, so attacking enemies with light based weapons will be a challenge.

At the end of each stage, you also get a ranking that will upload to a series of leaderboards where you can compare your scores to others in the world, as well as those on your friends list.  Rankings use a grade school A-F ranking based on your performance and survival through a level.

Funny enough, as I was getting ready to conclude my demo, I did ask about the rating of BloodRayne Betrayal from the ESRB.  While the game does have a quasi-cartoonish quality, there are bucket loads of blood that are dropped from enemies.  It is not just splatters of blood, but a torrential monsoon of blood that comes from enemies, either from the killing or from the feeding, so I was curious if they were looking at an M rating as a bad thing or a good thing.  Well, it was mentioned that BloodRayne Betrayal was one of the first games to go through the new, automated ESRB ratings system, and the game received a Teen rating to the shock of Way Forward developers.  They were definitely shooting for a hardcore, Mature rating, leaving them to wonder what it will take to get a Mature rating now.  While it is not a selling point, it was interesting to hear the background story on the ratings system.

I finished up my session with BloodRayne Betrayal wanting the game more than I did going in.  I had become enamored with the new art style from the first moment I saw it in action a few weeks before E3, and with the other improvements and quality of the platforming and action, it moved onto my must have list at the end of the day.  Look for BloodRayne Betrayal from Majesco on XBLA and PSN in August 2011.

With the release of Captain America readying for release here in the US, we just received word that the Star Spangled Avenger will also get the pinball treatment in Pinball FX2 on the XBLA Marketplace and in Marvel Pinball on the PSN Marketplace.

The Captain America table is set to include several ramps, story mode points, and of course, the battle figurines of Captain America, Baron Zemo and of course, the Red Skull.  The new table is set to release on June 28th for PS3 owners, while it will drop a day later on June 29th for Xbox 360 owners with the same pricing as the other add-on tables for the two titles.

Check below for a full trailer of the Captain America table in action as well as several more screens.

To me this is just crappy programming. They had a whole month to get ready for anything — load issues, security issues, anything, and still, STILL this pile of crap Store software throws ridiculous looking Error codes instead of doing any of the following when under heavy traffic:
* let users opt to enter a queue to access the page or start the download
* make a server-side queue of downloads just like on those PC download sites
* just say it’s fricken busy and to try back later! NOT SOME ERROR 0x234987sd#$*(@ nobody is going to understand!

Come on Sony, we’re grown-ups, we know that not paying for an online service has its limitations, or even that when paying for it bandwidth and server infrastructure isn’t infinite, but a tiny bit of intelligence in the software can go a long way to managing these limitations and not making you look like complete imbeciles when you’re trying to make your customer base happy enough to use your systems again.

And what do they say on Twitter and the Blog to make up for this? You have plenty of time to get your games so don’t panic? You want your customers to be happy and use your system, not GO AWAY and maybe NOT COME BACK! THIS is supposed to inspire CONFIDENCE?!

Note to Sony: Learn Faster. FASTER!

And the PSP titles are:
* LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
* ModNation Racers
* Pursuit Force
* Killzone Liberation

On the PS3 I’m a big fan of LittleBigPlanet, inFAMOUS, and Super Stardust HD. I own all three of those already so I’ll be picking Dead Nation and even though I’m not a fan of the Wipeout series, free is free, so I’ll pick that up, too.

On the PSP I’ve played the venerable Pursuit Force and Killzone Liberation, while exceptional, is exceedingly difficult. It did, however, get an add-on patch which added I believe a whole fifth chapter along with online multiplayer — a truly amazing amount of free add-on content for a handheld game. The portable versions of LittleBigPlanet and Modnation Racers, however, are both stellar games that I haven’t played. I’m still on the fence on this one.

Details, along with some illuminating comments on how the downloads work in the Store, are on the blog.

This is probably something you are going to read a lot over the next few days, but with the PSN back up companies can finally start adding their content to the store, including Obsidian and Bethesda.  The two companies have added the second DLC pack for Fallout New Vegas entitled, “Honest Hearts”. 

The new DLC takes players to a new location in Utah called Zion, where a man that has been “baptized twice – once in water and once in flames”, seems to be leading a religious cult that wants to save the world from itself.

The Honest Hearts DLC pack will set you back $9.99 and it will require you to have a save point that is set before the last major plot point in the main storyline.  Look for it on the PSN today.