The man who created the Prince of Persia series, Jordan Mechner, has spoken of his pleasure at the fresh direction in which Ubisoft are taking his classic 'IP'.
Ubisoft Montreal are creating the new-look Prince outing, in which our hero will be gifted a sexy new side-kick, Elika, and a darker aesthetic.
The new action title will be out this festive season on PS3, PC, Xbox 360 and DS.
"I'm very excited about the new game. I'm glad they're taking it in a different direction," Mechner told Comic Con in San Diego. "I think it's absolutely beautiful. It's got that romantic, beautiful feel which I think is more true to the spirit of Prince of Persia. It's very ambitious, it's spectacular, and it's awesome. I like it."
The veteran had previously knocked PoP: The Warrior Within, a release he was not involved with though Mechner seems far more optimistic about the next game, encouragingly: "I'd rather focus on the positive, and hope the new game is going to be the best one," he enthused.
Play.TM
7/27/2008
Last summer, Prince of Persia Classic came to the Xbox Live Arcade. Now, according to an ESRB listing, it appears that PS3 owners will get in on the action.
No release date has been revealed (or that the game even existed on the PS3), but considering the number of titles that have leaked in this fashion, it shouldn’t be too much longer before Ubisoft pulls back the curtains.
Here’s a screenshot from the ESRB’s website:
Endsights
There is a ton of of Blu-ray releases this week. The good news is that there is something for everyone. The bad news is that we are all going to be feeling a little broke after.
The Band's Visit
Bears (IMAX)
Beer League/The Big White
Beowulf
The Big White
Clear and Present Danger
Dark City (Director's Cut)
Doomsday
Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (Unrated)
Hotel Babylon - Series 1
Human Body: Pushing the Limits
The Hunt for Red October
The Last Sentinel/Final Days of Planet Earth
The Lost Boys
Lost Boys: The Tribe
Mortuary
Never Back Down
Patriot Games
Perhaps Love
Salvage
Salvage/Mortuary
Shine a Light
Stargate - Continuum
Stargaze HD: Universal Beauty
The Sum of All Fears
The Tiger Blade
Top Gun
Vengeance
Wolves (IMAX)
For comedy, we have Harold & Kumar's two hilarious adventures. We've got some Harrison Ford love here as well with Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games. Indies and foreign flicks include The Band's Visit, Perhaps Love and The Tiger Blade. Education movies include Bears, Wolves and Human Body: Pushing the Limits. Former HD-DVD exclusive, Beowulf, is finally migrating over to Blu-ray. Finally, note that you can buy the indie short horror flicks Salvage and Mortuary separately or together in one box. Check out the rest of the releases above.
PS3Fanboy
Yes, it's the most obvious article you could have imagined. Soul Calibur IV ladies minus clothes! Gasp!
Except... not quite. One of the main changes to Soul Calibur IV is that you can destroy armour.
Armour is divided into three categories - high, mid and low. When an opponent's Soul Gauge turns red through repeatedly blocking attacks, you can smash armour by delivering a powerful attack at the high, mid or low section of their body.
It affects the gameplay, as opponents who have had their armour smashed will take more damage in that area. Yet it's also reflected in the visuals, with torn clothing, shattered armours and bits falling off.
So here are some of the Soul Calibur girls completed stripped of armour. And yes, we've had more than one request for this. So here it is.
OXM
You want to play to Pong on your PS3 ? It's easy! You just need an USB key ! How to proceed ?
Instructions
# Download the pack Ready To Use, available HERE.
# Extract the file (Winrar is recommended). You should get a directory known "AVCHD", place it at the root of a USB or memory card.
# Turn on your console.
# Connect your device on the PS3.
# Go now in the menu [video] in the XMB.
# Select your device, then [AVCHD], a small load and you can hop on the game!
Controls:
The left stick allows you to control the "racket" on the left.
The keys "Square" and "Cross" you will respectively go up and down the racket to the right of the screen.
Note: Note that playing two on a single joystick is really not practical, so you can connect a second controller to more easily. Put yourself well agreed on the side that each player will take because each controller can monitor the two racquets, we're counting on you to not take advantage of the situation to win the point without any merit!
PS3Gen
Soul Calibur IV gets its worldwide release this week. If you're not into weapon based fighting games with a Star Wars twist, there's very little else that might interest you. By "very little" we do, of course, mean "nothing." If you live in Europe, however, you might be interested in knowing that a bunch of Platinum titles are being released this week. All of these five games are well worth their new £20 price, despite the yucky yellow packaging. Here's the full release list:
US Games
Soul Calibur IV
EU Games
Soul Calibur IV
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (Platinum)
Heavenly Sword (Platinum)
MotorStorm (Platinum)
Resistance: Fall of Man (Platinum)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools Of Destruction (Platinum)
Asian Games
Soul Calibur IV
Beijing Olympics 2008
Protip: Play.com have cut £2 off their Platinum price for the full range. £18 for Uncharted or Ratchet & Clank? You'd be mad not to. Release dates are constantly subject to change, so check with your local retailer if you're concerned.
PS3Fanboy
7/26/2008
The update is available by starting Metal Gear Online, at which time you will be prompted to download and install the update.
Note:The MGO Rewards Shop is not up yet.
N4G
Sony announced a lot of stuff in their long E3 conference such as Zipper’s MAG and Bend’s Resistance Retribution but is there more they are not showing us? Sony has acquired a lot of studio over the past ten years and not all of them have produce games since acquisition, what is going on? Are they hiding something from the gamers? Will we see more in TGS?
Clap Hanz – Maker of Hot Shots Series, will we see Hot Shots Tennis on the PS3? Clap Hanz have yet to announce their next game since the release of their Hot Shots Golf last year. It’s been a year according to the Japanese time-line, what are the teams working on now? Will they stay true to their favorite series or will they innovate? We may see something in TGS 2008.
Team Ico – Ok, we know it’s coming, but we have yet to see anything other than that one full page Famitsu ad and some funky high def screenshot of a dungeon looking stage. More detail in TGS please!!
Incognito – Founded in 1999 and acquired at the turn of the last decade, the maker of Warhawk has yet to release or show another game since the inception of Warhawk. The team may have been downsized since the days of David Jaffe and now a functional part of Santa Monica studio, but come on, you tell me for the past year they have done nothing but updating new maps and modes for Warhawk? I don’t believe it. Give me a new Jet Moto or Twisted Metal Next Gen, or are you helping on the development of God of War?
Naughty Dog – 85 employee strong team, founded in 1986, acquired by Sony in 2001. The maker of Uncharted Drake’s Fortune; rumors has it that they are working on Uncharted 2. I would like to see this studio expand and take on both Uncharted and Jak at the same time just like Insomniac took on both Ratchet and Resistance!
BigBig Studio – Acquired along with Evolution Studio in September 2007, BigBig has yet to step up to release schedule since the inception of Pursuit Force for the PSP, what games are they working on??
SCE London Studio – You are looking at Sony’s biggest internal development studio with 250+ employees sitting in air conditioned 7 story building for the past 3 years. The only thing they have released was SingStar which is a low-budget, non-program intensive game (It’s still a good game), but can you imagine 250 dudes sitting in a building for 3 years trying to make something but hasn’t produced any results? With Get Away and Eight Days canned, this team must be doing something that they are not telling us.
SCE Studio Cambridge – Acquired in 1997, the last game the maker of MediEvil released was licensed property of 24: The Game for the PS2 in March of 2006. It’s been a while since we heard anything from a team of 90 employees. What is up guys? Where are my games?
SCE Studio Liverpool – Psygnosis was founded in 1984 and acquired by Sony in 1993 in preparation for the release of the first PlayStation to strengthen the first party library. This is one of Sony’s old pillars and has created numerous hit European titles such as F1, Wipeout series. With 100 employees, could they be working only on WipeOut HD? I am not convinced that it takes 2-3 years to create a HD version of Wipeout. They must be in production of another game. We may see it later this year in smaller European gaming events. Not to mention that Sony gave up their F1 license..so we may see something entirely new.
SCE Korea – Nothing much is known about this division, since formation of SCE Korea nothing much have been announced. We will most likely see EyeToy games from these guys as SCE London passes the torch.
Close friends, Second Party Companies. Whatever you want to call them. Here are more spaces to watch out for:
David Jaffe’s Eat Sleep Play- Three exclusive games for Sony, and Twisted Metal they were working on is not considered one of the three exclusives; that means they haven't even announced one yet.
Ted Price’s Insomniac - a new studio in North Carolina is said to make brand new games for Sony. I wonder….
Ready At Dawn – since shipping the PSP dev kits back, we have yet to hear from them. Are they still with us?
Rockstars – What exclusive games awaits, what is Jack Tretton talking about last year???
Level 5 – Sony has lost a lot of friends in this generation, the last big one was Square Enix. Will L-5 show some love? Will Sony acquire them after the release of White Knight Story?
Nippon Ichi – maker of famous Disgaea series, they have about 95% of their production staff on PlayStation platform since day 1, what games will they make next?
Hideo Kojima’s next project – will it be multiplatform? Will the success of MGS4 keep Hideo faithful to the PS3 in its darkest hours? We’ll find out.
Quantic Dream - Developing Heavy Rain for PS3 Exclusively, they also own a strong Mo-Cap studio. Sony likes to diversify and cut cost. Acquisition of QD will do just that.
DiggingTheWeb
The Playstation 3 version of Soul Calibur 4 doesn’t have a rumble option for the DualShock 3 controller. A TalkPlaystation.com member has sent in an email to say that he got the game early (breaking the street date) and simply told us that he looked in every possible menu when he realised there is no rumble in the game. Apparently an update was released on Friday and that didn’t add rumble support either.
Lets hope Namco Bandai will add rumble support in a future update or something.
TalkPlaystation
Pioneer Erick Hansen, chair of Blue Ray Technologies, and fonder both in first DVD-ROM Games and DVDs, says latest E3 lineup and major manufacturers' promotional spending by consumers leads to $40 billion on games, $30 billion on DVD/BD movies -- retail price difference the factor. Hansen says games will outstrip movies in 3-5 years, but warns of tech probs that could derail all.
Spokane, WA (PRWEB) July 26, 2008 -- The recent avalanche of movie studio quality titles at the E3 and upcoming Comincon conventions have shown that Hollywood no longer owns a lock on preteens, with games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto and even retro-oriented Mario Brothers can earn as much as any blockbuster movie, according to industry figures and industry pundit Erick Hansen.
Since the sea change since industry leader Warner Bros' support of Blu-ray over rival HD-DVD format, all assumed it would be PS3's world, since it plays PS3 film and games.
In fact, Hansen assumes that the richness of graphics, speed of processor and massive storage (from 25GB to 50GB depending on double sided) -- and up to 400GB in near future -- are what is required from many of the new generations of games -- unless you want to change disks every number of scenes.
Which is why he strongly believes Microsoft's Xbox decision not to go with a Blu-ray drive will hurt it seriously as major game developers from need more graphics, options for players and video back-story.
"It is tragic they have chosen this. Tragic for players and tragic for the industry, which will want one disc that makes their fantasies come to life," said Hansen. "There is a semi-magic 'depth of immersion' that BD can provide that will be -- that is becoming -- the definition of gaming."
However even Hansen, who made the first three-million selling "Wing of Commander" for Creative Labs, sees more in the future.
"I have some misgivings -- there can be a better level of consumer experience -- the chips they are making use of, and the next gen -- can give the players an ever better sense of the game -- a transport away from reality that's more than a movie, a richness in graphics that not been seen of a chip in PS3 codecs and compression, and multiple layers -- and that is what Blue Ray Technologies has been working on for years."
He has a few more predictions: "The video game industry will exceed movie industry on BR. This is one of the largest evolving in the world. Entertainment always does excel in tough economic times -- since the depression. Blu ray music movies, games and software will do well, sporting themselves will price themselves out of market, when it costs $150 to go to the ballpark, and gas end everything else is involved."
emediawire
