Back in June I told you that Rockstar had decided to bring GTA: Chinatown Wars to the PSP. Rockstar dated it earlier this week – giving us a 20 October release date – but we didn’t really get any further information on the game or any screenshot showing what the game will actually look like compared to the Nintendo DS version. That has now changed, as Rockstar today released some screenshots of the upcoming PSP version.

If you compare it to the DS version then obviously the game is graphically better looking, but it’s nice to see they have kept the semi-3D top-down perspective instead of going full 3D like Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories were. The lighting effects look to be a lot better, obviously taking advantage of the PSP’s power over the DS. Overall it is looking a lot better, but graphics aren’t everything when we still don’t know how the game will play.

The DS version made use of the touch screen through mini-games; such as smashing the window when you get trapped in a sinking car, or sorting through rubbish to find a concealed weapon. Will these mini-games disappear from the PSP version? Or will Rockstar find another way to implement them? It won’t be the same if they simply put a cursor in that you have to control with the analog or d-pad. At least we’ll get better music to make up for it, well hopefully anyway.

I guess, as I seem to say a lot these days, we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully it will sell more than the DS version, which is probably what prompted Rockstar to port the game to the PSP in the first place.

The game will be available in both UMD form and by download through the Playstation Network.

You may have heard that those who purchase the Modern Warfare 2 Hardened or Prestige editions will get a token to download Call of Duty Classic (which, obviously, is the original Call of Duty) on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. However, if you don’t want to pay the, quite frankly, ridiculous prices for these editions (the standard edition is bad enough, retailing at a staggering £55!) you will have to wait a little while longer to get your Call of Duty Classic fix.

The game will eventually be made available to everyone via Xbox Live and PSN, complete with working multiplayer, but Infinity Ward is not saying when. I understand that they want to offer people incentives for paying more, but why not release it at the same time anyway and just charge for it? I don’t see the point in limiting it to certain people. I suppose there’s the exclusivity aspect, but you’re also limiting the amount of people available to play against online.

“Prestige and Hardened Edition buyers will be getting access to Call of Duty: Classic first. It’ll eventually be coming out for both Xbox Live Arcade and PSN as a stand-alone arcade game.

However, price and release date are unknown at this point. It’s the true original Call of Duty including full multiplayer.” - IGN

In any case, at least we will be getting it eventually. I’ll probably be downloading it as soon as it becomes available, simply because Call of Duty remains one of the best FPS experiences I’ve ever had. I cannot begin to count the amount of hours I sunk into playing the game online on my PC, and I also made some pretty good friends through it too. It’s a shame that user created levels probably won’t be available in Call of Duty Classic, as that was one of the main draws for me in the original release, but people should be aware that Call of Duty still enjoys a somewhat active fan community on the PC and you will still be able to find an online game if you’re interested.

The major problem with this move is that, well, will people actually bother to play Call of Duty Classic when they’re busy playing Modern Warfare 2?

The Playstation 3’s LittleBigPlanet amassed an impressive 1 million user created levels this week, showing us again that users love to create their own content. They also love to play this content, as those million-plus levels have been played a total of 244 million times.

Media Molecule, developers of the game, state that a level has been published every 21 seconds since last year’s launch. That’s nearly five years worth of content if you’re thinking about playing each and every level. It’s also a jump of 400,000 since March.

To celebrate their achievement Media Molecule have released a video (which you can see above) showing off just a few of the levels that make up that giant number. The blog posting on the news also tells players to come back on the 18th of August for some more news. However, before the date you will be able to download a ‘History Pack’ come 13th August. The pack contains Sackboys in the guise of various people from history; Boudica, Countess of Lovelace, Genghis Khan, Mozart plus a number of stickers and decorations. There will also be another bit of DLC that includes sound effects and a new level kit.

Of course, not all of those million-plus levels are worth playing. There are probably a fair number of duds in there, but there are also a lot of cleverly and tenderly crafted levels in there for you to enjoy. There’s plenty of bang for your buck!

Why not pick up your very own Sackboy while you’re at it?

LittleBigPlanet Community Reaches One Million Creations - Playstation Blog

Related posts:

• Sackboy is the law!
• LittleBigPlanet Now Has Over 600,000 User-Created Levels.

Is there any better way to kick off the weekend than presenting you with a statistics report? Most definitely, but you will just have to make do with this for now.

Sony used Brighton’s Develop 2009 to unleash a bunch of statistics on the gathered audience, some of which pertained to the usage of the Playstation 3’s ‘virtual world’ service Playstation Home. Home director Peter Edwards let us know that “only 80 percent of users fall into the 18-35-year-old male demographic”, which means a 10 percent drop in traditional console usage. He also said that between 25 and 35 percent of PS3 users have used the Home service “at least once”.

“Home has a significantly broader spectrum of users than your typical console audience,” he said, “We are slowly broadening the appeal of the console demographic.” - Gamasutra

He declined to mention what percentage of those who have logged on to Home are currently active users, which is probably Sony’s way of saying “a lot less than we hoped”. We also don’t know who makes up the remaining 20 percent of users. For instance, how many of those users are female? Are most of them just males under the age of 18? The quote below is just one reporters experience of using Home:

A more recent dip into Home had fewer people saying lewd things to my avatar, though the surrounding conversations still seemed reminiscent of an adolescent-filled AOL chatroom (”a/s/l?”). Some users claimed to be as young as 11 years old, and proceeded to call surrounding users “gay dudes.” - Game|Life

The bottom line is that if you see female avatars in Home it’s more than likely that the person sitting in front of their TV is actually male. Given that some males seem to barrage those that are using female avatars it makes you wonder if some females are actually using male avatars to avoid being harassed.

Home is slowly getting more content, and some of it (such as the Red Bull air race) is worth logging on every now and again though. Unfortunately unless Sony comes up with something that makes you log in day in day out Home is not going to be the success they hoped it would be.

Eurogamer brings word that developer Croteam have been working on a re-imagining of Serious Sam: The First Encounter using a new version of their CroTech Engine.

The original developer of the game is said to be using the power of the Xbox 360 to upgrade the first entry in the hilariously over-the-top first-person shooter series with full HD graphics, along with four-player co-operative play over Xbox Live. The price is rumoured to be 1,200 Microsoft points.

“We are really excited to update our hero and recreate Sam in stunning high definition for Xbox LIVE Arcade players,” said Roman Ribaric, CEO of Croteam. “The fans have lobbied us hard to do this, so we are stoked about bringing Sam back as big, bold and bad as he ever was.” - Kotaku

The image at the top of the page shows what the game will look like upon its release this summer, while the image below shows what the original version looked like (as always you can click on each image to see a larger version). As you can see it’s a pretty drastic change, but it’s also looking all the more better. The hilarious fun of the original combined with a graphics upgrade may just make this one hell of a decent download for Xbox Live. I have fond memories of playing this with one of my friends while growing up (especially the gigantic monster that appears near the end of the game, making my jaw literally drop open), so if one of the best co-op experiences I’ve ever had can be successfully re-created on the Xbox 360 then I’m putting down the cash for it right now.

The game is also said to be coming back to its birthplace, the PC, but what about the Playstation 3? Croteam CEO Roman Ribaric told G4 that a PS3 version was originally planned but was shelved because the developer didn’t have enough time or money to release the game on PSN at the same time as the Xbox Live version. Realistically the game could still come to PSN somewhere down the line, but Ribaric doesn’t think it’s that likely unless demand from PS3 owners becomes high.

(Images source: Eurogamer)

Forget about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars being exclusive to the Nintendo DS because Rockstar have now confirmed that they’re porting it to the PSP in time for autumn.

The PSP will reportedly take advantage of the PSP’s more powerful hardware, meaning a graphical update and new story missions. Rockstar will also offer a downloadable version for the PSP Go!, alongside the regular UMD release.

“Rockstar’s work with the GTA series has been an enormous part of the success of PlayStation platforms,” said Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America. “We’re excited to welcome the critically acclaimed Chinatown Wars to the outstanding line-up of great games headed to the PSP platform this fall”- Kotaku

I think Chinatown Wars is an amazing game, and it’s probably the best game available on the DS, but maybe the DS wasn’t the right platform when it comes to mature games as the sales seem to reflect that. These poor sales have obviously prompted Rockstar to look to other platforms to make a profit, or maybe they were planning this all along - who knows? Whatever the case it’s good news for those that only have a PSP, but I’m curious about whether or not the touch screen mini-games will lose their appeal with you obviously not being able to use a touch screen.

(Image courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

As I mentioned in my Wii press conference report Sony also had the job of trying to top Microsoft, especially as they are currently third in the market. Thankfully Sony did an excellent job, with some new exclusives and new hardware to boot. Read on for the full story.

Jack Tretton kicked off the press conference by announcing that an impressive 364 games will be coming to Playstation platforms this year. He also mentioned that Sony is dedicated to continued support of the Playstation 2 even after its ten year anniversary passes. It’s nice to see Sony still supporting the PS2, considering it’s still a console that’s in millions of homes worldwide.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune 2 was the first game to be shown, making sure that Sony started on a spectacular note. The visuals are looking stunning, with humongous draw details to boot. The action that made the first game so fun to play is also very intact; with Drake running along rooftops, sliding down zipwires, using everything as cover all while evading a persistent helicopter that likes to shoot machine gun rounds and missiles. The demo ends with the helicopter taking out the building Drake and his companion are in, with the two characters sliding through rooms as the building slowly topples, before finally leaping out into an adjacent building.

Next up was MAG, which was determined to show why it earned the title ‘Massive Action Game’. Sony pulled off a live demonstration of 256 players playing simultaneously while the audience looked on. The emphasis was on the tactical action, with players securing a forward base to allow their main command to move up and establish themselves further up the map.

Kaz Hirai then came on to show us the PSP Go, getting one out of his pocket and showing it to the audience. I’ve already covered the PSP Go’s features so I won’t get into too much detail, but it’s 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the PSP 3000. Sony will also be releasing software called ‘Media Go’ which will help users manage their PSP’s content on their PC. Another feature called ‘Sense Me’ also promises to analyse your music library to play music based on the mood of your choice. Finally, the price will be $249.99/€249.99 (there’s no word on whether it will be the same for pounds or not) and will be released on 1st October.

A surprising announcement was Gran Turismo for the PSP. It’s a fully fledged Gran Turismo game that will apparently run at 60 fps and boasts 800 cars and 35 tracks. You can also swap cars from your garages with other PSP users, and its release will coincide with the PSP Go’s release on 1st October.

Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker for the PSP was announced next, which takes place 10 years after Metal Gear Solid 3. The visuals are looking really nice for a PSP game, and stealth seems to play more of a part than ever before.

Also announced was a Resident Evil game for the PSP, although that’s all the information we’ve got right now.

Finally for the PSP announcements Final Fantasy VII (as I already posted about) will hit US PSN stores for the PS3 and PSP at midnight tonight. However, there’s no word on a European release as of yet.

Sony also briefly mentioned Rockstar North’s PS3 exclusive Agent, which takes place in the 1970’s. Um, that’s pretty much it.

Gameplay footage from Assassin’s Creed II showed why Ubisoft neglected to show any in their utterly boring press conference yesterday. We already know the setting, so we saw Ezio walking through dancing crowds at the Venice Carnival. Ezio used the famous flying machine invented by Da Vinci, swooping over the canals of Venice, and also pulled a jaw-dropping two-fisted assassination on two guards. It’s looking pretty good at the moment, but we still don’t know if there’s more variety to the missions than the first game.

New gameplay footage of Final Fantasy XIII was shown, with the English voice acting already done. Tretton then announced one of the most surprising things I’ve heard all week. A Final Fantasy XIV trailer was shown, something I didn’t expect to happen for at least another year. The game will be PS3 exclusive and the ‘online’ part of the announcement alludes to the game being an MMO like Final Fantasy XI.

Now it was time for Sony to show off their previously rumoured attempt at motion control. This now means that all three big players will offer some form of motion control.

Sony’s attempt is currently still in the prototype stage, so the two wireless wands are little more than a stick with a ball attached. It’s clear that Sony is attempting to better the Wii’s Motion Plus, with a tech demo showing that the technology has incredible precision. The wands can turn into a virtual representation of anything on screen, the demonstrator switching between tennis racquets, swords, guns, flashlights and even stop signs. The most impressive parts were writing with the wands and using it as a bow, pretending to pull a bow from an imaginary quiver on his back to rearm himself.

While the technology on display was impressive Nintendo has own thing going for it that Microsoft and Sony don’t – they had motion controls from launch. Wii was built on the idea of motion control, enabling developers to support it from launch because they knew that everyone who owned a Wii also had access to motion controls. Are developers really willing to risk releasing a game with only motion controls when most of the console base may not even own the perhipials that are needed to play such a game? It’s more likely that the motion controls will be an afterthought tacked onto games that are built with standard controllers in mind. It’s all about money in the end, and a company would be more likely to go for the safe bet of the Wii then risk losing sales because people didn’t own the controllers their game required.

A game called ModNation Racers came next, a kart racer that was inspired by the ‘play create share’ genre that was apparently created by LittleBigPlanet. You can design cars, racers and even tracks and then upload them for others in the PSN community. The track editor was demonstrated, which was looking both simple to use and incredibly detailed (sort of like the Far Cry 2 map editor). In only five minutes the demonstrator had created a small track running through hills and rocky terrain; with trees and villages placed around the track and even sheep milling around. The creation tools for the game are great, but will it actually be fun to play?

Next was The Last Guardian from Team ICO. The video for this had already been leaked in the form of Trico, but the trailer on show was an updated version of this. It looks beautiful, following the story of a boy and his, um, big pet cat thing? I’m not actually sure what it is, so you’ll have to check out the video yourself. Basically the game looks like a cross between Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

Gran Turismo 5 then made a sudden appearance, but only in the form of another trailer. The graphics are looking spectacular, but the game really needs to be released sometime soon.

Finally a God of War III demo was shown, which was more than epic. We saw Kratos ripping through hordes of enemies; send them flying around the level. He also used harpies to reach higher locations, grabbing onto them and doing an uppercut with his sword to make them fly higher. The best part was when he gutted a centaur with a gigantic lava titan watching in the distance. It’s good to see that the gore will splatter more than ever, and a 20 minute demo at E3 will mean we’ll get some impressions as E3 continues. The game itself will be released in March 2010.

Overall Sony’s press conference was fairly entertaining, with some great exclusives and an intriguing motion control system. However, when it comes to summing up all three major press conferences I have to hand it to Microsoft. Project Natal is looking awesome and all the upgrades coming to Xbox Live and, of course, the exclusive games are making me wish everything would be released this week. I’m wrong of course, because then we would have nothing to look forward to.

This post concludes ButtonSmasher’s E309’s press conference coverage, but keep checking back throughout the week for more news and impressions coming out of the world’s biggest video games show.

 

We already knew that a new PSP was rumoured to be in development, and now we have some official looking shots and leaked interview footage that pretty much confirms the speculation. Coming just two days before E3 is due to kick off all these leaks may have just ruined Sony’s big surprise, but if that’s the only big thing Sony was planning for their E3 press conference then it would have been extremely boring to sit through.

The buttons in the image above are said to slide back in under the screen when not in use, leading to a much smaller and lighter design. The biggest change though, although it has really been a long time coming, is the absence of a UMD drive. Games will be provided through digital downloads, which can be saved to memory sticks or the handheld consoles 16GB of flash memory. While it is apparently not intended to replace the PSP-3000 (much like the DSi and the DS) it is pretty much the last nail in the coffin for the UMD format.

Other little tid-bits include the ability to rent videos through PSN - just like the PS3 - and has new games such as Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, Jak & Daxter and Metal Gear Solid lined up for it. It will also apparently arrive by Autumn, but we don’t know if that means a worldwide release or not.

The age of the Internet means it’s pretty much impossible to stop any secrets being released before they were intended. Even with all this information in hand it will still be interesting to see Sony demonstrating it at E3. Plus we will also get official confirmation on what’s true and what’s not; although due to it being so close to E3 I’d be greatly surprised if any of the information turns out to be false.

If you’re interested in seeing how the PSP Go’s size compares to the other big handheld players on the market then Kotaku has some interesting size comparisons.

The guys at Media Molecule have been flooding PSN with new LittleBigPlanet content as of late (such as these Monsters, Norse Mythology and Rag Doll Kung Fu costume packs), but anyone who doesn’t want some time in the cubes needs to know that nothing beats the law. The law sometimes goes by another name, and that name is Judge Dredd.

Yes, Media Molecule have conquered the seemingly impossible task of making Judge Dredd and some of his 2000AD compatriots cute in the form of loveable Sackboys. Joining Judge Dredd’s trademark frown are Judge Anderson, Johnny Alpha, Hammerstein and Rogue Trooper. The pack also features a set of stickers, which in total sets you back £4.79 (although each character can be bought individually at £1.59 each, but Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson are counted together) and should be available on the UK PSN Store right now.

Since I don’t own a PS3 I can only sadly admire this from afar, but at least I can be content in the knowledge that the worlds of 2000AD are being highlighted to the masses. Sure, most people know who Judge Dredd is (unfortunately most people outside of the UK will know the character based off Stallone’s awful interpretation of him) but other characters such as Johnny Alpha aren’t as widely known.

You can check out more images of the DLC on Media Molecule’s Flickr feed.

Console(s): Playstation 3, Xbox 360

Price: £7.99/800 Microsoft Points

Criterion Games continue their relentless drive to overload you with new content in Paradise City with the new Cops & Robbers downloadable content for Burnout Paradise.

The new content pits two teams of players against each other; one of the teams playing as the robbers and the other as the cops. The objective is a capture-the-flag style game that has been converted to the world of Burnout, with each team racing to collect a load of stolen gold bars and return them to their base. To stop the opposite team from achieving this goal you must, well, what do you think? This is Burnout, which has three things; cars, speed and crashing - so the objective is to crash into your opponent in order to steal the gold. To add to the fun 35 new police vehicles are also included in the pack, although in reality they are re-skinned and remodeled versions of vehicles already in the game.

Whoever picks up the gold is slowed down by the weight of what they are carrying, so it’s crucial that each team works together in order to protect the carrier and takedown any of the opposite team attempting to steal the gold. It’s harder when it sounds when you’re travelling at breakneck speeds, but unfortunately you can’t go even faster because Criterion have, for some strange reason, removed the ability to boost. This means no last minute rushes to your destination, or using it to get away from someone trying to take you down.

Never the less Cops & Robbers is still an excellent addition to Burnout Paradise’s expanding stable of content. It may all take place in the same city, but when you pack in so much content variety thankfully stays around for a long while. All this content makes Burnout Paradise an absolute steal at the lowest price of only £12!

Honourable mentions:

• Wii:  Sega’s Galaxy Force II came to Virtual Console the other week. It’s an arcade shooter but with a 3-D view from behind your spaceship (see here for a look at the Sega Megadrive version). There are five different planets full of enemy ships, turrets, and loads of explosions. It will set you back 800 Wii Points.
• Playstation 3: Spryo 2: Ripto’s Rage! was released on PSN back in 2007, but was later removed due to a bug that prevented gamers from loading certain levels. Last Thursday it was re-released as part of the PSOne Classics range and follows the lovable dragon through a series of colourful levels where Spryo can glide, breathe fire (obviously) and use a charge attack. Different enemies require different solutions to defeat, but don’t expect much head scratching here.

Download Spotlight is a weekly column showcasing some of the latest downloadable content and downloadable games for your consoles.