Sony E3 Conference Round Up

Jack Trenton was on stage early yesterday morning  to shed some light on what Sony are bringing to the next gen console race. The most important announcement (outside the reveal of the console itself of course) was  how the PS4 will handle used games and whether or not it will need to check in online in a similar way to the Xbox One.

Thankfully Sony’s console appears to be a world apart from Microsoft’s frankly pretty obnoxious offering (and this is coming from a 360 owner) with Sony making their stance on these questions pretty clear with the following statement:

Favreau directed Destiny teaser trailer drops

As E3 draws closer, we can expect to start seeing more and more teaser trailers making their way on to the web as game dev’s, publishers and console manufacturers up the ante in the competition for our disposable incomes. Bungie were the big story today with the release of a gorgeous teaser trailer for their upcoming sci-fi shooter Destiny, the spiritual successor to Halo. Hit the jump for the Favreau directed trailer (Yes, Jon Iron Man Favreau).

Ghostbusters 3 is a Go…Minus Bill Murray

So is this thing actually happening? Is Bill Murray still on board? Is the script any good? Who’s re-writing it? Is Bill Murray on board for real this time? Does anyone still actually care at this point!?!

Those are a few of the many questions that people have been asking over the years over the 3rd Ghostbusters movie…and it seems the film might actually start production next year. However after going back and forth between doing it and not doing it, Bill Murray will not be involved. “No, I can tell you he won’t be involved.” Dan Akroyd said about Murray’s involvement . He carried on to say… “It’s sad, but we’re passing it on to a new generation. Ghostbusters 3 can be a successful movie without Bill. My preference would be to have him involved but at this point he doesn’t seem to be coming and we have to move on. It’s time to make a third one.”

As you could probably guess, I’m not a huge fan of this project. As much as I like both films, the idea of a 3rd film so long after part 2 didn’t seem right, even with Bill Murray. But with Murray pulling out my interest has dropped significantly. I also felt the PS3/Xbox 360 game from 3 years ago was a good place to end the series as it had all original cast members and was all kinds of awesome. So yeah, Ghostbusters 3 might start production next year with a 20?? release date.

Preview: Little Big Planet Vita

I was recently lucky enough to get invited to a PlayStation preview event here in Dublin where the lovely people of PlayStation Ireland were on hand to show off some of this years in-development titles for the PS3 and the PS Vita. There was a lot on show but the highlight of the afternoon for me was the hands on demonstration of Little Big Planet Vita with the games producer Tom O’Connor.

Despite an impressive launch line-up the PlayStation Vita simply hasn’t sold as well as it deserves to. The current worldwide  total is somewhere in the region of 2.3 million units, while this is by no means an utter failure it is hardly setting the world on fire either. Little Big Planet Vita really looked like it could be the vita’s killer app and it could really help give the fantastic hand-held a much-needed boost.

The regular platforming levels of previous games are of course present and correct with the new game boasting five uniquely themed areas on the new planet of ‘Carnavalia’ which has entered orbit around Little Big Planet. The colorful textures that fans of the game know and love look fantastic of the Vita’s five-inch touch screen which allows players to interact with the game world in new and exciting ways.

An example of this new touch functionality is a new blue block which can be interacted with through the front touch screen to aid in simple platforming puzzles. Some of the blocks can also be pushed back into the scenery where they become green at which point the rear touch pad can be used to interact with them.

It is outside of the platforming applications however, where the touch inputs really come to life. The level creator is back  boasting all new assets and creative possibilities thanks to the touch interface. Navigating the menus has been made a thousand times easier and it is also possible to literally paint the level using the touch interface making creation so much easier than it was with the PSP or PS3.

The creative tools don’t stop there however as it is also possible to create entirely new games where the creator can choose the interface type. I saw for example a game called Tapling which used the front touch pad and another called Love Sick which used a combination of the rear touch pad and the face buttons. There were a few other games shown off too but the overwhelming message was that this will be a game that will be capable of producing effectively infinite content.

While we were given no solid release date at the event, Tom O’Connor was keen to stress that it will be released this year so expect o see Little Big Planet Vita sometime in the run up to Christmas. Having held off on purchasing a Vita for a while now I really thin this might be the game to convince me and a lot of other people to take the plunge.

Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut Announced

Bioware recently announced, over on the Bioware blog, that Mass Effect 3’s extended ending will be released next week. Community Manager Jessica Merizan can be heard below interviewing Executive Producer Casey Hudson and Lead Writer Mac Walters who speak at some length about what this expansion (note not rewrite) of Mass Effect 3’s endings will hopefully accomplish.

The key points seem to be that the extended ending will hopefully provide people with more ‘closure’ rather than alter the ending itself. This sounds good to me, I felt that a lot of the furor that was made by the likes of the re-take mass effect crowd, though I could understand their sense of disappointment, was more than a little over the top. While I was  pleased with how the story played out I do agree that closing cinematic scenes felt less than satisfactory and feel the addition of some extra scenes to explain where people end up and how certainly won’t hurt.

Whatever happens you can be sure that this will cause further discussion (hopefully more civil this time) among the Mass Effect fan base. The download (which weighs in at a hefty 1.9 g’s) will be available for download on June 26th for Xbox and PC customers worldwide and for PS3 customers in North America on the same day. PS3 customers elsewhere in the world will unfortunately have to wait until July 4th, because of reasons.

Ratchet & Clank Trilogy Gets a Neat Trailer

So with it being 10 years since the first Ratchet & Clank game was released, Sony will be releasing the original trilogy in HD format. Yeah this is kind of old news and the trailer only really shows clips which if you’re the target audience, you’ve already played it. However just seeing the games in action again is just reminding me how fun this series (the last game All 4 One the exception) has always been. Yeah I’m pretty much at the phase were I yell ‘shut up and take my bolts!’ Ratchet & Clank HD Trilogy will be released June 29th in the UK & Ireland.