Tag: ps3

Amazon Games Studio Head Steps Down

Mike Frazzini, who helped start Amazon Game Studios, is stepping down in order to focus on his family. Having been an Amazon employee for many years, moving from the books section to Amazon Game Studios, despite being somewhat of a game novice at the time, he had faced criticism for veering too far from the traditional, game-making playbook, while the division cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The company did release the online PC game New World, bringing hope that video games could become Amazon’s greatest entertainment category. Time will tell how Amazon Games Studio navigates a change in leadership, and what it produces next.

Coffee Talk Creator Passed Away

Mohammad Fahmi, creator and writer for the indie visual novel Coffee Talk, has passed away.

“Today we received devastating news that Fahmi, the creator and writer of Coffee Talk, has passed away. May his soul rest in peace, and our hearts are with his family and loved ones. May all the good things he shared, story he wrote, live on with us forever. Thank you Fahmi.” – Coffee Talk team.

Cause of death is unknown at this time.

More Options for PlayStation Players

Sony Interactive Entertainment announces upcoming changes to their subscription services. Starting June, PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now will come together into a new PlayStation Plus subscription service that will have three membership tiers. These tiers are:

PlayStation Plus Essential, which provides the same benefits that PlayStation Plus members are currently receiving, including two monthly downloadable games, exclusive discounts, cloud storage for saved games, and online multiplayer access, with the price remaining the same as PlayStation Plus.

PlayStation Plus Extra brings all the benefits of the Essential tier, and includes a catalogue of 400 PS4 and PS5 games downloadable to play.

Finally, PlayStation Plus Premium brings you all the benefits mentioned, 340 additional games, including PS3 games via cloud streaming, and a catalogue of classic games from the PS1, PS2, and PSP generations. Premium also includes time-limited game trials, so you can try before you buy.

Game Connect Asia Pacific Announced

Game Connect Asia Pacific, or GCAP, will be entering its 17th year, taking place in Melbourne during the Melbourne International Games Week from 3rd to 5th of October 2022.

GCAP is committed to professional development, education, and networking experiences for developers in Australia, and abroad. While GCAP will be held in person, a few sessions will be streamed for those who can’t attend, with the focus this year being Ambition.

GCAP promises to challenge attendees to chase their ambitions and create world class products, experiences, studios, and businesses for the global games audience, and will consist of talks, panels, and workshops from experienced industry professionals.

Keep an eye on the GCAP website as more information becomes available, and to find out more about how you can support this event.

And now for some upcoming games!

March 31

• Coromon (PC, Switch)
• FixFox (PC)
• Midnight Ghost Hunt (PC)
• Pirates of Gravitae (PC)
• Weird West (PC, PS4, XBO)

April 1

• Flat Kingdom Paper’s Cut Edition (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Terrorbane (PC, Switch)

April 5

• Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

April 7

• Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition (Switch)
• Demeo: PC Edition (PC)
• Slipstream (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

Sony PlayStation flip flops over Store Closure

In late March Sony confirmed the online game store closure for Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, and PlayStation Vita on July 2^nd. On April 15^th users began to feel the first wave of effects, with patch support for many games being removed. This led to many issues, with some users being locked out of previously purchased downloadable content in games, such as Little Big Planet 2 and White Knight Chronicles, with others unable to access online play due to patch requirements. Mysteriously, some of these patches have begun reappearing after public outcry. For a list of affected games please check this link.

On April 19^th Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, backtracked on most of the closures in an official PlayStation blog post, stating;

“Upon further reflection, however, it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here. So today I’m happy to say that we will be keeping the PlayStation Store operational for PS3 and PS Vita devices. PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned.”

Further, he wrote that this flip was due to the “incredibly passionate” customer base’s need to be able to purchase “…classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future…”

Amazon Cancels Lord of the Rings MMO after Tencent Negotiations Fall Through.

In a convoluted tale of Tolkien-esque complexity, Amazon has ended hopes of a free to play Lord of the Rings MMO in the near future.

It all began in 2018, when Athlon Games signed a licencing agreement with Middle Earth Enterprises to produce and publish a prequel MMO for consoles and PC. Then, in 2019 Amazon partnered with Athlon’s holding company Leyou Technologies to co-create and split publishing responsibilities. However, in December of 2020, just as rumours of release dates of late 2021 to early 2023 began emerging, Tencent Holdings acquired Leyou Technologies in a US$1.5 billion dollar deal.

According to Bloomberg, since this acquisition, contract negotiations have soured, with Amazon “…unable to secure terms to process with the title at this time”, making this game the fifth that Amazon Game Studio has cancelled since 2018.

Nintendo Shuts down Labo Homepage.

Sometime between February 26^th and March 5^th, Nintendo axed the North American Labo homepage, and now redirects to Labo’s VR Kit sales page. According to Gamesradar, this could possibly signal the end of the cardboard accessories line-up. The kits contained cardboard cut-outs of different shapes that could be made into structures utilised in minigames on the Switch. These kits could easily be repurposed for programming and learning, and were trialled for assistance in STEM curriculums in Australia and North America, and advocated for home-based education. If you are still looking for kits in Australia, the Australian website is still available at Nintendo.com.au/labo. And should you make any mistakes, we have you covered with this link to Labo spare printable parts.

Now for some upcoming games.

On April 22^nd Buildings Have Feelings Too is coming to PC, PS4, XBO, & Switch. This city management/puzzle game will have you support businesses and build new friends. And to celebrate Earth day 2021, the “Afrofuturist squad management RPG”, We Are The Caretakers is coming to steam early access with the promise of 10% of the net revenue going to rhino conservation.

On the 28^th of April, Alpha Particle, a light puzzle game where you search for your purpose, comes to PC. And Genshin Impact comes to PS5.

Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Website: http://southpark.ubi.com/stickoftruth/en-AU/home/index.aspx
Australian classification: R18+

First and Foremost, South Park: the Stick of Truth is the perfect fan service. Right down to the walls of bodily fluids and shattered cue-balls you’ll find jammed inside Mr. Slave’s anus, it’s true to the show – disgusting, vulgar and consistently hilarious. Unfortunately, it’s a whole lot less effective as a turn-based RPG.

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Last week, Mindscape Asia Pacific and Red Cross Australia teamed up to promote Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 and educate gamers on the importance of donating blood. The first 3 hours of the game were playable, but gamers still managed to donate enough blood to save 30 lives throughout the course of the evening. The event was a resounding success, and totally fitting for Lords of Shadow 2, being that you play as Dracula – a blood-sucking vampire.

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“The Games That Defined a Console Generation”

The crew discuss, as objectively as possible, the games that made a real mark on the last console generation. For better or for worse, these are the games that had impact, spawned clones, influenced the industry, sold systems (and peripherals) and shaped the gaming landscape.

For the purposes of this discussion, only games released on the 360, PS3 and Wii were considered. And yes, we are aware that we left out “Bioshock” (we all make mistakes).

In studio: Razor, Lee, Candi & Alanah

Aired 8 January 2014

Zed Games Podcast – Episode 201

Subscribe to the Zed Games Podcast on iTunes

Holy smokes it looks like this game is actually coming out! We’ve been given word that a demo for this game is coming any minute now. Although there is no way that this game can live up to 10+ years of hype (or can it?), I’ve played every Duke game since the original so I’m curious to check it out. Duke Nukem Forever is scheduled for release 10 June, 2011 on 360, PS3 and PC. Here’s a trailer that shows what we can expect, please be aware it contains mature content.

Well the PSN debacle has been receiving widespread media attention, mainly due to the fact that the personal details of 77 million users have apparently fallen into the hands of hackers.

8 days into the outage and I have only today received an email from Sony detailing the fact that my details have been accessed by hackers.

There has been a class-action lawsuit filed against Sony, who have reportedly enlisted aid of the FBI to help determine the identity of the mysterious uber-hacker.

Things keep going from bad to worse for Sony, who may suffer heavy financial losses from this episode, not to mention the loss of trust from customers.

While it is unclear if credit card information has been accessed, PSN users would be wise to keep an eye on their transaction records and consider changing passwords.

The PSN outage means that all online games, the PS store, PS home, PS3 Steam and almost all online functionality of the PS3 and PSP has been disabled, though users can still access the internet through browsers.

Sony have not released a date when the network will be back online, though it has been rumoured it will be down for at least another week.

One of the most anticipated games of the year, Portal 2 ships this week. Valve have announced that Steam will be coming to the PS3, and Portal 2 will be the first game to support it. PS3 owners who buy Portal 2 will receive a code to download the game for free on their PC or Mac. In addition to this, PS3 owners will be able to play Portal 2’s co-op mode with players on the Steam network who are using a PC or Mac. Cool! Check out this brief gameplay vid, courtesy of IGN:

How’s your PC hardware looking? If you’re looking for an excuse to upgrade, I just found you one:

Prone is BACK BABY! BF purists will be pleased to hear that PC is the lead platform, but judging by this video I’m thinking that the Sys Reqs are going to make many gamers cry. BF3 has a scheduled release date of Q3 2011 and will be available on PC/XBOX360/PS3.

BLUR (PG)

Developer: Bizzarre Creations

Publisher: Activision

Out Now for XBOX360, PS3 & PC.

Reviewed by Razor.
If you’ve ever played a racing game and wished you could suddenly unleash a powerful energy bolt to destroy the car ahead of you, or even if you’ve driven through the C.B.D. during peak hour and wished you could unleash an energy bolt to destroy the car ahead of you, then you will definitely enjoy BLUR.

The main event is “powered-up” racing. You and your opponents race as usual, but at select points around the course you will find different powerups that give you access to various offensive and defensive abilities that you can unleash at will. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s pretty much just like Mario Kart, except instead of Mario and friends racing around tracks like mushroom circuit, it’s Renaults, Dodges, Fords and Volkswagens racing in real-life inspired locations like Hollywood and London.

Now, did I say that this was a bad thing? Hello no! Finally we have a racing game that fills the void between Project Gotham Racing and Mario Kart. I’ve never been a huge racing game fan (though I do like games like Burnout where the emphasis is on fun rather than realism) but some of my most beloved gaming memories have been of dominating my friends at Mario Kart. BLUR gives me the tools to dominate them further.

The real fun is in multiplayer mode. You can play online or LAN against up to 19 opponents, or you can play offline with up to four players on a split screen. However, I found the 20 player races to be more chaotic than I could handle, and I much prefered the smaller races of 10 players.

Powered up racing is the default, but there is also a racing only mode, for people who like to race without the destruction; and an arena deathmatch mode for people who like destruction without the racing. Personally I found the powered up racing to be the most enjoyable of the three modes.

Single player mode is great too. It plays out like a career where you are competing against other computer controlled characters. Each stage sees you completing a certain amount of challenges set by a champion driver who you have to eventually beat to progess. Winning the races is only one aspect of it; you also have to win fans by performing crazy stunts and pulling of mini-challenges within the race. Like most other racing games you have to perform well to unlock all of the courses and cars available.

The selection of cars is surprisingly varied. It’s rare to see such a damage-intensive game with a license to use real car models.
Car brands featured include Dodge, Lotus, Ford, Vokswagen and Toyota; and even more surprisingly: all car models feature realistic damage. So yes, you will see Renaults and Nissans hurtling airborne sideways down the course, leaving shattered glass and twisted metal in their wake. There are also a range of four wheel drive and off road vehicles that fit this style of game perfectly.

Powerups that you can use are slightly more balanced carbon-copies of their Mario Kart equivalent. There’s the bolt which is three unguided shots; Shunt is a homing blast that targets the car ahead (think red shell); Mines are like an exploding banana peel; Shock places energy vortexes on the track ahead of the leading player to slow them down; Barge blasts cars in your immediate vicinity away from you; Nitro is your standard temporary speed boost; shield offers you protection from other powerups and there is also a Repair powerup that you will need A LOT.

Something to be aware of is that the game is pretty hard. Like most driving games, there is definitely a steep learning curve and you may find yourself coming nineteenth or twentieth for the first hour or so. The fact that your opponents are all trying to blow you up doesn’t make it any easier.
So, once again I found myself swallowing my pride and switching the difficulty to Easy while I got used to the car handling.

As expected there are heaps of achievements and trophies to aim for, although BLUR rewards you for non-gaming achievements like posting your results to Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, BLUR is an intense and action packed racer that shines in multiplayer mode. A word of warning: you may want to reaffirm your friendships at regular intervals while playing this game, because you will be trading insults regularly.

We reviewed the XBOX360 version; Blur is also available for the PS3 and PC.