It was recently made known that the PlayStation 3 firmware update version 3.00 has officially gone live and is now available for download.

Below are some of the features found in version 3.00:

• “What’s New” – The “Information Board” will be replaced with a “What’s New” section, which allows you to enjoy interactive PlayStation news every time you start the PS3 system. Located under the PlayStation Network icon, “What’s New” displays the latest and greatest game, video, PlayStation Network and PlayStation news and releases, as well as your recently played games, in a sleek, new animated format.
• Status Indicator – In the top right corner we’ve added an indicator bar, which displays your user icon, friend icon, the number of friends you have online and a small message icon to let you know if you have any new messages. The indicator also includes a scrolling ticker that features the latest news from PlayStation Network. In addition, when you press the PS button, the battery life indicator will no longer cover up the clock.
• Friends List – Now your PlayStation Network friends will appear in a slightly redesigned format on your Friends List. Also, messages will now be viewable from each of your friends’ respective profiles.
• PlayStation Store Shortcuts – We’ve added a handy shortcut icon to the PlayStation Store under both the Game and Video categories so you can access the latest content quickly and easily.
• Personalization – Personalize your PS3 with new dynamic custom themes and avatars. Dynamic themes as well as free and premium avatars will be available through PlayStation Store. A dynamic theme takes your screen to a whole new level as it incorporates animated objects into the background.
• Trophies – Showcasing your hard earned trophies just got better. Update 3.00 gives game developers the ability to modify how they display trophies for add-on content. Base and add-on game trophies will continue to be combined into a single list so you can see where you stand in a game as a whole. Within that list, trophies will be broken out into subcategories—base trophies and add-on trophies—that way, you can easily view the percentage of your base game trophy collection, and separately track your trophy progress in add-on packs. Look for this enhancement to be included in upcoming games.

Well, what are you waiting for? Stop reading and go get it!

Just how ultimate this kit is, however, remains questionable considering it only comes bundled with a PS3 remote and either 10,000 B.C. or Batman Begins with no console in sight.

Of course, it’s $60 AUD/$51 USD price tag makes it a bargain, and that’s all that matters.

via engadget

One of the perks of the title is the custom character mode where you can assemble your own legendary warrior(s) for use in the game. You start off with a handful of outfits and though you unlock more as you play, the variety is not as wide as one would hope, but they’re going to remedy this soon via DLC. I definitely feel appreciated as a fan because all the DLC for the game is completely free of charge. They’re also adding in a pack of new background music for those who are a fan of their odd composite of traditional asian music and rock.

Just as rumors had suggested, Best Buy has begun offering an 80GB Playstation 3 bundle that will include both Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4.

Priced at $399.99, just as I said yesterday, this bundle will be very enticing for want-to-be PS3 owners waiting for Sony to lower the price. But wait, what if Sony does lower the price? Or what if they release the PS3 slim?

You can check out the bundle over at Best Buy, here.

The PS2 was the first to feature it, allowing gamers to still play their old favorites. The Xbox 360 followed suit somewhat, with a few hundred original Xbox games playable. The Wii can handle any Gamecube title, though there likely aren’t too many people go back to. The PS3 offered backwards compatibility as well, but only on certain SKUs and only for a limited period of time.

If you didn’t buy one of the 60 gigabyte models you were out of luck as your system didn’t have the necessary hardware to play PS2 games. It seems that all might change though as Sony filed an application for a patent that would allow backwards compatability to be integrated into existing systems via a software update. According to the patent Sony has figured out a way to get the PS3’s cell processor to emulate the PS2’s emotion engine.

I admit that after trying to read through the garbled nonsense of patent filing I have no clue whether or not IGN has interpreted this correctly, so this could be for something else entirely, but it seems logical. Now whether this would be available for everyone is the question. They could hold it back for release with the PS3 Slim, offering it at a later date as a paid download to anyone with a non-slim PS3, or they could simply show they’re nice guys and release it for free.

Here’s the basic rundown on the Dynasty Warriors series for anyone unfamiliar: you (and possibly a friend) play as warriors in feudal China and spend your time plowing through hordes of opponents on a variety of battlefields. Many characters have story modes which are held together by text explanations and cutscenes, though this is a fairly optional experience as the game is in no way detracted from by skipping them. The battles are rather epic as your characters are generally larger than life, featuring heavily stylized costumes and bearing powerful weapons allowing you to sweep aside entire groups of enemy soldiers in a single swing. As you progress through battles you improve your character, gain new and superior weapons and collect horses.

The Empires games play differently than the rest of the series. Gone are the cutscenes and detailed stories where you simply go from one battle to the next. The vast majority of the game is still centered around the epic conflicts, but you’re allowed to do things at your own pace. You begin a campaign by choosing your time period which only affects which factions will be the most prominent.

There are three subsections of the campaign mode, vagrant, officer and ruler mode. Which one you begin with depends on which character you choose. In vagrant mode you are simply a wandering warrior unable to affect the overall landscape. You engage in battles by accepting mercenary assignments, though there aren’t any with a profoundly negative spin. They vary between protecting villagers from bandits or ‘monsters’ (tigers and wolves who possess elemental attacks), wiping out groups of pirates or protecting units on their way to an escape point. Each event has its own set of optional objectives which you can do to gain more experience, gold and gems (I’ll get to these later), though these would be far more interesting if there was some variation between them. In these mini battles you’ll find other characters in need of assistance; help them a few times and you can recruit them to journey with you.

Though you can spend quite a lot of time engaged in mercenary work and improve your character eventually you’ll want to join up with a faction to start making your mark on the landscape. The easiest way is to join up with an existing ruler to become an officer (you can move to whichever area has the officer you prefer to side with). As an officer you embark on battles when instructed to by your liege lord, but serve a ruler long enough and you’ll be trusted enough to help dictate policy at the occasional council meetings.

If you’re not a fan of dancing to someone else’s tune you can strike off on your own and invade a land to usurp its rule and begin your own rise to prominence. This is where strategy comes into the picture, though it’s not a terribly complex system. As a ruler you can assemble a cadre of officers, each of whom has their own troops to bring to battle. When you invade a territory you have to choose which officers to bring with you and your choices will determine how much work you’ll have to do to defeat the enemies. As with other Dynasty Warriors games the map has various bases including supply camps, armories, watchposts and each force’s main camp and while it’s not essential to conquer every camp in sight, the enemy commander doesn’t appear until you’ve connected your main camp to theirs by conquering certain bases as indicated by connecting lines on the main map.

As you battle your officers of course lose troops. Do poorly enough and you can have officers defect mid-battle. Of course the opposite can happen with enemy troops changing their stripes and joining your side. While eventually you can get enough officers so rotating out those with diminshed troop counts allows you to invade more often (you can only attack once per month) it’s important at first to be cautious and gauge your strength relative to your enemies. You also have certain cards that can be played to give you an edge, some improve attack strength, others replenish troops while still others offer more resource points (needed to utilize the cards) in future months at the expense of gold.

The greatest appeal of this game relative to standard Dynasty Warriors titles comes in the sheer level of customization. In battle you can give orders to your troops- tell them to attack and they charge forth at enemy bases. Issue an order for defense and they’ll stalwartly guard your bases. You can also instruct them to regroup on you or simply tell them to do what they think is best (which most often just means attacking).

In between battles you can also invest money into upgrading your weapon, training new skills and purchasing better horses. This is essential as unlike many other entries in the series, losing happens quite often at early levels. An enemy officer can occasionally slay you in a single quick combo. Cash gets you a stronger weapon and allows you to imbue it with elemental damage, increase its range and many other things. You also have new special skills similar to the tome abilities in DW6. Send out a sheet of fire to toast your opponents, improve your attack for a period of time, enable a high-speed dash attack or even restore your health by using one of up to four special skills. No matter how much money you have, it’s impossible to imbue your weapon or learn new abilities without the relevant gems. You get these over the course of battles and by purchasing them in shops. You can also put money into the weapons and skills of allied officers, be they the special characters we’ve come to know and love or run-of-the-mill officers, giving you the choice of either relying upon group strengths or simply pimping out your own character and blazing across the battlefield, striking down everyone in your path.

Empires also brings back a feature that has been absent from the series for some time: the ability to create your own character. The level of customization is surprisingly robust- you can change everything from hairstyle to height and even change the pitch of their voice. As you play through the campaign mode you unlock more clothing and armor options which you can add to existing customized characters as you play. While you can choose any existing character’s weapon style, it would have been interesting to have a few entirely new options to choose from.

The character roster only has one addition, Meng Huo, though they’ve addressed the complaint many had with DW6: that most characters felt the same, bearing mostly polearms, swords and clubs. They gave Zhang He back his claw weapons and Taishi Ci his characteristic dual rods. Ma Chao bears an impossibly huge sword, Cao Pi wields a long narrow sword suited to quick attacks, Ling Tong uses a three-section-staff and Yue Ying has a strange weapon mounted on a bracer that’s part sword and part crossbow. The most interesting however is Meng Huo whose weapon is a simple yet massive stone column.

The game did unfortunately drop a few of the more interesting features of Dynasty Warriors 6. In Empires when assaulting a castle or base you no longer have to smash through the door or claim ground for siege weapons. Everything is open to whatever invading army happens by, which while easier overall feels less authentic and takes away from what could have been another layer of strategy. They’ve added in the ability to select the background music for your battles and have included an incredible array of songs from the series back catalog, but unless you have a particular fascination for their odd blend of Chinese/techno/rock music I’d just recommend supplying your own soundtrack.

It’s an excellent game for fans of the series or someone who’s looking for a bit of simple escapism, but if you only had a lukewarm interest in these fanciful, semi-historically inspired tales this won’t likely do much for you.

Most recently picked up for potential ruination is Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Following the adventures of rough and tumble adventurer Nathan Drake on his quest for fame and fortune (of course) the game’s existing plot has plenty to offer for cinematic entertainment; interesting characters, an unfolding adventure with plot twists and betrayals, a romantic subplot and plenty of action. The film has been picked up by Columbia with Kyle Ward writing the script. Ward is already writing scripts for Kane & Lynch and Hitman 2 films so if he gets this right he could be considered the avatar of the video game gods on earth, struggling mightily against the Hollywood infidels to ensure that these stories are told in all their majesty.

Who would you like to see play Nathan Drake? The obvious choice being voiced by many is Nathan Filion of Firefly/Serenity cult fame since he’s already demonstrated his ability to play a snarky-talking, pistol toting badass, but I’m sure there are plenty of other options out there. I

Some are estimating that the next generation games will cost up to $60 million to develop and one publisher is already expresing concerns over current generation costs. Activision boss Bobby Kotick is suggesting that unless there’s a price cut for the PS3 the company might have to reconsider supporting the console: “I’m getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform.”

He suggests that if the price for the console doesn’t drop the attach rates will diminish, following that line of thought with: “if we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony. When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console – and the PSP [portable] too.”

Considering the as-yet untapped potential of the console and Sony’s insistence that their strategy is long term, things could still be turned around, but if enough publishers and developers shift their efforts elsewhere the console could founder before it has the chance to take off, though I doubt this is actually going to happen. This could very well be nothing more than posturing to achieve some greater concessions from Sony in their business arrangements.

Everyone else is too it seems because Treyarch announced that in the first weekend the second map pack was downloaded over a million times. The $9.99 content pack contains four maps, including Shi No Numa. Yes, that’s right, it’s another zombie level. That’s got a lot to do with the appeal of this game for many I’m guessing. If you’re unfamiliar with the mode, it’s an online co-op mode similar to the Gears of War horde mode where players face wave after wave of enemies, only this time they’re a combination of two popular video game enemies: Nazis and zombies.

Since their newest motion control device bears a striking similarity to Nintendo’s, they’ve come out to insist that they’ve been working on a wand device sine the original EyeToy. They released a video on Youtube of a tech demo made with the original EyeToy where they showcase some of the features that are now integrated into their new wand.

This wasn’t a case of revenge, random violence or vandalism; THQ had taken a rather odd event most often used for a fundraiser at state fairs and utilized it to promote their newest game. Usually whoever’s running the ‘car smash’ charges a few bucks for a few whacks at the vehicle, but this time taking out your aggression on the automobile was more than free; it was profitable. Inside the car were over a hundred copies of Red Faction Guerilla. Folks at THQ said it was an ‘experiment’ to see how many people would stop in the middle of their day to wail on a car in order to get a free copy of the game, inspired by the game’s incredibly realistic destruction engine. They also get kudos for taking the car in for recycling after the conclusion of the event.

We’re now getting the first details regarding a new Alien Versus Predator game which is being developed by Rebellion, the team who created the original 1999 classic. If you’ve played either of the other two games the overall setup won’t be surprising. Its a first person shooter with a different storyline for each species, though the events of each will swirl together and inform each other.

The marine will rely on his array of fancy gadgets and weapons to help him against the more numerous and physically superior creatures, the predator uses his own gadgets and hunting skills to survive while the alien uses stealth, superior senses and sheer single-minded fury. There will also be a three-way multiplayer mode with each species battling for superiority.

The game is a multiplatform release, with versions for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 all planned to release in early 2010.

Don’t panic people, because there’s a rational explanation for all this. When Mr. McIntyre suggests that video games are a reflection of how much consumers have to spend, he’s correct, but he fails to account for the fact that unlike other discretionary spending such as food or apparel, the video game market fluctuates depending on what’s available. There’s a near continual trickle of video games released year round but the titles that really spur sales are fewer and often clustered around certain periods of time. In April 2008 both GTA IV and Mario Kart Wii were released, two powerhouse titles that gobbled up cash, while this year April didn’t have much to compete.

Falling console sales can simply be attributed as much to market saturation as low cash flow. In 2008 the Wii and PS3 had been out for around a year and a half. Now they’ve been available for two and a half, with the Xbox 360 having been on the shelf even longer. No matter how powerful, intuitive or flashy a console is eventually it’s going to hit the point where the number of people hoping to buy one drops off.

Right now fans are holding out for the big titles. E3 is on the horizon, meaning that many developers are holding back their big guns to debut at the event, thus achieving the maximum publicity. Games aren’t struggling, you’ve just got a lot of gamers playing through old favorites while they wait for the next big game instead of picking up less impressive titles.

The two new content packs will be released for PS3 eventually, but they’re going to be released for the Xbox 360 first. Point Lookout will bring the player to a new swampy area with new quests based around the real Point Lookout State Park of Maryland. Although the Fallout universe is set in an America where events eventually diverged from our reality, some of the events will draw on the collective past, including the Civil War.

Mothership Zeta continues with the running reference in the Fallout universe to the existence of aliens. In previous games you could get your hands on a powerful albeit short ranged alien blaster if you stumbled upon their crashed ship. In Fallout 3 the same thing happens, but in the DLC pack you’ll find yourself abducted by the alien ship responding to the distress call you can pick up on your Pip Boy.

As with the previous packs there’ll be new quests, characters, items to collect and even some new perks, but at this early stage no details are being discussed about what they might be, though they did say that we can expect a ton of new art for Mothership Zeta. Lookout Point is set for a June release and Mothership Zeta for July.

Role Playing Games (RPG) are a big hit and while we have tons of them around in the market, expect one big splurge from this latest from tri-ace, Sega in Resonance of Fate. Resonance of Fate will be the next big RPG from tri-Ace, Sega announced today, as the title is currently in development for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 . A release date sometime during spring 2010 is all we could get out of Sega, though the company did share a few details about the game itself.

Resonance of Fate will include highly stylized graphics and focus on “realistic gunplay” for its core gameplay mechanic. And speaking of mechanic, players will find themselves role-playing their way through a gritty, mechanized world that is ripe for supporting Hollywood-style action sequences.

With its focus on gunplay, Resonance of Fate will let players completely customize their weapons, presumably giving unique weapons for each of the game’s characters.

(Source) Daily Game

With all the hype about Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it was just a matter of time before another controller in the form of a musical instrument (in this case another guitar) would come out. And Logitech will not allow itself to be outdone as it unveiled its Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller for PLAYSTATION 3 and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems.

Following the introduction of the Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller, Premiere Edition (previously available only in select markets), the new black guitar controller is expected to be available worldwide later this month. The Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller is licensed by Activision Publishing, Inc. for the award-winning Guitar Hero franchise.

“Logitech’s new guitar controller delivers the same unparalleled Guitar Hero experience offered by our previous premiere edition to an even broader group of gamers and at a great value,” said Ruben Mookerjee, Logitech’s director of product marketing for gaming. “Everything about the Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller is premium – from the authentic wood material and flawless black finish, to the noise-dampening design of the strum bar and buttons, to the authentic accents provided by the metal frets.”

The Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller for PLAYSTATION 3 and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems is expected to be available this month in the U.S. for a retail price of $199.99 (U.S.) and will be available in Europe in June.

(Source) Press

Now Dragon Age: Origins is coming back to, well, its origins. Green Ronin Publishing will be releasing a pen and paper version of the game to accompany the digital adventure this summer. “We’re delighted to be working with Green Ronin to explore more of the Dragon Age universe through a pen and paper role-playing game. We’re excited to deliver Dragon Age’s unique dark, heroic fantasy to our audience in a brand new way – a perfect complement to the landmark game we’re launching on PC, Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 this fall,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, EA.

The initial release will be a boxed set with more boxed sets and expansion books to be released later. An interesting possibility given that Bioware is including the suite of adventure creation tools is the possibility of user-created adventures being purchased and put out for the tabletop version.

As is usual for an initial announcement they’re short on details, but fans of the series who weren’t as happy about Bethesda’s version will be a little more interested when they hear that Obsidian Entertainment (a studio founded by members of Interplay’s Black Isle Studios) are doing the actual developing for the game. When asked about what engine it’d be using, the spokesperson said that you could ‘make educated guesses’ so we’ll probably be seeing another first person perspective game. It’s set for the same consoles, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 and set to release in 2010.

Much of the attention for Street Fighter IV has been on the PS3 and Xbox 360 release date on April 24. However, the PC version will also be released soon, most likely summer. But to make sure you don’t miss the release of the PC version, the release date will be made official come May 1.

Over at the official Japanese Street Fighter IV blog, project manager Natsuki Shiozawa made a casual announcement in a post about the game’s upcoming Championship Mode features: The release date of the PC version will be revealed May 1. Shiozawa even ventured, “the game will be out this summer, before it gets super hot!”

(Source) 1UP

The game, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is available for download for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. As with the Nintendo version the update is stripped of its original Nazi-referential storyline. The original game had players attempting to stop an evil army trying to resurrect Adolph Hitler in order to get him to complete his superweapon. Instead you face off against the forces of Generalissimo Killt in a two-pronged quest: rescue Super Joe and stop Master-D (instead of Hitler).

Along with the expected graphical update there are some changes to the gameplay, some of which are extremely welcome. The biggest improvement is that players no longer need to kill enemies and collect ‘bullets’ to extend their health meter. This often led to some frustration in the original because you started the game with a single health point; get hit once and you snuffed it. That leads to the other part: continues.

As in the original game you choose your level by telling your helicopter pilot where to go on a map divided into squares of interest. Some are enemy bases, others are neutral territories you can go to get equipment or information. As you fly from one place to another there are trucks driving around the map. Cross paths with one of them and you’re taken to a top-down battle where you have to battle your way through soldiers in order to destroy an AA gun at the end. In the NES version these battles were helpful because enemies would occasionally drop continues when dispatched and since the trucks never ran out you had an avenue for getting as many continues as you needed. To eliminate the tedium of having to go through these repetitive battles they gave you infinite continues. Unfortunately they didn’t get rid of the battles themselves, replacing useful tedium with useless tedium. It’s not very easy to avoid the trucks either as contrary to real-world logic they move faster than your helicopter.

Other than that one difference pretty much all the changes are for the better. In the original game before heading into a level you had to choose the equipment you were going to bring along, including a ‘communicator chip’ which came in several colors. These communicators were essential as certain doors in the levels were only unlocked when you went to a certain room and put in a call to your people. Go to a level with the wrong communicator and you get nothing but gibberish. Now you essentially carry all communicator chips you have at once and the game doesn’t let you into a level without the proper communicator chip. Likely there’s some die-hard fan out there who won’t like this, but it saves a lot of time and frustration.

The bosses have been changed from the original version and are generally pretty easy to defeat once you figure out the trick. Each boss has a weakness of some kind and you can find this out in the communicator rooms via a hacking mini-game which is new. It’s simple enough to not be frustrating and infrequently used enough to not become tedious.

If you’ve played the original before the game doesn’t necessarily offer anything new beyond some new secrets to collect and challenge rooms to test your bionic arm navigation abilities, but it’s still got the same solid gameplay as the original.