thanks for the post i always feel better after i come home from football and read these blogs.

Well, that was a nice sentiment. The Blog Bean Counters (they’ll *love* being referred to like that) informed me that jskillzball also helped us reach a milestone. And by “us” I mean “you” - comment #100,000. Seeing as how we had published about 650 posts at that time, that’s an average of over 150 comments per post! Take a look around the internet - you’re not going to see such a consistently dedicated group of readers too often. It’s like everyone in Burbank, California or Cambridge, Massachusetts posted one time each! (I don’t think that’s what happened, right?)

It’s been an interesting ride, as you readers are just as likely to point out what you don’t like as you are to let us know what you enjoy. For instance, I believe roughly 78% of the comments were demands for In-Game XMB (I kid, I kid!). Seriously though, we definitely appreciate the constructive critiques, and when you see an often-requested feature show up in a game’s patch or firmware update, I believe it’s proof that “the system works.”

And I can tell you from experience that game developers have told me the feedback they’ve received on this Blog, from readers like you, has been incredibly useful to them - hopefully as much as the post you’ve commented on was to you.

So please, keep them coming, even if it’s just to say “trophies, kthxbai!” And please continue to keep them (mostly) on-topic, as that helps make sure that the right sets of eyes are reading your opinions. I’m sure we’ll reach comment #200,000 in no time. Thank you.

Oh, and jskillzball, I’ll be contacting you when I get back from TGS, I believe a schwag bag is in order.

Platform exclusive DLC is a growing trend in the video game industry; some may view it as a very nasty way to nickel and dime consumers. Of course Microsoft is leading the charge with platform exclusive DLC simply because it is supposedly the next best thing to getting a whole exclusive game. Since Microsoft only has two active first party studios, exclusives are extremely important to the company.

Want to spend $50 on a t-shirt (Male XL only), battery charger, key chain and (Guitar Hero) guitar case? Yeah, neither do I, but that’s what Red Octane is offering with the $240 Guitar Hero World Tour Deluxe Band Bundle.

The rest of the bundles ar…

Here are the Trophies for Tom Clancy’s EndWar. The RTS game places you in 2020 during World War III. You can play as three factions: the Russian Spetsnaz Guards Brigade, the European Federation Enforcers Corps and the United States’ Joint Strike Force. Sounds like typical Tom Clancy fare to us. The game will be out November 4th in the US and the 7th in Europe. Thanks, PS3trophies.co.uk!

Bronze Trophies:

• Communication Officer — Complete the Voice Command Trainer.
• First Command — Win the Warning Signs mission.
• Combat Chain Master — Defeat Tanks with Gunships, Gunships with Transports and Transports with Tanks.
• Veteran — Win one match in each game mode (Conquest, Assault, Siege, Raid).
• Road to War — Complete “Prelude to War” on any difficulty.
• World in Flames — Complete “Prelude to War” on Hardcore.
• Weapon Master — Use Secondary Attack for the first time.
• Hardened by War — Win 15 missions in the Solo Campaign.
• No Stone Unturned — Win 5 missions without using Mission Support in “World War III”.
• Call of Booty — Win a mission by deploying infantry units only.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Continue reading Trophies: Tom Clancy’s EndWar

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It looks like October 9th is shaping up to be a great week for the PSN. This week we are getting the HUGELY anticipated LingerInShadows. We also will be getting the game with the coolest name? Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars, which will be releasing with in-game music, and trophy support. Megaman 9 fans will be pleased to know that the Protoman DLC will be out this week. Also don’t forget to download the Valkyria Chronicles Demo.

We expect to see some new trailers from many of the newly announced PS3, and PSP games from this year’s Tokyo Game Show!

Last week we were pleasantly surprised by the addition of Eternal Sonata Demo, so this week we have our fingers crossed for some other great surprises popping up in the PS Store.

That is what is confirmed, click READ MORE to see what is rumored?

Fallout 3
Nuclear winter in Washington, D.C. and mutated humans and beasts are really not so happy about the way things turned out. Do you dare leave the bunker and confront their radiation-amplified personality issues?

Resident Evil 5
The series that invented the term “Survival Horror” is back and better than ever on PlayStation 3 - just don’t call them “zombies” – they HATE that!

Dead Space
Talk about creepy. Our “trio of terror” is complete with a game that’s banned in China, Germany, Japan. When you see the gameplay, words really fail to describe… well, actually, how about “Strategic Dismemberment.” Also included is an exclusive graphic novel!

Shaun White Snowboarding
Well, it’s not exactly spooky, but Olympic Champion Shaun White is a monster on any mountain. Veronica meets “The Flying Tomato” in Park City, Utah for a personal tour of his new game.

New Downloadable Content:
Included in this episode is exclusive access to SEGA’s Valkyria Chronicles demo. Qore Episode 05 also contains three different shooting galleries. Clear the galleries to reveal a horrifying bonus video segment.

Finally, check out the “What’s Hot” section for Audrey Cleo’s roundup of the top Blu-ray releases in October.

Activision has revealed the pricing structure of the upcoming incarnation of their rhythm game. Guitar Hero: World Tour will come in several different flavors, so listen up:

• $189.99 for the full Band Kit
• $99.99 for the Guitar Kit (which includes the game and guitar)
• $59.99 for the game by itself.
• Finally, there is a $239.99 Deluxe Band Bundle (as shown above), which includes everything in the full Band Kit plus the following: a t-shirt (Male XL only), battery charger, key chain and cloth guitar case.

Though the Band Kit seems to be priced competitively, the Deluxe Band Bundle seems rather pricey — are those extras worth an extra 50 clams to you?

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The official Rock Band website has received a bit of a makeover; updated content include a Photo Creator that allows you to pose your Bandmates and take pictures to be added to your profiles, a catalog of every single Rock Band song, and a Merch Booth section which will allow you to buy 6″ figurines of your Bandmates ($69), customized t-shirts ($29), buttons ($2) and more. Are you guys interested in this merchandise? Or do these prices mean this stuff is for real rock stars only? Let us know after you check out here.

[Via Joystiq and press release]

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Some new details about White Knight Chronicles have emerged, courtesy of Japanese gaming site Game-Star! Here’s the gist of the article:

-Story should last 100 hours +

-Graphics will be at 1080P

-Dynamic battle system, allowing you to chose from the regular sized characters or transforming into the colossal white knight.

-Co-op gameplay over the PSN

"With all the positive press out there showcasing the great things that can be made using the LittleBigPlanet level editor, it was only a matter of time before someone made something not so great.

If you thought the use of Space Invaders to mock the events of September 11th was tasteless, then you will likely cringe when you see Sackboy pilot a plane into the twin towers in this user created LBP level.

The video is available after the jump, though we completely understand if you decide to pass on this one."

Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey has admitted to Eurogamer that LittleBigPlanet’s 2.5D controls “annoy” him, but has promised to patch the issue post-release.

Those who’ve played the beta (lucky devils) will know that the game occasionally st…

The month of October is simply packed to the brim with good games and the holiday shopping season is just about to start. For all those gamers and shoppers out there, the abundance of titles may make it difficult to discern which ones might be right for them. Perhaps a little help from us is in order.

In this feature, we highlight the top ten PlayStation 3 games which we think stick out this month and probably deserve your hard-earned cash. So get started and check out what’s in store for this month on our October Buyer’s Guide.

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Unhappy with the quality of Skate for the PS3? The producers apparently felt the same way — developer Black Box has stated Skate 2’s lead platform will be the PS3 — this is due to the inferior version of Skate PS3 owners received when the Xbox 360 was the lead platform. For Skate 2, producer Jason DeLong and his team are aiming for the following: “The goal is that if you put both versions side-by-side, you will not be able to tell the difference.”

Are Scott Steinberg’s words from back in July coming true? Hopefully more third-party developers will choose the PS3 as the lead platform from now on to ensure both versions are on par with one another.

[Via MaxConsole]

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Namco Bandai has confirmed that its heavily anime-inspired PlayStation 3 slash-em-up, Afro Samurai, will be published by Atari in Europe next year. If you don’t think this is a Very, Very Good Thing, you obviously haven’t watched this trailer.

…

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Treyarch’s Adam Gascoine, the co-design director on Quantum of Solace, said that the team wants to do another Bond game because it "has a lot more to say" and wants the jump to be similar to the one gamers saw with Halo to Halo 2, and Call of Duty to Call of Duty 2.

He said: "I do know that our team wants to work on the next Bond. Because we feel we have a lot more to say. The first game in a franchise is never the greatest game ever made. We’ve got a really good game and we’re really proud of it but we want to build. We want to go like Call of Duty 1 to Call of Duty 2, Halo 1 to Halo 2. We want to make sure that gamers can play this and say all right this is the start of a dynasty. This is going to get better and better and better."

So what does Sony think about the newly announced DSi, the main competitor to Sony’s PSP Brite in Japan this holiday season?

We didn’t even have to ask — because Sony’s John Koller, director of hardware marketing, approached Gizmodo directly in hopes of discussing their side of the story. Does this new iteration provide enough differentiation from its predecessor? “Nintendo has kind of a history of these [moderate] kinds of updates, and even with DS Lite, there was a lot of discussion, ‘Is that enough?’ And they seemed to do pretty well there.”

How will the DSi fare? “I can see the DSi being successful. The DS lite was obviously very successful. Will DSi do well with [the DS’s] demographic? It probably will. Will it be a product that expands their user base [beyond] under 12? I’m not sure.” Unfortunately, Koller did not directly address how the DS’s hardware refresh compares to the PSP’s hardware refresh. But it did seem like Koller was giving a backhanded compliment to Nintendo’s handheld — it will do reasonably well, but you’ll only be selling it to children again. How do you guys feel? Do these hardware refreshes matter? Or is it ultimately software that determines the winner?

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Aiming to streamline the team’s own level design tools into something flexible, powerful, yet still accessible, has been a challenge to the team, and the goal has ended up driving many aspects of the main multiplayer modes’ design.

To gain insight into the development process behind that side of the game, Gamasutra sat down with Hardy LeBel (Halo, SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs), Far Cry 2’s senior multiplayer designer.

Developer Treyarch has revealed that the company is already thinking about a follow up to its inaugural James Bond outing, Quantum of Solace.

Speaking with Videogamer.com, co-design director Adam Gascoine reckons the team “has a lot more to say” i…

I passed on "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" and never finished a "Grand Theft Auto" game until the most recent one. Maybe that’s why I enjoy games like "Mega Man 9? so much; too much choice scares me away.

It’s with this attitude I spent four hours with Bethesda Softworks’ latest, "Fallout 3," last week at a morning preview event in San Francisco. We were told to avoid the main quest; that’s a secret. The mandate made me panic - the next four hours would be nothing but choice."

With Saint’s Row 2 finished, we decided to ask about the possibility of Saint’s Row 3, and Scott Philips told us that they will wait until players put their comments out for SR2 and collect that stuff and start working on it then, hopefully.

Last week during an interview with Eurogamer TV, Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey confessed that he was a little annoyed with the controls of LittleBigPlanet, namely the way Sackboy moves between the different planes of perspective. “The Z [axis] movement is an incredibly hard thing for us to get right. There’s times when it annoys me actually, but we can work on that if we want, and refine it.”

Healey assures fans that the problem can be corrected. “There’s definitely room for improvement and we’ve got the channel to be able to do that as well … I’d really love to be able to do backflips and all kinds of things with my Sackboy, and there’s no reason why we can’t add that and refine that.” Thought we haven’t had any major problems with the controls of LBP, we are more than glad to see the guys at Media Molecule are such perfectionists. How about those of you out there who are also in the beta? Are you experiencing the same problem Healey is describing?

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