The PS3 timed-exclusive, Haze, is shaping up to be one of the big games of the year.

As well as blindingly fast and furious gameplay, Rob Yescombe if Free Radical explains in an interview with Destructiod that Haze is two games in one box, as the two different factions in the game have such different abilities.

Read the full article after the jump to see a complete list of Mantel and Promised Hand skills. The extra good news? All of the listed abilities will be available in multi-player...

Labels: Haze, news, Playstation 3, PS Eye, PS3

We've done just about as terrible a job at predicting what's coming in the next firmware as everyone else, so when I saw this list of supposed features coming in v2.0 at The Video Gaming Report, I took it with more than the grain of salt the author suggests. Think more of an entire barrel of salt.

However, the rumour does seem to be written with more detail than many previous attempts, so maybe it has a little more truth to it.

As well as confirming that there will be no in-game XMB yet, the source of the news reveals that 2.0 will include an updated browser (update the flash player and other features), security for items on your HDD and the possible inclusion of the Playstation Home icon on the XMB.

I guess only time will tell if these tidbits are any more real than the dozens of other firmware tips we've been getting that never come true.

Labels: firmware, news, Playstation 3, PS3

You should see the following new items in the PSN for Europe today:

• Gran Turismo PS Premiere Event Trailer (free)
• Heavenly Sword Legend of the Sword video (free)
• Heavenly Sword Making of video (free)
• Ghost Rider movie trailer (free)
• The Covenant movie trailer (free)

Again, we're starting to slip back into some fairly pointless updates. Most of this stuff can already be found playing on PS3s via YouTube...

Where's the demo of Ratchet & Clank we announced? Where's the puzzler launched on US stores (Piyotama - which was already in Japan two months earlier).

Sony still have a way to go to keep Euro customers happy and, even better than that, align releases so that we can all just have one login and we all get everything at the same time. Some dream, huh?

Labels: news, Playstation 3, PS Store, PS3, PSN

The trends and movements I've reported a couple of times before are now becoming the standard. Once again the PS3 surges forward against the Xbox 360.

But this time I'm able to report worldwide figures and not just the US.

Although in Japan the 'Hot Shots 5' factor has worn off and PS3 sales dropped 45% over last week, the Xbox 360 is now bottom of every sales league in every territory except for Australia. Well, almost last place - it did in fact feature above Nintendo's GBA (woo hoo!).

So despite a 12% drop in worldwide sales over last week, the PS3 still sold twice as many units as the X360 last week.

If you draw a line for all three main consoles and align the launch dates, the PS3 is basically tracking the Xbox 360's growth trend almost exactly. This begs the question "why all the stories of the PS3 'failure' and the Xbox 360's supposed superiority"?

Interestingly though, the recent turnaround shows the PS3 has a much stronger current trendline and will catch and pass the Xbos 360 before too long. Add to that the massive difference in 'churn' base - i.e. those people that bought the PS2 and will, at some point, upgrade - and the future looks bright.

There's close to 100 million more PS2s in the field than original Xboxes.

Time will tell what effect the 80Gb US model launch has and what other similar packs do for our beloved black monolith, but I feel the results will be more positive than ever.

Labels: Hardware, news, opinion, Playstation 3, PS3

In a recent interview with Kotaku, Masaya Matsuura explains that we could see a new Aibo-like device in the near future, and that this device could be PS3-compatible.

Speaking to Kotaku, he explains:

"The engineers behind the Aibo are doing the PS3. We are talking about making something like the new Aibo."

Brian Ashcraft (the interviewer) asks if it will connect to the PS3. Because that's what he really wants: A robotic dog for his PS3.

"I don't know. Connection is not hard. I'm sure some engineer could do that."

And that's what I really want.

I lament the death of the Aibo. It came around at a time when I really wanted one, but couldn't get one for various reasons. Just when I'd got into a position where I could get one, Sony canned the whole project, including the QRIO as well.

Just imagine a robot that you can program via the PS3. A robot that can send pictures it 'sees' during the day to your PS3 photos folder. Photos that you could then vie via Remote Play on your PSP, or pictures that automatically upload to your Home space just as in the mobile phone demo shown at E3.

Imagine a robot that reacts to games because Sony supply designers with the API to tell the robot what to do via Bluetooth when you are playing. Or a robot that controls a game, or can even play Eye of the Beholder with you!

All these things, and much more than I've imagined, could all be possible. Please Sony - make this wish come true.

Labels: Hardware, news, opinion, Playstation 3, PS Eye, PS3

You want 35 minutes of Army of Two gameplay action?

You got it!

Labels: Army of Two, news, Playstation 3, PS3, video

Thanks to the people at Games Radar you can now watch this excellent gameplay footage from the forthcoming AAA PS3 exclusive, Lair.

The guys managed to play some of the early scraps which included ground and air battles - take a look for yourself and enjoy the view!

Labels: Lair, news, Playstation 3, PS3, video

To help illustrate just how much there is to look forward to I thought I'd dig around and pull out some of the forthcoming joyfulness that will hit the PS3 before the end of the year (in alphabetical order):

Army of Two
Assassin's Creed
Call of Duty 4
DiRT
Eye of Judgement (and the PS Eye in general)
GRAW 2
Guitar Hero III
Haze
Heavenly Sword
Jericho
Juiced 2
Kane & Lynch
Lair
PlayStation Home
Ratchet and Clank Future
Rock Band
SingStar
Skate
Stranglehold
Tiger Woods, Madden and FIFA 08
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Unreal Tournament 3
Warhawk

Kind of makes the delayed GTA: IV seem like a bit more of a non-issue, don't you think?

Labels: Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, DiRT, FPS, GRAW 2, GTA, Guitar Hero, Haze, Heavenly Sword, Lair, news, opinion, Playstation 3, PS Eye, PS3, Ratchet and Clank, Rock Band, Skate, UT III

Apart from getting some well-needed R&R, there's another reason I wanted to hold back before reporting about the whole GTA: IV delay story.

Everyone and his dog reported the delay and of course the internet went wild with rumours that the PS3/Xbox was at fault. The PS3 is too difficult to develop for. The game won't fit on an Xbox 360 DVD. Things always have to be someone's fault you see... it couldn't possibly be that Rockstar just want to make sure the game doesn't suck on release, could it?

Imagine, if you will, the game coming out in October and crashing every ten minutes. Or the graphics aren't what was expected. Or the glitches coming thick and fast. What would everyone say to Rockstar then?

I appreciate it was a hard decision for them to push the release date past their current financial year end and therefore take a profit hit and subsequent pasting from the stock markets, but if the product needed polishing and improving before release, we should all be happy they took that decision rather than release something that is not finished for the sake of the markets.

What's nice to see is that after GTA: IV Rockstar will basically be focussing on the PS3 exclusively for a while with LA Noire, a new as-yet-untitled PS3 game and (according to one podcast) Read Dead Revolver 2.

As usual, everyone needs to calm down and stop pointing the finger solely at the PS3. Look at what's already to come this year - we're gonna have a job earning enough money to buy all the expected AAA titles, so in fact this could work out very well in favour of the other awesome games that hit before Christmas.

Labels: GTA, news, opinion, Playstation 3, PS3