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TikGames is launching yet another game on PS3 this week via the PlayStation Network: Hamsterball, a self-described, hamster-themed mix of "Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball." As with other games featuring plastic-trapped mammals, Hamsterball looks to be a race through suspended mazes, with the goal of achieving faster and faster completion times.

In addition to the requisite single-player campaign, Hamsterball also features a two-player split-screen mode and a seven-player "sumo" mode. We're not entirely sure what "sumo" is supposed to mean, but it's true that the PS3 can support up to 7 controllers locally -- so will Hamsterball be one of the few games to actually support this feature?

Hamsterball will be available for $9.99 on the North American PlayStation Store this Thursday, March 25.

Hi PlayStation world! This is Howard Lehr from TikGames, here to reveal our little secret. (Eep!) We’ve been in stealth mode on this one, having a great time playing against our co-workers, friends, family, the guy we saw out the window waiting for the bus who was wearing a RUSH T-shirt (we lured him into our office on the premise that we had a fresh supply of donuts). Hamsterball is a blast and it’s time now to share it with the world. We hope you will love it as much as we do!

What is Hamsterball? Well, imagine if both Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball were to meet a cute and unsuspecting hamster who’s out for a leisurely roll in his ball. This is the most frenzied race to the finish line he’ll ever run, guaranteed!

Hamsterball offers a ton of great game modes, including 2 player split screen, 7 player sumo and a whole bunch of single player levels. Oh yeah….we’ve got many unlockables, and Trophies too! (We just looooove Trophies.)

No more worries about cleaning the cage or middle-of-the-night escapes, only to find your hamster hiding under your laundry pile. Hamsterball offers all the fun of hamster racing, without the bummer of hearing your mom (GF, SO, BF, wife, roommate, etc.) bark at you to tidy up Mr. Stinky’s cage!

Hamsterball will be available for $9.99 on the PlayStation Store on March 25.

Everyone at TikGames really appreciates your support. Please do let us know what you think of the game after you’ve played it.

Amazon's Gold Box is offering PS3 savings all day, but the only deal we know for sure is Dante's Inferno for $38.99. All we have for the remaining items are hints, but we'll give you our best educated guess.

9AM (All Times ET): Batman: Arkham Asylumm: $39.99
12PM: "This storied fighting franchise returns for another bout" -- Tekken? Street Fighter? Fight Night? Tough to say.
4PM: "You might have played this RPG on your 360" -- No clue, but that's not a super great pitch is it?
7PM: "Help Lego Dr. Jones through your favorite cinematic moments" -- Lego Indiana Jones 1 or 2
9PM: "Wave around your PS3" -- Maybe Nyko's Blue Wave Remote? Either way, it doesn't sound like a very safe thing to do.
10PM: "Don't 'tapout' on this great MMA deal" -- UFC 2009 Undisputed

Again, those are our seventh grade-educated (thanks for nothing, overly-abundant fall harvest on our parent's farm) guesses, but we feel pretty confident you'll read the actual item listing rather than just purchasing sight-unseen. Right guys? Right?

[Thanks, Kenny]

From Half-Life to Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy XIII to Wind Waker, we examine how developers succeed - and fail - in keeping players engaged.

South Australian Attorneys-General Michael Atkinson resigns from the front bench.

Get your lurch on for a great cause. Also: braaaaaains.

I’d like to personally thank the PlayStation community (this means you) for your staggering level of involvement this past week. Whether it was participating in the new PlayStation.Blog Share, submitting your God of War III launch pic on Twitter, or RSVPing to our PlayStation Move hands-on community events, you all have been awesome.

BTW, we’ve still got more room for New Yorkers on Tuesday and Bostonians on Thursday, so please RSVP today.

And thanks to the many God of War III reviews, PlayStation Move impressions, and lingering GDC stories, the Blog Reading List is again bursting at the seams…

See you on the East Coast!

The PS Blog weekly reading list (Week of March 15, 2010)

• The World’s Most Badass Exercise Video Game – Kotaku
• PixelJunk Expansion Channels Demon’s Souls, Of All Things – Kotaku
• ModNation Racers Was My Favorite Low-Expectation Game Of The Show – Kotaku
• The God of War Needs to Do Laundry Too – Kotaku
• Do you want to become a PlayStation Home community volunteer? – Joystiq
• Hands-on: Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake (PSP) – Joystiq
• Hands-on: PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap (PSN) – Joystiq
• Kratos And NASCAR – IGN
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker “2-Man Co-op” Footage – G4tv.com
• Echoshift Review – IGN
• IGN_Strategize: Find all ten Godly Possessions in God of War III
• Game Genealogy: God of War – Gamervision
• Interview: SCEA’s Peter Dille on PS3’s New Campaign – IndustryGamers
• Critical Reception: Sony’s God of War III – Gamasutra
• Kevin Butler shows that PlayStation Move only does time travel – Joystiq
• Interview for ModNation Racers – UGDB.com
• Lunar: Silver Star Harmony Review – IGN
• An MLB 10: The Show story to warm your heart — SCRAWL
• Nomura Keen On Dissidia: Final Fantasy Sequel – Siliconera
• Molyneux says Heavy Rain offers the ‘first glimpses of the future’ of games — Joystiq
• UFC 2010 features exclusive fights on PS3 — Joystiq
• Hands-on: ModNation Racers PSP — Joystiq
• Age of Zombies Review – IGN
• GDC 10: Creating the cinematic experience of Uncharted 2 – Destructoid
• Review: ‘God of War III’ a fitting finale – San Jose Mercury News
• Heavy Rain Review – examiner.com
• MLB 10: The Show Review – Gamervision
• Rendering God of War III’s Colossal Enemies – Popular Mechanics
• Sony shows what an epic game really is with God of War III – VentureBeat
• The Engadget Show returns this Saturday, March 20th with Nicholas Negroponte and PlayStation Move! — Engadget
• GDC 2010: The Shoot Interview — Beyond The Rail Shooter – G4tv.com
• Interview: ModNation Racers’ Dan Sochan — Joystiq
• Interview: EyePet’s Nicolas Doucet discusses Move integration — Joystiq
• GDC: The music and sound of Flower — Joystiq
• Demon’s Souls Does Well, Atlus Swimming In Profit – Siliconera
• CONTEST: Win God of War III! – Gamervision
• Flower Creators: No New Games This Year, Intrigued By PlayStation Move – Kotaku

We've recently seen augmented reality used in some pretty clever ways in the gaming space, but Sony subsidiary ConnectedED has come up with a way to turn real-time graphical overlays into an educational tool. Using a PSP equipped with a camera, the "Second Sight" technology allows tags embedded in textbooks or magazines to cue relevant audio or video clips directly on the PSP.

The program can also create interactive 3D models which the user can examine by changing the orientation of the PSP. Check out the video after the jump to see a video demonstration of what we're talking about, and then imagine how awesome school is going to be in like, fifteen years.

[Via Siliconera]

The latest episode of PlayStation Network's Pulse revealed the top ten downloaded PSP games for 2010 so far. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Square Enix's classic PSone RPGs have topped the list in the first quarter of the year. Only one mini makes it into the top 10: Tetris, whose steep $10 price tag apparently hasn't scared everyone away.

1. Final Fantasy VII (PSP/PS3)
2. Final Fantasy VIII (PSP/PS3)
3. Tetris
4. God of War: Chains of Olympus
5. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
6. LittleBigPlanet
7. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
8. Madden NFL 10
9. Gran Turismo
10. Resident Evil 2 (PSP/PS3)

In praise of Treyarch's work in Infinity Ward's universe.

Japan chooses Pokemon for software, PSP for hardware.

The ground-breaking High Definition 2D fighter BlazBlue makes its triumphant return to home consoles.

Cheap, short, and sweet.

Retailer not expecting drought to end anytime soon.

Q-Games is teaming up with Japanese artist Baiyon once again for another PSN collaboration. Baiyon, who created the visuals and sound for PixelJunk Eden and Encore, is directing an interactive music visualizer for the PS3, to be distributed via the PlayStation Network.

Unlike Q-Games' Earth visualizer, this upcoming project will not be built into the PS3 operating system. Instead, this will be a standalone application, akin to .deTuned. This is terrific news for Trophy hunters, as they should be familiar with how easy it is to get PSN XP with these standalone art applications.

As the first PixelJunk game from Q-Games, Racers was largely misunderstood by most. Now, after the success of Monsters, Eden and Shooter, Q-Games is ready to go back to its first concept and give it a second chance. PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap isn't just an add-on to the original PSN game, but a new game (with new features like Trophies) that warrants a second look from fresh PixelJunk fans.

Like the original, 2nd Lap is a unique interpretation of classic top-down racers of yore. However, Q-Games' take on the genre makes it more of a puzzle or rhythm game, rather than a racing game -- an easy mistake for players to make, considering both the game's look and title. While some modes do require "winning" a race, most are about achieving rather specific goals. For example, you may need to complete a number of laps in a constantly-accelerating vehicle, while avoiding all the other cars on the road. "Sunday Drive" will have you trying to get past as many slow-driving cars as possible. It's a frustrating recreation of being stuck in traffic, yet it's oddly compelling.

In its second iteration, PixelJunk Racers remains essentially a collection of car-themed minigames, with the ultimate goal of scoring as high as possible on the leaderboards. Thankfully, 2nd Lap has been made considerably easier and more accessible than the first game, easing players into a much easier single-player experience. The addition of YouTube recording support should appease the show-offs, while the presence of PSN Trophies may make the overall package far more rewarding. (Don't worry Trophy hunters, Q-Games' Dylan Cuthbert told us that they've learned from PixelJunk Eden and Monsters, and will make the Trophies much easier, akin to PixelJunk Shooter.)

Aussie news, reviews and opinions - in video form!

Well…what a great GDC we had. We spent most of our time in Sony’s Blogger’s Lounge previewing PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap for the various press people who came around to visit. And I’m here to make it official and let everyone know that we will be releasing PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap on the PlayStation Network this Spring.

So, to recap for those who haven’t seen the various blogged reports on it, PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap is a bit of a fan service really – we went back to the original Racers and added Trophies, but we didn’t want to just stop there (just adding the bare minimum isn’t really what we do). So we added a whole new feature – ghost attack. What this does is record how you played whenever you register a new score on the high score tables, so anyone else in the world (including your friends of course) can play against you, trying to best your score.

On top of that we made the single-player tournament a little easier to complete, so you can open up the ghost attack and various party modes even more quickly (and of course gain those Trophies more easily too!).

Just to go on the record – this game *isn’t* really a racing game. It’s as much a racing game as, say, Rally-X was back in the day, really. It is a slot-car based arcade game with lots of fun, wacky modes and ideas in it, and as a result is excellent fun if you get a few people round. And if you can’t get a few people around, the ghost mode opens up a ton of competition with your friends on the ‘net.

Now that I’ve covered off on 2nd Lap, I’m also here to deliver more news to the PixelJunk fans out there. This Spring, we will also be making PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe available on UMD! So, for those of you who prefer to have a hard copy of one of your favorite games … you are in luck. The UMD version of PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe will be available at participating retail outlets beginning April 27 for $19.99.

For more information on the PixelJunk franchise, please check out our blog posts here and here. Continue to check back in with us for more information on 2nd Lap and everything PixelJunk here on the PS Blog!

GDC is over, and Beyond must go on.

Game retailer see second highest earnings year ever.

Tired of yelling CROSS GAME CHAT into every post on the PlayStation.Blog? Thankfully, there's a new venue for you to take advantage of. PlayStation.Blog Share lets fans submit requests and vote on new features to implement across Sony's family of consoles. The requests range from the ever-popular cross game chat option to more specific options, like enabling PSP Remote Play of PS2 games.

It's certainly an interesting social experiment, but we wonder if fans will see any requests (large or small) come to fruition. At the very least, Share gives Sony the appearance of listening, and should reduce the obnoxious comment spam that oftentimes clutters the PlayStation.Blog.

After almost six months, we're going to see sales for the PSP Go pick up in Japan starting tomorrow. How can we be so sure? Today, Sony announced that not only is the PSP hit Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (called Monster Hunter Freedom Unite here) being released as a download on March 18 -- a voucher for the title will also be given away with new PSP Gos. The downloadable game by itself will cost ¥1,600 ($17.69) from the PlayStation Store.

Even though over three million people already have this on UMD -- and even though Monster Hunter Portable 3 was just announced for PSP -- we still anticipate a lot of sales for this. People in Japan are just that thrilled about Monster Hunter.

[Via Andriasang]

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with only a digital hangover.

Since the UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra motion comic series was released on the PlayStation Store late last year, we’ve gotten a ton of questions asking if the Rika Raja and Daniel Pinkerton multiplayer skins – which were made available in Europe as part of a bundle – would soon be available to our community in the US and other parts of North America.

We can let you know today that the answer is YES!

When the PlayStation Store updates on Thursday, April 1 (we’re not joking), the UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra Bundle will be available for purchase for $2.49.

What if you have already purchased all or some of Eye of Indra Episodes 2, 3, and 4? Fear not, we have you covered.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

• On Thursday, April 1, UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra Episodes 2, 3, and 4 will be TEMPORARILY removed from the Store
• ANYONE who purchased ALL THREE Episodes (#2, 3, and 4) prior to 12:01 AM, April 1, will receive an e-mail on April 8 containing a PSN voucher code good for the FREE download of the UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra Bundle INCLUDING the Rika and Pinkerton multiplayer skins.

  *IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to receive the email with your voucher code, you MUST make sure that your PSN account has a valid and working email address associated with your PSN ID. You must also make sure that you have the option to receive marketing communications checked.

• If you want the Rika and Pinkerton skins and have NOT purchased all 3 individual episodes yet, you MUST do so before all the episodes are temporarily removed on April 1.
• Starting April 1, the ONLY way to receive the Rika and Pinkerton skins is to purchase the UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra Bundle. Buying individual episodes after this date will not make you eligible to receive the voucher code for the Bundle and skins.
• The individual episodes will return to the Store on April 15 for $0.99 each.

We have one last bit of good news – the UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra Bundle will also be released on April 1 in Canada and Mexico, via your local PlayStation Store.

We’re really excited to finally be able to share the Rika Raja and Daniel Pinkerton skins with our fans in North America. Many thanks are also in order to SCEA for putting in all the extra effort to make sure everyone who have already purchased all of the Eye of Indra episodes will receive the Rika and Pinkerton skins!

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below and we’ll do our best to answer as many of them as we can with as little bold text as possible.

Tetsuya Nomura second hand Tweets about his upcoming projects, and even hints at a Dissidia Final Fantasy sequel.

The PS3 has changed a lot since it first debuted in 2006. Trophies, movies and TV shows on the PlayStation Store, in-game XMB and more have enhanced your experience – and some of you readers have let us know what else you’d like to see us do.

Unfortunately, this frequently manifests itself as an off-topic comment in an unrelated Blog post.

We know that many readers find such digressions annoying, but we’ve been reluctant to crack down on them as readers didn’t have a good place to formally make requests. Starting today, you do: I’m happy to announce the launch of PlayStation.Blog Share.

Share is a subset of the PlayStation.Blog where readers can submit ideas to us about anything PlayStation-related as well as vote on the ideas of others. Many of you are already making suggestions to us, and we’ve always been listening (that’s the whole idea of the Blog), but now these ideas have an official place to call home. You can find the entrance to Share right at the top of this page.

Share uses a lot of the same Blog features you should already be quite familiar with, with the notable addition of a voting system. If you’ve ever visited Digg (or Reddit, etc.) you already know how this works: if you like an idea, you vote it up. If you hate an idea, vote it down. We’ll be keeping track of the popularity of an idea (the +/-) and also the volume (total number of votes). Authors that submit the most popular ideas will find themselves ranking on our leaderboard (which is really just for fun/bragging rights). It’s also important to note that we’re restricting idea submissions to one per person per day at launch, as we don’t want just a handful of people to “run the site.” We’d like to see ideas from as diverse a group of people as possible, and we think this rule will help.

You’ve probably got a few questions about how this all works, and for that we’ve made a pretty comprehensive FAQ that you’ll want to take a glance at before you get started. One thing I want to point out ahead of time is that yes, we’ll be reading these ideas. That said, we ask for your patience in advance; don’t expect Share to lead to overnight changes or actions. Moreover, if we can’t or don’t plan to enact certain ideas, we may jump in and tell you why not.

One final note – now that we’re providing a forum for suggestions (in addition to our long-established traditional Forums), it’s time to crack down on Blog comments. Starting today, moderation for off-topic comments will be much more strict.

That about does it – the PlayStation Social Media team has been working on Share for some time, and we hope you take the time to explore it. We’re quite excited to see what you have to say.

System now has access to top selling game.

Shinji Mikami wants to make 3D horror games -- you know, like avatar with zombies.

Attention all of you METAL GEAR SOLID fans! For those of you who’ve been crossing your fingers and toes in hopes of a MGS PSP pack similar to the one announced in Japan, your prayers have been officially answered. Starting on June 8 to coincide with the launch of the standalone game, the METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER PSP Entertainment Pack will soon allow you to relive the stealth-action, glory and honor of the METAL GEAR SOLID series.

The new METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER PSP Entertainment Pack will include:

• “Spirited Green” PSP-3000 system
• METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER game on UMD
• PlayStation Network downloadable voucher for special in-game content which will be unlocked at the start of the game
• PlayStation Network downloadable movie voucher (US residents only); title TBD
• 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo

As most of you already know, METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER marks the return of Hideo Kojima’s world-renowned stealth-action series. This highly-anticipated METAL GEAR SOLID sequel picks up where METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER for the PlayStation 2 leaves off. With an extensive amount of gameplay that will revolutionize previous notions of a handheld game experience, METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER introduces an exciting new storyline, stunning visuals and a console-quality gaming experience, all of which is only possible on the PSP platform.

The METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER PSP Entertainment Pack brings the same incredible value you’ve seen in previous PSP packages and introduces a never-before seen color to the PSP-3000 family. It will be available at major retailers in the United States and Canada for $199.99 (MSRP). Let us know your thoughts and enjoy!

There are a lot of totally awesome things in the God of War III launch trailer above: skydiving demigods, mountain-sized Titans, giant blue scorpions, and, of course, everyone's favorite chained antihero, Kratos -- to name a few. However, we'd like to specifically highlight the bit of PS3 marketing that ends all commercials for Sony-published games. This time around, it brags that the console only does "vengeance," "rage" and "everything," in that order.

We're imagining a scenario in which a Best Buy shopper asks a friendly sales clerk which gaming system would be the most appropriate for his kids ... and which one would be capable of "doing vengeance" on his in-laws.