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The Sackboys and girls will go portable when LittleBigPlanet PSP popits into retail November 17. The new travel-size adventure will bring the intuitive level-creation of its PS3 cousin, but it's a strictly solo escapade.For a fuller LBP experience this fall, there's always the "Game of the Year edition" on PS3.

Nothing strikes us as more appropriate subject matter for a trailer of Assassin's Creed 2 than a slow and calculated assassination. The subject in question for this particular video is Venetian "titan of industry" Emilio Barbario, a man whose assassination has been planned by the Venetian Thieves Guild for many years. Let's be honest though -- you're just looking to watch Ezio leap precariously around Venice and stab a bunch of dudes. It's fine! So were we! And he does just that. From chimneys, from ledges, from rooftops and flower baskets -- the man knows how to drop fools in style. Peep the walkthrough above and marvel in the frustration that you won't be able to touch the game until November 17.

Level 5's Yoshiaki Kusada recently spoke with Kotaku at the Tokyo Game Show about whether the developer was working on a new installment in its debut franchise, Dark Cloud. "At this moment we don't have a specific plan for a sequel in the Dark Cloud series," Kusada explained, but later added, "there are some who decided to join Level 5 because they love the Dark Cloud series. So, if requests from users should increase in the future, we would seriously consider making it." Level 5, please consider this our humble request: Please, please, please make Dark Cloud 3. Would it help if we went ahead and reviewed it? Fine, here we go: "Dark Cloud 3 is the greatest game ever created by anyone in the entire universe. Everyone should own it. In fact, failure to own it should be considered irresponsible. Its purchase should be federally mandated. If we did numerical scores, we'd give it a 68,439 out of 3." There's more than a few box quotes for you, Level 5. Now get to work. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

It's really difficult for us to write clever observations about any installments in Sony's "It Only Does Everything" ad campaign. For instance, the recent commercial for Uncharted 2 (posted after the jump) is already really funny -- trying to get a few cheap lulz at its expense would be a Herculean comedic task. Regardless, we'll give it the ol' college try: Man, that guy's girlfriend sure is confused, isn't she? She thinks it's a movie! What a silly misconception. Oh, look, she's got popcorn! Man, don't you hate it when you eat popcorn and a piece of shell gets stuck in the back of your throat? That's the worst, isn't it? You're all like "Hacccckkkkk! Caahllllkkk!" And it just won't come out! Yeah, we're done here.

Uncharted 2's release is only ten days away (unless you're Justin McElroy -- then you've already beaten it). Considering the Joystiq community's excitement for the game is palpable, we decided to showcase the various characters you'll encounter in the game. Thankfully, these mini-bios, provided by SCEA PR, are spoiler-free. Click to begin the tour!

Okay, fine -- Assassin's Creed's Lucy, the mousey assistant who helped operate the DNA-reading Animus device, was pretty boring. That blame can't really be placed upon the adorable shoulders of Kristen Bell, who voiced the character. She did the best she could with the ... it's not like she had a ... she's Veronica Mars! We can't speak ill of Veronica Mars! A recent batch of promotional photos have confirmed Bell's involvement in Assassin's Creed 2. She'll perform the role of Lucy again, and she'll perform it flawlessly, like everything else she's ever done in her entire life. Ever.

We can't be gaming all the time, despite our best efforts, and from time to time we'll actually take advantage of the movie-playing abilities on our gaming systems. JBO features our top picks for XBL, PSN, Netflix's Watch Instantly and Blu-ray each week. Recommendation of the Week: Jim Henson Double Feature: Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal (PlayStation 3 - Blu-ray disc, $27.95 MSRP per movie, cheaper at most retailers) Both of these classic Jim Henson movies have been released on DVD before, but this is their first time to Blu-ray, and the first time they've looked so good. Whether it's a magical world full of Skeksis, Gelflings and ultra-powerful crystals, or a magical world full of David Bowie, Bogs of Eternal Stenches and Jennifer Connelly (hubba hubba), the imagination that Jim Henson put into his movies was amazing, especially in a day and age before CGI. One interesting note is that when the Jim Henson Company sold the Muppets to Disney, they retained the rights to Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, amongst other properties. They've been working on another Dark Crystal film, and I sure hope it comes to theaters one day. As usual, we'll see you at the popcorn st -- well, actually, we won't see you at all. But you catch our drift. Plus, be sure to tell us what you'll be watching, or what you've seen recently that bowled you over.

Another season of TV shows means another set of promotional episodes on the PlayStation Store. The first episodes of two new NBC dramas can be downloaded for free on your PS3 and PSP for a limited time only: Mercy and Trauma. Both shows are medical dramas: the first focuses on nurses, while the second promises to be ER ... plus explosions.Critics weren't too kind on either program, but why take their word? Mercy will be available until 10/8 and Trauma will be available until 10/13. You can access this content by navigating to Video>TV Shows>Networks>NBC from the PlayStation Store.

Siliconera has gone through the effort of taking all the PlayStation Store's digitally distributed PSP game prices and comparing them to the current cost for a UMD hard copy on Amazon. The list is eye-opening, with the prices shifting -- sometimes dramatically -- between which retail outlet offers the better price. It should be noted that third-party retailers selling through Amazon, which are used for some of the prices in the list, can dramatically skew results. Sony had previously mentioned it seeks to maintain "pricing parity" between its digital and boxed titles. Go over to Siliconera to check out the full list. Oh, and if you'd like to see comparisons to retailers other than Amazon, why not offer your research services to them.

The troubled sleepers of Insomniac Games want to make sure you play the upcoming Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. The developers announced during their latest Full Moon Show podcast that the upcoming time-bending platformer will receive not one -- but two -- downloadable demos before the game's release. It certainly makes sense, considering how drastically different the traditional Ratchet gameplay is from the more puzzle-oriented Clank sections of the game.Both demos should hit the PlayStation Store before the game's upcoming late-October release date, giving players plenty of time to explore these free samplers.[Via PS3center]

What do we know about Japan? Even after those weird commercials, the PlayStation 3 has managed to outsell the Wii in Japan following the (what you might call) successful launch of the newly "encheapened" PS3 Slim. Japanese market research firm Enterbrain estimates that from August 31 through September 27 309,939 PS3s were sold; a new monthly record for the console. If you've been following our weekly Japanese Hardware Sales updates, this is no surprise to you. The usually dominant DSi and DS Lite combo sold a combined 297,060 units, which came alarmingly close to the Sony record, considering the 7,350 percent boost the PS3 saw post-Slim. It's notable that this Bloomberg report doesn't even list the Wii's monthly sales; however, with Nintendo's Wii at ¥20,000 (down from ¥25,000) starting this month, we imagine next month's chart will look a little different.

click to embiggen With the launch of Sony's PSP Go this week, the first download-only gaming device from a major console developer has finally arrived on the market. Given the profitability of the used games market and brick-and-mortar's relative stronghold on game sales, we asked Sony of America (SCEA) and Sony of Europe (SCEE) how they're going to get download-only games onto retailer shelves. SCEA's answer: PlayStation Network Game Cards.According to an SCEA rep, 10 titles (all of which can be found after the break) will be available "in North America at select retailers" and should be available as of today. Unfortunately for retailers across the pond, no such luck -- at very least in the UK. An SCEE rep told Joystiq, "We don't have any plans for vouchers/gift cards like this ... at the moment we are only selling the PSN vouchers of £20 and £50 for the UK," though that isn't to say PSN Game Cards will never arrive on European shores. At least for now it seems that SCEA will be keeping a foothold in retail with its download-only titles (and even some UMD-based titles now available as downloads) through these game vouchers. UK retailers ... well ... at least people will be coming in for the PSP-3000, right?

You know what? Screw you, Ben Heck. Every time you come around, you bring these awesome, portable-ized consoles with you. From your corner of the internet, you wave these scintillating creations under our noses, then withdraw them from our lives. Sure, occasionally you'll provide us with tutorials to re-create your projects, but we don't possess your otherworldly, Forge-esque proclivity for technology. We are but simple folks whom you've chosen to tease at your leisure with glimpses of the future. It's just mean. You're a mean guy. Oh, but your most recent creation -- a laptop built around a PS3 Slim (demoed in a video after the jump) -- is pretty remarkable. Rarely do these modified Frankenconsoles look this good. We can't wait to get our hands on ... Aw, damn it.

Here we go again: A Chilean advertisement for PS3, created by major ad firm BBDO, has become the source of a great deal of controversy for showing a modern day gamer giving a blood transfusion ... to a Nazi! The National Socialist in question is intended to be Erwin Rommel, a German field marshal whose humane treatment of captive soldiers and refusal to kill Jewish civilians made him a fairly respected military figure -- but we doubt the casual observer's initial reaction to the ad goes much further than, "Oh gawd, is that a ... swastika!" Then again, after being accused of promoting racism and endorsing, nay, providing instructions on suicide, accusations of harboring Nazi sympathies is kind of par for the course for Sony's PlayStation advertising. Check out the full advertisement -- as well as a similar, equally perplexing ad depicting a gamer giving his still-beating heart to Joan of Arc -- after the jump. (By the way, we'll be patrolling comments on this post for any invocation of Godwin's Law. Keep it civil, gang.) Update: Apparently, BBDO Chile created these ads to submit to a number of ad design competitions and festivals, and received no official endorsement or approval from Sony. BBDO Chile's president has issued an apology for the use of Sony's branding without its permission. His full statement can be found after the jump. [Via Engadget]

The trouble started with Uncharted and has now reportedly grown to encompass all manner of media fed into the PlayStation 3 disc drive. The comments section of PlayStiaton Blog's Firmware 3.01 announcement has been overwhelmed by user reports of disc drive errors since Firmware 3.00 and 3.01 were released; most commonly, read errors reportedly occur when running Blu-ray games or movies, but in some alleged cases plain old DVDs are not working either.Eurogamer has reached Sony for comment, and the console manufacturer has disavowed responsibility for the apparent drive failure, declaring it "not an issue with the firmware." In other words, corresponding repair costs are currently placed squarely on the shoulders of the affected consumers.We will continue to follow this story for updates. Stay tuned.

We hope you've been regularly exercising your ocular muscles -- they'll need to be pretty beefy to make it through this weeks European PSN update. There's a smattering of stuff that's been added for the PS3, the most notable of which being Watchmen costumes in LittleBigPlanet, but the star of this week's show is the PSP Go. Check out the list after the jump for a full list of downloadable titles now available for the platform. Choose your platform to view the corresponding release list: (Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)

Click image to deke into our gallery Like Capcom before it, EA Sports now has its own dedicated section of the PlayStation Store. It's not changing the game, but simply following the same format as the Capcom section (with custom background and list of wares). Check out some more screens in our gallery below:

For a couple days now, we've been attempting to obtain an official list of the 200+ Game Crazy locations closing down this month. As we continue requesting that list from corporate, we're going to try and organize a list from you fine folks out there. Many have already been sending us locations that are closing and we appreciate it. We're going to try and make the process a tiny bit more streamlined: Go to the Game Crazy store locator. Copy the address of the closing store. (example: 7841 MALL RD, FLORENCE, KY 41042) Send it to our tips line with the subject "Game Crazy list" (using hyperlink will autofill). We'll begin organizing a list and post it after the break as soon as we can.Update: Began closing list. Added information about Modern Warfare 2 prestige pre-orders, general pre-orders and trade credits.