We hope you had a great time celebrating the holidays with family and friends. We have some great news to keep the holiday cheer coming. What better way to rejoice in the upcoming New Year than to get great deals on some of your favorite PS3 accessories? Starting today through January 21st, you can check out our new “Play Days” promotion at most of the major retailers. Play Days offers you significant savings on selected PS3 accessories at up to 50 percent off.
The PS3 system provides a great entertainment experience on its own, with high-definition gaming and other great features like video streaming and access to a huge library of movies, games, and shows via the PlayStation Network, but PS3 accessories add another great way to enhance your gaming and entertainment experience.
The following PS3 accessories will be available as part of the Play Days promotion:
PlayStation Move accessories that allow you to be part of the fun though a completely immersive and realistic motion gaming experience.
Regular MSRP Promotional MSRP Sports Champions and Deadmund’s Quest Bundle $99.99 $79.99 LittleBigPlanet Move Bundle $129.99 $99.99 PlayStation Move Motion Controller $49.99 $39.99 PlayStation Move Navigation Controller $29.99 $19.99 PlayStation Move Sharp Shooter $39.99 $19.99 PlayStation Move Charging Station $29.99 $19.99Audio accessories that deliver explosive sound and crystal clear voice chat capabilities giving you an advantage in multiplayer games.
Regular MSRP Promotional MSRP Wireless Stereo Headset $99.99 $89.99 Bluetooth Headset – Black $49.99 $39.99Accessories to enhance your 3D gaming and Blu-ray movie experience.
Regular MSRP Promotional MSRP Media/Blu-ray Disc Remote Control $24.99 $19.99 PlayStation 3D Glasses $69.99 $49.99 HDMI Cable – 6.5ft $29.99 $19.99DualShock 3 accessories that keep your controllers ready for action and simplify text input.
Regular MSRP Promotional MSRP DualShock 3 Charging Station $24.99 $19.99 Wireless Keypad $69.99 $49.99
Below you will find a list of participating retailers:
We’re very excited to deliver even more savings to you this holiday season. Which accessory are you looking forward to playing with?
For exact promotional prices, please check at the participating retail stores.
One of the more memorable action games I’ve played this year is a game uses the PlayStation Move motion controller to paint a symphony of destruction. Last seen at the E3 2010 PlayStation press conference, Sorcery captured the imaginations of PS3 owners while remaining tantalizingly out of reach. At last week’s PlayStation media showcase in New York City, I was finally allowed to go hands-on with Sorcery and speak with its design director, Brian Upton, who stated that the game is on-track to release this spring.
Sorcery is running on a heavily modified version of the Unreal engine, and the art direction has progressed by leaps and bounds since its last showing. The game now skews a bit older, with nastier monster designs and edgier spellcasting combat. Watch the video, read our full Q&A, then let us know what you think of Sorcery in the comments!
PlayStation.Blog: I’ll cut to the chase: Why have we had to wait so long to see Sorcery again?
Brian Upton, design director, Sorcery: Coming out of E3, we knew there were some things we weren’t happy with. We really wanted to re-tool the game’s look, its world. We had the gameplay we wanted, but it just wasn’t ready for public consumption.
PSB: Tell me a bit about the character and quest. What’s changed since the original debut?
BU: The hero is Finn, he’s a sorcerer’s apprentice and a real hothead: he’s always trying to learn things he’s not ready to learn yet. When the game starts, your master’s magical talking cat, Erline, dares Finn into venturing into the realm of the dead. Finn, being the guy he is, can’t resist.
In the realm of the dead, you accidentally unleash something very, very bad. The consequences are dire for you and the entire world, so the quest is to undo the trouble you’ve caused. You also begin to realize the Erline is much more than a magical talking cat: she’s central to the whole problem that you’ve created. You’re cast somewhat in the role of Erline’s protector, you’re trying to get her from the human world to the heart of the faerie world to fix this problem.
PSB: Once I got my hands on Sorcery, I was particularly surprised by the intensity of the combat. What does spellcasting bring to combat?
BU: We noticed that with a lot of motion-controlled games, it works a bit like Simon Says: you’re told to do something and you do it. But that’s not how action games work. Action games let you be creative, to craft your own solutions to the problems you face. So we wanted a game that taught you easy gestures, which became tools that you can use in combat. You can use basic spells in a variety of ways, but you can also layer them on top of each other to create more complex and powerful spell effects.
PSB: I noticed that when I combined the cyclone spell with the fire wall…
BU: Yeah, the Firenado is great. It’s one of the more powerful spells in the game. But there are lots of clever ways to use it: you can pick an enemy up with a cyclone and push it through a campfire to create a Firenado. Or you can cast a fire wall, shoot arcane bolts through it to create fire bolts, and aim them at a whirlwind to suck your enemy in and incinerate him. There’s a whole array of ways to inflict damage in this game.
PSB: Tell me about Sorcery’s approach to motion controls. What’s your philosophy?
BU: We wanted something very accessible, something you can pick up quickly. The very first spell you learn, arcane bolt, is very simple to use because you just flick it forward. It’s like throwing stuff at your enemy. As you keep using it, you start to realize its depth: you can curve bolts and arc bolts around obstacles. When you start using ice magic, you can slow down enemies, or freeze them repeatedly and smash them with another spell.
PSB: How do the gesture-based puzzles fit into Sorcery?
BU: We don’t want you fighting all the time, partly because it’s a gesture-based game and you’d get tired. So we try to mix up the intense combat with puzzles to solve. The gestures are pretty simple: You mend things, move them around. It’s less a question of figuring out how to do something; you might see something you can get on top of, and you’ll wonder how you can get up there, what you can rearrange. They aren’t intense brainteasers, but it does change the pace in the overall game.
PSB: I noticed that Sorcery employs an automated camera, a bit like God of War. How does it work and why did you take this approach?
BU: We want to keep it simple: If you have to do camera maintenance all the time, it really sucks. We’re not a shooter, but we do learn a lot of lessons from shooters. In a shooter, on a basic level, you want to establish an interesting shooting gallery and let players be absorbed in it. When you encounter a new group of cameras, the auto-camera will shift to focus on them. It’s a function of trying to streamline the game as much as possible.
PSB: Will there be any RPG elements? Will Finn be able to upgrade his abilities over the course of the game?
BU: There’s an alchemy system. As you travel through the world, you’ll discover magical ingredients and you can use them to research new magical potions. There are roughly 56 magical potions in all, and every time you drink one, it gives you a permanent upgrade. You’ll have about a dozen opportunities to do it, so these potions basically become your build tree, your stats, the way you customize Finn. Do you boost your health or your ice powers? Or maybe make your shield bash more damaging?
PSB: Is Sorcery a shooter? And if not, what is it?
BU: As a designer, I used a lot of the principles of shooter design. I have a shooter background: I worked on Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. Coming from that shooter background, I learned a lot of lessons about how to build an encounter. But Sorcery is not a shooter. Your fire rate is much lower, you have to deal with Mana limitations, you can curve and arc your shots…we used shooter gameplay as a touchstone, but then we took it way beyond what shooters do.
PSB: Earlier you mentioned a shift in the game’s tone since E3 2010. Could you shed any light on that?
BU: What we showed at E3 was largely organized around a dungeon crawl, and we realized we didn’t want that. We wanted a full-blown fantasy world, not a series of tunnels. A lot of our re-tooling involved moving the action gameplay into a more free-flowing space. The E3 version also had a much younger hero, and the enemies were a lot more cartoonish. We though, “you know, we have a game here that would appeal to a hardcore PlayStation gamer…and it looks a little bit like Spyro!” [laughs] We didn’t want people to get the wrong impression, so we wanted to bring the visuals in-line with the gameplay.
The SOCOM franchise is a long and storied one, and today we’re very happy to announce that we’re revisiting its past and bringing back what is perhaps the series’ most popular mode, “Demolition”. Existing owners of SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs will be able to download the Demolition Pack for $9.99 with today’s PlayStation Store publish, which brings with it not only the Demolition competitive multiplayer game type but new maps, weapons and character skins as well.
As a special promotional bonus starting tomorrow, new purchasers of SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs who buy the game at select retail partners will receive a free voucher for the Demolition Pack. When you buy the game new from Amazon, Best Buy or GameStop in the US or EB Games in Canada, be sure to ask for your free Demolition Pack code and then simply redeem the voucher on the PlayStation Network to download the pack at no additional charge. With SOCOM 4 now available at many retailers for $39.99 and with codes for both the Demolition Pack and SOCOM Pro Pack included for free, there’s no better time to pick up the game.
In “Demolition”, each team vies for control of a bomb placed on the map. Once a team grabs the bomb, they need to carry it into the opposing team’s base, arm the bomb and defend it until the base is destroyed.
The Demolition Pack includes four new maps, two of which are returning classics — “Bitter Jungle” and “Ruins”. All four of these maps support not only the Demolition game type but many of the retail competitive modes as well. Additionally, six of the existing maps will support the Demolition game type, making for 10 total Demolition maps. Additionally, the Demolition Pack also includes two new weapons, the HS-C3 and 552, as well as six new multiplayer skins to choose from.
Demotion Pack Details
Included Maps:
“Departure” – Navigate trains and tunnels in this subway station as you hunt down the enemy.
“Overflow” – Both distanced and close-quarters combat take place around a massive dam.
“Bitter Jungle” – Get out of the city and into the jungle in this classic SOCOM environment.
“Ruins” – Do battle in this classic SOCOM map’s ancient ruins.
Included Weapons:
HS-C3 – Low rate of fire but above average damage and very high accuracy.
552 – Average damage and firing rate, but very accurate when standing still.
Included Character Skins:
Specter
Jester
Bastion
Ahmed
Dimitri
Steiner
But that’s not all!
In two weeks we’ll also be expanding SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs’ cooperative mode with the new Evac Co-op Pack. Available November 1st for $7.99, the Evac Co-op Pack will introduce the “Evac” cooperative mode and include a new cooperative map, two new weapons and six additional character skins.
In “Evac”, players are caught behind enemy lines and must fight their way out alive. Your pick-up vehicle is on-route to a designated location, and it’s up to you to fight your way there and defend the point until your exit arrives.
“Evac” works across the original six cooperative missions as well as the new “Onslaught” location included in this pack. “Onslaught” also supports the original “Espionage” and “Takedown” cooperative modes.
Evac Co-op Pack Details
Included Weapons:
AM50 – It doesn’t carry many rounds and it’s slow to fire, but the AM50 will kill with a single shot anywhere on an opponent’s body.
M82A1A – A very low firing rate and lower than average ammo capacity is offset by the M82A1A’s ability to take down an opponent with a single round.
Included Character Skins:
Hunter
Python
Mystic
Jalil
Nasir
Renzo
It’s with a lot of pleasure that I write today’s post. It has been nearly three years since you last played Resistance 2, and in a studio where we keep up a game-a-year schedule, that seems like a very long time to wait. I’m very happy to announce the release of Resistance 3 in North America today, as well as the release across Europe over the next 2-3 days. The team here has poured three years of their lives into bringing you the heroic survival of Joseph Capelli on his cross-country trip to New York.
This brutal alternate 1957 America is our most polished take on the Resistance universe yet. Along the way, you’ll see the dust storm from a Chimeran Terraformer, a flooded town, young rebels fighting to take back St. Louis from the Chimera, haunted mine towns and a snow packed New York City. To make it even better, you can experience the whole game in 2-player co-op, either split-screen or online. Still not sold? Check out the launch trailer –which gives you the first-ever glimpse at the 12th and final R3 weapon: The Cryogun:
For those of you who love multiplayer, Resistance 3 features our most focused experience yet, letting you join fifteen other players in battles located in maps across the world. Our theme for Resistance 3 MP was to create something you could only see in Resistance. The 60-level progression and our new ability and attribute system allows you to create a loadout exactly to your play style, and further establishes our “only in Resistance” theme. You’ve seen two great maps in the beta, Wales (Seaside) and Bogota (Trainyard), and two more great ones at PAX and the Insomniac Community Day (Republic of Chad and Australia). There’s another 8 maps we’ve never shown before, including a snow-packed map and one with some great Chimeran Architecture. We have 4v4 and 2v2 maps as well. In short, we believe that R3 MP is a fully-featured experience.
For those of you excited about playing with PlayStation Move or the Sharpshooter, Resistance 3 fully supports both. Don’t have Move yet? No problem, the Doomsday Edition contains Resistance 3, the PlayStation Eye, a PS Move Controller, a Nav Controller and a Sharpshooter. Everything you need to repel the Chimeran invasion with the accurate control and aiming precision that Move brings you. Got a 3DTV? You’ll be excited to know the game supports stereoscopic 3D as well.
That said, we aren’t resting. Our team is also happy to reveal the first DLC we will have ready to release on October 4th. The Survival Pack brings you a brand new game mode: Invasion. Invasion requires both teams to divide resources to simultaneously own multiple control points on the map. As you hold the nodes, you’ll receive more points. It hearkens back to the wonderful balance in Resistance: Fall of Man of knowing when to send troops on the offensive, and when to hold other players back. In addition to the Invasion mode, your $3.99 gets you four new skins of the various Survivors in the game, as well as a static XMB theme. Also on October 4th, we will release a patch for ALL players that will bring two new maps with it as well.
We’re very excited to get Resistance 3 into your hands this week. We look forward to playing MP online with you soon!
As we lead up to Resistance 3’s launch this Tuesday, we wanted to start your holiday weekend right with the two television commercials you will be seeing for Resistance 3 over the next few weeks. These commercials will be airing during NFL games and my personal favorite, college football, as well as series premieres of some of the biggest shows on TV.
Why two commercials, you ask? Well, we have two great approaches for Resistance 3. One involves the story of Joseph Capelli’s journey. In some ways this ties us back to the very first live-action prologue trailer that showed us the first glimpse of Resistance 3’s grim new world. Here you get a glimpse of the emotions and story that make up our game. We really feel like this ad wonderfully captures and encapsulates Resistance 3. Take a look:
Hope you liked that commercial and it got you pumped for the game’s launch. That said, what’s a huge PS3 exclusive without a Kevin Butler commercial? Maybe it’s best if you just watch.
So what do you think? Keep your eyes peeled as you watch TV over the next couple of weeks to spot these ads in the wild!
One other item I wanted to point out for our New York readers, the PlayStation Lounge in New York City will have the first seven chapters of Resistance 3 on-hand for you to go try out over the holiday weekend from 1:00 to 4:00pm Eastern Time on Saturday. Furthermore, they also have a limited quantity of the awesome Olly Moss posters that you’ve see us give away. Go check it out to get a taste of what you’ll be playing on September 6th!
That’s all for now – let us know what you think of the commercials in the comments below!
Not content with simply revealing the first exclusive level for the PS3 release of The House of the Dead: OVERKILL – Extended Cut, I’m back to give you the scoop on the second one too. Set in the cosy confines of an slaughterhouse taken over by a meaty disease of sorts, Creeping Flesh delivers you more of the additional awesome content we’ve lovingly added to the extended, and definitive, edition of OVERKILL.
We pick up the story with Varla and Candy again, and this time circumstances lead them to the local slaughterhouse. I’m not going to spoil any of the story or the details around what leads them there, but let’s just say it’s the standard House of the Dead fare; there are guns, motives of revenge and mutants galore, all wrapped up with grindhouse styling.
As you can see from the above image, there is something of a meaty infestation starting to take hold inside the building, and internally we’ve affectionately referred to this as the meat wall (there is also a meat tunnel later in the level, so that’s something to look forward to). Varla and Candy find themselves fighting amongst this meat wall, and as they proceed through the ‘meat factory’ they’ll be forced to take action against the new mutants shown above too. These mutants take the expression ‘meat shield’ to a new level, seeing as the additional flesh they’re lugging around makes them slightly more impervious to gunfire than your standard mutants.
I also wanted to give you a sneak peak at the level boss, which is one of the most horrid creations I’ve ever seen in a House of the Dead title. Meat Katie is a savage hybrid of mutant and…cow. Yes, cow. I can only imagine where all that anger has come from, but my personal belief is that she’s harnessing the powers of all the lost cow souls from within the slaughterhouse. Don’t mock, you come up with better. J
Anyway, Meat Katie is armed with a massive cleaver, and has a nasty habit of flinging large chunks of meat at her intended victims; I imagine Varla and Candy have had plenty of practice avoiding unwanted meat, so it’s probably not too much of an issue for them. In other words, you’re going to need good reflexes, steady aim, and perseverance, because this melee monster is going to take a lot of bullets until she’s beaten.
I hope this serves to only get you more excited about this exclusive PlayStation Move title, and confirm just how much effort the team at Headstrong have put into making the game even more brilliant this time round. You’re in for a meaty treat later this year when The House of the Dead: OVERKILL – Extended Cut fires its way onto North American shelves October 25, 2011.
