We know you probably shut your brain off after reading the words "PlayStation Lounge," assuming it was just a newly opened Home Space -- fortunately, that's not the case. Sony announced that tomorrow afternoon, it will turn the ground floor of its HQ in New York into the aforementioned Lounge, where shoppers can play demos of upcoming PS3 and PSP games, or test out currently available products like PlayStation Move.
Tomorrow's opening day festivities will see attendees shmoozing with a man-sized Sackboy, taking part in raffles for PlayStation Move bundles and drinking expensive martinis while enjoying a live performance from Robert Goulet. Actually, we made that last thing up, but what kind of a "Lounge" would it be if that option wasn't made available?
Believe it or not, yet another Sonic game has been leaked to the public before it’s official release. Sonic Colors is the third Sonic title in 13 months to see an illegal rip hit the internet. I don’t know what it is about Sonic games…I guess software pirates love them!
On the brighter side [...]
#clips
Witness a musical celebration of the life of Falstad Wildhammer, courtesy of Twenty First Records and the world's greatest World of Warcraft fan. More »
Cue that one sad song ...
During his keynote speech at the IGDA Leadership Forum, THQ wunderkind Danny Bilson revealed some info on Darksiders 2, the sequel to Joe Mad's inspired take on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Instead of taking up the mantle of War again, the sequel will offer a new playable character -- one of the other three horsemen of the apocalypse, perhaps?
"When we do the Darksiders sequel, it'll be a different character and take place simultaneously to the other story," Bilson said. "There's only one apocalypse -- I couldn't very well have four different apocalypses, one for each rider. It has some new mechanics and some very robust features that differentiate it a lot and grow it from the first game because you have to build on the first one, you can't repeat it. I think that's very important in franchise-building."
It tied into the rest of the keynote, which revolved around Bilson and THQ's take on sequels and how to approach them when trying to create franchises. Look for our full write-up of Bilson's candid keynote speech soon.
#xbox360
The Kinect is pretty good, but who is satisfied with "pretty good"? Having spent many days with Kinect, I've got five requests for how Microsoft could improve this thing. More »
Luke and Layton have won the hearts of gamers over all around the world, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop adventuring anytime soon. With more entries yet to be localized, a new outing for the 3DS and a crossover with a famous attorney, Layton and Luke are set to become bigger [...]
#clips
The finer points of the next Tekken were explained in-depth by producer Katsuhiro Harada this weekend, revealing a handful of returning characters and all-new ways to beat the crap out of people wearing exotic cat masks. More »
Alongside today's news that Gran Turismo 5 retail discs have begun popping up in Europe comes a video detailing the game's entire Trophy list, minus three "Hidden" Trophies. Czech site Konzolista has the whole shebang, backed up by a clip found on GT Planet.
Rather than detailing the Trophies, we're gonna leave it to you to choose -- the clip has been embedded after the break and contains potential spoilers (albeit, seemingly minor ones). You've been warned!
If you were unsatisfied by voice actor David Bateson's kind-of-but-not-really confirmation that a new installment of the Hitman franchise was in the works, perhaps you'll be won over by some additional, recently uncovered evidence. IO Interactive's Rasmus Hoejengaard, Damien Simper and Theo Engell-Nielsen all listed Hitman 5 on their LinkedIn resumes, the latter of which includes a 2011 launch window for the unannounced title.
We're not sure what stronger evidence we could find for the project's existence, aside from, like, time traveling into the future and bringing back a finished copy of the game. Can anyone get on that?
#event
There are more things to do in New York City than go to the Nintendo store to watch speedruns. Starting tomorrow, you can go to the revamped PlayStation store. All we need after that is a Dreamcast store, right? More »
In general, I don't believe in factoring price into an evaluation of a game's quality. The artistic and entertainment value of a game is completely separate from its, you know, value. But there was basically never a point during my time with FlingSmash that I wasn't thinking about how it was about right at $10 -- which, if you take out the $40 that a Wii Remote Plus would cost on its own, is its effective cost.
In my defense, Nintendo must have looked at it the same way, since it is only selling the game in bundles with controllers, despite all indication that it was originally conceived as a "normal" retail game (it's been in development at least since October of 2008, when it was announced at Nintendo's media summit, and the E3-era box art showed it being sold separately from the MotionPlus). The production values are nice, but it bears the design hallmarks you'd expect from a budget game: it's extremely brief (like three hours), it's shallow, and it's built around one reasonably insane idea. Luckily, FlingSmash falls on the "stupid fun" side of the superficiality continuum I've just invented.
#art
What's the sweetest meat of Mario's eternal rival, Bowser? Artist Jude Buffum breaks down the choicest cuts of Nintendo villains Bowser, Ganon, Blooper and more in a new series of meat diagrams that video game butchers would swear by. More »
