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Energy Hook creator Jamie Fristrom wrote yesterday that the game would head to PlayStation consoles "first." It turns out the developer meant it would launch on PS4 and Vita simultaneously with PC, Mac and Linux, the platforms the game was originally funded on Kickstarter for.

Fristrom said as much to Rock Paper Shotgun, in that he "meant first of the consoles - I realize now that was really murky. [Day-one launch] will be concurrent with PC." The game earned $41,535 on Kickstarter in June 2013, and Fristrom's backers already have access to the game's PC beta version, which was updated in December.

Energy Hook will arrive this year, and bring along with it rooftop-to-rooftop swinging action in the same vein as the Activision game Fristrom helped design, Spider-Man 2.

Twice in the past 15 years, the skating genre has exploded, then imploded just as quickly as developers struggled to do anything new with it. So it's exciting to see OlliOlli, a skating game that's nothing like Tony Hawk or EA's Skate.Read more...

"It's been hell," Volume creator Mike Bithell says about working with his friend, concept artist Daz Watford, over the past six years.

"You love it," Watford replies, laughing.

It's clear that they both enjoy working together, even though they admit to having disparate views on minimalism, concept art details and caricature styles. Bithell calls it "fun fighting," when he and Watford go back on forth on a character or set design, until one of them gives in and admits the other was right all along.

Watford describes the art of Volume as reminiscent of classic American artist Norman Rockwell, realistic yet with details exaggerated in a cartoonish way. Bithell, on the other hand, notes the game's call-back to British heritage, with a skinny, smart protagonist instead of a hulking meat box, done up in monochromatic tones against a colorful environment. They both agree on the geometric roots of Volume's art - diamonds. Even the rivets in the metal beams of Volume's world are shaped as diamonds, rather than circles, Watford points out.

Bithell has an affinity for geometry, it seems, since his first game, Thomas Was Alone, revolves around shapes as characters. Volume is a different beast, with all of these diamond ideas incorporated into a vast, top-down, stealth universe with a distinct Robin Hood twist.

Announced earlier this week, Sony's PlayStation Now service will stream cloud-based games to Sony consoles, handhelds, TVs and more. PlayStation Access put together this lovely little primer covering the how, what and whens of PlayStation Now. Read more...

Through January 31st, trade in $20 or more of games, consoles, or accessories to Amazon and they'll give you a bonus $20 digital PSN credit, which, if you've got games you're planning on trading in anyway, and a Sony device, is a great deal. [Amazon]Read more...

The gorgeous white PlayStation Vita, previously only available as a standalone unit in Japan, has very quietly turned up for sale online in the US. No press releases from Sony, no announcement, nothing.Read more...

It looks like you'll need a DualShock 3 controller to use PlayStation Now game streaming on most devices, excluding the Vita and PlayStation 4. The newly-unveiled service will stream previous-gen PS games onto the PS4, PS3, Vita, and Bravia TVs, and further down the line other "internet-connected devices" such as smartphones and tablets.

Whenever it does reach tablets and smartphones, users will need a DualShock 3 to play, according to SCEA VP of Marketing John Koller.

"It needs to go through the DualShock," Koller told CVG. "The DualShock remains the key ingredient. So that controller experience needs to go perfectly. We didn't want to utilise touch screen or anything like that because the games are best played with a DualShock."

That said, as the above vid shows you can control PS Now on Vita using the handheld. We've double-checked that with a Sony representative, who also confirmed you can use a DualShock 4 to use it on PS4, while a DualShock 3 is needed on PS3 and with Bravia TVs.

PS Now is due for a full rollout in the summer, and it's coming to PS3 and PS4 first - a PS3 closed beta begins in the US towards the end of this month. You can either rent games individually or purchase a PS Now subscription, and in case you're wondering, you won't be able to stick a PS3 disc in a PS4 and unlock a game that way.

"Sony is saying no to that right now," is the negatory from Koller.

This week's PlayStation Store additions are marked by Klei Entertainment's Don't Starve, which is now available on PS4. The roguelike survival game from the makers of Mark of the Ninja is $14.99, but also happens to be one of two games that are free for PlayStation Plus members starting this week. The other PS Plus freebie is DmC: Devil May Cry for PS3.

Two games joined DmC on the PS3's digital storefront this week: Tiny Brains ($19.99) and Twisted Lands: Shadow Town ($11.99). Tiny Brains already launched on PS4, and the game is Cross-Buy-compatible for those with multiple Sony consoles in their household. StreetKix: Freestyle is also available on PSP for $11.99, discounted to $10.79 for PS Plus members.

Among PSN's new add-ons is the Illustrious Pirates Pack for both PS3 and PS4 versions of Assassin's Creed 4, which is $9.99 and free for season pass holders. This week also saw a handful of permanent pricing changes on PSN, including Saints Row 4 ($39.99), Need for Speed: Most Wanted ($19.99), Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 ($39.99) and the Artorias of the Abyss DLC for Dark Souls ($9.99).

Take a look at The Last of Us running on Vita through PlayStation Now, the Sony games streaming service that was announced this morning at CES. PlayStation Now will enter beta in January, with a full rollout in the US this summer on PS3, PS4 and Bravia TVs. Vita is scheduled for later on.

PlayStation Now will allow players to stream PlayStation games on a variety of internet-connected devices. According to Sony's launch plan, PlayStation Now will hit PlayStation devices first, then expand to other Sony products, and then hit third-party internet-capable devices. It enables cross-platform gaming, such as PS4 players entering games with PS3 players.

Finally, The Last of Us can make you feel awful, beautiful things from a tinier screen.

Finalists in the Independent Games Festival for 2014 have been announced, running the gamut of creativity and novelty that characterizes the indie games scene. This year in particular saw a record number of student submissions.

Simogo's Device 6 - one of our favorite games of 2013 - is up for an award in Excellence in Visual Art, on top of Excellence in Narrative and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Lucus Pope's Papers, Please is up for a bunch of awards too, including the Nuovo award as well as Excellence in Design and the Grand Prize.

The Stanley Parable, another one of our top selections of 2013, is a finalist in Excellence in Audio and the Grand Prize, while Brace Yourself Games' Crypt of the Necrodancer is nominated for Design. Klei's Don't Starve is up for Design and the Grand Prize, and Jason Roberts' Gorogoa received a nod for Visual Art.

This year's grand prize looks to be a heated competition between Papers, Please, The Stanley Parable, Don't Starve, Device 6, Jazzpunk and - deep breath - Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!" Winners for each category will be chosen on March 19, at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

For the full list of this year's nominees, along with each category's jury-selected honorable mentions, head past the break.

Sony President Andrew House has announced PlayStation Now, a new games streaming service that aims to bring older PlayStation games to a variety of PlayStation devices, including tablets, TVs and consoles - including PS3, PS4 and PS Vita.

PlayStation Now, which will stream games from the original PlayStation, PS2 and PS3 eras first on PS3 and PS4 before hitting other platforms, will kick off with a closed beta in the US at the end of January, with a full rollout planned for some time this summer. Users will be able to rent games individually or pay for a PlayStation Now subscription. Sony aims to eventually expand the service beyond Sony devices too.

The foundation for PlayStation Now is Gaikai, the games streaming service Sony purchased for $380 million in 2012. Gaikai is responsible for a variety of PS4 features, including cloud gaming, Remote Play, Try Anything and Instant Broadcast, and other cloud services expected to launch later this year.

Four different PlayStation Now games are on-hand at the Sony CES booth: The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, God of War: Ascension and Puppeteer.

PS Plus subscribers can download two different free games this week when the PlayStation Store updates tomorrow. Don't Starve will be up for grabs on PS4, while PS3 users can try DmC: Devil May Cry.

Don't Starve, from Klei Entertainment, is an open-world survival game where players must scrounge up supplies in order to survive as long as possible. DmC: Devil May Cry is a reboot of Capcom's popular action series from developer Ninja Theory.

Both games are part of a packed January for PlayStation Plus. Other free downloads coming throughout the month include BioShock Infinite, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and a pair of PS Vita games: brain training game Smart As... and yet another entry in Team17's long-running Worms series, Worms: Battle Islands.

Melissa Hutchison -- the voice of Clementine -- talks about Season 2 and what it's like recording those brutal scenes.

Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Rogue Legacy

Rogue Legacy is one of those games that comes out of nowhere. It's a name you see popping up on Twitter. Friends begin mentioning it in conversation. One day, you hop on Steam to download it - just to find out what everyone is talking about. You play for a few minutes. Minutes melt into hours, which soon dissolve into days.

Rogue Legacy borrows heavily from my 8- and 16-bit youth, injecting Ghosts N' Goblins sensibilities into a roguelike, action-heavy platformer. In short, it would be hard to target a game more directly at me. The deadly simple but deadly challenging gameplay, combined with and an ever-expanding tree of unlockable abilities and classes, is incredibly enticing (perhaps too enticing). The nail-biting encounters, the devious traps, huge bosses and evil fairy chests are enough to ensnare any old-school player.

It certainly ensnared me. I fell for Rogue Legacy, and I fell hard.

The robust story mode of DBZ: The Battle of Z is shown-off in this all-new footage.

Here's some fresh footage showing off the multiplayer aspects of the upcoming DBZ game, The Battle of Z.

Learn more about the Goku Edition of DBZ: The Battle of Z, which is coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita.

When DBZ: The Battle of Z comes to 360, PS3, and Vita, these are some of the enemies you can expect to face-off with.

Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

It's still hard to believe that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon exists, and perhaps that's why this standalone expansion is so great. Who'd have thought Ubisoft had it in them to greenlight a Far Cry 3 reskin that traded the 2012 game's colorful jungle and wicked undertones for 1980s neon, Michael Biehn, and dinosaurs shooting lasers out of their eyes?

Not only does it provide a wonderfully excessive version of Far Cry 3's open-island action, but with its dumb humor and loving pastiches Blood Dragon crams an impressive number of standout moments into one bite-sized package; this passage of play (spoiler warning!) is without doubt one of my favorite moments from any game in 2013.

A fan-led localization group has released a translation patch for Sega's PSP tactical RPG Valkyria Chronicles 3, making the game playable in English for the first time.

The patch requires a custom firmware-equipped PSP or PS Vita to play, along with a ripped UMD or digital PSN version of Valkyria Chronicles 3: Extra Edition. While the patch also works with the original version of Valkyria Chronicles 3, translators note that players will experience glitches during gameplay.

After localizing the first two entries in the series on the PlayStation 3 and PSP, Sega declined to release a translated version of Valkyria Chronicles 3 in North America and Europe, citing low sales. The digital version of Valkyria Chronicles 3 is currently on sale for 980 yen (approximately $9.50 USD) from the Japanese PlayStation Network, making it an ideal time for series die-hards to test out the new fan-produced localization.

Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. DmC: Devil May Cry

No game surprised me more in 2013 than DmC: Devil May Cry. That surprise has absolutely nothing to do with some diehard devotion to Capcom's internally developed quartet of games in the original series either. What surprised me was the fact that Ninja Theory finally made something that lived up to the promise of Enslaved and Heavenly Sword. Both games aimed high in trying to deliver bitchin' action and deeply human tales, but both missed the mark. In DmC, they finally nailed it.

Young Dante's fight against the demons is classic coming-of-age stuff. Rushing through Limbo feels like if J.D. Salinger wrote Dead Leaves. The combat, meanwhile, felt meatier than the limp button mashing of Enslaved, but more accessible than ball busters like Devil May Cry 3.

Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. DmC: Devil May Cry

No game surprised me more in 2013 than DmC: Devil May Cry. That surprise has absolutely nothing to do with some diehard devotion to Capcom's internally developed quartet of games in the original series either. What surprised me was the fact that Ninja Theory finally made something that lived up to the promise of Enslaved and Heavenly Sword. Both games aimed high in trying to deliver bitchin' action and deeply human tales, but both missed the mark. In DmC, they finally nailed it. Young Dante's fight against the demons is classic coming age of stuff. Rushing through Limbo feels like if J.D. Salinger wrote Dead Leaves. The combat, meanwhile, felt meatier than the limp button mashing of Enslaved but more accessible than ball busters like Devil May Cry 3.

Without a doubt, the biggest gaming phenomenon of Japan this year involved the game which had anime girls as battleships. It's too bad that most people outside of Japan can't play it.Read more...

Kazushige Nojima, a scenario writer for the Final Fantasy series, would love to see a Final Fantasy X-3 - and he says it may happen, if fans want it enough. Nojima is quoted in a book that launched with Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster in Japan this week, translated by Siliconera.

"If there's enough demand, then we may possibly see new developments," he says. "I would personally like to see a sequel like X-3."

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster will hit North American PS3s and Vitas on March 18 for $40, and European systems on March 21.

Originally slated to premiere as part of the PlayStation 4's February launch lineup in Japan, Kadokawa Game Studio's strategy-RPG Natural Doctrine has been delayed to March.

Dengeki Online reports that Natural Doctrine is now set to debut on March 19 for the PlayStation 4, PS3, and PS Vita. Natural Doctrine supports cross-save functionality across all platforms, and a special edition bundle will include a download code for the PS Vita port along with a PlayStation 4 retail copy of the game.

A North American release for Natural Doctrine has not been announced.

This is a screenshot for Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth for the PlayStation Vita. It's a game that probably won't make it to North America. It's not even due out in Japan until 2015. I'm so excited. Read more...

The EU PlayStation Store sales for all of January have been posted on the PS Blog. There are plenty of deals, but we'd point you toward the charming Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch for €9.89, with an additional 10 percent off for PS Plus subscribers.

It's that time of year again! No, not when we gather with our loved ones and take a break from working. It's Game of the Year season, meaning we've got a great excuse to look back on games we played in 2013 and tell everyone about our favorite experiences. The PlayStation Blog finished tallying up votes from its readers yesterday, announcing the Platinum through Bronze-worthy victors in a blog post.

In regards to their shiny new PS4s, readers most enjoyed their relaxing, sing-along journeys on Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag's Caribbean seas. The Last of Us won over the hearts of PS3 users, presumably for the knee-slappers that came out of Ellie's joke book. Vita fans were most enamored with Tearaway, Media Molecule's crafty platformer made out of paper. Lastly, Housemarque's voxel-jumbling shooter Resogun was voted as the year's best digital release.

Looking forward to 2014, fans are most anticipating Infamous: Second Son, the smoky super hero story based in Seattle, which you can expect on March 21. If you're curious about more than just the winners, the full post also lists runners up for each category as well as personal picks from the PlayStation Blog staff.

Mercenary Kings is due out on Steam and PS4 in early 2014, despite Tribute Games' attempts to finish it up before the end of the year. Tribute says Mercenary Kings is content complete right now, but the team wants to polish up all that running and gunning before launch, and it's taking a few extra months. The game's previous launch window was "this winter," which technically spills into 2014 anyway - still, Tribute is apologetic.

"Again, we'd like to thank you for your patience. We do not take lightly the privilege of having people be excited about the game and asking us about it every day on social media! We're working really hard to get it in the best possible shape and in your hands early 2014."

To offer a silver lining of the delay, Tribute reveals that Mercenary Kings will support remote play on Vita at launch. Remember, this is the studio behind Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Wizorb, and those both turned out pretty brilliantly, so we'll give Tribute a few more months to deliver a great game. This time.

Composer Eirik Suhrke isn't just the man behind some of the finest indie gaming soundtracks in recent memory, he's also generous enough to offer up those soundtracks at whatever price you'd like, just in time for the holidays.

A visit to Suhrke's Bandcamp page reveals that his discography includes the tunes from Spelunky, Ridiculous Fishing, Super Crate Box and more. Even better, you can own or gift any of these albums on a "pay what you want" basis. Running low on funds? Maybe kick a dollar toward Suhrke. Feeling more generous? Spend $20. Whatever the amount, it's entirely up to you, and as the 62-track Spelunky soundtrack demonstrates, you're getting a lot of quality video game music for your money.

Helpfully, Suhrke's albums are available in most major audio formats, including MP3, AAC and FLAC. According to his recent Twitter announcement of the sale, Suhrke's albums will remain at this floating price point through the end of the week.