via Computer and Video Games


CVG can confirm that the Overlord series, a Pikmin-influenced management adventure previously only on 360 and PC, will be making its debut on PS3 this summer with Overlord: Raising Hell.

Raising Hell will feature the full Overlord game that released on 360 last year, as well as all of the download content that has been released to date, all on one Blu-ray disc.

You play as supposedly the most evil being on the planet - who needs some little Gremlin-like dudes, called Minions, to help him out.

Clearly not a plot to be taken too seriously, command your Minions in gameplay uncannily similar to Nintendo's Pikmin games, with Minions in different colours each one with different weaknesses and abilities.


"Summer" is as specific a release date as Codemasters offers at the moment. First exclusive PS3 screens are below.


Screenshots ...

via Eurogamer


It will be possible to export TV recordings made with PS3's forthcoming digital TV receiver in a standard file format and store them anywhere you like, Sony explained today.

Mark Bunting, a producer at Sony's Cambridge Studio, which is working on the software for the PlayTV device, showed how the MPEG-2 video files could be moved from the PlayTV interface to the PS3's home menu.

From there, they can be moved to another storage device such as a memory stick, backup hard drive or PC. There is no copy protection in place and no time limit on how long the recording can be kept. Asked what you could do with the file Bunting said: "Anything you like, really, as long as you do it legally. It's in its raw format."

He was no doubt alluding to the piracy of TV programmes that is currently rampant on BitTorrent peer-to-peer networks. It seems that there will be nothing to stop PlayTV acting as a source of these recordings, as can any PC TV tuner.

"We've talked to our legal department about it," said Bunting. "All we're doing is moving it out of PlayTV and to the cross-media bar as if it was any other recording. So hopefully users won't do stuff they shouldn't do with it.

"If I'm prohibited from getting the recording off and storing it somewhere else because some other dude is making money out of selling it, then I'd rather they brought the law in to catch those people," he added.

We'll be posting full details about PlayTV soon - although sadly, these still will not include a price or release date for the device, which are still under wraps. ...

via Kotaku


Often rumored and much desired, Doug Allen from the IGN Blogs has reportedly gotten his hands on the analog controls for Factor 5's much-maligned PlayStation 3 game Lair, and claims they are the bomb - quite possibly the bomb diggity.


Sounds good to me, though since this is just a guy in a blog post we're going to have to chalk this up as a rumor right now. Why no official confirmation yet? With all the new stuff to look at, who is going to drop by the Lair kiosk? ...

via Eurogamer


Portal end-credits song "Still Alive" (oh come on, you must know that by now) is set to join the ranks of downloadable tracks in Rock Band.

At the end of a set by Still Alive writer Jonathan Coulton at the Valve GDC party the other night, Harmonix's Sean Baptiste and Alex Rigopulos took the stage for a finale and played it for the crowd.

According to Baptiste's blog entry, which catalogues the event, this went down rather well.

"It will be made available as DLC at a future data. When I know when I'll let you know," he wrote. (Well, he used capslock, but it's much too early in the morning for that.)

Elsewhere, one of Portal's designers, Kim Swift, added to the growing speculation about Portal's future in an interview with G4TV (thanks Shacknews).

She even used the words "Portal 2", claiming that Valve's omnipotent marketing VP Doug Lombardi had revealed it recently.

This may have been a reference to his recent comments in a Eurogamer interview that "There'll be more Portal, for sure." We like to think so anyway. It gives us an inflated sense of worth.

But, to bring it all back to where we were, Portal is available now as part of The Orange Box on PS3, 360 and PC (or as a separate download on Steam), while Rock Band is available in the US for PS3 and 360 with a European release set for this year. ...

via Games Industry


The creative director of Sony's Home project has told GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive interview to be published in full next week that he believes the PlayStation 3 virtual world platform is the "best-looking" and most "user-friendly" multiplayer experience he's seen so far.

Talking on a recent trip to Monaco for the Imagina conference, Ron Festejo explained his feeling that other virtual worlds, such as Second Life, were garish, while other online experiences were simply too hardcore for most people.

"From my point of view, looking at Second Life - because it has been mentioned a lot in the same paragraph as Home, and people make that comparison - I'm amazed at how many people go on there," he said.

He went on to discuss the importance of user-interfaces, detailed the issues he'd had interacting with others in Second Life, and also referenced other online titles that don't make it easy for inexperienced players to get involved with them.

"John [Venables, Home's lead artist] said in a presentation that for a lot of people, their first experience of online play is to 'log on…get shot in the face, log on…get shot in the face' and actually that's true - people tend to not go into that because of those experiences," he explained.

"Personally, looking at other models, a lot of them are too hardcore, a lot of them are garish in the way they look. I think what we've done with Home is have the best-looking multiplayer world - and actually the most user-friendly that I've seen as well.

"We don't have anything in there that's appealing to that kind of geeky audience that you might find in Second Life."

And Venables, who's worked on the Home project since its first concept on the PlayStation 2, agreed that it's important for Sony's virtual world experience to keep a high "quality bar", but pointed out that the Second Life creators, Linden Lab, had a more difficult proposition in terms of PC compatibility.

"Essentially, with the Second Life example - and partly the disparity of the graphics, because you have to cater for the lowest-end PC whereas on the PlayStation 3 it's a level playing-field - with something so organic as Home, with features being added, it's difficult to set that benchmark of how many polygons to throw around, and how many to save for future things that we may or may not want to do," he said.

"I think the PS3 platform has given us an advantage in terms of keeping a polished look, and it not to look like Second Life. I don't want to dis Second Life, obviously they've been successful and they have to cater for people with old Pentium IIs and whatever, so I can understand why it looks the way it does.

"So it's not to criticise them, it's just that as a PlayStation 3 online space it was very important that there is a quality bar that we want to hit."

PlayStation Home is the forthcoming multiplayer online environment that will serve as an introduction to new content as well as a space for users to network and socialise.

It will be introduced to more PlayStation 3 users over time as a free download, although no specific date has yet been announced for the end of the current beta phase, which has so far led to some positive changes. ...

via Games Industry


Scott Steinberg, Sony Computer Entertainment America's VP of product marketing, has told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes the PlayStation 3 is the smart choice for any small developer wanting to get their games to an online audience.

Responding to the Microsoft keynote at the Game Developers Conference, Steinberg pointed to the section of the talk from Chris Satchell on the XNA platform, and explained: "it was interesting in the sense that what they were talking about we've sort of been doing for the last couple of years with PSN and giving smaller, start-up, entrepreneurial developers the chance to get in and make their games available on the PSN."

He went on to note that the online services for the PlayStation 3 were free to consumers, whereas to experience full functionality on the Xbox 360 users were required to pay for a Gold membership.


Steinberg also went on to say that, in the scheme of things - taking into account the ten year plan for the PS3 - he believed that Sony could be very confident about the forthcoming year.

"The importance of 2008…We're exactly where we want to be chessboard-wise heading into 2008."

In the full interview, which is available now, Steinberg also touches on the Blu-ray situation and his perception of the long-term viability of physical media, as well as the PS3's software line-up for 2008. ...

via Computer and Video Games


The floodgates are well and truly open at Rockstar's mammoth GTA IV PR fortress, as nine new screenshots and two character videos appear in another official website update.

It's out in little over two months time (for real this time), with initial hands-on reports just starting to emerge in games magazines worldwide (look for our own very soon).

And if you're struggling to decide which version to get, Microsoft has just confirmed that the first downloadable "episode", Grand Theft Auto IV: Episode One, will be coming this August exclusively to Xbox 360. That's rumoured to have cost Microsoft a fair few pennies.


Screenshots ...

via Computer and Video Games


Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has claimed the Wii will outsell the Xbox 360 in America in June.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Reggie said: "The Wii will surpass the Xbox 360 in total U.S. sales by June, helped by video-game titles including Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

According to NPD's January sales figures, the Xbox 360 leads the American market by just under two million units. The Wii outsold the 360 in January by 44,000, so if we take January as typical for future figures, the Wii will catch the 360 in about four years.

Seems like Reggie is putting a lot of faith into Wii Fit, then. ...

via Eurogamer


Heroes back one week to 14th March.

Not terribly interesting, really, but we thought you had better know.

No More Heroes is a cel-shaded and stylised Wii outing where you play as a chap called Travis Touchdown and just happen to be an assassin with a fancy beam katana - or lightsaber-alike, if you like.

This third-person action affair has you dispatching fellow killers like yourself by shaking your arms around and following the instructions on screen. But each targeted assassin will have a few tricks of their own up their sleeves: one was a magician and flipped the world upside down.

Not the sort of title you might expect on the Wii, which is probably why everyone has been so thoroughly impressed with it, us included. ...