[acemanwise]

Introducing Quantic Dream's Kara
source:eurogamer.net

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In 2005, Quantic Dream unveiled The Casting, a short tech demo that explored the possibilities of the then nascent PlayStation 3. A short performance by a single actor that slowly increased in intensity and darkened in tone, it hinted at the new, expressive power of Sony's console, of how this generation could enable the kind of human drama that's typically been the reserve of non-interactive medium.

It's a drama that, to an extent, 2010's Heavy Rain delivered upon, and it's a path that Quantic Dream has largely travelled alone. The digital theatre of Team Bondi's LA Noire was strangled by awkward performances, while Naughty Dog's Uncharted games, for all of their technical achievements, were more concerned with matinee thrills than raw, adult drama.

Not that Heavy Rain was perfect, of course - for all of its cinematic pretentions it often felt more like a straight-to-video thriller, while its stars found itself at the foot of the uncanny valley.

Some seven years after The Casting Quantic Dream has again begun to explore, looking to find a solution to the problems raised by Heavy Rain, and to come another step closer to CEO and founder David Cage's own dream of providing interactive human drama.

"Our goal at the time with The Casting was to use the game engine to see how we could convey different emotions," Cage tells us prior to the GDC talk where he's unveiling a slice of what Quantic Dream has been up to since 2010. "We wanted to see what it would take in terms of the technology but also with the acting, and working with the actor on-stage to have this performance coming across in the game engine. We learned so much doing it for Heavy Rain, from the good things that worked very well but also from the mistakes that we made, and things we could have done differently.

Full Story... http://www.eurogamer...tic-dreams-kara

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 08 March 2012 - 07:24 AM

[coastie65]

WOW!!!!! That was interesting. I thought they did a good job with that sort of thing in Heavy Rain. Characters are getting ( or have gotten ) pretty darned realistic.

[acemanwise]

PS3 has "much more" power to use still, says Cage
source:gamesindustry.biz

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Quantic Dream's David Cage believes that developers can extract a lot from Sony's console

PS3 is already in its sixth year and there's still no concrete word on a PS4. Developers have made some beautiful games with the hardware, but even this far into the lifecycle of the machine there's still plenty of horsepower to draw upon, judging by the beautiful Kara video that Quantic Dream showed us this week at GDC. Quantic Dream's David Cage told GamesIndustry International that Sony's hardware has "much more" to offer.

When we asked Cage after seeing Kara played on a PS3 about how much power is left in the console for developers to extract, he answered, "Much more, to be honest with you. One of the reasons why we didn't show this [Kara video] a year ago was that we had discussions with Sony, and they weren't sure that we were going to show after that was going to look better than Kara. It took us a year to prove what we were going to show was a thousand times better than that."

"So we're very far from seeing everything the PS3 can do, it's very powerful hardware. There is still a lot to do with it, people will be surprised."

http://www.gamesindu...still-says-cage

[acemanwise]

And Now... The Rest Of The Story
source:giantbomb.com

Quote

Jeff and John sit down on GameSpot's weird wrap-around green screen and address some issues that were long overdue.

Tomorrow, with any luck, we'll start getting back to actually recording Quick Looks and, like, covering video games. Well, part of the time, anyway. The rest of the time will be spent getting lost on the 3rd floor of that building over and over again because everyone moved desks while we were gone. Thanks for watching.

http://www.giantbomb...the-story/4037/

[acemanwise]

Ratchet and Clank HD Trilogy Screens
source:wordpress.com
http://xrossmedia.fi...o.png?w=1000&h=
http://xrossmedia.fi...o.png?w=1000&h=
http://xrossmedia.fi...o.png?w=1000&h=
http://xrossmedia.fi...o.png?w=1000&h=

http://xrossmedia.wo...ilogy-screens/#

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 16 March 2012 - 08:49 PM

[acemanwise]

'XCOM: Enemy Unknown' Developer Dedicated To Being Respectful And Fearless
source:mtv.com

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"One of the things I wanted to add to the game were these classes and abilities, because that's something I think that over the last 18 years have become more common place; the idea of giving guys more specialized roles, and using the ability system to let them do really cool things. Its not just shooting a gun any more, now they have these really cool abilities. Because of this, you can't just bolt this over the top of the original XCOM which was already a really big and complex design. We tried that, and we said it we're going to make this work, the play has got to be able to assess all of his soldiers and all of their abilities. What happened was that we found out that the time unit system from the original game was hindering the ability system. The player wouldn't think of the squad as a whole, they would think about every unit as an individual unit, and we were tying to get them to see the squad as one big organic unit."

Quote

To go along with the shift in the gaming landscape, one thing that had to be improved upon was the controls. The original XCOM games were all developed for the PC, and while UFO Defense was ported to the PS1, they weren't ever designed for controllers, but even that was mouse compatible. Mr. Solomon helped put any fears at ease by going back and looking at the most important controller mechanics and porting only those over to the consoles.

"The actual interaction with units in the original game wasn’t that complicated. It was a lot of; move, I want to fire at this unit, or use this inventory item. When we stripped away for the UI, and decided we were going to make this work for a gamepad, we found there's not that many points of input because you're controlling an individual soldier at any one time. We actually haven't even used all the buttons on the gamepad, that's how straightforward the input mapping is. There's no real tension there. When we put it on the gamepad, it worked really, really well."

Full Story... http://multiplayerbl...l-and-fearless/

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 16 March 2012 - 09:03 PM

[acemanwise]

Mass Effect Review
source: zeitgeistgamereview.com



http://www.zeitgeist...t-3-review-zgr/

[acemanwise]

Journey Review
source: made2game.com



Made2Game Journey review score: 9/10
Format: PS3
Developer: ThatGameCompany
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Quote

There is one thing you must know about Journey; you need to play Journey.

Fact is, Journey is an infuriating game to review. There’s so much I want to tell you about. So much I desire to discuss, to muse on, to reflect about. But were I to reveal even the slightest slither about your desert wander as a lost and beguiled Red Coat I’d feel like I’ve deprived you of a bonafide gaming privilege.

But you need to play it. Trust me.

Revelation
Journey casts you as an angular traveller garbed in red, capable of a gaming basics spread of abilities; running, sliding, jumping and ‘singing’. The latter and least obvious of that bunch, the ‘singing’, is a context sensitive tool for activating switches but also a tool for communication in Journey’s curious multiplayer concept. You must use these simple abilities to travel towards a distant mountain, working your way past a grab bag of simplistic puzzles and challenges along the way.

Quote

As your pilgrimage progress’ you will glean details about the ruins around you and of your character’s ambiguous role in events by reading hieroglyphs and agonising over the silent, ambiguous ‘cutscenes’ that separate Journey’s ‘levels’.

It’s an interesting tale, and one that makes you contemplate things with not even a word muttered. And yet what makes Journey un-missable is actually not its religiously and environmentally entrenched narrative, but the interactive segments and bold designs that glue these scenes together.

Full Review... http://www.made2game...ourney-Review/?

[acemanwise]

Vita Near Helps You Unlock Trophies, Here’s How
source: tqcast.com

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There have been tons of questions regarding PlayStation Vita’s “Near” Application. What does it do? What’s the purpose of it? How does it work? What’s the point? Well, I too couldn’t understand the main purpose of the application — other than finding new PSN friends. Recently I discovered a feature of the application that really interested me and helped me understand one of “Near’s” great purposes. With the help of Vita gamers and the “Near” app, I found a way to unlock trophies, as well as helping others unlock trophies, here’s how.

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Who doesn’t love to receive gifts? This really helped me understand “Near”. Loving Unit 13, allowed me to give “Near” a chance due to its reward system that allows me to use it in a game I love. The only hard part, is actually finding someone who has beat and shared the specific things you are looking for.

http://www.tqcast.co...hies-heres-how/

[acemanwise]

Demon’s Souls & Dark Souls Sales Top 1 Million Worldwide
source:thesilentchief.com

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During an interview with GameTrailers at the GDC, Eiichi Nakajima, executive producer and director of business development for From Software, revealed that worldwide sales of Demon’s Souls has exceeded the million mark.

Demon’s Souls was first released exclusively for the PS3 back in 2009 ( 2010 in Europe ). Its success spawned a multiplatform sequal of sorts called Dark Souls which has also shifted over a million units only in half the time.

“We’ve always been about making games for the core gamer,” Nakajima stated. “And they weren’t necessarily games that did well financially, which is too bad. The success of both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, which have each sold over a million [copies] per title worldwide, has made us shift our thinking internally to not just core gamers, but to globalize our products, that they can be successful on a worldwide scale. That’s now one of the key pillars we consider when we develop games in the future.”

On the subject of future titles Masanori Takeuchi, head of R&D at From Software, stated in the same interview that hardcore gamers haven’t seen the last of the Souls games. “Of course, it’s not over yet,” Takeuchi said. “You have to go back to our roots, which is King’s Field.”

Released a while back on Sony’s first PlayStation, King’s Field is literally the rpg that started it all as the current Souls titles are considered to be “spiritual successors” of the classic.

http://thesilentchie...lion-worldwide/

[acemanwise]

g

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 18 March 2012 - 07:06 PM

[acemanwise]

Kara Tech Demo - Quantic Dream's Cryptic Hints Decoded
source:thegameheadz.com

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Recently Vgarabia.com revealed that the five android woman could be hint for Quantic Dreams next game, given Sony’s recent trademarking of the title Fiv5, and some of Quantic Dreams staff members mentioning the game. If that turns out to be true, some hints into the games story could have been dropped with the release of the Kara trailer. During the tech demo, as Kara is being initialized, she's asked to speak in German, French, and to sing in Japanese. What’s interesting is what she’s saying in the different languages. We attempted to translate what she says into English, this is what we’ve found.

The first language is German, and roughly translates into – Contemptuous and Junior athletes generally take a problem and Process it. I see a person you see a system, that it seems.

Whatever could this very rough translation mean? We think it means; Young and arrogant players (or participants ) take a problem and make a judgment. So now I see a person and you see a system, that’s correct. Making reference to the reason for her creation and his view of what she is, not being a person. She also confirms both his and her adolescent perspective, by making the judgmental statement. His request to have here say ‘it’ in French reveals something total different.

The second language French, again roughly, translates into – Such issues and though he wasn’t hustle(Working or Moving rapidly), he considers the soft tissues perfect for the system person, that is the business.

So what could this mean, especially since he said say 'It' again in French, and she says something totally different? Also, it’s important to note the camera movement as she speaks.

When she says ‘Soft Tissue and System Person’, she seems to reference herself as the camera zooms out, showing her body; which is only partly covered with (what I image to be) synthetic soft tissue. What she sings in Japanese is even more interesting.

Japanese, roughly translates into – Yellow with need for our land, so he arson it. that he….

In Japan the color yellow means courage or war, this statement could mean, contending over the need of our land, he decided to burn it, that he…… may do something not yet known. One thing all the translations reveal, is a subtle, yet deep understanding Kara has. Before the man she's talking reveals his perception of her, she seems to know how he views what she is. Clearly revealing she is of a higher intelligence, even though she's just been born.

http://www.thegamehe...CookieSupport=1

[acemanwise]

Playstation Vita For $49.99 With 5 Trade Ins
source:trendygamers.com

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The good deals just keep on coming today. We reported earlier that you can currently pick up a Nintendo 3DS for as cheap as $95 today and in addition, you can also get a Playstation Vita for $49.99 as long as you don’t mind parting with some of your games.

Over at Future Shop, if you trade in any 5 games from this list (click on the giant iPod Touch picture to reveal the list and it is PS3, Wii, or Xbox 360 games only, with about 100 to choose from), you will be able to pick up the Playstation Vita for $49.99. This deal is unadvertised but we have called Future Shop and confirmed that this deal is valid today and ends on Thursday, March 29th.

Be sure to call your local store to make sure they have some in stock and don’t forget to buy a memory card so you can save your games, download patches, and buy some great PSN games.

http://trendygamers....99-5-trade-ins/

[coastie65]

acemanwise, on 16 March 2012 - 09:18 PM, said:

Mass Effect Review
source: zeitgeistgamereview.com



http://www.zeitgeist...t-3-review-zgr/

PLaying it now and it is great in my opinion. Alot of folks are complaining about the Ending(s), but I haven't gotten that far. Having a good time though.

[rain18]

whoaaa! omg! this is so niceeee! i wanna play this too!

[acemanwise]

'Dust 514' studio explains PS3 exclusivity
source:digitalspy.com

Quote

"So we had the issue of enabling thousands of EVE players to chat with millions of PlayStation users. We worked with Sony to find a solution to this, and that solution is not something we could have discovered with Xbox."

http://www.digitalsp...xclusivity.html

This post has been edited by acemanwise: 01 April 2012 - 02:10 PM

[phineusbright247]

I am a big PS3 fan.....when I first watched the KARA video i felt it to be the best game of this year......still hopes high..........

This post has been edited by coastie65: 09 April 2012 - 04:48 PM

[Kathi201]

Interesting....I love these games.