SPOnG recently had the chance to talk to Peter Hines, Bethesda's VP of PS and Marketing, and we're featuring a few choice snippets of the interview today. Of course, when you say "Bethesda" these days, talk will invariably come around to Oblivion. The game is getting set for a worldwide PS3 release in March (it's a Euro launch title).

It has already been made public that the PS3 version of Oblivion will include the Knights of the Nine content. According to Hines, they are currently discussing which of the other downloadable content such as The Orrery will work for the PS3 version and how well they work. Once that's over and done with, Hines said that it's only a matter of figuring out when to release them.

Hines also mentioned that some of the optimizations Bethesda made for the PS3 version of Oblivion that are non-platform specific "may be applicable to the PC or the 360." He doesn't mean all of them though. Everything that is specific to the way the PS3 is designed...

After telling you about Spider-Man 3 and the EB Games bonus (which could be questionable), we have something to share to you about the PS3 version of the Activision game. Going over at You Tube, we found a video interview of Chris Archer, the executive producer of Treyarch - the game's developer.

He mentions that they are doing a lot of new things on the game - in fact it boasts of a larger Manhattan setting, probably the largest in the game's history. They also believe that they have merged the free-play mode (if you wanna goof around Manhattan) and story mode quite well so as they could cater to all their players wishes.

He also divulges that players would be able to control the black-suited Spider-Man and that the game becomes more appealing thanks to the new combat system that they've worked on from the ground up. Anyhow, here's the vid for you to know everything that the good producer said.

The dust has finally settled, and SplitFish GameWare Inc. has announced the line-up of its PS3 game tournament team. Out of a large number of applicants across the United States and Canada, the following men and women were chosen:
Dennis - Pennsylvania, Favorite Game: SocomMark - California, Favorite Game: GTA SeriesTyler - Tennessee, Favorite Game: SocomColleen - Ontario, Favorite Game: Resident Evil 4Steve - Indiana, Favorite Game: Tony Hawk's American WastelandFinal decisions were made based on a combination of years played, style of preferred game, grammar, articulation, the realization that school and work should be a priority and the overall skills mix SplitFish sought.

The team will compete in online game play and tournaments, and each of the members will receive a PS3 console and will participate in the final beta testing process for SplitFish's upcoming FragFX competition controller. Each new team member will start to practice online with Resistance: Fall of Man, ...

The folks from gaming news blog Joystiq report that Sega is holding a "Fight of the Century" Virtua Fighter 5 tournament at Japan's annual AOU Arcade Game Exhibition. It is reported that the competition is set take place at the VF5 corner of Sega's AOU booth, and that 64 players will fight it out for the title of "Fighter of the Century". Sadly, that's all that the contestants will fight for, a title.

However, given the pride/honor involved, and the huge hardcore following that Virtua Fighter has in Japan, competition for the title is expected to be hot as hell.

The tournament will be played on Version B of Virtua Fighter 5 - the same build ported to the PS3. Players are required to have their own VF.Net access card in order to take part in the competition.

Sony Online Entertainment has just announced arcade classic Q Bert will be hopping up the pyramid of gaming consoles and onto the next-gen PS3 via PlayStation Network. No, it won't be a direct port. It's going to be a brand new version that'll have a bunch of exclusive features.

These "PS3-exclusive features" still haven't been sneezed out of the Sony labs, but we're sure the gameplay would stay the same. Would the SIXAXIS be used though? New enemies perhaps (Coily must get lonely after all these years)? Will the retro sounds stay unchanged? Here's what we know though:
it will be released on (scheduled for, at least) February 22 for US 4.99can support 720p resolutionwill have worldwide leaderboardsAh. Leaderboards? If Doris Self (holds Guinness World Record for scoring 1,112,300 points) were to be alive today, gaming gods bless her soul, she'd be right on top of that list. Hail, Queen of Q Bert!

Say now, do you guys smell a bunch of screenshots? Yeah, we tho...

When we all first got word of Star Wars: Force Unleashed a few months ago, we were treated to this "Force Power" pre-visualization of how the game should feel like. The amped power level of the force powers made the game closer to Gendy Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone wars than the actual movies. Despite the complaints from some overzealous purists, the pre-viz got us gamers looking for intense action gaming more than interested.

Recently, LucasArts has released a barrage of info snippets about the game. In time for the launch of the official website of the game, they released information about the storyline, the gameplay, how environmental damage works, and how the physics engine in the game will run.

Here's the latest in Force Unleashed pimpage. LucasArts made this big batch of concept art available to the press. Yeah, we know, some of it is in the the main site, but we're putting it here anyways - just in case you're a bit too lazy to download it there. Use it ...

 
In the comments section of a February 13 post on the Gamesblog section of UK news portal Guardian Unlimited entitled "PS3: difficult stories emerge in run up to Euro launch", an anonymous UK developer writes:

I work as a games developer, and have revealed all sorts of info on this blog. I think its all been ignored though. Readers here prefer to discuss press-releases and marketing figures. Anyway, if anyone is interested to know how serious Sony's problems are, consider this. There are virtually no PSP or PS3 games being developed in the UK.
Of course, in defense of the PSP, a quick look at upcoming PSP release dates in the UK show that there's a lot of activity leading up to mid-March. Moreover, a look at Metacritic's compiled review scores for NDS games reveal that only a handful of the top games are developed outside of Japan something that is in stark contrast with the PSP. At least 12 of the PSP top 20 are western releases.

Kieth Stuart of Ga...

Filed under: Gaming

So, those poor Australians not only have to deal with their toilet water flushing counter-clockwise, but a way-late release date for Sony's new-gen PS3 console: March 23rd, just like those poor European saps. Luckily they've got some snazzy display models to ogle, right? Not so much. A closer look at this seemingly innocuous scene reveals horrible secrets, to terrible to reveal even before the post break! (Seriously, keep reading, it gets better.)

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]Continue reading What's wrong with this picture of PS3 promotional bliss?
 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Dubbed PC Game of the Year by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences in this year's Interactive Achievement Awards, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is undoubtedly the best RPG you're even going to experience. And with the launching of the Playstation 3 in Europe and Australia, the PS3 version is slated to become a launch title for the folks over at the UK and continental Europe.

Despite the hype about Bethesda porting the game to the PS3 and the problems Bethesda is (allegedly) experiencing in developing the game, we at QJ see no problems with it at all. In fact, these new 26 screens and renders just scream "Boo yeah!" The folks over at CVG are just as excited as we are, and they have provided these as soon as they were made available.

And hey, if you spot two screens down there that look alike, look again. Yep, the sky texture is different, meaning the two stills were captured at different "times" in the game.

 
Tech news site MCV reports that Italian publisher Lago/Black Bean (mmmmm, coffee, need coffee...) signed the help of Koch Media in distributing the upcoming Superbike World Championship 07.

The aforementioned racing game is developed by the folks from Milestone Interactive. The racer is set to be released for the PS2 and the PSP in the second quarter of this year. Come the fourth quarter, the game will also be released for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

The obligatory quotes from the companies involved is to be had below.

Here's a bit of sugar from Chris Mehers, Black Bean's UK MD: "Milestone's ability to produce stunning bike games combined with a powerful license and Koch Media s marketing, PR and sales skills will, I m sure, deliver great results for all concerned."

Koch MD Craig McNicol adds the cream: "We are delighted to sign such a strong license. The motorbike genre holds much potential and the combination of the great game and the b...