Sengoku BASARA: Samurai Heroes is in stores now so we (Capcom) are bringing the fans a ton of new stuff about the game. Throughout the week, we’ll be releasing Hero Cards for each of the playable characters giving you a little back story on each character and some of their special moves. Just for the PlayStation.Blog, Capcom is giving you a preview of the first four of the 16 playable characters.

In Sengoku BASARA: Samurai Heroes you pick one of 16 playable characters inspired by historical samurai. Each with their own unique weapons, moves, and personality you take your warrior to the battlefields of 16th century Japan to try and conquer the country. The ultimate ending of the game takes place at the battle of Sekigahara. Based on the character you start with and the way you work your way through the battles, the story changes and allows you to see this final battle from various perspectives. Each character charts their own course through Japan, so after finishing with one character, try another for a new experience!

Here are four of 16 players you can choose from:

Ieyasu Tokugawa – The Eastern Savior, Tokugawa fights with his bare fists to understand the experience and sorrow of ordinary civilians

Mitsunari Ishida – A general on the western force, his main interest is focused on defeating Ieyasu for revenge and is disinterested in conquering the nation, despite the power as a warlord.

Masamune Date – Nicknamed the Fallen Dragon, Date was defeated in battle by Ishida and Hideyoshi. Now is the time for revenge as Date returns with his six swords to slay Mitsunari.

Yukimura Sanada – Yukimura Sanada takes over the duties of his fallen leader to bring a bright future to Kai region. Using his two spears, Sanada must stand strong and lead his troops with dignity.

From the creator of Devil May Cry 4, Sengoku BASARA: Samurai Heroes puts you smack in the middle of the war between clans in 16th century Japan. With notable samurai taken from Japanese history, but stylized into veritable war machines, choose a side and form alliances as you battle hundreds of enemies in the effort to unite, divide, conquer, or bring peace to the land. On your way to the final battle, you’ll upgrade your weapons and learn powerful new moves including deadly BASARA arts which allow you to unleash spectacular moves that wipe out multitudes of enemies.

I’ll leave you with a tip: while it’s not always necessary to take down the camp commanders in order to progress through the game, occupying a camp can give you added bonuses such as weakening the final opponent. So fight hard and fight smart.

Hop online, download, and enjoy! Be sure you don’t miss Sengoku BASARA: Samurai Heroes when it arrives in North America on October 12.

But wait, there is more! Downloading the demo does more than just let you get a first taste at Lost Planet 2. Capcom has started an exciting charity campaign called, “Kill Big for Charity”. We are partnering with Music for Relief, a non-profit organization dedicated to disaster relief and disaster risk mitigation, to contribute $20,000 to charity if one million demos are downloaded across both PSN and XBL before May 5, 2010. An additional $5,000 will be added to the pot if an extra 500,000 demo downloads can be achieved.

To celebrate the launch of Lost Planet 2, we will be throwing a tournament on May 6 in Los Angeles. Select members of our community, Capcom Unity, will compete in the tournament with celebrities and press members. For information and how to enter, visit the details page on Capcom Unity.

The winning team in the tournament will choose which Music for Relief program will receive the donation. Help us achieve our goal by downloading the demo and spreading the word to your friends today!

Throughout the demo players will run into Akrid ranging from small (in Lost Planet terms) to enormous, as they fight to collect the precious thermal energy contained within the Akrids bodies in order to heal themselves, their friends, and power the armored Vital Suits. Utilizing a number of weapons from machine guns to missile pods and rocket launchers scattered throughout the environment, teams of four players can join up via the PlayStation Network and clear three mission objectives with friends, giving them a glimpse into the jungle of E.D.N III.

In order to promote cooperative gameplay, players can share life-giving thermal energy amongst injured members of their squad while new support weapons allow teammates to boost attack and defense capabilities. Additionally, the new dash feature allows players to sprint for short distances, bringing greater speed to combat.

The true firepower of Lost Planet comes from the heavily armed and armored robotic Vital Suits as they return in greater numbers and variety than the first game. Players now have the ability to hold up to three players as they make their way through varied environments in the game.

Lost Planet 2 is the first game to make use of Capcom’s updated proprietary game engine, MT Framework 2.0. Rendering dynamic lighting in beautiful massive environments, previous versions of MT Framework have been used on games like Resident Evil 5 and Devil May Cry 4.

For those new to the world of Lost Planet, Lost Planet 2 takes place on the planet of E.D.N. III, 10 years after the events of the first game. Terraforming efforts have melted the icy terrain of the first game and given way to revealing lush tropical jungles and harsh deserts. Players will enter this new environment and follow the exploits of their own customized snow pirate on their quest to seize control of the changing planet.

Capcom is also releasing the newest trailer on PSN the same day as the Lost Planet 2 demo. Previously only having shown the jungle and city environments, the new TGS trailer gives you a glimpse of the new desert environment and even bigger Akrid than seen before.

We hope you enjoy the demo and newest trailer! Make sure to look for more news and information about Lost Planet 2 coming over the next few months to the PlayStation Blog!

Resistance: Retribution has only been available for mere hours, but we hope you’ve been practicing! Starting today, there’s more than James Grayson’s life on the line – try $25,000 in Sony prizes.

Global Gaming and SCEA have teamed up to offer fans the Road to Retribution Tournament, where Resistance Retribution players go head-to-head on the new PSP-exclusive third person shooter.

Registration for the 2v2 and 4v4 ladders kicks off today, and runs through May 10, 2009. The top players from the ladders will move up to compete in the bracket playoffs from May 13, 2009 to May 31, 2009 and battle it out for SonyStyle gear from PlayStation, PSP system prize packs, and Resistance: Retribution inspired leather bomber jackets.

To join the open ladder, participants can head over the the Road to Retribution GGL site to complete the online registration form. All players must be legal residents of the U.S. or Canada and at least 13 years of age.

For additional information on the tournament, go to www.RoadToRetribution.GGL.com.

Good luck!

Here’s a walkthrough from the PAX show floor, with Sony Bend’s Chris Reese:

And John Garvin helps round out the story by answering these questions:

1. How will you translate the PS3 Resistance experience onto the portable screen?

For us, Resistance is all about killing powerful aliens with powerful weapons in a cool alternate-history 1950’s setting. Our goal from the beginning was to capture the essence of Resistance’s core gameplay, while at the same time putting our spin on it. The “Bend Game Studio” spin is all about creating a fun game that is also a dramatic, in-depth story. We knew we wanted a sequel that took place right after Resistance: Fall of Man, but before the events in R2. While playing through RFOM I had discovered a few elements that I thought were great story hooks — things like the Cloven, or the fact that we never saw any female Chimera, so I spent some time talking to Ted Price and the guys at Insomniac, pitching ideas I had about where we could take the Resistance story on the PSP. They loved our story so we just went with it. The PSP game is probably a little more “intimate” — if you can use that word on an experience where you’re blasting the hell out of aliens — because the game focuses on the personal story of a new character we created — a British private named James Grayson. After a personal tragedy, Grayson goes on a vendetta to destroy every Chimera conversion center he can find. Eventually he learns that his efforts have been futile… in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Chimera have evolved and now use a new method of converting humans to aliens. The French resistance, called the Maquis, enlist Grayson’s help, and he joins Cartwright and Parker in Operation Overstrike — the beginning of the war to retake the European continent. So we have a great personal story, as Grayson tries to come to terms with his own demons, set against the backdrop of a horrible war fought in places like Rotterdam, Luxembourg, Bonn and Paris.

2. What is the best thing about developing for PSP?

The thing I like best about PSP is the team size. At Bend Game Studio we have about 40 team members, which is a great size for a team. We have enough key talent to make AAA games that have high production values, but we’re small enough that everyone knows everyone and we get stuff done without a lot of middle management.

3. What is your favorite game on PSP?

My personal favorite is still Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror or Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, mostly because I poured so much creative energy into them. Two games that I finished this year, and really loved, were God of War and Patapon. Two really different games in terms of subject matter, genre, and style, but each a lot of fun in it’s own way. In fact, these two games are really good examples of why the PSP is such a great hand-held platform. You have a quirky game like Patapon that sort of carves new territory in the “rhythm / action” genre, and a really good translation of a hard-core console action title, side by side on my gaming shelf. And you won’t find a game like GOW on competing hand-helds anytime soon.

4. What is one of your guilty pleasures when it comes to PSP games?

Playing games late at night while in bed. Seriously. It seems like the only time I can find to catch-up on my PSP games is late at night and there’s no more comfortable place to kick back than in bed. With the headphones on, I don’t keep my wife awake, though she was getting irritated when I was playing God of War because it’s hard not to get vocal when you die. To me, portable doesn’t just mean “play on a bus or an airplane,” it means, “play anywhere that isn’t your couch in front of your PS3.” :)

5. Where is the weirdest place you have ever played your PSP?

See above.

6. What is your favorite non-gaming PSP feature? Why?

Probably the web stuff. The PSP’s a pretty good platform for checking news… the screens a little bigger than my Blackberry’s, and websites are easier to navigate. Next would be the ability to watch movies on it — while flying, it’s a lot more convenient to watch a movie on my PSP than on my laptop.

7. How will you push the PSP hardware with Resistance?

We’re pushing it pretty hard. As you know this is our third game on the platform and we’re constantly making improvements to our engine. Chris Reese, the Technical director and co-studio director, pushes his tech team pretty hard. We’ve done a complete upgrade on our animation system, adding support for multiple skeletons so we could implement all the different types of Chimera; we’ve upgraded our character system, adding specular highlights so you can see light reflecting off of Grayson’s leather jacket; we’ve also upped the size of our character textures so everything looks crisp and clean; we’ve put in a more robust streaming system so we can have more detail in the levels, more sounds, more character models, more animations; we’ve created an entirely new enemy system so that we can have more of them on screen at once — in Logan’s Shadow, you might see 4-6 terrorists at a time, not in Resistance: Retribution, you can see 15 Leapers at once. We’ve also optimized a lot of systems in order to push out our drawing distance so we could attempt to capture the sheer scale of the Resistance vistas. So far the team is doing a great job capturing the Resistance look and feel.

8. This is your third PSP game; what have you learned over the last two projects that you can apply to Resistance?

Aside from all the technical and engine enhancements noted above, we’ve learned a lot about making shooters fun on the PSP. We’ve taken the aiming system that we refined in Logan’s Shadow and Dark Mirror, and we’ve simplified it into an aim assist system that we think is pretty revolutionary on the PSP — we wanted to make the game as easy to play as we could by reducing the reliance on using the four face buttons to aim — but at the same time, not take away the sense of “skilled” shooting that a game like Resistance provides. The other thing I think we’ve learned how to do well on the PSP, is crafting a compelling player experience. For us this is a combination of challenging combat scenarios, creative level design, and dramatic storytelling. We don’t want the game to get repetitive, so we break up the pacing of the game play, we add new challenges, we create unexpected story hooks, we give the player reasons to look around, we create areas where they have to use their heads as well as their weapons. As long as we end up with a game that we want to play ourselves, we’re pretty happy.

What else do you need to know about Resistance: Retribution?

As you may have seen last week via the THE EYE OF JUDGMENT Official Sites, we announced the EOJ World Championships beginning August 14th. The winner has the amazing opportunity to get their image on an in-game card as well as compete with Watanabe-san from the Japan studio.

The EOJ World Championships, the first official global THE EYE OF JUDGMENT PLAYSTATION Network tournament, will start on Thursday, August 14th, 12:00AM PST and run for one week until Thursday, August 21st, 12:00AM PST.

This time, there are no special rules. You can play with your favorite deck and take on the world!

You will still be able to play as many “Online Tournament” ranked matches as you like until the tournament closes.

The prize for the overall winner is something really special: the winning player will receive their own in-game card in ‘Deck Builder’ mode complete with their name, picture (if the player wishes) and comments. This will be viewable by all EOJ players for the ultimate champion’s prize!

The winner will also earn the right to play an online duel against the creator of THE EYE OF JUDGMENT, Watanabe-san from Japan Studio. (This duel may be made viewable by the public).

If you finish in the Top 10 players you can earn unique ranking titles for eternal glory!

Taking part is easy, just follow these simple steps:

• Log in to PLAYSTATION Network and go online with THE EYE OF JUDGMENT in the usual way from Thursday, August 14th, 12:00AM PST.
• Select ‘Online Tournament’ from the Online mode select screen.
• Players will be matched up with another player to battle just the same as the regular way of Ranked Match.
• That’s it – You’re entered into the tournament!

Any points you earn from playing “Online Tournament” ranked matches before the close of the tournament will contribute to your position on the tournament leaderboard. The tournament scoring system is exactly the same as that used for regular online ranked matches. Please note that tournament matches do not contribute towards your regular ranking.

Good luck to you all and please remember, play fair, have fun and may the best player win!

Hey PlayStation.Blog Fans, SCEA is heading to Comic-Con this week and giving you the opportunity to play some of the new games from E3 last week. Each morning from 9:30am to 12:00pm, we’ll be holding BUZZ! Quiz TV competitions on the stage, come test out your knowledge of trivia and win prizes. In the afternoon, the stage will become the showcase for new talent with SingStar for PS3 from 1:00pm to 7:00pm.

Come by Thursday and Friday to play SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation with real Navy SEALs in the competition area. They will be making appearances at 11:00am, 2:00pm, and 5:00pm.

Saturday and Sunday, the competition area will feature Motorstorm: Pacific Rift. Race head-to-head and win free stuff.

All four days will also give you the opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of creating and playing levels with LittleBigPlanet. Onstage demonstrations will take place daily at 11:00am and 2:30pm, but the LittleBigPlanet feature area will let you get hands on time with this falls most highly innovative title.

The PSP and PLAYSTATION Network will be making appearances as well. Come learn more about Skype, the PC store, internet radio and more for PSP; and see some of the hottest downloadable titles coming from PLAYSTATION Network.

For the swag lovers out there, we’ll be giving away bags everyday at 9:30am and 3:00pm along with a chance to win a PS3!

Our booth number is 4901, we hope to see you all there! For the rest of you, stay tuned for updates here on the PlayStation.Blog!

We let them play for a little while before opening up the tables for more old-fashioned competition in the form of a blackjack tournament.

The winners of the blackjack tournament were Teresa Dun from PlayStation: The Official Magazine, Sam Bishop of TotalPlaystation.com, and Blake Morse of GameRevolution. Apparently I am now to blame for their newfound gambling addictions. I apologize.

Back to the game, Secret Agent Clank previews have started rolling in from IGN, GameSpot, GameSpy, MTV Multiplayer, GayGamer, and GameHelper. On Thursday, we took Lesley and Ken Strickland to GameSpot for a segment of OnTheSpot where they demonstrated some of the Captain Qwark gameplay (starts at 13:20). Everyone seems really excited about this game, so look for more previews on your favorite sites. Secret Agent Clank hits retailers June 17.

When: Thursday, Dec. 13, 8pm EST (5pm PST)

Where: http://www2.warnerbros.com/syphonfilter/

Click on the link above, then navigate to the Events section (after the Flash intro)

Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow was met with high acclaim when it shipped to consumers on October 2, earning numerous awards from sites across the web including IGN, GameZone, and Game Informer. Greg brought a new perspective and plenty of conflict to the Syphon Filter universe and is responsible for a cliff-hanger ending sure to resonate with fans. Check out this video to see more on the collaboration between the Sony’s Bend studio and Greg Rucka.

Be sure to head over to the PlayStation Store on your PC to download the free Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow demo, wallpapers and themes for your PSP.