We pick up the story with Varla and Candy again, and this time circumstances lead them to the local slaughterhouse. I’m not going to spoil any of the story or the details around what leads them there, but let’s just say it’s the standard House of the Dead fare; there are guns, motives of revenge and mutants galore, all wrapped up with grindhouse styling.

As you can see from the above image, there is something of a meaty infestation starting to take hold inside the building, and internally we’ve affectionately referred to this as the meat wall (there is also a meat tunnel later in the level, so that’s something to look forward to). Varla and Candy find themselves fighting amongst this meat wall, and as they proceed through the ‘meat factory’ they’ll be forced to take action against the new mutants shown above too. These mutants take the expression ‘meat shield’ to a new level, seeing as the additional flesh they’re lugging around makes them slightly more impervious to gunfire than your standard mutants.

I also wanted to give you a sneak peak at the level boss, which is one of the most horrid creations I’ve ever seen in a House of the Dead title. Meat Katie is a savage hybrid of mutant and…cow. Yes, cow. I can only imagine where all that anger has come from, but my personal belief is that she’s harnessing the powers of all the lost cow souls from within the slaughterhouse. Don’t mock, you come up with better. J

Anyway, Meat Katie is armed with a massive cleaver, and has a nasty habit of flinging large chunks of meat at her intended victims; I imagine Varla and Candy have had plenty of practice avoiding unwanted meat, so it’s probably not too much of an issue for them. In other words, you’re going to need good reflexes, steady aim, and perseverance, because this melee monster is going to take a lot of bullets until she’s beaten.

I hope this serves to only get you more excited about this exclusive PlayStation Move title, and confirm just how much effort the team at Headstrong have put into making the game even more brilliant this time round. You’re in for a meaty treat later this year when The House of the Dead: OVERKILL – Extended Cut fires its way onto North American shelves October 25, 2011.

Naked Terror sees you fighting your way through a strip club (a real hardship I know), the streets of Bayou City and a bar, and not only do you have new environments to battle your way through, you also have new stripper and biker mutants to contend with. The other cool aspect to this new level is who you play as, for this level G and Wash are elsewhere, leaving you to take control of Varla (previously an NPC in the original Overkill) and her stripper friend Candy.

Candy seems to have the required staples for any standard stripper: she has a heart of gold, is wholesome, innocent, yet can be naïve to the world. There is one big difference though between her and her stripper brethren; our heroine is pretty handy with a hand cannon, and skilfully adept at taking down enemies. Sounds like my kind of woman really.

There are connections between her and Jasper (the boss at the end of the Plantation level). It was as a hospital volunteer that she first met Jasper and there a romance developed. Now she works alongside Varla, hoping to one day save up enough money for her and Jasper to leave Bayou City for good. To complicate things further Jasper is Varla’s brother. How does this ultimately all fit together? Well, you’ll have to wait and see when the game releases.

These two exclusive levels cover a new side story that reveals additional details to help you understand the main storyline. That’s your lot for the moment, I’ll be back in due course to reveal the details of the second exclusive level.

We announced The House of the Dead: OVERKILL – Extended Cut just before E3 this year, and were amazed to see that there were so many who were eager to take aim at the mutant infection springing up in Bayou County. This is the first time we have released The House of the Dead on an HD console, and we feel that the PS3 is the perfect home for an arcade-style shooter like OVERKILL. With 3D and PlayStation Move support, two brand new scenarios added, and all seven stages of the original remastered, the ‘baddest’ just got bigger! We are really working hard to make this the best in the series to date.

These posters and our box art pay homage to our signature retro b-movie look, and hopefully you recognized the legendary Agent G and Detective Washington. This time around, we also wanted to give Varla Gunns a bit more top billing, so she became the headline character on the box art. This is no fluke however, she plays a bigger part in this Extended Cut and we’ll have more details on this soon. Exclusively for you PS blog followers, we are also releasing some fresh screenshots and the fact sheet detailing all the new features of The House of the Dead: OVERKILL – Extended Cut.

List of PS3 exclusive features:

• PlayStation Move and Sharp Shooter compatible
• OVERKILL fully remastered – available in high definition, with stereoscopic 3D for the first time ever
• Extended with 2 additional levels not featured in the original game
• Exclusive crossbow weapon
• New baby mutant type
• New Hardcore Mode – mutants can only be killed with headshots
• New Classic Mode – play through the entire game using only the AMS Magnum
• Exclusive Missing Reel – an extended boss fight with “Mother” in “OVERKILL”, the game’s final level
• Online leaderboards to track high scores and player statistics
• Collectibles to grab throughout all levels to unlock bonus materials; comic pages, music tracks, 3D models and 2D artwork
• New PlayStation Trophies to unlock
• Improved boss fights in all levels
• New and improved cutscenes using motion capture
• And more still to come!

The House of the Dead: OVERKILL – Extended Cut will be releasing exclusively on PlayStation 3, and will be available in stores across North America on October 25, 2011. We will be revealing more details in the near future so keep it tuned to the PlayStation Blog and our official game page. You can also keep up with SEGA via Facebook and Twitter.

Hello everyone, we’re back for some more Virtua Tennis 4 action, and today we’ll be focusing on some news regarding demos. Yes, you read that right, demos (plural). We have two of these and they’re both are coming exclusively to the PlayStation 3.

One of our big new features for Virtua Tennis 4 is the World Tour career mode, and this time around we’ve decided to rip up the calendar-based career mode and upgrade it to a more fun and intuitive board game style.

It’s a completely different take on the career mode as the team really wanted to put the fun back into the single player experience. Whilst the calendar themed career was enjoyable, we received feedback from our fans that once they finished the first season the subsequent seasons had a very similar feel to them, which led to a feeling of repetition. So the new World Tour is much shorter and your career runs over four seasons, each taking place in a different region of the world culminating in a major tournament, firstly in Australia, then France, then England and finally the USA.

There are many different paths you can take to reach each of the major tournaments so no two careers will ever be the same. However, along the way you will need to train, participate in tournaments, keep a close eye on your condition, and also boost your star rating by signing autographs and attending charity events.

The key to your success lies within boosting your star rating both on and off the court so you will have the ranking and status to get invited to the biggest tournaments the World Tour has to offer.

As it’s quite a revolution for the Virtua Tennis career mode, we thought the best way for people to get an idea of what this new World Tour has to offer would be via demo. You will be able to play through roughly 1/3 of your first season, which will involve designing your character, entering a few tournaments and boosting your profile.
Keep in mind, it’s only a teaser of what you can expect from the full World Tour mode, but you will be able to continue your career if you buy Virtua Tennis 4. So in essence it acts as a way of getting your career started before the game is out. Check out the trailer below to find out more about the new World Tour mode.

The Virtua Tennis 4 World Tour demo will be available on April 19th after 5PM PST for PS3 gamers only. And before we go, also keep an eye out for another exclusive PlayStation Move and 3D demo due for release as the real tennis season reaches its peak!