PlayStation.Blog » James Gallagher

Captivate 2012: Resident Evil 6 in October, SF X Tekken Vita Cross Play, Lost Planet 3, DmC Update

James Gallagher — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:39:52 +0000

Last week I was in Rome with some friends from Capcom to attend their Captivate event, an annual showcase of what’s in the pipeline for such game series as Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry and Lost Planet. While I could spend a couple of hundred words on fountains and pizza, there is a lot of game news to cover; here’s a handy digest of all the best bits.

Resident Evil 6 is coming sooner than you think

We got to see an hour-long presentation on Resident Evil 6 that oozed with new information, including the announcement that the game’s release date has been brought forward to October 2nd, 2012.

The game features three playable characters – Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield and Jake Muller – with three unique, intertwining stories that the player can choose to play through in any order. While the action takes place in various locations around the world, we do know that a large portion is set in China. If you’re wondering who Jake Muller is, he is a new character, a mercenary in Eastern Europe, and the son of maniacal sunglasses advocate, Albert Wesker. We saw a playthrough of some of Leon’s story, set in Tall Oaks University after a bio-terrorist attack that turns the American President into a zombie, forcing Leon to kill him and subsequently face the blame for his murder (that might sound like a spoiler for the whole plot but this all happened in the first four minutes).

Little things we noticed include the return of proper zombies. These aren’t brainwashed villagers – their skin is falling off, they love hiding behind corners and they make noises like neglected drains. We also noticed that the interface has been streamlined to make things like changing weapons and consuming green herbs easier on the fly. There are also more shooting controls, such as the ability to fire while laying on your back, and some fun contextual attacks. We also learned that Resident Evil 6 features drop-in and drop-out co-op throughout, both locally in split-screen and online.

Street Fighter X Tekken on PS Vita features 12 new characters and PS3 Cross Play

The fighting game equivalent of beans and hot dog sausages in the same tin is already making my teenage dreams come true on PS3 and is set for PS Vita later this year. More than a straight port, it includes 12 new characters that you will also be able to use in the PS3 version if you own copies on both formats. Those extra characters are (in their respective story pairs): Dudley and Elena; Christie and Lei; Sakura and Blanka; Lars and Alisa; Brian Fury and Jack X; Guy and Cody.

The portable version also supports Cross Play allowing you to crossover cancel against PS3 players, along with other PS Vita specific features, such as creating your own, customisable shortcuts using front and rear touch. The development team told us that there are more additions to come and, while we couldn’t get them to spill everything, they did suggest that they are looking into Augmented Reality and Near functions.

We’ll have a full interview with the game’s producer later in the week so here’s a preview where he reveals which of the new characters has the most unique play style:

“Lei Wulong from the Tekken side of the cast has some very interesting play styles. He fights in the ‘Drunken Fist’ style which has a few different stances, not dissimilar to Gen from Street Fighter 4. Players who are familiar with fighting games are going to find these stances – and the different move sets associated with them – very interesting.”

Lost Planet 3 Coming to PS3 in 2013

Lost planet 3 was announced with a trailer pointing to an ‘early 2013’ release date. Series creator Kenji Oguro told us that the third in the series is “the closest to our original vision of survival, exploration and discovery” and puts the player in control Jim, one of the early colonists on the planet E.D.N. III.

Set before the original Lost Planet, the game features such series hallmarks as a hostile, frozen world; giant alien enemies; and mech machinery – these are called ‘Utility Rigs’ this time around and, while they designed to aid construction, you’ll find yourself using their mechanical claw and drill to dispatch larger enemies in gruesome fashion.

DmC trailer includes new weapons and convenient pizza

When Ninja Theory Creative Director Tameem Antoniades told us that his team’s intention with DmC is to “Strip Dante down to his essence and build him back up as a character,” we didn’t realise quite how literal he was being until we saw this trailer:

We also got to play the game and can confirm that the combat will be reassuringly familiar to Devil May Cry fans. The additions the team have made are carefully thought out and include an easier to understand ranking system and two new weapons. Cyrus and the Arbiter – angel scythe and demon axe respectively – can be equipped on the fly using the L2 and R2 buttons and add an extra layer of strategy to the well-known sword and gun play.

So there you have it. We saw an awful lot more from the world of Capcom at Captivate 2012; if you have any questions about these games then please ask in the comments and I’ll answer if I can.

DUST 514: Five Things We Learned At EVE Online Fan Fest

James Gallagher — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:03:09 +0000

I have never played an MMO and yet I’m going to be doing a lot of talking about DUST 514, a major collaboration between CCP Games and PlayStation to bring the first free-to-play console MMOFPS exclusively to PS3. Therefore, I took a trip to Iceland to attend the EVE Online Fanfest and start to get to know this fervent online community that PlayStation fans will soon be joining in New Eden and, of course, get the latest news on DUST 514.

Here are some of my learnings, although I’m sure there is one pressing question on your minds before we get into that – when can you play the game? Well, the closed beta is currently underway and Fanfest attendees were told that they would be able to access a more open beta in April, which will open in waves throughout the following months. Rest assured, we’ll be keeping you up to date with opportunities to join in here on PlayStation.Blog.

One Universe. One War

We’ve spoken before about how DUST 514 and EVE Online are ‘linked’ but, actually, that’s putting it lightly. The two games exist on the same single-shard server, they occupy the same universe and economy, and they share social tools such as voice and text chat; it’s more accurate to say that they co-exist, rather than point to one specific point of linkage.

At the DUST 514 keynote last week we saw perhaps the most tangible interaction so far, when an EVE Online Player unleashed an Orbital Bombardment from his spaceship, down on to the ground battle happening in DUST 514, all live on-stage. Afterwards, I caught up with DUST 514 Executive Producer Brandon Laurino to learn exactly how that happened. “So what you saw there uses all of the communication tools we’re making available,” he explained. “We were up on stage but, when you’re at home playing DUST 514, you’re going to be communicating via voice and text chat and saying ‘I need some help down here buddy’ to an ally playing EVE Online.”

“Then what you do is use your Cortex, which is kind of like your portable computer, to paint a target on the surface. That target will show up for the EVE Online player to make their way over to, ready their cannons and, if it all goes off successfully, that shot is going to come down from one game on the PC to another on the PS3, all in real time.”

PS Vita Companion App

We’ve know for some time that the team at CCP Games is working with PS Vita but, until now, we’ve not known what kind of form that is going to take. At the closing keynote on Sunday, Brandon Laurino took to the stage and revealed the first official details on a PS Vita companion app currently known as ‘DUST 514: Neocom’.

“It’s basically a way to stay connected to your game, on the go,” Laurino told us afterwards. “It’s a way for you to have certain features like mail, chat, the marketplace, character fitting and more with you at all times. As we’ve said, this game has a serious amount of depth so it’s useful to be able to sort all of this stuff out on the go so that, when you’re on your couch, you’re straight into the action.

“Above and beyond that, we’ve also got a lot of exciting ideas for how players can also use their PS Vita as a tool to help them when they’re actually in the middle of a battle.”

The Long and Winding Loadout

DUST 514 is an MMOFPS and, therefore, it has a wide array of customisation options and character-levelling opportunities – so many, it was claimed, that it could take players up to seven years to fully level up their characters, and that vehicles are “deeper than most characters in other games.”

To help you on that journey, you will be able to set it up so that your character can accrue skill points passively throughout their existence, so you can be progressing and developing new skills even when you aren’t playing the game.

Back to School

EVE Online fans are some of the most dedicated I have ever seen, but it’s not all aimed at earning profit and taking over galaxies. One group of players has set up the EVE University, which sets out to educate players and maintain an extensive library of wikis.

One group member told me that there are plans to extend the kindness to DUST 514 players, whether you’re looking to learn more about the vast history and politics of the universe, or are finding the aforementioned customisation and levelling systems a little hard to master.

The Future

It’s clear that, when DUST 514 launches fully, it will be the start of a seemingly endless project for the developer. Even at this early stage they offered a glimpse of what they have planned for the future, including giant mechs called MTACs (OPSM even managed to grab a picture); support for eSports and the ability to watch matches in EVE Online and bet on the outcome; and the possibility of extending the action to ‘non-temperate planets’, where fire, gas and other elements may necessitate the use of vehicles.

Perhaps the biggest statement of intent of the weekend was when CCP Games CEO Hilmar Pétursson declared their intent to make the EVE Online / DUST 514 universe the biggest gaming environment in the world. It’s certainly going to be one to watch over the coming years and, perhaps best of all for PS3 owners, it needn’t ever cost you a thing to experience.

Andy House Interview: Gearing Up For PS Vita

James Gallagher — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:16:38 +0000

The launch of PlayStation Vita is just two days away and hopefully your thumbs are twitching at the prospect of getting it into your hands and enjoying what we believe is the strongest launch line-up of games in PlayStation history.

One man that has had a part to play in that history is Andy House, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. I recently spoke to him about life in Japan, the imminent launch of PS Vita and how we as a business are welcoming this proud new addition to the PlayStation family.

PlayStation.Blog: This is your second time working in Tokyo, how has the Japanese games market changed in the time you’ve been away?

Andy House, President and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment: Well that intervening period was 15 years so things have changed dramatically. What’s interesting, and the one thing that hasn’t really changed, is that you still see these sales spikes of a system based on a single major game release, and I think that Japan is the most content-driven of the three major markets in that sense.

The other difference is that there seems to be a shift in Japanese gamers’ habits – in the last four or five years there seems to be a much greater focus on portable consoles and we’ve seen that in recent sales of PSP versus PlayStation 3.

I speak with a lot of games publishers and developers and, to be honest, I don’t think any of us fully understand what is underpinning that trend. Developer creativity in the portable space is a factor but I don’t think that is the only reason. It could be aligned with lifestyle habits and people generally spending more of their time commuting.
We’ve benefited greatly, of course, and PSP sales have been fantastic and will continue to be so, even though we now have a brand new console available.

PSB: PSP sold in large numbers very early into its launch while the home consoles have seen a more gradual ramp up. What is the target with PS Vita?

AH: I think it depends on which home console you are referring to – the ramp up on PlayStation 2 was spectacular while the increase in PS3 sales has been more gradual, in part because it was a more complex value proposition. We have to be very honest and say that the higher price point was a limiting factor when comparing PS3 to PS2.

PSP was very strong out of the gate because we focused on the most successful aspects of what was the most popular console of the time [PS2] and applied them to a portable. What we have learned since is that you also need to provide experiences that are tailored to a portable environment – that’s when something special happens.

PSB: PSP was positioned as a multimedia device and yet, while PlayStation Vita has many of the same multimedia features such as music and video playback, they have been less of a focus. Why is that?

AH: I’d say it’s because we’re at a time where people expect those features that you mentioned, as well as the ability to connect with friends, in all of their portable devices. For a positioning standpoint it is crucially important that we get PS Vita right as a games console because that is its key selling point and the key reason why the early audience is going to be interested.

Having said that, I do hope that the extra capabilities – whether that’s playing media or connecting with friends via Facebook, Twitter or FourSquare – are going to add an extra degree of delight when you start up your PS Vita for the first time.

PSB: Will we see more non-gaming applications in future?

AH: I see a lot of potential in that area further down the line as we learn more about what our customers are looking for. Our strategy for launch has been to fulfil the critical needs in areas such as social networking with Twitter, Facebook, Skype and FourSquare, and make sure that they are well designed, well integrated and available right from the start.

From there we will look at what else we can do, particularly with the 3G connectivity, to give people a greater feeling of immediacy with their games and other activities. This is an important area for us.

PSB: Can you explain the strategy behinds the retail model, with all games being available to download and certain titles also available on Game Cards?

AH: What we are trying to achieve is a retail model that is as consumer friendly as it can be. With PlayStation Vita we are offering customers the ease of downloading games where that makes sense, while also recognising that it may be more convenient to buy the more data intensive games on physical media, and providing that option with Game Cards.

Customers are telling us that they want both of those options – they like the immediacy and quick access that you get from a flash media solution but they don’t necessarily want to carry a lot of games around with them in addition to the device.
We’re trying to cater for both of those impulses, even though they’re slightly conflicted.

PSB: With that in mind, how will pricing react to the customer expectation that digital versions should be cheaper than physical copies?

AH: We are aiming to recognise that expectation and have a lower price point for downloadable versions of games; we will need to evaluate exactly what difference that will be.

We have fantastic relationships with retail partners who have a large stake in the success of PlayStation Vita and we want that to continue, but we recognise the need to have a lower price point for digital games taking into account that you don’t have packaging costs and other extra considerations associated with physical copies.

PSB: Are you able to qualify what makes a good portable game as opposed to a home one?

AH: I’d say it needs to have been distinctly designed to be on a portable and I think that one of PS Vita’s strengths is the way its interfaces lend itself to that.

There are ways that you can interact with existing franchises that are just not possible in the home and I think that’s what our customers are looking for – a tailored experience where the game is produced to a standard that you would expect from PlayStation, and presented on this jaw-droppingly beautiful OLED screen.

By building this set of tangible ways to interact with the device we have given developers a robust creative pallet to work with.

PSB: The game development climate has changed and we are now seeing smaller teams achieving great success with shorter lead times. How will we react to that with regards to PlayStation Vita, and in general as a company?

AH: There are two points to that and the first is that we have created a much easier development environment than we have for previous platforms. That facilitates experimentation and combined with the opportunities digital distribution provides, such as removing the risk of having to commit to an inventory stock, we are able to lower the barrier of entry for developers and hopefully encourage them to experiment and take risks.

An extension to that is PlayStation Suite which, for me, is an initiative that runs in parallel to PS Vita. What we have there is a very low cost development environment and an opportunity to immediately access a broad and growing range of Android devices and the install base that comes with them, as well as the option to make your content compatible with PS Vita. In essence, PlayStation Suite is an extra route into delivering PS Vita content that will be available to a much larger pool of developers, and in a much more agile, quicker to market way.

PS Vita Designer on Perfect Screen Size and Battling Engineers

James Gallagher — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:00:59 +0000

Last December I attended the Tokyo launch of PlayStation Vita, which is going to be in your hands just about one month from now. While I was there I got to chat with Tokashi Sogabe of the Sony Corporate Design Centre, head of the team in charge of the aesthetic of the console. Sogabe-san has 27 years of experience working with Sony, in which time he has designed the Walkman, Vaio notebooks, the current slimmer model of PS3 and many other electronic
devices.

We spoke about the look and feel of PS Vita and the eternal tug of war that goes on between the designers wanting to create something as sleek and compact as possible and the engineers whose job it is to cram as much technology as they can into that shell.

PS.Blog: A lot of people seem impressed by the five inch OLED screen on PlayStation Vita. How did you decide on that particular size?

Tokashi Sogabe: When we first saw a prototype of the beautiful OLED screen we used on PS Vita, we felt it deserved to be bigger than the 4.3 inch screen on PSP. It’s almost as if we settled on five inches in order to really maximise the same impact that we felt when we first saw it.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking bigger is better when it comes to screen size but it isn’t. There was a great deal of discussion and we even talked about using a 5.5 inch screen with all of the buttons included on it, but that had a negative impact on the operability of the device and the idea was abandoned.

How much development has gone into the dual analog sticks and what design challenges did they present?

The engineers have been working on the PS Vita analog sticks for quite some time and it is a much greater technical challenge to build sticks this small than you might imagine. We also built a prototype with flat slide pads, a bit like what you have on your laptop, but it just didn’t feel responsive enough for gaming and we learned that you need that physical response of tilting the stick to feel like you have total control.

For me as a designer they have presented a huge challenge, partly because it much easier to design products with entirely flat surfaces. We also discussed the position of the analog sticks at great length: I didn’t feel that they were in the perfect position from a design perspective but Worldwide Studios were adamant that they were in the best position for comfortable gameplay, and in the end they won out on that point.

How do designers and engineers work together to ensure all aspects of the device, such as performance, form and comfort of use are all just right?

There is always a battle between engineers and designers and I’m not just talking about PlayStation Vita when I say that – it is always there. To give you an example, I originally intended for the final machine to be thinner than it is now. From a designer’s point of view thinner is always better. However, the engineer has to cram all of the technology into that case and so they’re going to be fighting back on that point.

A designer is always looking to create that magical first impression aesthetically and an engineer’s job to bring the working device into reality; neither side wants to make any compromise whatsoever.

Also, it’s not just designers and engineers who have a say. When we started work on PS Vita, the shape we had in mind was very similar to the final product, but in the testing phase we tried many different designs, including a sliding system [similar to PSP go] and a clamshell. We settled on the final model after many discussions with the game development teams in Worldwide Studios.

Who usually wins these battles between designers and engineers?

Many years ago I would have said that it was the designers, at least here at Sony. In fact, when we were developing the Walkman I remember coming to the office with a block of wood and saying that it needed to be this size and shape, and it was up to the engineers to make that happen.

It’s hard to compare then and now because Sony has become so much bigger as a company. Of course, your question also depends on personalities – some designers are very stubborn and will never budge, whereas others are easier to convince.

Talking about PS Vita specifically, I was pushing through this idea of ‘thinner is better’ but I had to be reminded of things like the feature set, processing power, battery life… the overall package.

There are times when you have a design idea that you love but then the engineers see a major flaw straight away. I actually wanted PS Vita to be entirely made of metal but then it was pointed out that this was impossible due to the internal Wi/Fi, 3G and GPRS antennae.

So yes, I’m afraid designers do lose on some occasions!

Five Things We Learned at the Japan PS Vita Launch

James Gallagher — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:00:09 +0000

As you may have seen from the photo story posted earlier in the week, I attended the Japanese launch of PlayStation Vita. It wasn’t all gaming and bento boxes: I used the time to catch up with as many senior colleagues and game developers as I could. You can look forward to full interviews in the run up to February 22nd’s North American Vita launch day, but in the meantime, here are five things that I didn’t know about PS Vita before, but do now.

What’s included in the box

Bear in mind that this is a Japanese model and the actual contents may vary, such as the North American model also including six AR Play Cards.

PS Vita was designed by the same person as the original Walkman

We had the chance to speak to Mr. Takashi Sogabe of the Sony Corporate Design Centre, the team responsible for the look and feel of PlayStation Vita, for what turned out to be an interesting hour. It turned out that Mr. Sogabe has 27 years of experience with the company and designed the original Walkman.

He revealed that the team went through various designs, including one with a sliding back like PSPgo and a clamshell, before settling on the final model after discussion with developers. He also said that he originally wanted the exterior to be entirely metallic but that proved impossible due to the antennae required for the Wi-Fi and 3G connections.

The biggest surprise came when he pulled three prototype machines from his bag (I wasn’t allowed to take any photos but I did try!) One of them featured touch pads in place of the dual analog sticks and Mr. Sogabe told me that the sticks were decided on in the end because they provided the most accurate controls.

A full interview with Mr. Sogabe will be posted in the new year.

PlayStation Vita is designed by game developers, for game developers

We’ve heard developers say that PS Vita is a joy to make games for, but how is it different to other systems out there? Is it the hardware itself, the SDK, the support structure or something else entirely?

President of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida shed some light on this during our interview.

“When Kaz Hirai took over management of SCEI,” he explained, “he brought in the approach of fully integrating software and hardware development. Before that, we made brilliant hardware, no question of that, but our hardware team didn’t have such a good understanding of what game developers need or what features might be useful.”

“[With PS Vita] we [Worldwide Studios] were there right at the beginning to express our thoughts and reactions to the hardware that was being proposed. We were there at every stage and with every prototype, and we developed game builds to prove and, sometimes, disprove how each new feature was going to make for a great game system.”

Welcome Park is your introduction to all the key features and it includes trophies

One of the first things you’re likely to play on your new PS Vita is Welcome Park. It has been designed by members of Japan Studio who also worked on Hot Shots Golf and, while its main purpose is to introduce features such as touch controls and the cameras, it does so through minigames that are surprisingly deep.

They include Digit Chase, a front touch game where you have to tap number in sequence (tougher than it sounds); Snap + Slide, which generates tile sliding puzzles from photos you take; and Sound Loop, a simple but excellent synthesizer that lets you record sounds using the built-in microphone and loop them against a variety of pre-recorded beats.

Welcome Park also has its own Trophies: one gold, one silver and 11 bronze.

Gravity Rush has the same game director as Siren: Blood Curse

We haven’t posted much about Gravity Rush, the cel-shaded action adventure coming exclusively to PlayStation Vita, but that’s going to change in the new year after I played it and found it to be one of the most interesting new titles on the handheld. I also spoke with the game’s director, Keiichiro Toyama, and discovered not only that he worked on PS3 horror Siren: Blood Curse, but that his greatest inspiration for Gravity Daze is the comics of Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius. Here’s a trailer.

Shuhei Yoshida Interview: The Present and Future of PS Vita

James Gallagher — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:01:18 +0000

As you may have seen from the photo gallery I posted, I spent last week in Tokyo, Japan covering the first launch of PS Vita and finally getting to see this stunning new hardware in gamers’ hands. While I was there, I met up with Shuhei Yoshida, Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment and President of Worldwide Studios, to talk about what PS Vita is set to deliver in spades: great games.

PlayStation.Blog: Many view the PlayStation Vita launch line-up as the best in our company’s history. How long have you been planning it for?
Shuhei Yoshida, President, Worldwide Studios: Full development of PS Vita hardware started in Spring, 2008 when the semiconductor was complete. The great thing is that we [Worldwide Studios] were there right at the beginning to express our thoughts and reactions to the hardware that was being proposed. We were there at every stage and with every prototype, and we developed game builds to prove and, sometimes, disprove how each new feature was going to make for a great game system.

When Kaz Hirai took over management of SCEI he brought in the approach of fully integrating software and hardware development. Before that, we made brilliant hardware, no question of that, but our hardware team didn’t have such a good understanding of what game developers need or what features might be useful.

It is thanks to this way of working that you are seeing such a great line-up, using so many of the system’s unique features; it’s because our developers have been working with them from the moment each was conceived.

PSB: How far ahead are you looking now and what can we expect from the second and third phases of releases?
SY: Generally we look three years ahead when we work on games. We have a fairly firm plan right up to 2013 but, because PS Vita gives us the opportunity to work on smaller titles like Escape Plan and Sound Shapes, I’m certain we will end up working on more games than we even know about at this moment. On top of the launch line-up, we have already announced LittleBigPlanet, Resistance: Burning Skies, ModNation: Road Trip, and Killzone.

In the past we launched PSP and then shifted our attention to PS3 when that came on the horizon, which we now concede was a mistake. So with PS Vita we are working on this huge range titles and planning ahead for a constant supply of excellent games.

PSB: Augmented Reality (AR) has already been used in some great games but perhaps games aimed at a younger or more casual audience. What is going to convince hardcore gamers that it’s a compelling new way to play?
SY: One thing I know about hardcore gamers is that they hate it when we try to shove new technology down their throats. There may be a perception that Augmented Reality is a gimmick, so we have to provide something that is robust and genuinely enhances the experience. You’re right that AR leans more towards a casual or a younger audience but I don’t think that’s a bad thing; I think that it helps PS Vita to be more relevant to a wider group of people. The more we experiment, I’m sure that we will see real gameplay benefits for hardcore players.

PSB: As someone involved in unearthing new development talent, does it excite you seeing smaller teams coming up with really compelling download and mobile games?
SY: Absolutely – my personal PS Vita game is a totally immersive experience called Sound Shapes (which is especially great when you’re wearing headphones). It’s made by Jonathan Mak who created Everyday Shooter all by himself, designing the graphics and even composing the music. With this new game he has some huge ambitions: he has even hired a couple of people!

I’m a fan of these small developers – The best thing is that they have experience in every part of planning, developing and releasing. It’s not like they have left school and gone to work in a team of 100, only ever working on one particular aspect of their game. They don’t follow the traditional game conventions; some of them are very vocal about trying to break those rules. They are the next generation and they will be changing the landscape of gaming long after I have retired.

PSB: Is there one attribute that you’re always looking for in a PlayStation developer?
SY: I don’t necessarily work on recruiting any more as there are producers in our studios reaching out and looking for new talent. Each of them has his or her special thing that they look for but passion is the one common attribute. If a developer is asking you what you want them to develop, then that is not a good question; producers are looking for people with conviction in their own ideas.

PSB: PlayStation 3 has introduced predominantly new IPs from Worldwide Studios, whereas PS Vita has a mix of the new and the familiar. What can we expect to see in the long term?
SY: People like to see their favourite franchises, partly because gaming is about learning a mechanic and developing a skill, and players want to use those skills that they have honed. However, when we introduce new hardware with unique interfaces and network options, it is almost easier to work on something completely new. Take rear touch on PS Vita – we’d rather be thinking about how we can make fresh games using that feature than figuring out ways to add it to something that already exists.

PSB: Developers have stated that PS Vita is relatively easy to develop for, but how do you quantify that and put it into some perspective for our readers?
SY: If you’re keeping track of the third-party games that are being developed then you’ll be amazed at how quickly they are coming together. I’ve been working with our internal dev teams on launch games and they’ve had longer cycles because they were also, in part, helping to debug the early prototypes of the hardware and the SDK.

When I saw new developers coming in and getting straight to work on those systems when they had matured, I could not believe how quickly they were getting their games up and running. I have never seen anything like it before. If you want very straightforward evidence to support that, we are launching PS Vita here in Japan with 24 games.

PSB: Which games do you predict will be most popular at the Japanese launch?
SY: Actually, we collect data from retailers taking pre-orders and we know that Everybody’s Golf (note: known as Hot Shots Golf in North America) is the most popular and UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss is number two. I’m very proud that they are both Worldwide Studios titles.

PSB: It’s perceived that Japanese gaming tastes are quite different to those in Europe and the Americas. Do you see them growing closer?
SY: Japanese people traditionally have a strong local preference, particularly with the Manga style look of characters that they love. But as technology and presentation advances in games like UNCHARTED and Call of Duty, they are rightly seeing their quality. Also, it helps that SCEJ paid a lot of money to get Harrison Ford to appear on TV playing UNCHARTED!

MotorStorm RC Interview: “A Refreshing Change”

James Gallagher — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:01:56 +0000

Judging from the comments, we caught you by surprise when we announced that MotorStorm RC is coming to PS3 and PS Vita in time for launch. You all seem really excited about the game so I followed up with its director Paul Rustchynsky to discuss in more detail the vision, the Cross-Play with PS3 and PS Vita, and the social interactions that will be at the heart of MotorStorm RC.

If you have any further questions then please let us know in the comments and I’ll get the answers.

Ken Levine Interview: Taking BioShock from Rapture to Columbia

James Gallagher — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:03:23 +0000

BioShock is one of the most surprising games of this generation. First of all, it isn’t inspired by a real-life conflict, a film or another game series, but a moderately successful novel called Atlus Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which put forward a philosophy called Objectivism, or ‘rational selfishness’.

BioShock’s writer and Creative Director, Ken Levine, and his team are now working on BioShock Infinite, a departure from the dark, dystopian corridors of Rapture into the bright skies of Columbia, a floating city named after the female personification of the United States of America. I recently had the chance to sit down with Ken to talk about the philosophies that underpinned the original BioShock and how, if at all, these are being applied to BioShock Infinite.

PlayStation.Blog: What’s more important to you: surprising the player or making existing fans feel familiar?

Ken: When you look at BioShock Infinite, you can’t deny that it’s a BioShock game. However, and this might seem counter-intuitive, Rapture was a surprise to the player; you wanted to see what was around each corner because it was so strange. If we were to take you back to Rapture then that surprise element would no longer be there. Weirdly, we had to change BioShock in order to make it BioShock, or at least to retain that core principle of the unexpected.

I think the important point for us is that BioShock Infinite has the same roots as the original, and in part those roots are me, Nate, Shaun, Steve and all of the guys in my team who worked on it. In terms of the game itself, we’re talking about the depth and detail of the game world, the kinds of weapons you’re going to have, the freedom of the combat and the character growth system that we’re going to be showing later.

I’m not saying we can never go back to Rapture, but it would need to be in a way that was fresh and new.

PlayStation.Blog: What is your favourite moment in the original BioShock?

Ken:The two moments of BioShock that will always be special to me as writer and creative director are the opening descent to Rapture and the encounter with Andrew Ryan. We really put ourselves out there on the latter because it was a boss battle where you don’t actually fight the boss, but that was fundamental to the story, the fact that you had no choice in how it played out. We are thrilled that it worked so well because it was such a risky moment.

I don’t think people give gamers enough credit and assume that they only want explosive, visceral experiences. We also want to be mentally stimulated. The fact that the scene resonated so much proves that we are more diverse in their tastes than some think.

When faced with a choice between protecting and destroying in games, point in case being the dilemma of whether to rescue or harvest the Little Sisters in BioShock, do you think we are innately drawn to one or the other?

Well we don’t have any kind of metric to track that particular example but we do have anecdotal evidence. I do a podcast called Irrational Interviews and I was talking with Guillermo Del Toro on there. He said that he harvested in front of his two daughters and they got really mad at him. My sense is that people generally rescue and I think that decision is an emotional one rather than a logical one.

I believe players have an inclination to what we might call ‘disruptive’ actions, such as jumping around when another character is talking, but I don’t get worried about people doing weird things; games are about the player doing what they want and they are generally there to try and experience every interaction available. It’s their game.

PlayStation.Blog: And yet protection seems to be a running theme in BioShock games. Is this a conscious design decision?

Ken: I see what you mean in that you have Big Daddies and Little Sisters and there’s some kind of protective relationship going on there. With BioShock Infinite it’s important to point out that you’re not escorting Elizabeth all the time – she is capable of taking care of herself and she is more like a partner in your mission. But she is looking to your experience in combat. She has never fought but Booker has a rough past and a lot of combat experience.

The basic notion of protecting is one of the noblest things we can do for each other and those relationships can be beautiful in game form. Just look at that moment when you first take Yorda’s hand in Ico. In BioShock games we like to explore how those relationships can have both a dark and a light side. When a Big Daddy protects a Little Sister, he is also exploiting her by making her gather ADAM. In BioShock Infinite, when Booker finds Elizabeth she is locked in this tower with Songbird, who is her only companion but also her jailor.

Those are the challenging relationships that we are drawn to.

PlayStation.Blog: If you’re faced with a potential fork in your design choices, where either narrative or gameplay benefits depending on your decision, which one usually wins out?

Ken: You have to reach a decision that benefits both. We had a dilemma early in the development of BioShock Infinite with the character of Elizabeth. We needed to ensure that her powers made sense to both narrative and gameplay. We knew we had this character that was going to be extremely powerful, but we didn’t know exactly what those powers were going to be. It was a tough job making sure that what she does from moment to moment in the context of the gameplay suited her role in the overall story. We generally don’t choose; we tweak from both sides to get unity, and if you don’t get that unity, then we tend to jettison things.

PlayStation.Blog: How exactly are the PlayStation Move controls going to work?

Ken: We’ve got the Move controls working now back at the studio, certainly more so than we had when we announced it at E3, and really we’re just waiting for the opportunity to show that with a new piece of content. It’s working well but we still have a lot of polishing to do. Of all the motion controllers in the world, the Move is the one best suited to a first-person shooter, and a lot of PlayStation games have done a great job incorporating it. I will say that we’re discovering some great opportunities with the Skyline gameplay, but rather than show it to people with an old demo, I’d prefer to show it with a new piece of content.

PlayStation.Blog: BioShock famously took inspiration from Ayn Rand’s Atlus Shrugged. Does BioShock Infinite have a particular philosophical or literary influence?

Ken: I read a lot about history and I got interested in the late 19th century by the book Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, which is set around the 1893 World Fair. For me, that time is the most transformative in history because you had all these technologies coming into play, like radio, movies, electricity, cars – mass production in general. Alongside that, you had social transformations with suffrage, labour movements, the beginning of the civil rights movement – all these amazing uprisings bringing a sense that the colony is starting to buckle and break free.

Just look at what was happening in science, with Heisenberg, Einstein and Max Planck; they were discovering that the Universe is so much more complex than anyone thought, and we’re still figuring out the implications of their findings to this day.

In the original BioShock we tapped in to Crick & Watson and their discovery of genetics. In BioShock Infinite we’re looking more at the world of physics and we bring that in through Elizabeth, who is able to manipulate her universe. We’re always looking at the technological, scientific, social and cultural changes that are happening in any historical period we touch, and we try to integrate those into our stories.

Originally, we conceived the game as a struggle between a technological movement and a Luddite movement, and it didn’t work out because, in reality, those Luddite movements never took hold in a powerful way, so we didn’t have such a rich well of inspiration.

What we have arrived at is a conflict between the Founders, an ultra-nationalist group that is the dominant power in Columbia, and the Vox-Populi, an international workers’ movement that is fighting against the Founders, kicking all of the rich people out of their part of town.

The real conflict of that time – and, you could argue, what is happening today – is this left and right schism of extreme nationalism on one side, and an anti-capitalist, internationalist movement on the other. With our games we’re never looking to advocate a political position and we try to ask questions more than we try to answer them. We show the extreme ends of the spectrum.

The Splicers in BioShock were insane, almost feral, but the enemies we have seen in BioShock Infinite seem more lucid. How does this affect the game?

You’re going to see a range of enemies in terms of where they’re at mentally. It’s not like BioShock where you’re showing up after an event and picking up the pieces; Elizabeth and Booker are in the middle of it all. The Vox-Populi is a small group when you show up at the beginning of the game, and your actions change that and accelerate their growth. You’re going to see changing AI based on your actions. Then you’ve also got SongBird and Handyman – examples of bigger, stronger enemies.

PlayStation.Blog: How does it make you feel when you hear that some players completed BioShock almost exclusively using the Electro Bolt and the shotgun?

Ken: One of the first things we did when we started on BioShock Infinite was to draw a graph with y and z axes, and to say that one of those axes was the number of enemies in an encounter and the other was the range of those enemies. In the original BioShock, the entire game lived in one corner of that graph – few enemies, all at close range — so the Electro Bolt and shotgun were perfect. BioShock Infinite is going to have much greater ranges and, potentially, far more enemies, so we’re greatly increasing the spectrum of encounters that are possible, and that requires the player use a broader set of tools.

That being said, it may be a given player will try to find a way to close down those distances and stick with Electro Bolt and shotgun, but I don’t think that’s going to be anywhere near as effective a strategy this time around. They were too devastating in BioShock, we admit that, but we’re not going to solve it by simply nerfing those weapons; we’re doing it by changing the types of encounter you’re going to face.

DUST 514 Interview: Changing Console Shooters Forever

James Gallagher — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:07:48 +0000

We haven’t heard a great deal about DUST 514 since it was shown at E3 2011, other than that it’s a first-person shooter connected to the vast sci-fi universe of PC MMO EVE Online, and that it’s coming exclusively to PlayStation 3. When developers CCP made the trip from Iceland to London to outline their vision for this new addition to their immensely popular EVE universe, I came out of the meeting amazed at the scale of the project. Suffice to say, DUST 514 is not just another shooter.

After the meeting, I interrogated Brandon Laurino, Executive Producer at CCP, to find out exactly why PlayStation 3 owners should be getting excited.

PS.Blog: With EVE Online, CCP already has a huge, engaged community. Why are you now trying to break into the console FPS market?

Brandon: EVE Online is an incredibly deep MMO and, for better or worse, that comes with a typical perception that it is complicated. The common joke is that you have to overcome a ‘learning cliff’ to get involved. Part of the thinking behind DUST 514 is to address those preconceptions; we accept that there is a barrier to entry with something as deep as EVE Online and we wanted to make it more accessible, providing another portal and dimension into the EVE universe. What’s more accessible to a gamer in this day and age than a shooter?

Why did you specifically choose PlayStation as your partner in making that happen?

Brandon: Obviously, we were attracted to the power and the feature set of PlayStation 3, but it really came down to Sony’s willingness to work with us in bringing an MMO to the platform. There have been attempts to bring MMO games to consoles in the past but we believe we’re now in a position to do it properly, using existing features on PS3 and the PlayStation Network, and collaboratively developing new features to support our vision.

Can you elaborate on your vision for a ‘proper’ MMO?

Brandon: We’re breaking so much ground with DUST 514: we’re not only building a full console MMO; we’re building one that feeds into another MMO on a completely different platform [PC]. We’re breaking more ground by bringing the microtransaction business model to a console shooter for the first time. All of this was inconceivable not too long ago, and it’s the partnership between CCP and Sony that’s finally making it happen.

Talking about the connectivity between DUST 514 and EVE Online, is this something that’s going to most benefit EVE players or is there equal benefit to those players first experiencing the universe through DUST 514?

Brandon: It runs both ways – you can be sure that we’re very conscious of that in our design, we run through all the different use cases constantly to ensure its well rounded. EVE Online players can continue playing just the way they are and new players can jump into DUST 514 and get a traditional shooter experience, if that’s what they like. There are aspects that are consistent between the two platforms, such as in-game currency, and there are ways that EVE Online players can impact events in DUST 514 and vice versa, all without harming the overall ecosystem.

Because we have this living universe we call EVE – a single shard server, where all EVE Online players and all DUST 514 players are literally in the same universe, not a bunch of split instances, with a huge variety of dynamics and interdependencies within the ecosystem of the sandbox we’ve created – people playing DUST 514 and people playing EVE Online are essentially providing user generated content for each other, just by their sheer presence and their actions in the game world. To give an example, for a player fighting on a planet surfaces in DUST 514, the actions of the EVE Online players can trigger epic moments and provide support that is completely user-driven. Similarly, a DUST 514 player could trigger an event from the ground and do something spectacular in EVE Online. This emergent behaviour and gameplay is only possible with our level of connectivity. These are the broad strokes, the gameplay and interactions run a lot deeper than that.

In that case, what’s to stop an EVE Online veteran blowing my corporation out of space?

Brandon: We have some rules of engagement that ensure nothing drastic happens without some kind of fair warning and time to prepare, this is basically carried over and expanded upon from large scale player-driven warfare in EVE Online, where sometimes users are coordinating battles involving tens of thousands of players at once. Additionally, there are things that you can earn or build, independently in DUST 514 and / or EVE Online, or collaboratively between the two, that will mitigate those scenarios.

Putting the philosophy to one side for a moment, what is DUST 514 going to be like to play when you’re on the ground, in battle?

Brandon: Essentially it’s a vehicular combat game on an extremely large scale, and then when you move into installations and outposts, it’s more infantry based. We’re using Unreal Engine 3 and we’ve incorporated a Mega Terrain engine into it that lets us create huge levels with varied terrain, with a vast array of vehicles ranging from buggies to tanks to aircraft. Typically, you would use vehicles to traverse the landscape and engage in closer combat when you deploy into outposts, but there is a huge amount of tactical freedom, way outside of those broad examples.

There’s some familiarity for players of shooters in that we have general classes or playstyles that we’ve worked out, such as light infantry and heavy weapons, but we’re hesitant to label them that way because we have something called the Fitting system – something that has been entirely ported over from EVE Online – where you can attach all manner of weapons and equipment to your character and your vehicles. It’s better to think of it like the character systems found in the deepest role-playing games; you can have the broad classes that are familiar to shooter fans, but there is massive freedom to expand on or go totally outside of them.

What’s the plan for expanding content in DUST 514?

Brandon: Right off the bat, we have literally thousands of in-game items built into the system; likewise, in terms of scale, you’re looking at a conflict taking place across thousands of planets, so we’re not just talking a dozen maps – we’re talking an entire universe of planets and areas of engagement within them. That’s the difference in scale we’re looking at here, and taking our experience with EVE Online and also, some inspiration found in the best microtransaction based MMOs, social and mobile games, and we’ve set up our workflow so that we can iterate and add new content very quickly. In terms of scale, depth and volume of content, DUST 514 will easily be the biggest multiplayer FPS on the market – also by virtue of being an MMOFPS, not just an FPS.

Talk us though how your beta is going to work.

Brandon: Just as we have done with EVE Online, we’re going to be telling a story with each of the events that happen in our game. To give a bit of context, in EVE Online you play as the pilot of a spaceship – a capsuleer – and in DUST 514 you play as a mercenary on the ground. It’s going to be a bit weird if, all of a sudden, we release the DUST 514 beta and all these mercenaries suddenly show up in the EVE universe, so the setting is that the first small group of players that get access to the Private Trials will be the first trial of this new mercenary technology in the context of EVE Online. Just as you’re helping to test the game in the real world, in the EVE world you’re taking part in war games organised to test this new mercenary technology.

With our Private Trials – we’re not calling it a Beta, but Private Trials in both the real world and the EVE fiction – we’re not taking the usual “on / off” method of rolling out a build and then taking it back and tweaking it, then rolling it out again; when we roll out with those first few users we are introducing mercenary technology to EVE, our “game as a service begins”, and the story will continue from there as that technology develops, further empowering the DUST 514 mercenaries from test subjects in war games to ultimately allowing them to take hold of their own future. It’s what we call a thematic rollout.

There will be people out there who will look at DUST 514 and assume it’s an EVE Online spin-off. How would you counter that?

Brandon: We’re not thinking of it in that way at all, I suppose is the easiest way to respond to that. The EVE universe is comprised of three experiences: one is the classic EVE Online play, “flying in space” or what we call FIS; there’s WIS or “walking in stations”, where you can now get out of your ship and explore the interiors of space stations; and the final piece is DUST 514 and we’ve nicknamed that SIF, or “shooting in face”. None of those three are spin-offs, they’re experiences of equal value that can be played independently or fully connected. If you’re connected then you’re going to get the rich emergent gameplay that runs through all three.

We have so much to talk about, much of which is new territory for me. Is there anything we haven’t mentioned that you really want to get across to our PlayStation.Blog readers?

Brandon: I hope it comes through that what we’re developing is a truly new experience on PS3 – on consoles in general. It is the deepest shooter with the richest universe ever conceived and, on top of that, by bringing to market an MMO with microtransactions, we could be changing the face of console gaming forever. This is groundbreaking stuff, but user choice is at the core – it’s playing the game however you want to play it. If you want a quick experience, you have it; if you’re looking for something deeper, it’s there. If you want to pay a very small amount of money to play, you can; if you want to be heavily invested, you can do that too. We’re providing a more extensive array of options than has ever been seen in a console game.

Aliens: Colonial Marines Q&A – Not Bad For a Human

James Gallagher — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:04:03 +0000

I checked out Aliens: Colonial Marines when I popped over to the SEGA gamescom booth to say hi to a friend and, within minutes, it became one my highlights of the show. I’m not as familiar with the Aliens films as many – I remember seeing one of them on TV as a child and not sleeping well for a few days – but judging it purely as a shooter, it is looking very impressive.

The level shown was a beautifully lit labyrinth of corridors on-board a craft sent to investigate LV-426, 11 months after Ripley escaped in Aliens. The most memorable aspect for me was the animation of the Xenomorphs and my skin is crawling as I type just thinking about them. This added to the level design, which always leaves you feeling exposed as creatures pour from every angle and air vent, produces an unnerving shooter that piles on the tension.

After the demo, I spoke with Gearbox Chief Creative Officer Brian Martel about working with such an iconic IP and why his team is best suited to bringing the essence of the Aliens films to the interactive space.

Earlier in the week, Rocksteady Studios told us that they had been given the creative freedom to build their own ‘Batman canon’ with the Arkham games. Is that what you’re trying to do with Aliens: Colonial Marines?

That’s exactly what we’re looking to do. Fox has been great to work with and SEGA has been a good partner in building the bridges between developer and IP holder. Fox is a little more flexible with the canon than other companies out there, but they do have to be careful not to annoy directors – if you put together a proposition that assumes a particular film never happened, the director isn’t going to like that very much and Fox may have plans to work with them again in the future.

We’re able to introduce our own elements that we feel are right for the interactive space, whether that’s weapons or new types of aliens, and we’re aware that in doing so we’re adding to the existing canon.

What is the essence of the Aliens films?

The aliens aren’t just looking to kill you, they’re trying to propagate the species and take you elsewhere so they can get you face-hugged. That’s the threat and it forms the scary aspect of the world, and then you also need to have the high action aspect. If you watch the film Aliens, there aren’t too many scare moments; it’s scary because you know what’s going to happen if you get caught but it’s action-packed, and to make a great game like this you have to have lots of aliens, lots of stuff to shoot at. You need the diversity between extremely quiet all the way up to high-octane.

What are the differences between creating fear cinematically, in a film, and doing so in the interactive space?

A lot of it is the same, so you’re going to have audio cues that catch the player unaware and you always want to use some misdirection, drawing the eye to one spot and then making something happen elsewhere. But at the end of the day, with a co-op shooter it’s pretty hard to truly scare the player so that’s why Colonial Marines is more action driven. It’s not like Dead Space, which has a fright around every corner, or something like Condemned, which was pure tension throughout.

We could talk about the Aliens IP all day; what gameplay innovations are you bringing to the table?

You’re going to see a lot of growth in terms of what you expect from a Gearbox game that is co-op focused. Obviously, things like the look and atmosphere belong to the Aliens universe, but underneath you’re going to get a sense of something that is totally Gearbox.

Why is Gearbox the right developer to take on the Aliens IP?

If you take a look at our track record on working with IPs, whether it’s Half Life or James Bond, we’ve been true and honest with what it needs to be. We’re one of the best at that, looking at what gamers want and expect from the license and giving it to them.

What’s more important to Aliens fans: familiarity or surprise?

It’s important to have these little signposts or fan service moments, such as finding out what happened to Burke or seeing what happened to Hudson when he got pulled down. But then you also have people coming in who might never have seen the movies so we’re bringing something for everybody.