If you haven’t heard of The Last Guy, the game came out last summer, preceded by an “interesting”developer diary video. It’s a classic and addictive “line” game with simple controls that uses satellite maps of real cities around the world, including San Francisco, Tokyo, and Sydney, as its levels. You play a hero who rescues people hiding out in buildings and leads them to the safety zone for evacuation while avoiding zombie monsters that roam the streets. The bigger the line, the bigger the bonus. But bigger lines also make it harder to avoid monsters, who make people scatter when they get close.

You can use thermo vision to see where people are hiding, and pick up power-ups scattered throughout the levels to stop time, fill up your energy meter and more. The game is available now for $9.99 on the PS Store, and there’s even a demo if you want to try it out before you buy it.

Here’s a trailer to get an idea of what the game is about and what the visuals look like.

There will be 15 Trophies in all to reward you for getting good ratings on stages, rescuing VIPs, getting lots of fireworks and more. The Trophies are not retro-active, meaning they won’t be unlocked automatically when the update is installed. You’ll need to play the game again to unlock them.

I also am pleased to announce an add-on coming for The Last Guy next month. It will add 3 bonus stages to the game, which are unlocked by fulfilling certain conditions in the main game. The add-on also includes 8 additional Trophies to help you rank up your Trophy level.

Enjoy!

Happy Earth Day 2009! I’m Josh Miller, the US Producer of the upcoming PS3 PSN downloadable exclusive, Trash Panic.

In celebration of Earth Day 2009, I wanted to talk to you about Trash Panic and give you the low-down on what to be excited about this Spring. As I’m sure you heard, we are giving new meaning to waste management with a brand new puzzle game that combines strategy and action with well…garbage. Here, players are tasked with having to compact as much garbage into a trash can before it overflows AND in the most eco-friendly way as much as possible!

Trash Panic definitely provides a new take on gaming while making players more aware of environmentally friendly ways to dispose of waste. Check it out:

Throughout each stage, random trash items will be delivered to players who will need to manipulate the speed and direction they fall using the DualShock 3 controller. The trash can will quickly reach full capacity unless the trash is broken down or dealt with by strategically using various elements given throughout each stage. Items will continue to be dropped until the player successfully compacts a certain number of items or ends up with an overflowing trash can. At the end of each stage, each player will be rated by how “eco-friendly” or “ego-friendly” each stage was completed. The more “eco-friendly,” the higher the rating.

And, with with a recording option embedded in the game, and the capability to send your video directly to YouTube via your PS3, Trash Panic also allows players to show off their gaming session and strategies with the rest of the world through one of the biggest social networking sites!

Don’t want to play solo? No problem. Trash Panic supports one to two players locally using a split screen to help solve the “Who’s got better game?” question. Online learderboards and trophies? Of course!

Continue to check back here for updates on Trash Panic! Happy Earth Day!

Hi, I’m Joshua Miller, the U.S. producer of Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic. It’s been a while since Fists of Plastic made its debut at E3 last year and since its announcement, people have been asking for more details. Well, the time has finally come and I am very pleased (not to mention, very excited) to announce today that Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic will be available for download exclusively on PSN beginning THURSDAY, APRIL 9th!

Before I go even further, please check out this brand new, never-before-seen trailer that shows exactly what to look forward to. If you like what you see and can’t wait until the game comes out, feel free to download this trailer for free and watch it as many times as you like! It is available TODAY on the Playstation Store.

As you can see, we are unloading the craziest cast of fighters for you to unleash some of the nuttiest fighting moves in kung fu history! Using the SIXAXIS wireless controller, not to mention, all the Chi Power you will be earning, you can control the crazy 3D characters and orchestrate in-air, ninja-like attacks, as well as engage in intense combat using weapons and strategy for an all-out, 360-degree assault. And of course, the better you become, the more trophies you earn!

For added fun, players can also unlock body parts to create their own characters, with over hundreds of combinations. These customizable characters can bend, stretch and perform every fighting move with hilarious results.

With plenty of modes and settings to suit both hardcore and casual gamers, Fists of Plastic’s pick-up-and-play controls allow for hours of fun gameplay with up to 4 people locally. Fun for parties, players can create a team-based free-for-all using the King of the Hill, Deathmatch, Dodgeball or Capture the Fish modes.

Whether you’re playing solo or in a group, feel free to check the online leaderboards and compare your game to someone across the globe!

I’m going to leave you with that for now. We will be providing more details — not to mention, more goodies — throughout the next several weeks. So, continue checking back here for the latest on RDKF: Fists of Plastic!

If you haven’t heard of The Last Guy yet, here’s the run-down. Every stage is a real city, shown from overhead using detailed aerial photography. Basically you make your way through cities, find people hiding in buildings, and lead them to the Escape Zone while avoiding zombies roaming the streets. Use thermography vision to find people hiding in buildings, “dash” to run away quicker, and “huddle” to scrunch up the line to keep the people out of the path of the zombies. The controls are simple, but keeping your line away from the zombies and making it to the Escape Zone without losing anyone is anything but.

We released the demo last week, giving a taste of half of the Asakusa, Tokyo stage, one of the many stages in The Last Guy. I hope you’ve had a chance to check it out. If you’re anything like me, you probably have that song stuck in your head too.

Well, I’m back here on the blog today because I’m here to announce that the full North American release of The Last Guy will be hitting the North American PlayStation Store tomorrow afternoon for $9.99! And you can purchase the game from the PlayStation Store, or from right inside the demo itself. How handy is that?

With the full game, you’ll get to experience the full Asakusa stage from the demo, plus a bunch of other exciting cities from around the world, with 15 stages in all. Of course there’s London and Los Angeles, which we originally mentioned. And in the latest trailer above you can see cities like Washington, D.C., Sydney, Berlin, and Chinatown in Yokohama, Japan. There are lots of other great cities waiting to be saved by you in the full game, plus a bunch of different kinds of zombies and boss zombies for you to outwit and out-maneuver. You’ll definitely have to use the power-ups scattered throughout each stage wisely to make it through each of the 15 stages.

Here are a few cool screenshots from some of the new cities, Berlin and San Francisco.

So you have until tomorrow afternoon to practice with the demo to perfect your line-leading zombie-avoiding skills, thermography powers, building-encircling technique, and Stamina gauge management. Because the levels in the full game are much more challenging, and even feature online rankings and different ratings for how well you do (like how many VIPs you find and rescue). Who knows, maybe something cool will happen if you get a good “clear” rating on all the levels…

By the way, there will be a couple of cool The Last Guy wallpapers on the store tomorrow as well. Hope you like ‘em!

Let me know what you think of the demo, and the full game when it comes out tomorrow. Thanks!

Before I say too much else about it, fire up this first-look gameplay trailer to learn a little bit about the premise of the game:

Pretty crazy, right? The trailer talks a bit about the story, but here’s some more detail. Set some time in the 21st century, a mysterious purple ray hits Earth, turning anyone touched by the light into a monster or zombie. With zombies roaming the streets, unaffected people lucky enough to have been inside a building when the ray hit are anxiously holding their collective breath, waiting for someone to rescue them. As The Last Guy, you are the survivors’ last hope to survive this global crisis. Actually, the hero of the game is himself a zombie from the Himalayan mountains, on a quest to save the remaining humans from the zombies that have infested it.
Go forth and save!!

As for the gameplay, here’s a basic rundown. The Last Guy is a fast-paced and addictive classic arcade style game with simple controls. The game uses real-life aerial maps of various cities around the world, including Tokyo, London and Los Angeles. As the player, you are the last remaining hope in each of these cities to rescue mankind from the zombies roaming the streets. As you navigate the city, you gather survivors hidden throughout buildings and other nooks and crannies in the city. Once rescued, the nervous survivors will form a line behind you. The objective is to lead them back to the Escape Zone so the United Rescue Force can pick them up and whisk them off to safety.

To complete a stage, you have to get enough survivors back to the escape zone before time runs out. Which isn’t as easy as it looks, because if zombies get too close, the people in line scream and scatter back into the buildings, meaning you have to rescue them again. So you’ll want to keep everyone as far away from the zombies as possible.

Along the way, you will encounter 10 types of zombies , not including tougher “boss” enemies. As the Last Guy, you possess special powers like thermography or heat vision to help you see where survivors are hiding. You’ll also find helpful power-ups, like freezing time, warping back to the escape zone and temporary invisibility, scattered throughout the city to help avoid the pesky zombies.

Well, that’s it for now. There will be much more about The Last Guy in the weeks to come. Thanks!

I wanted to share the official trailer we produced so you can get a glimpse of all the fun you can have with this addictive Elefunky adventure.

Get ready to build! If you like puzzle games, you’ll love Elefunk. In Elefunk, your task is to lead elephants across four continents and various treacherous levels of ravines, rivers, fire pits and swamps by building bridges and structures capable of supporting them. This game uses real world physics – you must carefully select the proper materials to build a solid structure that is able to hold crossing elephants over these outrageous terrains and precarious situations. Play in three game modes, including Puzzle, where you must build with a limited amount of materials;Time Attack, where you race against the clock; and Multiplayer ‘Deconstruction’ mode, where you have to carefully remove pieces without causing the structure to fall.

Check out the Elefunk demo later today on PSN, and pick up the full game for just $4.99. I’ll see you on the Leaderboards!

Hello there, PlayStation Blog readers. My name is Josh Miller and I’m the U.S. Producer for Go! Sports Skydiving, a downloadable game that will be available on the PLAYSTATION Store this week.

Go! Sports Skydiving is a skydiving simulator that uses the SIXAXIS motion controls to maneuver your character in the air. You can do aerial tricks, move yourself in a formation with other divers, control your landing spot, and more. We offer single player modes, online modes and cool global ranking system. Plus, you can download the replays of the best divers on the leaderboards and check out their high score replays.

There’s a lot more to Go! Sports Skydiving, so be sure to give it a try once it’s available on the Store. For now, check out the trailer posted below.

Happy Diving!