A self-proclaimed SingStar novice, Shannon was rewarded with a PS3, a library of games, the opportunity to record a SingStar song of her choice here at our Foster City music studios, an overnight stay at a swanky hotel and limo transportation. We didn’t stop there either; the PlayStation team also surprised Shannon with a full SingStar makeover complete with hair styling, make-up and new wardrobe.

When we asked Shannon about her experience in the competition and what it was like living a day in the life of a SingStar rock star, she said, “The competition was really laid back, that’s the best I can describe it. As for the SingStar day, the part I liked best was all the prizes. I knew I was getting a PS3 and a bunch of games but I didn’t realize I was getting clothes and make up too. I had such a great time and everyone was so nice that I couldn’t really thank them enough!”

So what SingStar song did Shannon choose to record while here in the same studios where soundtracks for PlayStation exclusives like the recently released inFAMOUS are recorded? None other than The Darkness’ “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.”

Our cameras followed Shannon from start to finish on her day in the studio, so check out the video below.

E3 09 has wrapped up and we hope you’re as hyped for all the announcements, like Uncharted 2 as we are! As you know, we’ve been tweeting clues, so you at home can hopefully win an Uncharted 2 Beta code and the E3 Uncharted 2 Schwag Bag. To recap, you must use the clues from Tuesday – Thursday, to figure out the final questions below.

Instructions:

• The answers to the first three clues will contain the letters that make up the final word answer (kind of like the Jumble in the newspaper). We’ll use an asterisk (*) to indicate which letters will be in the final answer.
• Today (Friday, June 5th) at 9 am PST, we’ll ask the final question on the Blog/Twitter, the answer to which will be made of the letters you’ve collected up to that point. We’ll also provide the link to where you can submit your answer.
• The first 300 qualifying people to submit the correct answer will receive an Uncharted 2 Beta Code… and the E3 Uncharted 2 Schwag Bag.

Giveaway Terms and Conditions

• Must be a US resident to participate, age 13 years or more.
• Participants will not be told where to submit their answers until Friday, June 5th at 9:00 am PST.
• Participants have the weekend (Friday, June 5 at 9:00 am PST – Monday, June 9 at 12:00 am PST) to submit the correct answer.

Clues so far:
Remember:
_ = a letter
* = the special letter
/ = a word break:

Clue #1: According to Neil Druckmann, who is Drake’s love interest in Uncharted 2?

*_ _ _ _ /_ _ *_ _ _

Clue #2: According to this post, you can use a _ _ _ _* *_ tank as a weapon in Uncharted 2?

Clue #3: Who am I?

_ _ _* *_ /_*_ _*_*_

Now, onto the final clue!

Clue #4: This is the item Lazarevic is after in Uncharted 2.

Once you unscramble the letters indicated above (with a *), it will make up the word answer to this final clue.

Now, submit your answer (refer to giveaway terms and conditions) to Survey Monkey. The first 300 qualifying people to submit the correct answer will receive an Uncharted 2 Beta Code and the E3 Uncharted 2 Schwag Bag.

FYI: We’ve disabled the comments for this post.

As you’re reading this, your PlayStation.Blog team is currently neck deep in tamales at our E3 Meet-up. As attendees showed up, we not only invited the first 100 into our press conference, we also presented the first 200 with an Uncharted 2 Nathan Drake-style long-sleeve shirt, perfect for a half-tuck. While I’m sure we’re having a lot of fun (we’ll report back soon, with pics), we don’t want those of you who couldn’t make it to feel left out.

While we were planning this meetup, we decided to “over order” the schwag: extra Uncharted 2 beta codes, extra shirts, and of course, extra schwag bags. Whoops!

Here’s how we’re going to give them out to you, our dear readers:

On Friday (9am Pacific), we’re going to ask a question about Uncharted 2. Be one of the first 300 to answer it, and you win. Simple!

Actually, it’s not *that* simple – because that question isn’t really easy. So here’s what you’re going to want to do to have a chance: This Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9am we’ll be asking some easier-to-solve Uncharted questions via our Twitter account (you’re following us, right?), which will help you piece together that final answer.

More details below.

Contest Instructions:

• Four clues will be given on the PlayStation Twitter from June 2 – 5 at 9 am PST.
• The answers to the first three clues will contain the letters that make up the final word answer (kind of like the Jumble in the newspaper). We’ll use an asterisk (*) to indicate which letters will be in the final answer.
• On Friday, June 5th at 9 am PST, we’ll ask the final question on the Blog/Twitter, the answer to which will be made of the letters you’ve collected up to that point. We’ll also provide the link to where you can submit your answer.
• The first 300 qualifying people to submit the correct answer will receive an Uncharted 2 Beta Code… and the E3 Uncharted 2 Schwag Bag.

Giveaway Terms and Conditions:

• Must be a US resident to participate, age 13 years or more.
• Participants will not be told where to submit their answers until Friday, June 5th at 9:00 am PST.
• Participants have the weekend (Friday, June 5 at 9:00 am PST – Monday, June 9 at 12:00 am PST) to submit the correct answer.

Read the Uncharted 2 @ E3 Contest OFFICIAL RULES

I know it’s not quite the same as being at E3, but between this and our coverage this week, you should be able to enjoy the week’s festivities without having to deal with LAX (this is a good thing).

Alien Abductionator

Indirect fire weapons are something we don’t see enough of in games. To hold a seemingly harmless device in your hand, and then call in overwhelming power from somewhere Beyond would be awesome. They don’t call artillery the King of Battle for nothing. The idea of having 50’s sci-fi UFOs come buzzing in instead of explosives, hopefully animating like they’re dangling from strings in an Ed Wood movie, and abduct your enemies is perfect for Ratchet! And this one came really close to making it, too! Maybe next time. Keep watching the skies…

Spike Gauntlet

Another indirect fire weapon, this one would have given the satisfaction of a sneak attack, even though you were facing your enemy. Who expects to get spiked from below when the Lombax in their sights punches the ground? Seeing the ground erupt in spiky rock or volcanic shards would really have been visually fantastic, but a challenge to make work everywhere, though, and a bit outside the budget for a single weapon.

MaskerAID

The confusion weapons have a high potential for humor, as well as destruction. This one is very similar to a an idea of our own we ruled out early in production—putting the enemies in ridiculous Ratchet disguises of some sort. Unfortunately, the labor involved in selling the joke, doing all the extra animations for each enemy, as well as creating the Ratchetized versions was prohibitive. But this entry really made us think twice.

Chickaboom

Alright, this is another decoy weapon that we considered. I think the strategy behind this weapon is great—pop out an attractive decoy to lure your enemies out from behind cover and blast them while they’re distracted. And the double entendre is wonderful—it’s not the gorgeous hologram they enemies are drooling over, it’s the grilled cheese sandwich she’s offering… yeah, that’s the ticket. Nutritious grilled cheese! What could be more wholesome? I’m not sure the ESRB would buy it, nor would my wife for that matter, but it was a great idea. Maybe it should have been hot wings?

Boomerang Gun

This is a really clever idea. A gun that needs no ammo. And who wouldn’t love to see Ratchet smack the heads of a whole group of enemies and then catch the boomerang and do it again? But like the idea of a bolt cannon, (a weapon allowing you to fire the bolts you pick up), this was a game balance breaker. Really fun idea, and it actually was pretty close to making the finalist group, balance issues and all.

Also, wanted to remind you that Insomniac’s podcast has returned, and you can download it here! That’s all for now, James and Bryan will be answering your questions in the comments!

-Thom

Bryan Bernal here and I’m the Project Manager for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Today I’ll be kicking off our second week of our five favorite weapons that didn’t make the cut for Captain Qwark’s My Blaster Runs Hot Weapons Contest Sponsored by Gadgetron. Without further ado, let’s get right to it.

The Sammich Gun

The Sammich gun is apparently what you get when you combine a Rocket Launcher, a Foreman Grill, and napalm-infused Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. While it not only kicks ass for its aforementioned components, the fact that it upgrades to the “Sub” Machine Gun only sweetened the deal for everyone. Unfortunately we had a hard time visualizing how real time digestive deformation via flesh melting napalm sandwiches would work.

I.B.S. (Irritable Bowel Shotgun)

Keeping with the tools of gastro-intestinal destruction theme was the I.B.S. (Irritable Bowel Shotgun). Could you imagine how insanely awesome this one would be? Sneak up behind a pack of Warriors, open with two shots of the I.B.S. and watch him go all Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber. If you were fast enough to tag the entire group with double shots, you might end up with a fecal fiesta that would leave our Audio engineering team scarred for life.

Arnold Schwarzeneggranade

Being from sunny Southern California, many of us at Insomniac have a strong affinity for the Governator (especially when parody is involved). Needless to say this weapon submission resonated with us and harkened us back to the Arnold soundboards of yore. I mean, who wouldn’t want to listen to “It’s Not A Too-mah!”…”GET TO THE CHOPPA!”…and “I’ll be back” for 8-12 hours straight?

Wait…Nevermind…

The TransVestor

We’ve never been opposed to putting our most beloved Ratchet and Clank characters in drag, and what better way to spread the androgynous love than a gun that morphs your foes into dominant X chromosome bearing versions of themselves? While this idea was awesome, it would be a pain to implement. For now, I’ll leave you with its exquisitely executed artwork (and if you look closely, it says there’s a button to apply eye liner and a birth mark mole – details for the win!)

And Finally…

The Freakin’ Shotgunchuck! (or as I call them, the “Boomchucks”)

So I know James posted this one last week – but come on, this is basically one of, if not THE coolest weapons in existence. James described it best when he said “take the best Zombie killing weapon in the world, and the best Ninja killing weapon in the world — COMBINE them and you have the Shotgunchuck.”

That said, some folks had trouble envisioning how this quadruple-barrelled body bag filler would actually be used in combat and how it would work with Ratchet’s core moveset… mere speedbumps on the road to greatness, I say. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be and the Shotgunchuck will now live on in the archives of the PSBlog…RIP.

That’s my five. Feel free to comment with your praise or disdain for my selections, but we’ll be back next week with another five from one of our co-conspirators at Insomniac.

-BB

As you know, voting ended a couple of weeks ago on our Captain Qwark’s My Blaster Runs Hot Ratchet & Clank Future Weapons Contest sponsored by Gadgetron (whew). But as we had over a thousand entries, it was sort of a shame that we could only show our top five favorites. Over the next couple of months as we head towards the reveal of the winning weapon at International Comic-Con this July in San Diego, some members of the Insomniac team are going to reveal their personal five favorites. I’m going to start it off this week with my personal top five that weren’t finalists – and in case you were wondering, I cast my personal vote for the Plasma Sprinkler:

Shockwave Inducer

This was one of our overall top 10 weapons, and was really strongly considered due to the fact that it’s different than many other weapons we’ve done in the past. We’ve never really had an Area of Effect weapon that was centered on Ratchet – and this one would be especially effective against swarmer enemies. The art was also really cool and we thought it had great potential.

The Pixelator

This is a really cool idea that I believe has been tossed around Insomniac in the past. The challenge is you have to create a whole system for what happens to enemies when they become pixilated, which would have been an art and programming nightmare. We thought this was cool, especially in a day and age when Retro gaming is as popular as ever.

Fruit of the Doom

We had a lot of submissions that really focused on the comedy aspect, and this is one of them. We’ve had A LOT of people suggest underwear guns, and this was the one that made me laugh the most due to the clever title and imagery. Unfortunately, the amount of work to give every enemy underwear and animations is a bit much, plus it sort of breaks the game and maybe our ESRB rating too.

Peter Rottentail

Zombies are obviously in with COD:WAW, Left 4 Dead and even the grims in Resistance 2. So what’s better than bringing Zombie bunnies to Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time? This was a completely awesome idea, and was up there in our rankings but would’ve required a full new character and animation set – thus it wasn’t something that was accomplishable. Still hilarious.

Shotgunchuck

This had a very strong argument as our favorite weapon amongst some of us, while others rolled their eyes. To me, the idea of this is so amazingly badass, especially if you could animate the user spinning and whipping the guns around. That said, this weapon doesn’t really fit the Ratchet universe, and would require a ton of hero animation. Thus it didn’t make the finalists group. Still, a very, very strong competitor.

Anyways, that’s all from me. We’ll be back with more of our favorite submissions over the next few weeks. And stay tuned for the return of our podcast, The Full Moon Show, on May 21st.

And… to top it all we are also launching a naming competition! Yes, you heard it right, instead of choosing the name ourselves for PixelJunk 1-4 we would like YOU to name the game for us. This is for those real PixelJunk fans out there, because your name will go into the credits of the game and be immortalized for all eternity (or for a few years at least).

Anyway, first things first, go to the site and look at the concept art, watch the work-in-progress video, and think up a name: http://pixeljunk.jp/namingcontest

It’s looking pretty nice so far we think. We’ve implemented a fluid simulation sandbox with lots of different fluids and interactions and it’s simply a lot of fun to play just by itself, but on top of that we have a really cool “thrust” based game where you can shoot at monsters and carry stuff around to solve the puzzles in each area. The goal is to save the survivors, but what are they survivors of? As you delve deeper into the caverns you’ll learn more about what their predicament is – yes, this time there will be a bit of a story; which is a first in the PixelJunk series so far.

Oh, and we’ll give out free t-shirts to the winner of the naming contest and also to the five runners up, so definitely submit an idea no matter how silly you think it might be, we might just use it. We will pick the winner from a hat containing the names of all the people who submitted the same idea, so send your ideas in by May 11th, which is the closing date for the competition. We will then choose 5 runner up ideas and do the same thing for each one. We’ll then design a logo for the name and announce the winner a few weeks afterwards.

Good luck!

“SCEA Is Not Responsible For Nor Is A Sponsor Of This Contest.”

Up for grabs are some amazing PlayStation items, including the authentic Helghast Suits worn at the end of the trailer below, each valued at more than $8,000. Other prizes include StA52 assault rifle replicas, Helghast collectable busts, downloadable content, and collectible Killzone 2 T-shirts.

Registration begins today, April 28, so be sure to register quickly here to get a jump on the competition! Read below for details, and head over to MLG Gamebattles for more information.

*NOTE: This ladder is open only to U.S. residents 13 years of age and older.

Prizing Structure

• 1st Place team: T-Shirt, authentic KZN Helghast Suits, DLC codes
• 2nd Place team: T-Shirt, StA 52 assault rifle replicas, DLC codes
• 3rd Place teams (x2): T-Shirt, collectable KZN Busts, DLC codes
• 5th Place teams (x4): T-Shirt, DLC codes
• 9th Place teams (x8) T-Shirt

Total Prize Value = $63,824

Rules

Players per Team: 4
Territories: Residence of US Only
Age Restrictions: Must be 13 years or older to enter

Official rules for the Killzone 2 Online Championships can be found here.

There were some common submissions, lots of you loved weapons that left enemies in their underwear, and many others suggested a cat launcher. Other favorites were guns that stopped time, morph weapons, and weapons that launched various food items. A couple of weapons were even similar to our finalists below, but in those cases, we always took the best submission. If all other things were equal, the first submission we received got the nod.

The five finalists are below, and you can vote for them for about one week, until Friday, April 24th at 12:01am PST. The weapon with the most votes will be included in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and we will announce the winning weapon at the International Comic-Con in San Diego. We’ll also be flying the winner out to present them with a real-life replica of their weapon.

Before you check out the finalists and cast your vote, check out this video we made, showing our Top 10 favorite Ratchet & Clank weapons of all time.

Without further ado, the finalists are:

• The Plasma Sprinkler Glove
• Spiral of Death
• Bubble Shot
• Qwark Machine
• Super-Sized Sticky Hand Toy

You can get all of the details on these weapons, see the art created for them, and vote on them at www.ratchetandclank.com! Hurry over there to get your votes in this week.

Thanks for all of your great submissions! Bryan Intihar and I will try to answer your questions below.

This is a “real” beta; the developers don’t just want you to play, they value your feedback. You should only participate if you’re willing to report your experiences on the closed beta forums, discussions, surveys, etc. You won’t just be having fun, you’ll be helping to make Fat Princess an even better game when it debuts on PSN this summer.

Also, you’ll get to brag to your friends. Over and over.

Being a closed beta, access is limited; so we want to make sure the most fervent, determined fans benefit from our allotment of 250 beta codes. We struggled with deciding how to determine which PlayStation.Blog readers want it the most. Then it hit us: cake.

The first 250 people to upload a picture of themselves eating cake (cheesecake, cupcakes and fruitcakes are all acceptable) to our Facebook fan page will get in. Please make sure that the picture is of YOU, and that you include a piece of PlayStation paraphernalia in the pic (a DualShock controller, T-shirt, PS3, PSP, etc). Just upload your pic(s) to the gallery and tag them with “Fat Princess″ – you’ll need to ‘Fan’ the page first – to let us know you want in! Then, once the beta gets underway, we’ll contact you via Facebook with information on how to join in on the fun.

In case you’re lacking for inspiration, we took some practice pics in the office. Now head out to the bakery – these spots won’t last!

UPDATE: Looks like we’ve got enough photos now! The response has been awesome and overwhelming, so thanks to all of you that have entered. We’ll go through the entries now, sort out the duplicates and whatnot, and contact the approved photo-submitters via Facebook by noon (Pacific) tomorrow. If you didn’t make it, pay attention to our Twitter account for other sites that may be granting access to the beta. Thanks!!