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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Championed by our lead engineer John Edwards, the 24hr Game Jam was created as a way for us to do something quick, dirty, and fun … and maybe let out a little steam in the process. The goal is always to make a game, from start to finish, on the PS3 in 24hrs. We go from 10am Saturday to 10am Sunday, and then whatever we have, we lock it up. Future Game Jams might have more specific goals, but for this first one, we just wanted to see how much fun we could make in a day. Oh, and our game designer Nick Clark wanted something that was multiplayer that we could enjoy in the office.

So welcome … to Game Jam 0: Gravediggers

Goals:

• To see how much fun we could generate in 24 hours.
• To make something multiplayer we could play in the office.

Premise/Rules:

You are a gravedigger. There can be up to 6 gravediggers competing against one another locally. You move with an analog stick, jump with the “X” button, and shoot with Right Bumper. Oh yeah, you are a gravedigger with a pistol.

You are killing zombies. There are lots of them. More specifically you are collecting zombie heads. When you kill a zombie, their head pops off and you can collect them.

In order to get a point for your head, you must deposit heads into a crypt. There are two crypts on the level, but they can move around in the middle of a game.

You can shoot other players, and collect their heads. Their heads are worth more. In addition, you will be able to collect all of the zombie heads they have gathered so far.

If you are shot by another player or a zombie chomps you to death, your head will pop off and you will become a zombie. (“Rise from your grave….”) You can still chomp other players, but you can’t deposit heads, and you will remain a zombie until you find your head. If another player deposits your head in a crypt, it will pop up somewhere else on the level.

The ground is very soft. If it’s in your way, I suggest shooting a path through it. It’s a lot more fun. Every level is randomly generated.

Along the way, you might pick up special weapons:

• Uzi (fast pistol)
• mines (explode on impact)
• satchel charges (detonated on command)
• the uber-weapon, the shotgun.

If you pick one up, it will automatically become your new default weapon.

The first player to deposit 50 heads wins. Below is a play-through with five players.

And there you have it! The product of 24hrs straight work on the PS3. I’m not sure if it plays well on video, but I gotta tell you the game is large amounts of ridiculous fun for us to play. Maybe you have to be there. At any rate, I’m looking forward to reporting back from our next Game Jam, and I hope you all got a kick out of this one!

If you’re going to be in the Aspen/Snowmass, Colorado area through January 27th, you’re invited to stop by the PlayStation tent. This is your chance to play Gran Turismo 5 Prologue; we’re showing new code that has never seen before in the US. What’s more, PlayStation fans will have the opportunity to play directly against some of their favorite X Games athletes.

PlayStation is hosting a hands-on game competition featuring Winter X Games champions Gretchen Bleiler (2007 Winter X Games Gold and Olympic Silver medalist for snowboarding), Simon Dumont (2007 X Games Silver medalist for skiing) and Tucker Hibbert (2007 X Games Gold Medalist for snowmobiling). See if these athletes are as skilled with the SIXAXIS as they are on the hill!

The PlayStation tent will also feature soon-to-be released Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice and futuristic, anti-gravity racer wipEout PULSE. Brand new third party titles Burnout Paradise (along with the PLAYSTATION Eye) and NFL Tour will be playable on PLAYSTATION 3 in the VIP and athlete lounges. Also, PSPs on-site will feature the new Internet Radio functionality via AOL’s SHOUTCast.

Hope to see you there!

In celebration of tomorrow’s launch of Assassin’s Creed for PS3, last week Ubisoft and SCEA hosted a red carpet event at Opera, one of the hottest night clubs in Los Angeles. Hundreds of attendees and an impressive contingent of celebrities turned up, including, Greg Grunberg (Heroes), John Hensley (Nip/Tuck), Lauren Conrad (The Hills), Masi Oka (Heroes), Shawn Pyfrom (Desperate Housewives) and Zachary Levi (Chuck).

They were on hand to get exclusive hands-on time with the game before launch. Heroes’ Kristen Bell, whose mysterious role is an important part of the game’s storyline, co-hosted the event and spent the evening dancing to DJ Cubeechee who opened up the set on the turntables and DJ Vice who closed the party down – much to everyone’s dismay. Check out a few photos from the event, and be sure to pick up the game when it hits stores tomorrow.

And if you haven’t seen it before, watch the Assassin’s Creed PS3 TV spot here.

Check out this video for a taste of what GT Awards is all about.

Industry experts scan the show floor and judge all the entries to select “Best in Class” winners for the following five categories: Best Hot Rod, Best Japanese Import, Best European Import, Best Truck/SUV and Best Domestic. From there, Kazunori Yamauchi carefully examines these “Best in Class” winners to select the BIG ONE – Best in Show.

Check out the category winners from this year’s GT Awards below:

The winner last night at the 2007 GT Awards was a 2007 Audi TT submitted by Marcel Horn. It is a beautiful car and we are all very excited about driving it (very fast) in a future GT product.

Also, check out this image below of last year’s GT Awards winner, a 1960 Corvette that was playable in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue at Tryst last night. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is set to continue blurring the lines of racing simulation and reality – it looks amazing! Just think: the same amount of data used for an entire car in GT4 is now used for just one headlight in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. WOW!

Following the awards ceremony, guests were also treated to an outstanding live performance by Chris Cornell. He rocked the crowded house with a set that no one will soon forget.

It doesn’t snow in San Francisco, but that’s the place to be to see competitive snowboarding, ski jumps, and to get hands-on with cool, new and upcoming PlayStation games.

PlayStation has two gaming tents set up at this weekend’s Icer Air event, featuring titles like Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground and SingStar Amped. The tents will also allow attendees access to our latest PSP game that is launching next week: SOCOM: Tactical Strike. Also, check out PLAYSTATION Network’s PAIN (very popular with the extreme sports fans at the PlayStation Pro).

So in between witnessing wakeboarding in McCovey Cove, pro skate competition on the PlayStation vert ramp (San Francisco is the city where Tony Hawk pulled off the first-ever 900), and seeing Mos Def & Talib Kweli perform – drop by and see us!

And we’ve got a special code for you PlayStation fans – type in promotion code “ia07psp” (without the quotes) and receive a special Underground Member discount for $10.00 off all tickets Saturday and Sunday. Click here for tickets and more info.

Hi I’m Abigail Murphy, just stopping in to give you the scoop on the PlayStation Pro, which took place this past weekend at the Amway Arena in Orlando, Florida. For those who aren’t familiar, the PlayStation Pro is the fifth and final stop of the AST Dew Tour, the pro action sports tour that features skateboarding, BMX, and freestyle motocross.

On Wednesday, PlayStation kicked off the event by donating $5,000 each to the Orlando After School All-Stars & The OC Club. The donations were given in hopes of providing the children of the Orlando more opportunities to get involved in action sports. AST Dew Tour Pro Skateboarders Anthony Furlong, Jean Postec and Andy McDonald held a clinic with 30 kids from these clubs on the Fresh Park course. Along with the clinic, The PlayStation Experience truck was on-site at the Festival Village for all the kids to test out the latest and greatest videogames for PlayStation.

The PlayStation Experience was packed all weekend, with kids looking to check out the best in action sports…and videogaming! People went insane over the upcoming PlayStation Network title PAIN. It’s no surprise, as PAIN is a game of crash and burn, after all.

The AST Dew Tour competition went on throughout the weekend. Here are the results:

AST Dew Cup Champions
Skateboard Park: Ryan Sheckler
Skateboard Vert: Shaun White
FMX: Nate Adams
BMX Vert: Jamie Bestwick
BMX Park: Daniel Dhers
BMX Dirt: Ryan Nyquist

All Dew Cup Champions were awarded on Sunday night, after a weekend filled with incredible competitions. PlayStation was also on hand to crown the 2007 PlayStation Trick of the Year winner…Mike Spinner. Mike’s 1080 in BMX Park won him the PlayStation Trick of the Week honors in Portland and has now won him the ultimate prize – the 2007 PlayStation Trick of the Year. Mike will be looking forward to a $10,000 check, a PLAYSTATION®3, and library of games. Congrats Mike!

We took a ton of pictures at the PlayStation Pro, click here to visit our gallery.

We hosted an exclusive preview event for the Canadian media. We took over a venue in downtown Toronto and filled it with the wicked games that will be available this holiday season, and early 2008, for PlayStation 3, PSP and PlayStation 2. Media who attended spent time with:

* Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
* Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
* God of War: Chains of Olympus
* Buzz!: The Mega Quiz

And many more top SCE games

We also had tremendous third party support as Ubisoft, EA, Activision, D3, THQ, LucasArts, Rockstar, 2K Sports, Capcom and Sega attended.

Some of the playable third party games included:

* Haze
* Rock Band
* Need for Speed Pro Street
* Call of Duty 4
* Guitar Hero III
* Dark Sector
* WWE Raw vs Smackdown 2008
* Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron (playing on the new Star Wars PSP of course!)
* Manhunt 2
* NHL 2K8
* Devil May Cry 4
* The Golden Compass

I’d like to thank the third parties as well as my counterparts at SCEA for taking the time to help us build such a successful event as well as sending spokespeople to demo the games. This holiday season is going to be the best gaming season I’ve ever been a part of and I can’t wait to play! I hope you’re all anticipating it as much as I am!

More PS3 Titles Coming From Everyday Shooter Creator
–Kotaku

TGS 2007: Sony Announces Dual Shock 3 Controller
–Game|Life

TGS07: Final Fantasy XIII trailer impressions
–PS3 Fanboy

TGS07: Virtually at Sony’s pre-TGS cocktail party
–Joystiq

Secret Agent Clank Coming To PSP
–Kotaku

TGS07: Remote Play functionality expands significantly
–PS3 Fanboy