Continuing our Halloween celebration in Central Plaza, an updated version of the Lord Pumpkinhead game is being released this week. Be sure to log in to PlayStation Home on Thursday to play the Lord Pumpkinhead game and unlock tons of exclusive rewards.

After you are done playing the Lord Pumpkinhead game, head on over to the Central Plaza kiosk to pick up two special gifts that we are making available to you, the PlayStation Home community, as a sign of thanks for your ongoing support. Guys will be able to pick up the “Moonslayer Sword” while girls will be able to add the “Shadowpiercer Weapon” to their inventories free-of-charge through Halloween night. Take advantage of this special Halloween offer by logging into PlayStation Home and visiting the Central Plaza kiosk before Monday, November 1st.

In other Halloween-related news, Codeglue releases some super spooky clothing items this week (a fantastic Mummy costume and the gruesome “Bone shirt”) along with some truly horrific furniture items for your personal space (like the Skull Throne and Guillotine – pictured below).

The LucasArts store receives a massive update this week with four new costumes from the recently-released Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II – including the dual-lightsaber wielding Starkiller, Rahm Kota, Imperial Jump Trooper, and the all-new Terror Trooper (dual lightsabers are also available separately). Visit the PlayStation Home Mall this Thursday to pick up these items along with the veritable ton of other Star Wars items currently available from LucasArts.

Also releasing this week are the newest addition to the long line of PlayStation Home original costumes (such as the female “Red Dragon” outfit and the male “Mechanical Abomination” suit) along with three amazing new active items – “Johnny the Mysterious Doll”, the “Magic Cauldron” and the “Miniature Dragon” companion for your personal space. Check ‘em out!

You asked for it, so we’re bringing it to you: The mega-popular Hudson Gate and Dolphy Room are being updated this week with more items as well as some changes and optimizations to the Dolphy game!

Speaking of popular games, Lockwood Publishing are excited to announce that over a million gamers have played through Sodium! As a token of appreciation they’re offering a selection of fine gifts and offers to the whole PlayStation Home community. Whether you’re a battle-hardened tank pilot or expert bartender there’s something for you this week. Head to the Sodium Hub this week for a golden “Thank You” reward, additional earnings for Sodium bartenders, extended free-access to the Sodium Salt Shooter, and even discounted Pilots Jackets!

See you in Home!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is all about a personal journey, one where you attempt to unravel the mystery behind whether Starkiller’s a clone or not. The first game was all about redemption; the second is about identity and searching for the truth. It’s an epic story full of revelation; but it’s also a game full of intense action.

What made the first game so much fun to play was the unleashed nature of your Force powers–never in a game had we seen such a visceral, over-the-top imagining of the Force. Before I go any further, yes, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is still as over-the-top as the original in the portrayal of the Force, but it’s the improvements we’ve made to the gameplay that’s the real story here. For one, the team really concentrated making the targeting system more user-friendly as Force Gripping and throwing enemies at targets has never been more fun or more precise. The camera system has been reworked to show a better view of the action, opening up the battlefield for epic showdowns.

Speaking of epic showdowns, one our pillars for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was to create insanely intense boss battles in spectacle, size, and scale—and that’s exactly what we did! Hopefully you’ve seen footage over the past few months showcasing the largest boss in a Star Wars game to date, the mighty Gorog! It’s clearly evident from the start that Starkiller can’t possibly go toe-to-toe, so it’s up to you to figure out what attacks are the most effective. To that end, the team also concentrated on making the Imperial NPCs smarter and tougher to defeat. What this means is that you can no longer blaze through the game using one form of attack. Like the boss battles, you will have to experiment to find out which attacks are the most effective per each enemy type. There is a lot to discover in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II; and we as the developers want you to get as much out of the game as we put into it.

As one would expect, the team also created new gameplay scenarios that weren’t possible while making the first game, and none that were more exciting than the massive freefall that opens the game. Again, when making a sequel, you want to infuse it with bigger and better things, and the freefall was one of the first new innovations we explored when making Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. Initially we planned on using this much later in the game, but when you’re trying to make an instant impression, why save the goodness for later? Oh, and we can’t overlook the new Challenge Mode feature that is new to the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed franchise. Here, you can jump in and play fun mini-games that will help improve your overall Jedi prowess, while unlocking cool extras like lightsaber crystals, costumes, and cinematics.

Gameplay enhancements aside, I would say the biggest strides we made while making Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 were to our graphics and rendering engine. As you can tell from gameplay footage, this game is simply gorgeous-looking! Having built the sequel with most of the people that helped create the original Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was a huge deal. What that meant when it came to making Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was that our content creators were able to request refinements to the tools that would ultimately help them create a much more polished-looking and better playing game than the first.

Whew! That’s a lot to absorb in one sitting! Now all that’s left is to get out there, grab a copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, and experience the adrenaline rush for yourself!