Looks like PlayStation Network is finally ready to compete with Xbox Live for real. Sony just announced a month-long “Only On PSN” initiative. Tell me if this sounds familiar: a selection of premium download-only titles, with new releases coming out every week over the next month. Details inside. Read more »
First, there was the PSN über-meltdown. Either an extremely evil person tried to get their hands on all those users’ credit card information, or some smart aleck thought it would be a good idea to teach Sony a lesson about security measures by obliterating their entire network. Afterwards, another arm of the company, Sony Online Entertainment, was also hacked, compromising the personal information of SOE’s 24.6 million users. (SOE was never taken down the way the PlayStation Network was, so it’s services never suffered an outage.) But that was only the beginning. Around mid-May, the website for Eidos Interactive (publisher of Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, and others) was hacked, compromising Read more »
E3 is just two weeks away! Can you believe it? What delicious (and what vaporware) delights will E3 2011 bring to gamers? What surprises do Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have in store for their pre-E3 media extravaganzas? What games will walk away from the week with the heaviest buzz? It’s impossible to predict what secrets all the major companies have up their sleeves, but here’s n early look at what we have to look forward to. Read more »
In case you hadn’t heard, PSN is back. At least for North America and Europe anyway, nearly one full month after the online system was compromised and Sony was forced to pull its plug, most of PSN’s services have returned. (We’re still waiting on the PlayStation Store, but nearly everything else is back.) To encourage players to return and apologize for the extended downtime, Sony has put together a “Welcome Back” package that’s like a free goody bag, which will be given to all users (for now just in North America, but similar packages are being made for other regions). Here are the details. Read more »
Another day… and still no PSN. With Sony’s investigation into the cyber attack that took down PlayStation Network still ongoing, the electronics giant has revealed some details about the “Welcome Back” package that all PSN users will soon be receiving. Among Sony’s gifts to woo you back to PSN: $1 million in identity theft insurance for one year. Free. Read more »
In a situation that for gamers is quickly growing to “Who shot JFK?” proportions, the PlayStation Network (PSN) — Sony’s answer to Xbox Live — was effectively killed by an external source sometime last Thursday, forcing Sony to completely rebuild the entire system. That’s five long days without the PlayStation Store and PS3-exclusive MMOs, which may as well be five months as far as PS3 gamers are concerned. The question on everybody’s minds: who toppled PSN? Who could have perpetrated such an all-encompassing crime, catching Sony completely off guard and dismantling such a high-profile network so effectively? How in the world could Sony even allow their network to be open Read more »
Today Sony upgraded PlayStation Home — the HD online virtual space where you can interact with other gamers and play casual games — to version 1.5, with some big enhancements. This news got me thinking… What’s the point of PlayStation Home? Read more »
PlayStation 3 owners: here’s a little title you probably haven’t heard of but need to know about. It’s called Red Johnson’s Chronicles, and it’s a downloadable title coming to PSN on Tuesday, April 19th. From French developer Lexis Numérique comes this story-driven noire adventure, a wicked tale of murder in a corrupt Metropolis. You play as the title character, a private detective named Red Johnson who’s trying to solve the case, with a new twist on the classic “point and click” adventure mechanic, which combines exploration, puzzle solving, and action. The crux of the game is built on interaction with the colorful NPC citizens of Metropolis (yep, they’re really using that Read more »
If quirky titles like Limbo turn you on, you’re going to want to get to know Amanita Design, a tiny developer from the Czech Republic. They make the kind of games that Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam or Roald Dahl would play: point-and-click surrealist adventures. In 2009, after a series of small, free-to-play-online titles, Amanita captured attention with its first full-length game, a steampunkish adventure called Machinarium that was released for PC and Mac (hot tip: Machinarium is available at half price on the Mac App Store until the end of March). The game got rave reviews from all the major gaming journos, and now, two years after the accolades, Read more »
Atari has announced that Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime, the new top-down game (a la Lara Croft: Guardian of Light) in the franchise, will launch on March 23rd. Xbox Live and PlayStation Network gamers will be able to download the game that day for a yet-to-be-determined price. Sanctum of Slime is a follow-up to the original Ghostbusters video game, which was a 3D shooter. An expensive game to produce, it featured a story by the films’ writers, the likenesses and voices of the original cast, and top-notch production values. Sanctum of Slime was far less costly to produce, with an entirely new perspective and a new team of ‘Busters who take Read more »
