PlayStation.Blog God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup Recap

Can you say, “Biggest meetup ever?” Because if you made it out to San Francisco on Wednesday, you experienced it first-hand. Not that we didn’t expect an early God of War III hands-on event to draw a mega-crowd. But still, hats off to you guys for making it out in spades. A HUGE thank you to everyone who came out for an entire day’s worth of festivities, culminating in a chance to play God of War III before it hits stores tonight/tomorrow ! Thanks also to those who followed along at home — hopefully it will make picking up the game even more exciting! And you East-coasters that have been asking and asking for us to come to you…well, it’s official. The PlayStation.Blog is coming to New York City and Boston ( PAX East ) next week! Specific details coming soon. As for San Francisco, it was a day-long celebration of God of War III. Several of you lined up as early as 5am to secure a spot in our massive tent. (Check out ALL the pictures of our God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup on Flickr !) At around noon, we unleashed the burrito truck upon the line! Now that spells CHAOS! Shortly after, we opened the tent “doors” to the masses. Everyone was greeted inside by PlayStation 3 s loaded up with God of War Collection , and a special challenged awaited. The test? Complete the God of War II Challenge of the Titans “Blind Fury” the fastest…in one try. You die, you’re out. And the winner would lock down a God of War III Ultimate Edition ! We thought we’d see plenty of quick deaths, but in fact, many of you utterly blitzed this challenge. But only one came through with a time that could arguably last through the ages. 16 seconds! 16 freakin’ seconds! Here’s your winner: Throughout the day, we raffled off TONS of games, posters and other unique PlayStation goodies. Anyone who brought a PSP took home God of War: Chains of Olympus , but we also gave away MLB 10: The Show PSP , Heavy Rain , Fireteam Bravo 3 , Killzone 2 and much more. The highlight of the meetup was definitely the presence of Stig and the Sony Santa Monica Studio team who stopped by to sign autographs for everyone who came! All attendees also scored a limited-edition God of War III art book! And finally, there was the chance to take your picture and create a personalized God of War III cover! There are some truly great shots in Flickr , so flip through ‘em!

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PlayStation.Blog God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup Recap

God of War III Path To Olympus Experience Launches on GodofWar.com

Hey God of War fans. We are excited to unveil Path to Olympus today, a new exclusive feature on GodofWar.com . So what is it? In short, it’s a primer to get you prepared for March 16 when Kratos will storm retailers. Kratos has come a long way since his days as Captain of the Spartan Army , and the Path to Olympus episodes will take you through some of his most prolific and darkest moments, while providing the back story leading up the beginning of God of War III . Who is it for? This feature is for you if: You are a new player and want to learn what all this Kratos mania is about. You’re a gamer who has played the God of War games but are scratching your head trying to remember who Kratos killed, who has killed Kratos and everything in between. And lastly, if you’re a hardcore fan that wants to experience, once again, some of Kratos’ most exciting and brutal moments before plunging into God of War III. What to expect We will be releasing new content leading up to launch that will quickly get you up to speed on the story, preparing you to take control of Kratos as he catapults towards his destiny in God of War III. Take a look at some of the video content from the first chapter: Click to begin! One last thing to share. Many of the God of War developers are now on the GodofWar.com forums answering questions. Head on over to the community section of God of War and hear what they have been saying.

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God of War III Path To Olympus Experience Launches on GodofWar.com

ModNation Racers PS3: Dynamic Props – More than Just Speed Bumps

Hello, Mark here back for another developer post . Since we last talked, our North American and European Public PS3 Betas have exposed ModNation Racers to the world. These previews generated lots of great feedback and have helped us focus on key issues in these final months. I’m happy to say that frame rate, load times and race cameras have all improved. In my last update , I talked about some of the more advanced features of Track Studio that we’ve used to create the tracks for the game. Today I’d like to talk about some of the cool props you can add to your tracks to make them fun, challenging and memorable! Dynamic Props are interactive objects that you can place on your track to enhance the gameplay. We’re including a load of exciting things to place on your tracks, such as barrel launchers that shoot crushing or exploding barrels. There are also ModBots, robots that move back and forth across your track and attack karts that get close. Some shoot flame, some will bounce racers off the track if they aren’t careful. They can be scattered anywhere, so it’s a nice touch if you want your racers to watch the road. We’ve also included ramps for cool jumps, and launchers for shooting the kart over huge distances. We have barriers that pop out of the ground to test a driver’s agility, and flame vents to make any careless driver extra crispy! We designed them to be customizable, reusable and effective in a variety of different scenarios. The devilish setups we’ve put in our tracks are just the beginning of what can be done! Highlighting a Dynamic Prop in Track Studio and pressing the Square button will pop up a dialog where you can adjust settings on how the prop behaves. For instance, you can dial in the height of a ramp, or change the direction of the Twister (a giant rotating platform). Adjusting these things gives you the power to customize your track to make it as crazy as you want. Dial your ramp just right or you might hit some humps! These dangers work well with gameplay incentives such as item pods or boost pads – give the racers a reason to brave the danger! For instance, use a Devastator (a giant stomper) and boost pads in combination with a popup ramp to let them jump clean over it, versus the faster, more treacherous route under the Devastator. A whole gauntlet of Devastators to slalom through!?! With so many Dynamic Props, and so many possible combinations, I can’t wait to see what the community comes up with. Until then, check out our new trailer (above) that gives you a taste of all the insanity you can create with the toys we’ve built for you.

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ModNation Racers PS3: Dynamic Props – More than Just Speed Bumps

The Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack Releases Today for UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves

As we revealed over at IGN two weeks ago, the new “Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack” for UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves is available today on the PlayStation Store . The “Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack” includes two maps and six character skins inspired by Nathan Drake’s debut adventure, UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune . The six skins are available $2.99 and the two maps are available for $3.99 – or you can get all of skins and maps in a convenient, value-priced bundle for $5.99. Check out some of the new character renders of the skins included in the Pack: You can view and download the full set of character renders from the Naughty Dog Flickr page . So, you may be thinking to yourself, “What are these skins and maps exactly?” We’re glad you asked. Read on for detailed descriptions of our “Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack” content. TWO new maps, available in all competitive multiplayer game types and in the co-op arena game types, inspired by locations found in UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune. The Flooded Ruins Based on UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune Chapter 10 – The Customs House, players will find themselves fighting in the midst of a thunderstorm, complete with rain, thunder and lightning. The Flooded Ruins is an asymmetrical map centered on the Customs House building, which is surrounded on one side by multiple two-story buildings and many flanking routes – you’ll need to stay on your toes and watch your back. The Customs House itself provides the advantage of higher ground if you manage to take the center sniper perch, where you can dispatch your opponents or call out their positions to your teammates. Watch out for incoming grenades! The Facility Based on the submarine bay in UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune Chapter 18 – The Bunker, The Facility is centered on a rusted out U-boat that has been left to rot in its dry dock. This fairly symmetrical map works well with all game types. Players can hide in dark corners, snipe from the control tower, or go guns blazing into combat. Look out for the moving cargo on the upper levels – it can block your shots or cut off an escape route at a very inopportune moment! SIX new multiplayer skins based on characters from UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune. UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune Nathan Drake UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune Elena Fisher Gabriel Roman Atoq Navarro Eddy Raja Javier, the mercenary The Multiplayer Pack also unlocks 12 NEW Trophies – 11 Bronze and 1 Silver – to earn as you play: Bronze Brass Knuckles – Get 100 Melee Kills in Deathmatch or Elimination Games Gold Digger – Finish Wave 10 in 1 Gold Rush Game I Told You I Was Hardcore! – Complete All 3 Co-op Objective Maps on Hard Difficulty Made It – Finish Wave 10 in 1 Survival Game Plays Well With Others – Win 50 Objective Games Plundered! – Get 200 Captured Medals Rapid Fire – Get 7 Tripled Medals in Deathmatch or Elimination games Sneaky… – Get 50 Stealth Kills in Deathmatch of Elimination games Still Alive – Win 50 Elimination Games Tastes Like Chicken – Get 20 BBQ Medals in Deathmatch or Elimination games Wipe Them Out… – Win 50 Deathmatch Games Silver Cold Blooded – Get 2,500 Kills in Deathmatch or Elimination games Downloading the either the maps or the bundle unlocks the Trophies within the in-game multiplayer menu. You can gain progress towards completing these new Trophies in any game type that fits the Trophy criteria. Purchasing the skins only will NOT unlock the additional Trophies. We’ve also made sure that all our players can play from the same matchmaking pool regardless of whether they have purchased the maps or not – head over to NaughtyDog.com to read about how we’re doing this and how to change your profile settings.

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The Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack Releases Today for UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves

Coming to PSN this Week: Darksiders Demo

It’s been over a month since Darksiders released with near-universal critical praise, and the team at Vigil Studios is still hard at work. On Thursday, Vigil releases a demo for Darksiders . This isn’t your typical demo, however. It packs an unprecedented 90 minutes of gameplay, encompassing the entire first dungeon of the game: the Twilight Cathedral. I had a chance to talk to Vigil’s Creative Director and comic book legend, Joe Madureira (Joe Mad) — along with composers Mike Reagan and Cris Valesco — to get some more info on the demo: Now that Darksiders has been out for a few weeks, what do you think about the fans’ reactions to the game? Joe: We are incredibly excited to finally get Darksiders into people’s hands! The response has been fantastic. We already have armies of ravenous fans clamoring for a sequel, and that’s a dream come true for us. For Vigil, the development of Darksiders was almost as epic a journey as War’s is in the game—so of course, we’re excited to finally see it through to its end. We look forward to hearing from even more gamers over the next few months as they check out the demo, and news of the game spreads. Let’s talk about the demo. What can fans expect from the demo, and where does this take place within the main story? Joe: In this demo, War has been tasked with retrieving the heart of one of the Destroyer’s chosen. Tiamat, a massive demon queen is not about to give it up without a fight, so you’ll have to pry it from her cold, dead body. Luckily, this is just the sort of thing that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse are good at—and War is probably the toughest of the bunch. Of course at this point, War’s powers have been stripped from him, so he’ll have to use every weapon at his disposal, and locate the ancient artifact called the Cross Blade. Its mastery is vital to navigating the Cathedral, and ultimately bringing down Tiamat. The Cathedral itself is chock full of puzzles and other hazards, and of course, it is home to a host of the Destroyers minions. Be especially wary as you approach the walking pile of cadaverous flesh that is—the Jailer! When you meet him, you’ll see why… Darksiders is obviously a game with an epic scope. Why choose to focus the demo on the Twilight Cathedral? Joe: It’s true, there is so much to do, and so much to see in Darksiders, that it was difficult to pick one area to feature. We liked the Cathedral because it’s a self contained chunk of the game that’s fairly early on, so it’s easier to pick up and play. It’s also the first ‘dungeon’ experience in the game, so it’s a good one for players to learn the game’s structure. The dungeon exploration, using keys, solving puzzles, mastering the dungeon’s gear item ( Crossblade ) and of course, introducing tougher enemies and boss battles. It really gives you a taste of the adventure aspect of Darksiders, and hopefully will show gamers just how far from being a typical hack-n-slash Darksiders actually is. After playing the demo, what do you want fans to know about the rest of the game? Joe: By the time you beat the demo, you’re going to realize one thing—this is an adventure game! That’s right, you can go back to any area even after you beat it. You’ll want to do this because War is not equipped to find everything his first time through most areas. As War gains new abilities and items, he will be able to unlock areas of the levels previously unattainable. This creates an interesting pace, where combat is carefully balanced with exploration and puzzle solving. It’s not just a button mashing combat drill! That said, I do think it’s important to note that we at Vigil just LOVE to create kick ass enemies. There are some truly cool looking creatures in this game that make for fun and memorable battles! The bosses in particular are a lot of fun and end in a rewarding mess of gore! So what are you waiting for? Check out the demo, and pick up a copy today. YOU MUST OWN THIS GAME PEOPLE!!!! If you’ve been on Home lately, you may have seen the occasional Angel, Demon, Horseman, or Man-Horse walking around. We wanted to give the denizens of Home a chance show their allegiance to Heaven, Hell, or the Horsemen. We tried to pick some of the more iconic images from the game – including angel wings and demon horns. It’s a real credit to Joe and the rest of the team at Vigil that the characters and costumes look just as cool in the “real-world” Home environment as in the “comic-inspired” game environment. What’s most impressive is that we were able to take some of the in-game models and port them directly into the Home environment. We recently released War’s armor with the Mask of Shadows. My favorite item, however, is the Ruin horse head mask. It’s at the same time awesome and disturbing. I can’t deny the fact that I was partially inspired by a certain burlap-skinned character from one of my favorite side-scrolling platformers. If you’re a Darksiders fan, or just want to show your good, evil, or creepy side – go check out the Darksiders virtual items! Lastly, I spoke with composers Mike Reagan and Cris Valesco about the incredible music in Darksiders. You may not know their names, but you definitely know their work – God of War and God of War II being two of their most well-known titles. What other games have you worked together on? Mike: This was really the first project that Cris and I truly collaborated and wrote a theme together. Previously, we had both been hired individually to work on the God of War series . Cris: Mike and I have previously worked on the God of War series together as well as Van Helsing. However, this was the first time that we were actually able to collaborate on actual music. In the past we’ve always just worked on our own music independently. This time we were really able to brainstorm on the Darksiders Main Theme and I think it really shows. What was your inspiration for the “sound” of Darksiders? Mike: Spiritual warfare was a key motivator, and we wanted to create a sound that could be heard in complete darkness and convey a haunting experience. The Choir as well as the solo boy soprano sung by Zack Weisberg really added something special to the sound. Cris: Darksiders clearly has some religious connotations attached to it and we wanted to take advantage of that with the choir. They’re singing in Sanskrit throughout. This language dates back as far as 1500 BC so we thought this would help give the music a sense of weight and age. What is your favorite track? Mike: I’m really proud of the Main Theme that Cris and I did together, and the pieces with longer melodies that work really well over the Boss themes as well. Cris: The Main Theme that Mike and I wrote is probably the stand-out track in the game. It’s definitely my favorite piece. I also really liked the boss music that Mike wrote for the Greaver. Of my own music in the game, I am partial to the final boss music. This track and the Main Theme were actually performed live at the Night In Fantasia ’09 concert in Sydney this last summer too! Thanks for reading. I hope everyone enjoys the demo!

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Coming to PSN this Week: Darksiders Demo

Blade Kitten Coming to PSN this Spring

Hi I’m Steve Stamatiadis; you may know me as Creative Director and the guy behind some of our biggest titles like TY the Tasmanian Tiger series and the PS2 and PSP versions of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed . I’m also the creator and director of Krome Studios ’ new game, Blade Kitten , a brand new hi-def, high-action PS3 game coming to the PlayStation Network in the Spring. I’m sure all of you often get asked “WTF is a Blade Kitten?” I know I do all the time. No? Then I guess I should tell you the tale of a catgirl, her sword and a blobby alien critter thing. A sordid past. Sometime in the latter part of the 20th Century I was working on a bunch of ideas for comics and games. I’d start reusing elements that I thought were really cool, like alien species, characters, mecha, weapons, until eventually realizing I was creating a universe that they all shared. Then around 2001 – not long after we had started work on TY the Tasmanian Tiger — I found I had three different ideas that each had elements I liked but none had ALL the elements I wanted. One was too cartoony (a super powered anime schoolgirl), the other was too serious (Space Gladiators with guns) and the third was an aborted game project (a 60s stealth thief). What to do? Take all the best bits out and mix them all together into a series that I could have fun working on. Problem solved. So project “Kit-10” was born. It was a story about a female bounty hunter that had 10 different robot sidekicks to help her. One of the robots was a blade, the rest were just a bunch of dumb gimmicks that quickly fell by the wayside. But the cute girl with the big sword stuck and the title “Blade Kitten” came soon after. I was after something that was descriptive and rolled off the tongue like “Gun Ballet” but minus the gun… and the dancing. For me it harkens back to the era of comics, movies and games from when I was a kid; “Star Wars”, “Spider Man”, “Speed Racer”, “Space Invaders” – you have a fair idea what you’re in for. The “sounds-dumb-the-first-time-you-hear-them” kind of names that get stuck in your head. It was almost called “Blade Kitty” instead but that just sounded way too cutesy. Why is she a Kitty? Kit Ballard – I really wanted to make sure the stories screamed fantasy science fiction the first time you see them. The main character had to be some sort of alien, but not the bumpy forehead kind or the too weird to relate to kind. That’s why I decided on a cat girl (or Felion, as they’re known in the comic’s universe) because they’re still relatively normal looking, but you get odd ears on their head, right where everyone notices and you also get a cool tail bonus! Her hair is bright pink so that it stands out and echoes her vivacious attitude. We don’t get enough of that in games – things are usually “too beige” and grim. Most importantly, she’s a woman because its way, way cooler to see a girl beating up giant robots than it is to see a bald space marine beating up on robots. And so Kit Ballard, the Blade Kitten was born. As to her “pet” Skiffy – I wanted to give Kit some kind of cute mascot sidekick so that there’s always someone for her to interact with. Space is a big place and if you’ve ever done any travelling, you know it’s always more fun to have someone with you to talk about your shared experiences. Again to emphasize the science fiction aspect, the mascot had to be some kind of alien, also something that looked cute and cuddly when you glance at it, but when you get up close, it’s actually kind of icky. So Skiffy is a bunch of nice comforting shapes with odd proportions, like a giant head with far-apart eyes. The Blade – As they say on the internets: “Big sword is big.” It also free floats and has enough AI to be about as smart and aggressive as a pit bull. It’s there to be the tough edge to Kit’s character, the bite to her bark – wait, that’s a dog metaphor. Oops! Why does it float? Why not? We’ve had over 30 years of “laser swords,” so we felt it was time to bring on the free floating smart blades! The game that was a comic that was going to be a game. I always knew that I wanted to make a game out of the Blade Kitten stories when I started, but as we’d just found out, it’s really hard to launch a new game series. My cunning plan was to have something to back it up. I figured that comics would be a good way to build up the universe and show off the key features to potential game publishers later on. A webcomic turned out to be the path of least resistance to getting the story in front of people. And so I started the weekly job of writing and drawing a webcomic to sell a game. You can view it here . The comic was well received and ended up giving me a hundred-plus pages of comics, which meant hundreds of designs for world building when it came time to start the game. Ironically, I ended up telling a brand new part of the story for the game – one that adds to the mythos and fills in extra details in the comic storyline. That way you get some big surprises. Over the years, we’ve tried to start a Blade Kitten game project at Krome a few times, but as fate would have it, we were victims of our own success when bigger projects kept popping up. First in 2002, when TY the Tasmanian Tiger did well enough to spawn a sequel, then another. The second time we stopped because we had the opportunity to work on a cool Star Wars project. With that successfully completed, we decided to return to original game creation and to develop and publish Blade Kitten ourselves. Something big and bright like the comic and also really fun and accessible – so we took the path of a classic action side-scroller with the addition of all the cool HD bells and whistles we could add. It’s been a really amazing ride working with a cool team to bring at all together and finally see years of imagination and effort finally become a real game. It has also been an amazing amount of hard work on the part of the whole team. But that’s a whole different story, one I’ll share with you guys in my next post. In the meantime, please enjoy these screens we’ve captured just for the awesome community here on the PlayStation.Blog , and take a look at our trailer. Blade Kitten will be hitting PSN in the spring, which is just right around the corner!

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Blade Kitten Coming to PSN this Spring

make.believe: From Programmer to Naughty Dog Co-President

You’ve probably seen Sony ’s global “ make.believe ” (pronounced “make-dot-believe”) initiative by now, which comes with a simple message: believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real. I know a lot of you have heard the name Christophe Balestra , and like many of you out there, his make.believe moment is taking place every day. Christophe, along with co-president Evan Wells and the entire team at Naughty Dog , have been creating amazing games for the PlayStation family since the mid-nineties, when Crash Bandicoot made his debut on the original PlayStation. Since then, the Dogs have brought us the incredible Jak and Daxter franchise of adventure games, and of course, the critically acclaimed UNCHARTED series , including the latest award winning title, UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves . Naughty Dog has played a huge role in shaping the action adventure genre as we know it today, and their games have greatly influenced my own personal gaming experience. It’s no surprise that Naughty Dog ’s unique combination of storytelling cinematics, frantic action sequences, challenging traversal and tricky puzzle solving has been recognized across the industry and worldwide. Last evening in Las Vegas, UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves took the Interactive Achievement Awards by storm, grabbing ten awards, the most for any one title. It also won “Overall Game of the Year” for 2009, which is the second time PlayStation has been awarded this coveted honor by the academy. UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves has also garnered more than 150 other industry awards, has over 1.5 million online users worldwide, and has surpassed 3.5 million copies sold worldwide – the fastest selling first-party title for PlayStation. Not to mention, it’s established a new standard for games developed on the PS3 platform . We’re incredibly excited to see all of the continued innovations and platform-defining games that will come from the creative minds at Naughty Dog. Giving consumers a reason to be excited about video games is our “make.believe” promise and we’re thrilled to have Naughty Dog to help us make this a reality. With that, I’d like to share with you Christophe’s “ make.believe ” story from his point of view:

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make.believe: From Programmer to Naughty Dog Co-President

New MLB 10 The Show Trailer Revealed!

Baseball fans, if you missed the world premiere of the new MLB 10 The Show trailer on GameTrailers TV last Thursday night, we have it right here you! GameTrailers also went behind the scenes at our recent MLB 10 commercial shoot in Los Angeles where they caught up SCEA’s VP of all things Sony, Kevin Butler , and our cover athlete, AL MVP Joe Mauer . For a look at the segment head over to GameTrailers.com . We’ll have a lot more to show…from The Show as we move closer to our launch on March 2nd, so stay tuned. Enjoy!

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New MLB 10 The Show Trailer Revealed!

Final Fantasy XIII: Your Questions Answered

Earlier in the week, we told you we’d be meeting up with Square Enix to talk Final Fantasy XIII with Producer Yoshinori Kitase and Director Motomu Toriyama, along with the Battle Director Yuji Abe. So all your questions went to the former, which you can read in full form below. But the FFXIII love fest didn’t end there. With the game less than a month away (March 9!), Jeff and I got to play a nice chunk of the game…enough to get familiar with the battle system to chat all about it with Mr. Abe. In the video, you’ll get an in-depth look into the game’s battle system, which I have to say, once you understand it, it’s quite intense. PSB: With western RPGs becoming so popular, how were you influenced in Final Fantasy XIII to encompass all audiences? – via DMPrince Kitase/Toriyama: No games were a direct influence in particular, but we definitely looked at the FPS genre and other Western games to incorporate more speed and increase the pace of gameplay in Final Fantasy XIII. In terms of the FPS genre influence, the story progression of FFXIII is very similar to that (FPS) genre in the sense that different challenges and situations are presented to the character one after the other. That’s how they progress in the storyline. Of course, there are a lot of North Americans that imported the game. What do you say to those who say the game might be too linear? Does the accusation bother you? The earlier part of the game was intentionally created to be a linear experience because we wanted to make the experience similar to a movie or drama where players really get to know the characters and what is behind their actions. And also, since this is a brand new system for FFXIII, we wanted to take the correct steps to make sure players can control that system at will. So it is a surprise that so many people are commenting that the game is linear, but once you get into the area of Pulse in the game , it’s much more of a free world and the battle system really comes to life. And once you have a good idea of how to control it, you can go full force and it should be a completely different experience. Do you think that the idea of RPGs from the 80s and 90s being wide open is a dated stereotype? There’s sort of a template to the RPG system, traditionally, where players would go to the town and find out information through text, leave town to fight monsters and then come back to town and buy health and items, etc. FFXIII didn’t really look for some sort of template to follow, but we tried to go out and create and set a new trend for RPGs. So there isn’t really a thought to stick to tradition. How long would a play-through of the game with missions take? As far as hours, of gameplay…if you play straight through the story it would be about 60 hours of gameplay. But if you decided to play through all the missions, it would be, well, basically eternity. It could last forever. The enemies in the Pulse area are much stronger, as well, so there’s lots of replay value there. What is the native video resolution and audio format on the PS3? – via kturcotte Final Fantasy XIII runs in 720p and Dolby Digital 5.1 Final Fantasy traditionally chooses a song to accompany the game. Why did you go with Leona Lewis in the Western version instead of a traditional Japanese artist? – via ROFLdrg Previous FF titles brought over the Japanese songs to the Western versions of the game, but we felt that with a song that’s sung in a language that’s understandable to North American or European users, it would bring the game closer to the player and depart from the idea that Final Fantasy is a game that comes from overseas. Overall, it would tighten the relationship between the player and the game, so that’s why we decided to go with an English theme song. Are they any plans for PlayStation Home integration with FFXIII in North America? – via Jetup As you know, there’s some activity in the Japanese PlayStation Home but for North American activities, things are still in the planning stages and there’s nothing confirmed at this time. How does Final Fantasy XIII compare to the First Final Fantasy game that you worked on? – via KazeEternal (Toriyama): The first FF game I worked on was FFVII, and similar to XIII, it was a title that brought a drastic series as a whole (moving also from the Nintendo platform to PlayStation), the graphics were extremely renewed and different, so there was a huge jump there. For FFXIII, it’s the first time the series is coming to high-def consoles, and the graphics are so high-quality that you can express very detailed expressions and emotions. So did you see a lot of the same challenges with FFXIII that you saw with VII? The challenges were different because with FFVII, the team was in the dark and 3D graphics were so new that they really had to figure things out from scratch. So they got a hold of the 3D technology with VII, and fined tuned it for X, so with XIII, it’s kind of going along the same path. The team already has this knowledge and skill to work on 3D graphics, but of course with XIII things are so much more polished and the level of the CG movies are on par with movies. The team is really looking to inspiration for movies for comparison points for FFXIII. So the challenges were different for both games. What did you learn from working on your first high-definition FF game? – via Shadow780 One thing that the team, and especially the art team can take from the experience of developing FFXIII to future titles is the CG tech, especially the textures for the characters. For previous gen consoles, the art was essentially drawn and it was more of illustration work. But for FFXIII, a lot of CG tech was involved and getting the art and texture of the skin right was a key component for FFXIII…definitely something that the team will take to future titles. And of course every developer is really looking to make their characters and worlds look as realistic as possible, but we wanted to go one step behind and evoke emotion through the characters. The shine of the lip or the look of the stockings can evoke a sexual tension. The same goes for the male characters…we want the fans to think they are cool, and they are more than just a game characters. What was it like working on the PS3 for the first time? The PS3 is definitely a spectacular machine and the team was really able to realize its visions for the characters and graphics, and at the same time, were able to have big onscreen battles going on. The PS3 hardware was something that really helped envision the game. I heard there was content removed from the original game? Could it possibly resurface as DLC? – via @ericsavatar Regarding the DLC content, we feel that the final product is 100% enjoyable…it’s the complete package. So we’re not planning any DLC at this time. In regard to the rumored cut content, we feel it was taken out of context. There are a lot of ideas that are brought to the table, and then the team takes the best ideas out of those, and the final product is polished that way. There was content that were “ideas” that didn’t make the final content, but the team isn’t looking to release that as downloadable content. In FFXIII, it seems like there’s a movement toward more realistic characters. What’s the direction you’re going with these particular characters? There is definitely a conscious movement toward depicting emotion and realism for the characters. The team wants to create characters that mature audiences can relate to, as well. Any news on Agito or Versus? No set date yet, so you can keep on the lookout for new information. And though we can’t really go into detail, a quick overview of the status of development; 100-200 staff members from FFXIII are now finished with the game, and all the people that have been working on it, they have all this knowledge of PS3 tech (and PSP) and they can bring it to these different teams and the development speed will probably increase.

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Final Fantasy XIII: Your Questions Answered

Flower Dynamic Theme Now Available, Original Soundtrack Announced

Hey Everyone. Randall Lowe here with a lot of really exciting Flower news and announcements. It is my honor to be posting on behalf of Jenova Chen or Kellee Santiago , the creative geniuses at thatgamecompany behind Flower. Today, February 12, we’re all very proud to be celebrating the one year anniversary of Flower’s release on the PSN ! Before I get onto the news, perhaps I should recap for those of you who aren’t familiar with Flower . Flower is a completely new experience in gaming that takes you on an emotional journey through vivid and beautiful landscapes. In it, you guide the wind to collect flower petals, float above grassy hills, and paint the world with color and light. Since its debut, it has won a ton of awards and recognitions , from critics and fans alike, as a truly unique experience and ground-breaking game. If you missed it, here’s Jenova and Kellee accepting the award for Best Indie Game at the Spike VGAs in December. If you haven’t tried the game out yet, now’s the perfect chance! Even better than reading my words about how unique and beautiful Flower really is, please take a moment and watch this developer diary video featuring Kellee from TGC , and my boss here at Santa Monica, Eric Koch . So, back to the anniversary. To celebrate Flower turning one year young, and all the success the game has enjoyed since its release, we’ve put together a beautiful and serene dynamic theme, complete with day and night cycles, for all the fans who want to bring the Flower experience to their XMB. This went live on the PlayStation Store yesterday for the low price of $2.99. Go check it out! Want more than just the dynamic theme? Then you’re in luck! Coming soon, we’ll be releasing the original soundtrack for Flower composed by Vincent Diamante . This soundtrack has been remastered and mixed specifically for this release, and more details will be announced in the near future. So check back on the blog for a release date and pricing! Speaking of fans, here’s a great fan-made trailer that the developers liked so much, they contacted the creators so we could release it officially on PSN ! Finally, I just wanted to take a moment on behalf of thatgamecompany and SCEA Santa Monica Studio to express the sincere gratitude and appreciation to all the fans of Flower; for the longevity of your support and your level of interest in this project that has meant so much to so many people.

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Flower Dynamic Theme Now Available, Original Soundtrack Announced

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