Tech Blog

There are so many reasons why Duke Nukem is so great, but here's another one to add to the list: Future Shop is now offering a special pre-order price of Duke Nukem Forever for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Music CDs have bonus tracks, DVDs have bonus features, and video games have bonus levels.  For some reason we seem to love discovering additional content that benevolent producers include to enhance their offering.  For the world's most popular video game concert event, Video Games Live, offering bonuses to its fans is at the heart of this year's global tour.

The 2011 Major League Baseball season begins at the end of the month which means it's time for another edition of the critically acclaimed baseball franchise MLB The Show to celebrate the occassion. MLB 11 The Show is available now for the PlayStation 3, PSP, downloadable on the PSPgo, and yes, it's even coming out for the 11-year-old PlayStation 2.

A little while ago I wrote about Gears of War III being probably this year's most hotly anticipated game. And, you know, I wrote that without even beginning to think about what my most anticipated game of the year was. And then this week's news reminded me: It's Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and it hits on August 23rd.

War sucks.  Especially when it takes place on your own soil.  While I'm not American, the story of Homefront sure does hit home with its bleak speculative future of the declining state of the United States of America.  The first-person shooter developed by Kaos Studios, makers of Frontlines: Fuel of War, is one of the most controversial games yet, not just because it's premised on the unlikely occupation of the USA, but the militant occupants just happens to be a unified Greater Korean Republic.  Talk about hitting some touchy chords.

Dragon Age II hits next Tuesday, March 8th for Xbox 360, PS3, Windows PC and Mac, and for fans of the series so far--which includes Dragon Age: Origins and its lengthy expansion Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening--it offers a lot of promise, but also a lot of changes.

Sony's on a roll this week, not only announcing a slew of new PS3 games getting the Greatest Hits treatment, but also a reduction in the price of their flagship PSP model. According to the press release, the PSP will be reduced to $129.99 (MSRP) starting February 27, 2011.  That's less than the cost of a Nintendo DSi making it the least expensive major handheld on the market.

Sony has inducted five more titles into their esteemed Greatest Hits Library.  The distinction, it is said, is granted to select titles that have been on the market for some time and have achieved a substantial retail sell-through.  While I don't believe Sony has ever come out and stated the criteria for a game to qualify, it is generally believed that a PS3 game must have been on the market for at least 10 months and sold 500,000 or more copies.

The Killzone franchise seems to keep going with better and better performances each time out. I’ve always liked the series, and remember it fondly going back to the first one for the PS2 back in 2004. Now that I’ve been playing Killzone 3 for almost a week — including in 3D — it’s easily one of the best first-person shooters on the PS3.

Mother Nature is truly a force to be reckoned with. And a recent trip to San Francisco made that observation perfectly clear. As I touched down at the airport, the city had just experienced one of the nastiest storms of the season. An unusual amount of rainfall caused flash floods south of the city while to the north nearly 3 feet of snow fell in higher elevations, turning roads into skating rinks. Trees had toppled, streams swelled forcing the evacuation of neighbourhoods. Yes, Mother Nature made it clear she was in charge. It was somehow fitting the storm had hit San Francisco just as I had arrived while I was there to get a sneak peek at the Playstation 3 exclusive Motorstorm: Apocalypse, a racing game where weather plays a key role.

The third entry in the Dungeon Siege series, and the first to be published by Square-Enix, will be available in North America on May 31 the company has announced.  Good timing too considering the industry's big E3 Expo, which we all know tends to steal the headline thunder, begins a mere seven days later.

Man, Sony just can't catch a break, can they? You can temporarily strike "upgradeable hard drive" from the list of PlayStation 3 features this week, after the beleagured console manufacturer rushed a security update out the door. The limitations on some PlayStation 3 systems have made it difficult to install a new drive and restore the firmware to a working condition. Oops!

Sony Computer Entertainment's follow-up to the multi-million dollar user-generated platform phenomenon LittleBigPlanet hasn't even been out for a week yet and the sequel has already been awarded with five Guinness World Records.  Now before you ooh and aah at the achievement it's worth noting that some of the records are pretty tailored to the game, and one is just blatantly not possible for any other game to win because the award itself contains the name LittleBigPlanet 2.  Here's the list:

When I think back to 2010 there's one racing game that stands out for me, and it's not Gran Turismo 5.  Of course the GT series is widely considered the benchmark for the racing genre, but let's face it you need to be a hardcore racing simulator fan to really maximize the enjoyment.  For me, I prefer arcade racing games such as the Burnout series and the old Sega racing games such as Daytona USA and Sega Rally Championship.  So when I finally got my hands on Disney Interactive Studio's explosive PS3/Xbox 360 racing game Split/Second last year I knew I was experiencing something special.

Urgh, what a clumsy title, "to feature Steam features." But it makes sense. Maybe I should go back and change it, but then I've written this sentence down, so...

Wait! I should really talk about this properly, because it's a pretty huge and remarkable news story (why, in fact, I'm publishing it right after writing a news story about Final Fantasy XIII-2, even.) Valve's upcoming title Portal 2 is going to be released for PlayStation 3 with what is absolutely unprecedented cross-platform features, such as cloud-based saves, access to your Steam friends list, chat with PC/Mac players, and even a Steam Play copy that you can play on your PC or Mac? It's madness!