…and a happy new year. Thank you so much to all our readers and contributors over the past year for keeping Three Speech the lively space that it is. Looking forward to 2008 with more of the same. Have great holidays, people.
Now feel free to chat away…
TS x.
We had a small taster of Paradise City last week with the Burnout Paradise demo, but what we didn’t know is exactly how massive and extensive the full city actually is. Criterion released the full map yesterday - check it out for yourselves above. Last week’s demo contains just the top right corner, on the top right-hand side of the river.
As you probably know by now…
Title (Licence/Publisher): Price
Game
Toy Home (SCEE): £4.99
Populous: The Beginning (Electronic Arts LTD): £3.49
Demos
Timeshift MP Demo (Vivendi Universal Games International): Free
Packs
Guitar Heroes III - Boss battle track pack (Activision UK Ltd): Free
MotorStorm Holiday Paint Job (SCEE): Free
Operation Omega Dawn (Warhawk) (SCEE): £3.99
Video
DMC4 TGS (Capcom CE. Europe Ltd): Free
Environment Sizzler Video #3: Canyon (Sega Europe Ltd): Free
Environment Sizzler Video #2: Arctic (Sega Europe Ltd): Free
Kane & Lynch Fragile Alliance - Walk in the Park Trailer (Eidos Interactive): Free
Kane & Lynch TV AD (Eidos Interactive): Free
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Fragile Alliance & Co-op (Eidos Interactive): Free
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Insider Video 1 (Eidos Interactive): Free
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Insider Video 2 (Eidos Interactive): Free
MGS4 TGS 2007 Trailer (Konami Digital Entertainment): Free
Assassin’s Creed TV Spot (Ubisoft Entertainment): Free
Sky Diving (SCEE): Free
GTA IV Trailer 3 Move up ladies (Rockstar): Free
Wallpapers
High Stakes on the vegas strip: Poker (Sony Online Entertainment): Free
Uncharted Forum Prize Winner (SCEE): Free
Pain - Jervis Bowler (SCEE): Free
Pain - Jervis Rapper (SCEE): Free
Pain - Jervis Vs Cow (SCEE): Free
Pain - Wallmime (SCEE): Free
Themes
Retro (SCEE): Free
Nature (SCEE): Free
Manga (SCEE): Free
Pixels (SCEE): Free
Theatrical Movie Trailer
CJ7 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment): Free
Ubisoft released the first details of the highly anticipated sequel to their smash hit Rainbow Six Vegas today, along with a couple more screenshots (which can be seen above). Looks like their strategy is along the lines of ‘more of the same’ with some added improvements – which is no problem considering the high quality of the original title. Here’s a round up of new features taken from the official press release.
So, the end of the year and all that… Three Speech’s contributors have taken a welcome but momentary break from their Christmas shopping, in order to compile their lists of the top five PS3 games of 2007. Having pooled the results, we now have the overall top five so, without further ado, here it is. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Three Speech!
1. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
Quite simply an awesome game, whether it’s the graphics, storyline, shooting system or classic third-person action-adventure gameplay that gets you going. Oozes quality.
2. Call of Duty 4
Back with peerless developer Infinity Ward, the much-loved shooting franchise moved up a gear after abandoning WWII in favour of modern combat. Harrowing in its intensity, it’s enough to put anyone off wanting to go to a real war.
3. Assassin’s Creed
Ubisoft’s Crusades-set sneak-em-up/free-running/hack-‘n’-slash polarised opinion somewhat, but there’s no denying its ambition to provide a fresh, new gameplay experience and its gorgeous graphics.
4. MotorStorm
Evolution’s mud-plugging racer-with-attitude turned Monument Valley into some awesome racing tracks, sported deeply impressive physics and generally gave us all our first taste of what the PS3 is capable of.
5. Heavenly Sword
Another one that polarised opinion somewhat, but Heavenly Sword’s incredible production values, great characterisations, super-slick swordplay and absorbing arrows-as-guided-missiles mechanic gave us a lot of joy.
Honourable mentions…
Because this is a composite of all the Three Speech contributors’ individual charts, a few games were dead unlucky not to make it in. So we thought it only fair to give an honourable shout-out to:
Stranglehold: John Woo’s attempt to make a playable game version of one of his films (starring Chow-Yun Fat, natch), proved to be irresistibly over-the-top.
The Darkness: absolutely twisted first-person shooter, with the mafia, extra devil-derived powers and bizarre interludes in a scary underworld where WWI still rages. Deliciously freaky.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: quite simply the best action-RPG ever made: huge, slick and utterly absorbing.
It had to happen. With this amount of carnage set in a place going by the name of Paradise City, the developers of the upcoming addition to the Burnout series really had no choice of background music for their trailer other than the legendary ‘Paradise City’ by Guns N’ Roses. Oh, won’t you please take me home… Check out the trailer below.
Firmware Version 2.10 was announced today, with new functionality including the introduction of Blu-ray Profile 1.1, the provision of support for DivX and VC-1 video playback codecs, and also a voice changing feature to enhance Voice Chat on PS3, enabling users to alter the tone and pitch of their voice from the Control panel during AV Chat.
For the official press release click through.
Over at A&E Interactive they are running an interview with Sony US games chief Jack Tretton.
Mr Tretton, when quizzed about retaining developers for the PS3, answered as follows:
‘Well, I think the key is to demonstrate success, demonstrate a willingness to work with a publisher to do everything you can to give them development tools and resources to make them successful. I think the fruits of that labor is 160-plus games this year for PlayStation 3, 23 developers making games for PlayStation 3. And I don’t see any signs of that changing going forward. If anything, given the recent success that we’ve enjoyed, and given the success we’re enjoying on a worldwide basis, we’re getting a lot of very positive feedback about the prognosis for PlayStation 3, and really a renewed enthusiasm for it, as opposed to a declining attitude towards it.’
For the full interview click here.
One of our readers has got in touch with a very inventive and interesting take on user created content. Chris (TheMethod) was sitting one day thinking about how Resistance allows in-game screenshots to be taken and after a bit of head-scratching an idea was born. Chris mobilised 40 soldiers and organised a series of photo shoots. Despite technical issues and a lovely chap going by the name of “Italian Crackhead” blowing everybody to bits due to not understanding English (look to the right in the first shot below), everything fell into place and the shots worked.
The first he called ‘The Class of 2007′.
They followed this with “The Big 40” marathon, a foot race around a predefined course in a map. And also “The Wedding”, a military style wedding photo with an arch of green dragon flamethrowers in place of swords.
The whole event was rounded off with all involved making their homage to the Burning Man festival.
For a full list of those involved click through and thanks to Chris (TheMethod) for getting in touch.
