Once again, Sony opened up its trendy 3Rooms venue in Shoreditch, for a showcase of new and forthcoming PlayStation 3 games. As it filled up with the cream of Europe’s videogames press, we had little trouble finding stuff that had either come on a lot since we saw it at GDC or else was completely new.
For us, perhaps the most significant item of news on show concerned MotorStorm. Sony senior producer Pete Smith tore himself away from his LittleBigPlanet duties to unveil a raft of downloadable content for the barnstorming off-road racing game, due to arrive over the PlayStation network in the next month or so.
Smith said: “We want to make sure that we build a thriving online community, so we will continually put out new content – some premium and some free.” The first manifestation of this downloadable content (DLC) will be an update to version 1.2, which is essentially aimed at improving the online experience, with detailed updates of the interface and general tweaks to make it easier to set up games and friendlier when you play them. This free update is already sitting on the PlayStation Network, waiting for you to download it.
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But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Admitting that: “We have had a bit of criticism because MotorStorm was light on its modes,” Smith announced a new mode which will be available for download: Time Attack. He said: “It’s more than a simple time-trial. It will have global leader-boards and about 250 cars will be stored which you can download and race against – you can download up to eight ghost cars for a single race.” So now, you’ll be able to measure yourself up against the very best MotorStormers. Time Attack will be downloadable for free from 25 May.
In June, the first Premium (that is, paid-for) DLC for MotorStorm will arrive, entitled Pack One. This will contain – hurrah – a new track called Coyote Revenge – which, Smith said, is based on a reversed Coyote Rage, but tweaked so extensively as to be unrecognisable. The pack will also contain three new tickets, collectively entitled Coyote Weekend, a new Big Rig and Rally Car (plus an unlockable car) and a new online mode called eliminator, in which you’ll have 20 seconds to catch and pass the person in front.
Developer Incognito’s Dylan Jobe was on hand to demonstrate WarHawk, which impressed everyone and has certainly come on a lot since GDC. Jobe began by highlighting the game’s customisability, which lets you extensively redesign the character you play as and even to develop colour schemes for aircraft, which are automatically adopted when you climb into them, and to set up colour schemes for AI enemy planes.
Next up were the online features, which seemed pretty comprehensive, particularly as far as stats are concerned – not only are details of your kills, death, ratios and so on stored, but you can drill down as deep as investigating how many people you have killed by running them over in jeeps. The ranking system was also revealed – as you improve in the game, your rank increases, with the highest being General: High Command, and there are countless medals, ribbons and wings to win, as you achieve certain challenges. You’ll be able to research exactly what you need to do to achieve any of those.
According to Jobe, there will be 25 battlefields across five maps at launch – which is impressive, as the maps are huge. A few gameplay details stood out, too: notably, the importance of levelling up your bases (by simply standing next to their flags), to gain extra power-ups and weapons, and generally reclaim areas of the map as your own.
We also saw some of the niceties of the flying: perhaps the best airborne power-ups are aerial mines that you can drop – Jobe suggested that the best place to put these was near to aerial health power-ups, as they explode when any planes get near to them. There’s also a stealth power-up for the planes (although you can’t fire missiles when you use it), and chaff for evading incoming missiles (although you get more kudos by pulling off aerobatic manoeuvres to shake them off). Jobe said that WarHawk will arrive: “End of summer/early fall,” and that at first, at least, it will be available as a download; apparently Sony still hasn’t decided whether it will sell the game on disk in Europe.
Next up was Snakeball, the PlayStation Network game whose existence we recently revealed. Snakeball owes something of a debt to the old Nokia phone classic Snake, but obviously, it’s an awful lot more sophisticated. Essentially, you drive around, collecting coloured balls which assemble themselves into an ever-growing tail. You have to deposit them in a goal, and the more balls you deposit at a time, the higher you score. AI enemies will take you out if you crash into them and they have bigger tails than you, and there are mines and so forth which you must avoid. The whole thing takes place on a very natty disco-floor, which cleverly communicates to you, using flashing colours, the locations of things you need to pick up or avoid.
Control-wise, Snakeball uses the Sixaxis’ motion-sensing for movement, which frees up the buttons for expending power-ups, such as missiles which you can guide. It has three game modes: Challenge (the main mode), Arcade Shooting (where the goals are defended by mines) and Frenzy, which is timed. Up to four people can enjoy split-screen action, and two PS3s can be hooked up to each other for four-versus-four action.
Although the same level of LittleBigPlanet was shown as featured at GDC, this time around, we managed to get some hands-on action, which was deeply exciting. 0So we can tell you a bit about the controls (which, hopefully, will stay the same when the game comes out). So, the square button brings up your various menus for customising your character, selecting objects with which you can build levels and selecting stickers to plaster all over the place. R1 lets you grab objects, X is jump, and if you hold down R2 or L2 and wiggle the left and right sticks, you can make your character wave its arms around.
And last up was Sony’s next game for the PS3 – SingStar. Which was pretty much as you’d expect – there will be 350 songs available for download at launch, although Sony would still not be drawn on how much they will cost. Each song will be a download of roughly 55 megabytes, as they have the videos embedded – but if you’re at a party, say, you can set them to download in the background while you carry on playing.
SingStar has gone to town on the MySpace-style community features, with a My SingStar area that includes SingStar Scene, in which you’ll be able to meet other karaoke fiends, and a Community Gallery, where you’ll find the highest-rated videos and recordings – in its default mode, if hooked up to an Eye Toy, SingStar will video you whenever you reach the chorus of a song, and take a load of still pictures over the duration of the song. You’ll also be able to manually video the entire duration of your song, should you wish to inflict your vocal talents on the rest of the world.
Thanks for the write up! Sounds like it was a great event. Exciting times!
Comment by Timeless — May 17, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
Great information. Motorstorm DLC is not availabe yet though. At least not on the North America servers.
Comment by Ken — May 17, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
MotorStorm 1.2 Update: “This free update is already sitting on the PlayStation Network, waiting for you to download it.”
Errm, no it’s not European PSN is full of the same old crap it’s always contained. No new content.. Thanks for getting my hopes up, then slaying them, as usual…
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 17, 2007 @ 6:21 pm
Is there going to be a new firmware upgrade this week?
Comment by VG Aficionado — May 17, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
I sometimes wonder if you guys actually read your posts before submitting them
there is no ms update..yet.
Comment by Ricky — May 17, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
Ah yes! Sony please start treating the Europeans with some respect and update our PSN Store. It pisses me off to see how for example the Hong Kong PSN Store has English video trailers and games, that aren’t available in Europe. I can understand it to some extend might be necessary to have different versions of content in the various stores, but please!! Take good look at the European PSN Store — it’s a fucking insult!
Comment by Zta — May 17, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
@VG Aficionado
Read the article, the Sony honcho **THINKS** the MS update is already out.. Looks like his underlings are undermining him and making him look a fool. Time for the axe to swing in some departments at Sony, they really are screwing thing up BADLY
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 17, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
Threespeechers must be younglings
Snake was invented way back in 1977, Nokia phones merely reused the old classic.
Comment by John — May 17, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
Awesome.
What I enjoy most probably Sing star and Snakeball.
I may get Motorstorm but I’ll wait for the update to happen first!
But awesome news though!
Comment by Mr. Dark E — May 17, 2007 @ 7:57 pm
@ Mark Gillespie
If you think that’s bad, what about Sony using a Project Gotham Racing 3 screen AGAIN for PS3 advertising?
Sounds like someone has more than just penis envy of Microsoft over there at Sony…
Comment by Matt — May 17, 2007 @ 8:01 pm
@ Matt
Don’t be such a Xbot, that was not Sony using PGR, that was Kia cars. Still nice try…
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 17, 2007 @ 8:03 pm
More Singstar info has to be due soon c’mon!
A confirmed release date in June. Details of the new Bluetooth mics. Cost of downloadable songs and lineup of songs included on the disc would be great please Sony.
Comment by appmacguy — May 17, 2007 @ 8:50 pm
Wow snakeball looks awesome!
Comment by ken_vs_ryu — May 18, 2007 @ 5:58 am
The updates for MotorStorm look good, nice to see a launch game being supported and given a bit of life extension.
WarHawk looks like it could be great fun, especially online. Will be interesting to see how it plays.
Just one point to clarify - this article is almost identical to the one on Spong - http://spong.com/article/12611/PS3_News_Fest_MotorStorm_s_New_Track_Revealed
Who has been copying who - or is it written by the same person?
Comment by Ludo_Mansio — May 18, 2007 @ 9:43 am
Looks great - want to get my hands on Warhawk so much!
Comment by Tom Eccles — May 18, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
Three Speech, can you give us a release date for Calling All Cars in Europe?
Comment by 9158 — May 18, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
I’ve been keeping tabs of the retailers release dates for SIngstar and the changing back and forth from 22nd June to 6th July and back to the 22nd again but on Sony’s relaease calendar it is now JULY!
See: http://uk.playstation.com/games-medi…lendar/month3/
Comment by appmacguy — May 18, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
[...] Wie ich heute im Three Speech Blog gelesen habe, wird es zum 25. Mai ein Update für MotorStorm geben. Hierin wird eine neue Strecke (Coyote Revenge), drei neue Tickets und drei zusätzliche Fahrzeuge enthalten sein. Außerdem wird es eine neue Online Spielmodi geben: Eliminator. Beim Eliminator habt ihr 20 Sekunden Zeit, eurem Vordermann auf den Versen zu rücken und zu überholen. [...]
Pingback by Update für MotorStorm — May 18, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
Good stuff ahead!
Yeah, UK PS Store is a joke at present. Today we got Pirates 3 trailer and Q-bert. Why aren’t there demos for games already out?
I also thought the Motorstorm update would be there - just checked. Nope.
Comment by Obli — May 18, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
Obli, the Motorstorm update is downloaded through Motorstorm online interface itself.
Comment by Tom Eccles — May 18, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
Just to be clear - and this IS from the horses mouth - Motorstorm version 1.2 will hit on the 6th June and not earlier.
Following that update, you’ll then see the content packages become available but there are NO confirmed dates for these yet.
On June 6th then, when you try to play Online inside Motorstorm, it will download the update and have you restart the game to enjoy the new Time Attack mode and all the bug fixes that will make playing against each other fairer and easier (glitches fixed, better lobby etc.)
Comment by DolphGB — May 18, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
Tom, yeah, I know the update would be through the online part of Motorstorm. That’s where I checked. Having read me previous post, I wasn’t clear
Comment by Obli — May 19, 2007 @ 12:31 am
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Seriously–doesn’t Sony know that PGR 3 is a Microsoft game? I mean, it does look better than GTHD so far and is better than any racing title on the system, but this is sad…
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/18/seriously-project-gotham-racing-3-is-not-a-ps3-game/
Comment by Matt — May 19, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
Re: Sorry State of European PSN…
EA Reckons the console battleground is Europe..
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/18/ea-chief-biggest-battle-will-be-in-europe/
If Sony want to win the minds of European console gamers, then they need to QUCKLY sort out Euro PSN, week by week it becomes even bigger joke, and very unfunny one (if your a PS3 owner).
Sony (as usual) have dug their heads in the sand and can’t see what is happening, but even die-harde dedicated PS3 owners are now getting VERY annoyed at SCEE’s PSN antics….
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 19, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
Mark Gillespie and Matt - anyone would think you’re related……..
Comment by Habby Dasher — May 19, 2007 @ 11:13 pm
As much as I love my PS3, I a getting increasingly frustrated by the dire state of the Euro PSN Store. I know WHY Sony are doing it, and I really feel we, as Europeans, are being shafted, and bizzarely made to suffer because we got the console later in Europe.
Sony are drip feeding content. If they load the store with all of goodies that the other regions that launched in Novemver last year now has, people will pick the good stuff and leave the medocre stuff alone.. If they drip feed content, people buy more. Compare how many copies of QBert would have been sold this week, when it was launched on PSN by iteself, and consider how many it would have sold, had it launched the same week as Calling All Cars…
Sony don’t really care that we are ****ed off, they are interested in getting the maximum amount for PSN items…. Anyone that really believes that it’s down totally to European languages or laws is falling for BS. I’m not saying that European law and languages don’t pose a problem, but it’s a small part of the problem, the bigger is Sony’s toying with us..
Again, European PS3 owners are getting shafted.
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 20, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
SOCOM looked amazing at that event!!!
Sony bring back rumble ! As a hardcore FPSer I only get half the enjoyment out of a game without rumble. I sold my PS3 and will not buy another one until I can fully enjoy an FPS on it. And put a AA battery slot in it too, I hate having to recharge the controller.
@Mark Gillespie - the PSN store has nothing in the American version either. But if you want to see, just make another user account on PSN for a US address and you will have access.
Comment by Hman — May 20, 2007 @ 3:08 pm
Oh, Sony, please DON’T put a battery slot in there, the recurring costs are silly. I love being able to recharge the controller.
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 20, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
@Mark Gillespie
I have a dozen rechargable AA’s sitting around anyway so I want to use them. There is no recurring cost. Non-rechargable would be bad for the environment not just expensive.
I hate recharging the controller. It can only recharge while the PS3 is on, so I need one controller to charge while I am using another wirelessly. I had extra controllers because of this dumb setup.
Comment by Hman — May 20, 2007 @ 8:50 pm
Why don’t you just plug them into the PC your using to post here?
Or buy a mains charger?
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 20, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/10521.htm
Or any or the hundreds of other USB chargers.. Basically USB says that it will supply 5v and 500mA, so anything that’s a USB based charger will be fine to charge PS3 controllers…
Comment by Mark Gillespie — May 20, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
@Mark Gillespie
I had an Apple iPod charger with a USB port and the controller didn’t seem to be charging (no flashing light). Plugged it into my PC and received an error message (also no flashing light).
The controller isn’t meant to be ultra-portable like an iPod so it should accept standard AA’s.
Comment by Hman — May 21, 2007 @ 4:09 am
Well.. according to Threespeech’s April 19th post the provisional date for Calling All Cars on UK PSN is this friday..
All i can say is it damn well better happen, and also where the hell is the Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo?? which has been on the us and jap store (where i got it) for bloody ages. The game will be out to buy before we see the demo here..
Comment by Mal — May 21, 2007 @ 10:26 am
Buy another controller, to use while the other is charging. Just do a reassign. No biggie!
Comment by LordOfRuin — May 21, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
It takes no time at all to recharge the controller, and once charged it lasts for ages so I’m not sure what the problem is. No doubt a new controller will be out once current stocks deplete with rumble support which may affect duration between required charges. It might be an idea for third party suppliers to supply an extra long cable so using the controller between charges becomes the norm.
Any news on a firmware update this month, It must be about time and things have gone a little too quiet around here !!!!
Comment by Neil — May 22, 2007 @ 2:37 pm
Sony Gamers day and not one post ThreeSpeech? =|
Comment by Tom Eccles — May 22, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
Where is the May 25th update for motorstorm????
Comment by Lesley — May 26, 2007 @ 11:55 am
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