Guys… Quick news for you… The following has now gone up..

Demo - Colin McRae:DiRT Demo

Video - Jed Ashforth Interview

Blu-Ray - All The Kings Men

Right people, we love a good debate at Three Speech and thought we should open it out, so we’re going to start a number of irregular polls to find out what you think. To kick things off, we’re talking ‘Top Five Characters In Fighting Games’ and to start the debate we have ‘veteran’ (ha - sorry Steve) games writer Steve Boxer picking his favourites.

Would be great if you could post and discuss your Top Fives in the thread, of course, but to have your vote added to the final count, please email us at blog@threespeech.com and we can then post the full Three SPeech community results in the next week or so. If you could Put ‘Top Five Fighting Characters’ in the subject box that would be appreciated. If you have any ideas for further polls hit us on the email.

Over to Steve….

‘Purists look away – I wouldn’t class myself as a beat-em-up expert, and my selection is highly subjective. It also rather shows my age…

1. Nariko from Heavenly Sword. It’s sad, I know – she’s a game character -but she has firmly supplanted Lara Croft as an object of my lust. Quite possibly the most gorgeous female game character ever, and she kicks ass big-time. I recently met the actress who portrayed her (also lovely), and I think I may have scared her by explaining what a sex symbol she is about to become among teenage boys.

2. Shun Di from Virtua Fighter. The classic Drunken Master, he’s basically a stinky old soak who is often wont to lie down in the middle of a bout, and who actually improves the more he drinks. You always feel he’s taking the pee out of his opponents. What a fine premise around which to base a character in a beat-em-up.

3. The bear from Altered Beast. Sadly, Sega remade this arcade classic, which starts of with more than a whiff of homoeroticism, as you control a heavily muscled Adonis in a faux-ancient Greek setting. Luckily, you soon develop the ability to morph into giant animals, each with its special attack. The bear is way the best – he looks like an eight-foot-tall teddy-bear, but has a devastating breath attack. Think about it: bears live in woods,eating all manner of flesh, honey and so on. And they have no idea how to nip to the corner-shop for a bottle of Listerine.

4. Cammy from Street Fighter. OK, she may not be the best fighter, but she was supposedly trained as a commando in the UK, and she was played in the film by Kylie Minogue. ‘Nuff said.

5. Billy and Jimmy Lee from Double Dragon. OK, they may have looked more than a little ridiculous, with their huge heads, bouffant mullets and outfits that straddle the common ground between Justin Hawkins and Borat, but they provided me with vast amounts of satisfaction in the days when arcades ruled. Double Dragon was one of the first co-op games, and was the first I came across which would let you pick up and wield baseball bats, knives and whips.’

We have just had confirmation that the charming LocoRoco is coming to the PS3. It will now have 200 LocoRoco’s, 10 times more than previously, and a new SIXAXIS tilt function. No release date as yet for this one. Roll on.

Official Press Release follows…

Read more…

To celebrate the coming of Warhawk, we will be hosting a small Three Speech server especially for you regulars, offering a mix of different maps and game types for you to get a grip on the game.

It’s a great opportunity to get a game with those you talk with via comments, and if that doesn’t attract you then the option of watching a person that has previously annoyed you on site explode into smithereens should just about tempt you.

All you have to do is find the server named ‘ThreeSpeech’ in the list. Come play. It’s there now…

So Warhawk’s in the store now. Share your initial thoughts here!

Hello all. Due to unforseen circumstances the date at 3Rooms has been moved back to the September 6. We will be in touch with the 50 people previously invited to attend today, so if you get an email could you please confirm with us that you can still make it and, if not, we can give the place to someone else. Thanks in advance all.

More Gran Turismo news for you. Before the end of the year Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will be available to PlayStation 3 users. This will include up to 40 cars in high definition graphics and the ability to race up to 16 other people online. And with the Global Online Rankings there will be no doubting who the online Lewis Hamilton is. Rev up.

Official Press Release Follows.

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So David Cameron, the Conservative party leader, has reverted to Eighties thinking, blaming the rise of violence in the UK on video games, music and films. The Conservatives have just released a paper called ‘It’s Time To Fight Back’ which argues that depictions of ‘extreme, casual and callous violence’ have a ‘coarsening effect on the ethical sensibility of young people’. But his argument has already been dismissed by experts in the field, including one Prof Jeffrey Goldstein who responded saying that there was no link between mock violence in video games and real-life crime.

What do you guys think? Do you think that there is any link between in-game and real-life violence? Do you think the violence in computer games numbs you to reality? Or do you think this is a tired old argument and yet again they are looking for the answers in the wrong place? Let us know…

Apart from Oblivion and Genji, not much in the RPG genre has appeared on the PlayStation 3 since launch. Sony’s Japan studios are changing that with the introduction of Folklore – a murder mystery story tied in with a dense RPG set half in the town of Doolin, and half in the ‘Netherworlds’, the mysterious world where you can make contact with the dead.

Read more…

Following is a statement from Sony regarding the DRM on Warhawk…

Statement

In order to protect our investment in this ground-breaking game and maintain our ability to offer a 24-hour free online gameplay experience, SCE will be utilizing an alternative Digital Rights Management (DRM) policy for the downloadable version of Warhawk. The downloadable version of Warhawk, which will be available from the PLAYSTATION Store on Thursday 30th August, will be directly tied to the registered PLAYSTATION Network (PSN) account that purchased the game. Only that registered PSN account will be authenticated for gameplay. You will still be able to download the game to up to five PS3 systems. However, if a user downloads Warhawk onto a different machine, he / she will only be able to play via the original PSN user account on that machine and could not play on a different machine for 24 hours. This does not affect the Blu-ray Disc version of the game which will be available at retail later in September.