Three Speech’s intrepid reporter Steve Boxer recently got to chat to industry legend, games engine expert and Epic Games guru Mark Rein. With Unreal Tournament III hitting the stores soon it seemed a fitting time to catch up with him and put some questions his way regarding the forthcoming title. Over to the interview.

How long is Unreal Tournament III going to be an PS3 exclusive for?

Right now, I can’t say. The big reason, the main reason, we brought it to PS3 first, is the mods. You know how important mods are to Unreal Tournament and we love user-created content. And remember, our user-created content isn’t just about re-arranging the chairs on the deck of the boat - it’s about making a new boat, right. I mean, it’s making a plane, it’s making a car! It’s making whatever you want to make, so we’re pushing the envelope on user-created content. PlayStation 3 is an open network and so when we went to Sony and said, ‘we want to make this game support mods’, they were like, ‘we’re an open network, you can do that’. We’re like ‘ha ha, really, we’re going to challenge you on that!’ And sure enough, they’ve embraced it, and they’ve stuck to their word, and supported it. And I mean, Jack (Tretton) even talked about it on stage at E3, which was very kind, so they’re right behind the idea of real honest-to-goodness user-created content.

Do you think it’s going to be the game that really kickstarts the PlayStation Network?

I hope so. I mean it’s such a great game. It plays really well over PSN. And one of the things that we can do that’s really unique about this game is that you can run the PC server and surf for PlayStation 3 users. Theoretically, if the game’s popular, we could go and get a bunch of good quality, high value servers and stick them on and run really dedicated service to the game, really good service. That’s a clear benefit. The other thing is, the customers are going to decide how popular a game is. We’ve done our job in making the best game we can - the users will decide whether it is the best game for them online. I hope so because I think it’s a great game to play online and it’s an equally good game to play completely offline, to play against bots or to play against LAN.

Read more…

As you probably know…

PS3 Store

New Products

Title (Licence/Publisher): Price

Game

N2O (Zoo Digital Publishing Ltd): £3.49
Hardcore 4X4 (Zoo Digital Publishing Ltd): £3.49

Packs

Double track pack (MotorStorm) (SCEE): £3.49
Pigly (Folklore) (SCEE): Free

Video

PixelJunk Monsters Trailer (SCEE): Free
DMC4 TGS Trailer 2 (Capcom CE. Europe Ltd): Free

Wallpapers

Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 1 (Capcom CE. Europe Ltd): Free
Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 2 (Capcom CE. Europe Ltd): Free
Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 3 (Capcom CE. Europe Ltd): Free
Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 4 (Capcom CE. Europe Ltd): Free

PC store

Game

N2O (Zoo Digital Publishing Ltd): £3.49
Hardcore 4X4 (Zoo Digital Publishing Ltd): £3.49

It’s the last day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and Blu-ray news has being flooding in (starting with Warner’s dropping of HD DVD just a few days before the show began). Here’s the latest updates from the show.

Warner’s Profile 1.1 releases on the way.
Several films were released on HD DVD by Warner last year but the Blu-ray releases were delayed due to Picture in Picture Capability (included in Profile 1.1) not being available. Now that problem is out of the way, High-Def Digest spoke to Warner yesterday and were told the following:

“We held off releasing them on Blu-ray because we wanted to be able to have the full interactivity. At this point in time, we’re still working out all the kinks [with the technology], but they will be released soon.”

They named Batman Begins and the Matrix trilogy as titles being prepared – but didn’t give a date away.

New Line Cinema on their Blu-ray exclusivity.
It wasn’t announced, but having the same parent company as Warner, we really already knew New Line would be going the same way. High-Def Digest spoke to a New Line rep at CES, who told them that they were now Blu-ray exclusive, effective immediately (although they only ever released one film on HD DVD anyway). We look forward to the Lord Of The Rings trilogy exclusively on Blu-ray in the future.

[High Def Digest]

Fresh from CES, the Gamespot team have a quick video interview with some folks from the Konami marketing team. There is information on the release (which is apparently on target for Q2 of this year), as well as the online component, ideas of a limited edition version of the game and, of course, some gameplay footage. Check it out.

We had a hard time believing this at first, LOL. It would appear PS3 slash me up Soul Calibur 4 has some pretty cool guest characters.

Soul Calibur 2 saw Heihachi Mishima (from Namco’s other fighting game, Tekken) included in the PS2 version; even stranger than that, Link from Nintendo’s Legend Of Zelda was included as a playable character in the GameCube version of the game and Todd Mcfarlane’s comic book anti hero, Spawn, was playable in the Xbox version.

But it seems that Namco have taken the idea of guest characters to another level of coolness with Soul Calibur 4, including Darth Vader (in the PS3 version) and Yoda from the famous Star Wars universe. It was 1Up who broke the news, hinting that more characters from the Star Wars universe could be included too.

Crazy! Check out theses awesome screens.

Soul Calibur IV #1

Soul Calibur IV #2

Soul Calibur IV #3

The release information and Euro (€) retail price of the Go! Explore GPS add-on for the PlayStation Portable was made public today. Ways in which the software will work were also explained to CVG.

“On foot, you’ll be able to plot your way through cities in 3D thanks to the fully modelled city maps contained on the UMD discs. Simply load the UMD disc, select your destination, and watch as the city’s landmarks and points of interest appear on-screen in 3D.”

“When you’re in the car, you’ll benefit from different display modes for day and night, meaning that you’ll always get the clearest view of where you’re going.”

You’ll be able to purchase Go! Explore in three ways, and it’s set for release this spring.

* GPS Receiver and Maps UMD – €119
* Same as the above with Car Mount / Adaptor - €149
* PSP System with GPS, Maps UMD and Car Accessories - €299

Just a quick one to let you know that Sony confirmed to CVG earlier today that LittleBigPlanet is on track for a September 2008 release. Producer Kyle Shubel spoke of an autumn release at their CES presentation yesterday and the September release was confirmed to CVG this morning. Kyle Shubel also talked of a public beta before the game’s release – although no specific details were revealed.

[CVG]

Whilst the majority of the issues with Call Of Duty 4 online were fixed shortly after the game’s release some problems remained - most noticeably the amount of time taken to join games from the lobby.

Activision have released an update today, stating that they’ve being upgrading servers and adding more hardware to improve and optimise the experience. According to the Chief Technology Officer of Activision, the servers were taken down for maintenance this morning, and the fix should “dramatically improve” the time taken to join a game. Read on for the full update from Steve Pearce of Activision.

[Infinity Ward Forums]

Read more…

Following the announcement on Monday of the new track packs for MotorStorm, here are the accompanying screens with, firstly, the Diamondback circuit and then the Eagle’s Nest track. Bring it on!

Click though for more goodness.

Read more…

Sony revealed an interesting feature of BD Live (part of Blu-ray Profile 2.0) today, which will be of particular interest to PSP owners. Studios will have the option of including a portable optimised version of films together with the Blu-ray disc. The demonstration showed that, using Portable Copy with the PS3, you can copy straight from the Blu-ray disc to your PSP’s memory stick. David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment explained to PC World.

“This way, you can have a portable copy you can take with you. There was always the promise of greater interactivity. You’ll see that coming in the new year”.

Sounds good to us.

[PC World]