Sony Confirms ‘External Intrusion’ Is Behind PSN Outage

Sony has acknowledged that the outage, since late Wednesday, of PlayStation Network is due to “an external intrusion on our system.” Patrick Seybold, PlayStation’s top spokesman, said the service was taken offline “to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services.” Still no word on when the…

Surfing With The Alien

Folks, let’s make this short and sweet. Open thread. All yours. Get in here. Comment! I’m off to enjoy a lovely dinner with friends who will probably appreciate it if I shower—one of the dangers of working from home is forgetting to do such things—so I must be off. Hope you’ve had a pleasant week.…

Paid Subscription Would Offer Early Downloads, Free DLC, For EA Sports Titles

An online survey indicates that EA Sports has plans to offer a paid subscription that, among other features, would deliver some paid downloadable content for free and make full versions of upcoming games available for download before their release date. “Discounts on all downloadable content for participating EA Sports console-based titles,” was the first bullet…

Romancing the Gnomes Leads To Happily Ever After In Warcraft

Cutting-edge trendspotter The New York Times today tackled the phenomenon of MMO-facilitated romance, noting that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft is six times that of Match.com. To explain the phenomenon, the Times turned to Ramona Pringle, who studied MMO romance as a producer for the PBS news magazine Frontline. Pringle enlisted the animation…

Garbage Truck Simulator Pitched As The Most Depressing PC Sim Ever

You may have seen games from European PC game publisher Excalibur Publishing before, responsible for mundane transportation sims like German Truck Simulator, Forklift Truck Simulator and Bus Simulator 2. But Excalibur may have outdone itself this time with the arrival of Garbage Truck Simulator, its latest release. Garbage Truck Simulator puts you in control of…

EA Sports’ “Football Czar” Opens With A Two-Month Drill

In the two and a half months since he traded Canada’s weather for Florida’s, and titles like FIFA for Madden, Cam Weber has read that he delayed Madden’s release for three weeks because of the NFL lockout; that he’s adding some kind of social network to the game, like Need for Speed’s Autolog; and that…

It’s Time For Chrono Trigger To Become A PSone Classic

Looks like the enhanced PlayStation port of Square Enix’s seminal role-playing game Chrono Trigger is bound for the PlayStation 3 and PSP. The ESRB has just rated Chrono Trigger for those platforms, so expect the update of that JRPG favorite to show up as a PSone Classic on a PlayStation Store near you soon.

How One Man Stopped Square-Enix From Letting Gamers Kill Yahweh

The attempt to include overt references to Judeo-Christian figures in the classic role-playing game Xenogears caused a few translators to quit — they feared a violent backlash — and prompted a change in the name of the game’s final boss, according to one of the people who brought the game to America. On this week’s…

No Shirt, No Network, No Problem

COACHELLA | INDIO, CA: A view inside the Playstation tent during Day 3 of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival… several days before the great PSN outage of 2011. (Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images) Playstation Network Outage Continues to Keep 70 Million PS3 Gamers Offline After days of intermittent service, the Playstation Network’s complete…

Shadows of the Damned Now Has More The Damned And Some Damn Nice Screens

In what may be the most natural of musical team-ups, English punk band The Damned has announced it will be contributing the title track to this summer’s horror adventure Shadows of the Damned. You know, the one from game design oddballs Grasshopper Manufacture? Yeah, the one where you go to Hell to save your girlfriend…

The Gossip’s Lead Singer Beth Ditto Is A Fellow Fruit Ninja Enthusiast

The last page of Marie Claire‘s May issue features Beth Ditto talking about what’s inside her handbag. The contents are refreshingly down-to-earth: “101” straggler earrings; a maxi pad; a Burger King receipt; a screwdriver. But Ditto also has an iPhone. On which she plays Fruit Ninja. She says: “if you want to eat healthier snacks…

Nyko’s Move Rifle Is A Nice Shot But Not Enough To Break Through

I don’t know if I’ll ever be sold on the idea that motion-control in first-person shooters can provide any greater fun or any means of shortening the genre’s tactical learning curve into something more instinctive. It is, as I’ve said, like trying to turn a doorknob with barbecue tongs. You’re just better off turning it…

Leaked Activision Memo: There’s Just No ‘Appetite’ For Guitar Hero Now, But It May Rise From Its Grave

Publisher Activision put its Guitar Hero business on ice earlier this year, signaling the end of a genre that was once white hot, but quickly flamed out. Why did Activision just bail on this formerly billion dollar business instead of taking it in a radical new direction? That’s the question posed in a newly published…

Doctor Who Rises From Hiatus Tomorrow

Matt Smith returns as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in tomorrow’s season premiere of Doctor Who, broadcast on BBC America at 9PM Eastern, and likely somewhere in the UK as well. Don’t forget your bow-tie and fez.

This Week In The Business: “There’s no level of polish.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “There’s no level of polish.” – Former Apple games guru Graeme Devine on the biggest problem with iPhone games QUOTE | “Incompetent” – Infamous hacking group Anonymous, denying responsibility for the massive PSN outage. STAT | 533% – The amount that 3D…

The Darknut Returns

Link’s enemy, the Mighty Darknut, received an ass kicking upgrade thanks to Francisco Perez’s “Hyrule’s Most Wanted” entry for IGN.com Related Rampages: Ganon Vs Link | MODOK Mighty Darknut by Francisco Perez (deviantART) Need your daily fill of geek eye candy? If so, head over to Justin Page’s Rampaged Reality and get your fix. Republished…

SOCOM 4’s Silent, Deadly Stealth Play

Slinking through shadows solo, tossing bullet casings to distract, hiding bodies: SOCOM 4’s few stealth levels offer a completely new take on the 9-year-old squad-based shooter series. While a bulk of the levels in Playstation 3 exclusive SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs still fall back on the classic squad command mechanics that helped the series…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

It’ll be another extremely busy weekend for people who play video games, people like me who are still neck deep in the new Mortal Kombat’s story mode and challenge tower. Man, both are lengthy. But that’s not the only thing I’ll be firing up this weekend. A retail copy of Motorstorm Apocalypse just arrived at…

A Trip Through Pokémon Black And White‘s Online Dream World

With the Pokémon Global Link service, Pokémon Black and White players can sync their game data with their PC and enter a magical world that exists in the dreams of pocket monsters. Join me on my first trip to this Pokémon Dream World. I haven’t played much Pokémon Black since I picked it up on…

Nyko Skill Shot for PlayStation Move: A Visual Guide