PlayStation

Someone Keeps Putting Video in My Video Games

You’re looking at a screenshot I took of a video game that I just finished playing on Steam. Here is a clip from another game I played on my PC this week: Earlier this year, I played a game on my PlayStation 4 that looked like this: Movies these days—or action movies, at least—are a…

I Played 15 Minutes Of No Man’s Sky

Last Friday, the people who are making No Man’s Sky told me they’d been late to a meeting with Steven Spielberg. The legendary director waited, though, because he—like millions of other people across the world—was fiending to play No Man’s Sky. No pressure, right? The reason Hello Games’ away team was late showing their space…

Sony Games Boss’ Bonus Bloodborne Strategy: E-mailing The Devs For Help

Power can give you an advantage in life. Let’s say, for example, you’re Shuhei Yoshida, avid gamer who happens to also be the head of Sony’s PlayStation game development studios worldwide. And say you’re stuck in a particularly difficult game. Maybe the PS4-exclusive Bloodborne. What to do? You could study the famously-challenging game for clues,…

Virtual Reality’s Movement Problem: It Isn’t Nausea

Warren Spector says virtual reality will be a fad, “at best a minor part of gaming’s future.” Far be it from me to question the director of Deus Ex on, well, anything. But I’m not sure it matters whether VR is a fad. Motion controls were a fad, yet that fad drove the sales of…

Thanks To 73,000 Supporters, They’re Making A Successor To Banjo-Kazooie

For about the last seven years, Grant Kirkhope has been trying to convince people in the gaming industry that it’s time to make a game similar to 1998’s Banjo-Kazooie, one of the great 3D platformers of the Nintendo 64 era. Says Kirkhope: “I was told: ‘Grant, you’re talking nonsense. No one wants this game. Platformers…

“4J studios has been doing a great job, and we’ll continue to [work with them]” — PlayStation’s Adam Boyes to us at E3, confirming 4J will keep improving Microsoft-owned Minecraft on PlayStation platforms. Boyes wore a Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary pin when he talked to us, but Mario isn’t coming to PlayStation.

The Next Big Assassin’s Creed Adds A Dash Of Batman And A Helping Of GTA

I judge an Assassin’s Creed, crazy me, by the overall quality of its world design and the quality of the high quantity of things these games give us to do. I therefore cannot judge the not-yet-released Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, of which I’ve only played for five minutes in the South Hall of the Los Angeles…

“Yeah, we are making Vita games, but it’s not like we’re making another Killzone Mercenary.” — Sony’s had of game studios Shuhei Yoshida to us at E3, saying new Sony first-party Vita game will likely be digital and cross-platform. “From a first-party standpoint our focus is still on PS4. But we still love Vita.”

Sony’s VR Headset Turned Me Into a Flying Horse

The future is horse. Horse is future. You sit on a bicycle with a virtual reality headset and you think, “Ok, maybe they’re going to put me in the Olympics or on a paper route.” You don’t think, “I’m about to turn into a four-legged animal and also sprout wings.” At least I didn’t. Yesterday,…

That cool-looking woman-vs.-robot-dinosaur game that Sony unveiled at their PlayStation press conference, Horizon: Zero Dawn, has been in development at Guerilla Games for four years. Guerilla, which makes Killzone, is a two-team studio now, Sony games boss Shuhei Yoshida told us at E3 this week.

The Sketchiest Graphics I Saw On PS4 Today

“Write something nice,” David Jaffe said to me as I started playing Drawn To Death, his team’s forthcoming free-to-play competitive multiplayer game for PS4. “I can’t just write about it,” I told him. “I want people to see this.” I had already seen Drawn To Death’s unusual pen-sketches-in-a-notebook art style in videos months ago, but…

Final Fantasy VII Scenes That Would Look Crazy In The Remake

The announcement trailer of Final Fantasy VII’s remake showed a slightly darker and more realistic world compared to the 1997 game. And with an aesthetic like that it’s almost impossible to imagine how some of the crazier parts of the original game would look. Take Cloud’s cross-dressing scene for example and compare it to the…

What Happened To The Last Guardian 

The Last Guardian, announced in 2009 for PS3 and shown again to shocked PlayStation fans at E3 yesterday, became a PS4 game in 2012. So explained Sony’s head of game development, Shuhei Yoshida, as we finally chatted about what has been happening with Sony’s game about a boy and his giant animal friend. The game…

Sony Is Helping Make Shenmue III

There’s something curious about Shenmue III on Kickstarter: it’s only asking for $2 million. It took $47 million to build the original game. What’s the deal? As it turns out, Sony’s partnering with its development. When the Shenmue III bombshell was dropped during Sony’s press conference last night, it wasn’t clear if Sony was simply…

20th Anniversary Accessories To Go With The PS4 You Didn’t Get

If you were lucky enough to acquire one of the 12,300 limited edition 20th Anniversary PlayStation 4 consoles, then has Sony got the accessories for you! Otherwise, here’s some gray stuff. Tweeted last night after Sony’s exciting 2015 E3 press conference, the $64.99 20th Anniversary DualShock 4 and the $99.99 20th Anniversary Gold Wireless Headset…

E3 2015: Sony Press Conference Liveblog 

Sony’s E3 press conference is about to begin. Does greatness await, or are we in for 90-odd minutes of corporate mediocrity? Follow along, and we’ll find out together. “`

Two Hours With Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

You know how Konami tried to pull Hideo Kojima’s name off the box art on their website? With Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Kojima more than gets his due. Every mission in the newest Metal Gear game—which will almost certainly be Kojima’s last—both begins and ends with a brief credit sequence that runs…

Super Meat Boy is coming to PS4 and Vita later this year. It’ll be a free PS+ game at launch, too. Why yes, I will gladly play that game again on Vita.

The Uncharted Collection Is Coming To PS4 on October 9

Update 10:05 am: Here’s the official trailer and blog post confirming the PS4 release of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. The anthology of remastered PS3 games will feature versions of the single-player campaigns optimized for 1080p resolution and 60 FPS framerate and will include access to the Uncharted 4 multiplayer beta. [Original story follows.] It…

Far Cry 4 Is My Favorite 2014 Game Of 2015

I nearly gave up on Far Cry 4. I recently recovered from that mistake. Late last fall, faced with a stack of games to play, I gave Far Cry 4 just a couple of hours to impress me. My quick 2014 take: it’s too similar to the wonderful Far Cry 3, the tropical game about…