Sony Details 'Please Don't Leave Us' Program

In the wee hours of my New York morning, several Sony Computer Entertainment big wigs held a press conference on the other side of the world, discussing the well documented troubles with PlayStation Network. Security, free content, and Anonymous, oh my!

I hear you guys. What do we get for our hours of lost online play? It's a perfectly fair question, but let's start with something a little more pertinent: when will the system be back online? Sony is calling it a phased restoration, with some of PSN's features returning sometime this week. Which features exactly, I'm not sure, but some is better than none I suppose. Sony states PSN should be fully operation by the end of May. You might be thinking that's a hell of a long time, an you're absolutely correct, it is. However it's unavoidable as Sony makes the proper upgrades (see: measures that should have been put in place years ago) to assure a fiasco like this will never occur again. To that end, a new Chief Information Security Officer position has been created, which coincidentally, sounds something like the type of job GeoHot was pining for when he opened the PS3 hacking floodgates.

Now the good stuff. What's in it for us, the near 100 million users who are affected by Sony's ludicrous debacle? All PSN users who are not currently subscribed to PlayStation Plus will receive a free month of the premium service. Current PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive one free month of service. PlayStation Plus allows PSN users early access to demos and beta tests, as well as certain free downloadable games and downloadable content. Needless to say, I'm sure PlayStation Plus will not see any free game releases during this time, as Sony surely wants to lose as little money as possible.

The PSN faithful will be rewarded with some free content, which values at a couple thousand yen ($20 - $40, most likely), which could end up being Warhawk, a few premium themes, and some PlayStation Home content. Don't be surprised. In addition to the above, existing Qriocity users - anyone out there? - will get a month for free.

Sony execs and press threw around the name Anonymous a few times at the conference, and though no fingers were pointed, Kaz Hirai didn't rule the Hacktivist group out, especially considering that Sony has found Anonymous' ire as of late. Stop snitching, Kaz.

Hopefully, the end is in sight for Sony's nightmare and our deprivation of fulfilling online interaction. What say you about the whole ordeal? Is the security of your information worth an addition month of service downtime? Is 30 days of complimentary PS Plus access reparation or a marketing ploy? Does $20 worth of content right countless lost hours of online playtime?

Get Your Red Faction: Armageddon On Sooner, Then Later

Show of hands, who here loves Red Faction? Sweet, so do I. Look at that, we have so much in common. Are you busy Friday night? Maybe we can enjoy a candle light dinner followed by some Guerrilla action. But I digress! This is a good news/bad news post. As usual, you'll get the bad news first.

The bad: the release of Red Faction: Armageddon will be delayed. I hear the collective groan, but wait, let me finish. The delay is only a week, which is completely bearable. The date has been bumped back to June 7, as opposed to the scheduled release of May 31. That gives you plenty of buffer time to finish up with L.A. Noire.

Now the good, so you can leave this post feeling positive about life. Mark May 3 on your calendar, because that will be the day that we all receive the Red Faction: Armageddon demo on Xbox Live and PSN. Though who knows if the latter will ever be back online, let alone by May 3.

When I spent some hands on time with Red Faction: Armageddon at PAX East last month, I walked away thoroughly impressed. And though I didn't get to try any of what we'll probably see in the demo -which I'm sure is a sliver of the campaign mode - messing around in Ruin Mode, putting all of the glorious instruments of destruction through their paces made my evil little heart flutter with sadistic glee. Really looking forward to this one.

Binary Domain is Half Way Between Gears of War and Vanquish

Sega has today released a proper trailer for their upcoming shooter, Binary Domain. Unlike the trailer released late last year, this one is full of gameplay that looks extremely decent. Unforunately, it is also filled with bland looking characters. I was hoping Toshihiro Nagoshi (producer of the Yakuza series, tanning bed activist) might have pulled some strings to get the bootleg Commander Shepard and token black guy tweaked for some originality, but alas, no. 

Regardless, Binary Domain is still a ways out - due to release some time in 2012 - but the early returns are somewhat convincing. Of course, you'll have to get over the fact that it's pretty much half Gears of War, and half Vanquish, which was already half Gears. So what does that make BD? I hate math.

After his work on the Yakuza series, Nagoshi knows what a compelling story in a game should be, so there's that. Also, there are some interesting action sequences in the trailer, like jet skiing and building sliding, to go along with your typical shoot 'em up fare. If the former outweighs the latter, and Binary Domain keeps on with the eye candy, we might have an acceptable Gears/Vanquish/Gears knockoff on our hands.

REVIEW: Mortal Kombat

To be frank, I haven't cared about Mortal Kombat in a long time. The last game in the series I had in heavy rotation was the very underrated Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy before that. There was a certain je ne sais quoi missing from most of the sequels that followed the original trilogy, which ultimately led to a decline of interest. So why does the latest entry in the series, titled simply Mortal Kombat, inspire more thoughts of combos and fatalities than the past 4 or 5 installments combined? Could be because not only does this title kick ass, it rips your head off and splits your torso into five easy pieces.

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PlayStation Network, WTF Mate?

If you're a PlayStation 3 owner who enjoys online gaming, odds are you've already experienced PSNs downtime first hand. PlayStation's online network has been FUBAR all weekend in what most thought would be a service blip, but has turned out to be a failure of catastrophic proportions, with no end in sight. WTF mate?

To be honest, I don't think anyone has a clue to what's ailing PSN. Sony is blaming hackers for disabling the system, which is plausible seeing as how hacktivist group Anonymous had threatened Sony and PlayStation with action as retaliation against their persecution of Geohotz (great hacker, horrid rapper). Anonymous, always ones to soak up the limelight, would never shy away from accusations this large. Though they haven't claimed responsibility for the latest attack, they haven't ruled out the actions of other off-shoot groups. WTF mate?

The latest on the topic comes from Joystiq (via Reddit, of course) where some dude who claims to be someone he may or may not be - a mod at PSX-Scene - has the whole scoop. "The truth is, there was a new CFW (custom firmware) released known as Rebug (link omitted). It essentially turns a retail console into a dev console (not fully, but gives you a lot of the same options that usually dev's only have access to)." No big deal right? The redditor continues, "well, it also turns out that some people over at NGU found out that you could provide fake CC# info and the authenticity of the information was never checked as you were on Sony's private developer PSN network (essentially a network that Sony trusted). What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network." He also states that personal information is not in jeopardy, so don't go canceling your mom's credit card yet.

It doesn't sound unlikely, but Sony, WTF mate? If true, why couldn't you say something along those lines instead of spewing garbage about hackers attacking PSN. If this is the case, hackers did take anything down, they found their way into the network, and with no real security in place, Sony has taken down the network themselves. 

This whole ordeal is frustrating for me, and I don't even use PSN that frequently. I can only imagine what the Killzone 3 faithful are going through right now. I don't know what the underlying cause is, but I do know that PlayStation needs to make good on this outage one way or another, especially to the people who are paying $50 a year for a service you can't render due to the inability to provide a secure network.

Nintendo Wii Successor Project Cafe Gets Shot

Here it is folks. Speculative, but the Dell Mini Tower look-a-like you see in the shot above is your Nintendo HD system, "the most developer friendly SDK the industry has ever seen," Project Cafe.

Again, take the above with a grain of salt, however I would bet on the shot being an accurate representation of Project Cafe. In the past weeks the rumors have been increasingly accurate, and Nintendo has finally confirmed the upcoming console's existence and will be offering a playable model at E3 2011. Is it really that hard to believe that the image above is what it is? 

There are some reasons for skewed belief. Nintendo doesn't do black at launch, they keep the party a white affair for the most part. Also, the box itself is too nondescript. Nintendo is known for their quirky design choices, whether or not they can be classified as gimmicks is another arguement, but the fact remains that Nintendo's design choices are eye catching. Granted these could be attributed to a prototype model that has little more than its guts fully realized of yet, but E3 is just over a month away. If what's been leaked is actually a prototype mock of what Nintendo's new baby, they better be hard at work getting it gussied up for the big reveal this summer. 

Will you be buying Nintendo's HD console?

via Destructoid

European Human Revolution Collector's Edition Makes Me Jealous

I never really understood region specific bonus content. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, and your region is the one that gets the short end of the stick, it's frustrating. Case in point, Deus Ex: Human Revolution Collector's Edition, available only to select European countries, New Zealand, and Australia. Some of you may not be stressing it, since us North Americans will be getting the Augmented Edition, but just look at what the Collector's Edition includes:

• Making of DVD and motion comic (also included in the Augmented Edition)
• 40-page Art Book (also included in the Augmented Edition)
• 10,000 in-game credits
• Just about all pre-order DLC, which includes a mission pack and hefty weapon pack
• Adam Jensen Play Arts Kai action figure

Okay, I can live without the credits. Missing out on the DLC is when it starts to hurt a little more. But once you say that I can't has the marvelously crafted Square Enix Play Arts Kai figure, that's when I start to get a little batshit. Though I don't own any Play Arts Kai figures, they are very well noted as being some of the best gaming figures on the market. I'm dying a little inside.

To soften the crushing blow, Square Enix has announced they will be releasing Play Arts Kai Adam Jensen as a standalone figure, along with antagonists Federova and Barrett. They'll retail for about ¥4800 yen, which is a little less than the difference in price between the Augmented and Collector's Editions. So you can understand why I'm a little upset that American collectors are missing out on them goods.

via Destructoid, Tomopop

REVIEW: Portal 2

The original Portal seemed to have materialized from emptiness, bundled as an extra in The Orange Box, almost feeling as more of a throw in than anything else. I thank my lucky stars that both critics and consumers enjoyed the game as much as I did, or else we would not have Portal 2. The second coming has been fleshed out and fully realized as a stand alone game, rife of comedy that is as dark as it is hilarious, puzzles that are simultaneously confounding and child's play, and some of the best writing I've seen in a game in a long, long time.

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Uncharted 3 Mutliplayer is Doing Big Thangs

Naughty Dog wants you to play Uncharted 3's multiplayer. Not only do they want to you play it, they want it to be the only game you ever look to for mulitplayer if you own a PS3. Yeah, doin' thangs.

A trailer from the developer shows a little bit of what to expect when you hop online to do some fragging in Uncharted 3. Cinematic shootouts, collapsing buildings, what's not to love? One thing that's odd to see, Nathan and Sully mixing it up in the multiplayer. Are they just skins that anyone can apply and use? Could get a little confusing to see three Hawaiian shirted Sullys taking cover next to each other, but I guess it could be worse right? It could suck. Fortunately, sucking seems to be the last thing Naughty Dog is worried about. 

Make sure your schedule is completely open in late June/early July. You can get yourself some Uncharted 3 mutliplayer beta starting June 28. You might wanna sign up for PlayStation Plus a little ahead of time.

RAGE Takes You to Dead City, Death Ensues

More RAGE is always a good thing, at least in regards to id Software's upcoming video game. Rage at the workplace or at school could lead to expulsion and anger management classes, so please try to avoid that if you can.

Here's your good RAGE news of the day: preorder pretty much anywhere that matters (Amazon, Steam, Direct-to-Drive, *mutters* Gamestop) and you'll have your order automatically upgraded to the 'Anarchy' Edition, free of charge. Not only does this special set have a kick-ass name, but it comes with a ménage à quatre of useful in-game items; a double barrel shotty, slick Crimson Elite armor, bladed knuckle dusters, and a 'Rat Rod' buggy. That's gear that could fetch $5 on the DLC tip, yours for donuts.

Speaking of gear, RAGE seems to be all about the weapon selection. In the latest trailer, a full 5 minutes of impressive gameplay across a rather lively place called Dead City, we see weapons aplenty. Shotguns, sniper rifles, some sort of useless crossbow, rocket launchers, pistols that fire a whole damn clip at once, and even a shuriken-chakram deal that takes off heads. That's my type of mutant-maiming device.

Aside from playing host to a cavalcade of uniquely designed mutant mashers, RAGE is easy on the eyes. Check out the facial expressions and body movements of the old Russian dude sending you on your quest. That's some top flight animation right there, L.A. Noire be damned.

RAGE is still a few months away, releasing September 13. That's plenty of time to stew in your own desires for this one, especially since there will be a few more trailers like this to amp you up. Don't let a few measly months turn you away, preorder NAO!

RAGE Anarchy Edition Preorder Bonus Gallery