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Posted by Ian

The US version of the Playstation store has had a couple of new maps for Unreal Tournament 3. Best of all they’re FREE!

There are 3 maps included in the pack:

• Morbias
• Facing Worlds
• Searchlight

Both Morbias and Facing Worlds are ideal deathmatch maps, whislt Searchlight is one for Capture the Flag games.

As listeners to the podcast may already know I’m sorely tempted to get the game for myself, but I’m waiting for the price to drop before picking it up. These free maps are a good indication that support for the game will continue (which is something I was worried about) so maybe now I will get it.

It’s already reduced to £29.99 at a couple of online sites I’ve noticed.

However, Sony Europe has yet to confirm whether us brits will be getting the maps for free on our store.

Hmmm….

Posted by Ian 

At 10pm tonight the latest and last trailer for GTA 4 before it’s release next month went live.

Having watched the trailer several times now I can honestly say that I’m more excited about getting my hands on this game than I’ve ever been. Whilst the trailer follows in the tradition of the previous ones, i.e. no actual gameplay is shown, it’s comforting to know that all of the amazing visuals being presented are all running using the in-game engine.

The title of the trailer is “Good Lord, What are you doing? AKA Everyone’s a rat!” and the reason for this becomes clearer having now seen the trailer. It appears to give hints that some kind of double cross is going down in the game and that no-one can be trusted. Indeed, within the first few seconds of the movie an undercover cop (dressed in cool Hawaiian get-up) pulls a gun out shouting LCPD, just after a bank robbery has taken place. Also, the names of a number of gangs are announced with scenes seemingly depicting the leader of each gang claiming they’re the ones in charge and that this is their town.

Later, a large lady proclaims to Niko that “Everyone’s a rat!” “Not me” replies Niko.

I won’t ruin everything in the trailer by divulging the details of it all here, however, I will say that the graphical standard for sandbox games just got much higher. Explosions, gorgeous lighting, smoke trails, particle effects and smooth animation are all present and correct here.

Whilst there are a couple of occasions with slight slow-down, the game, on the whole appears to be running nice and smoothly - and this was confirmed a couple of weeks ago too by 1Up editors who’d been given the chance to play the game.

So GTA 4 is coming and it’s coming with a bang.

I for one cannot wait.

Watch the trailer now

You can watch the trailer at the official site by clicking here or by logging in to Xbox live, where’s its also available in HD.

Posted by Ian 

It’s a mere 2(ish) weeks away from release, the potentially biggest game of the year GTA 4 is nearly upon us.

To further celebrate this fact (or ram it down our throats), Rockstar will be releasing their final trailer of the game tonight at 10pm. The trailer entitled “Good Lord, what you doing? AKA Everyone’s a rat!” will be made available online (that’s the Internet) and presumeably Xbox Live too, seeing as that’s how all the previous trailers have rolled out.

No details have been provided about what we might see in the trailer, so to me it feels like Christmas Eve. Also, there’s been no word on when the trailer will appear on PSN either.

22nd May 2008, was the date given by Ubisoft for it’s PS3 shooter Haze yesterday, but now today they’ve only gone and changed it back to just ‘May’ meaning we have no idea of the actual day it will appear.

Originally the game was set for launch at the end of 2007, but it then got pushed back to fiscal Q1 of 2008 (between April and June). It was also penciled in for release on 360 and PC too, but it now seems that it’s staying put on the PS3 after Ubisoft announced it was a permanent PS3 exclusive title.

Haze is a squad based first person shooter that offers up to 4 player co-op gameplay. The rough plot is that you play an ex-member of a private military corporation who send in their guys (for huge amounts of cash) to clean up a ’situation’ oh and to make sure they perform at optimum level while in the battlefield they also fill them full of a drug called nectar.

It’s the use of nectar in the game that makes the FPS different from the normal run-of-the-mill shooter. If a soldier gets high on the drug they will become arrogant and ignore you playing dead, or if you’re more the genocidal type you can cut their feed-tubes so they overdose and start killing each other.

Having seen the game myself at the recent play.com live event in London I can confirm that it looks a lot nicer than I had anticpated. 4 player co-op could see this one turn out to be a bit of a sleeper hit. I’ll keep my eye on it.

Word!

Posted by Ian

CVG.com has stated that they have been told from a number of different retail sources including Costco, HMV and even Sony themselves, that an 80gb version of the PS3 will be launched ’soon’ in the UK, though no firm date was given.

Sony phased out the 20gb and 60gb versions of the PS3 earlier this year (though some retailers still have them in stock) and replaced them with a single SKU; the 40gb model, offering the machine at cheaper price for consumers. However, this was at the expense of a number of features including backwards compatibility with PS2 games.

The 80gb model, currently available in the US still has the software emulation features included, meaning that its possible to play PS2 titles on the machine. Will the UK model be the same?

If an 80gb model did launch here than that would be the 4th SKU for the machine since it’s launch last year. I believe Sony may be trying to beat Apple for the amount of times it updates a product!

Anyway, as I originally stated, this story was broke by CVG and so if you want to read the full details you should head over to their site by clicking here

Word!

Posted by Ian 

Everyone remembers the first time they heard about man cannons in Halo 3, the sexual references were too obvious to ignore. However, we now live in the future and Halo 3 is soooo 2007. Man catapults are now where it’s at and that’s exactly the kind of thing you’ll find in Metal Gear Online for the PS3 later this year.

Check out this gallery of images below

Images originally posted on JeuxFrance.com

Posted by Ian 

SCEA associate producer Chris Hinojosa-Miranda has revealed, through a post in the US playstation blog, that the full version of GT5 is ‘about a year away’.

“You should just decide now to buy it, enjoy it, go online and race against anyone and everyone, rank number one worldwide, get the girl (or guy) and become the most popular kid in town. The end.” he said in response to user’s questions about whether they should pick up Prologue now, or wait for the full GT5 experience.

I personally think that £19.99 (or £17.99 at some online retailers) is a fair asking price for all the content that GT5 Prologue provides and I’ll be getting my copy this Friday. (Rob won’t though)!

Posted by Ian 

Whilst trawling around the web I came across some images of GTA 4 that appear to show (in at least some of the screens) online multiplayer action.

The images were originally posted on the dutch gaming website XboxWorld, but they have now been removed from that site.

I managed to grab the images from Kotaku, who are also covering this story.

With the game being less than a month away from release now there’s not long for us to wait before we can all join in the fun (or becoming violent criminals and gunning down our own granny while riding a whore, if you believe the mainstream press and certain teaching bodies).

You can check the images out for yourself below in our super gallery. Woot!

Posted by Ian

GT5 Prologue is almost upon us (this friday its released) and I for one am super pumped about it.

This is my primary reason for uploading these nice new images of the game, well that and to show off our nice new Gallery widget.

Hope you like.

Word!

Posted by Ian 

Quick, eject that copy of Talledega Nights and get your PS3 online to download the latest 2.20 firmware update.

Yes, that’s right the recently announced update is now available for downloading direct to your machine and with it comes loads of new blu-ray features.

Here’s a link to the full article relating to the firmware update on eurogamer.net

In addition to adding all kinds of fancy schmancy features to future blu-ray movie releases the firmware upgrade also allows Sony’s wonder box to play WMV files and DivX files that are over 2gb in file size.

Personally that’s of no use to me whatsoever as my PS3 absolutely refuses to be friendly with my Windows Home Server.

Toss