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Crazy digital-art project Linger In Shadows has hit the PSN store today at a price of £1.99. I can’t tell you much more about the “game” until I’ve played it but apparently it requires instinctive movements and button presses in order to progress.

Presumably most people will play this out of curiosity more than anything.

Update to come soon.

EDIT: I just saw the whole movie. Essentially what this game is, is a seven minute cutscene, making no sense to anyone but the director. You use your six axis to respond to particular events in the cut scene and progress. If you don’t react quick enough then the cutscene will rewind and start again. You get about six trophies for completing the main cutscene but there are a ton of hidden ones to find.

I gotta admit even though I didn’t understand it, the artwork, concept and mainly the music are just unreal. If you have a spare £2 I totally recommend checking it out. If only just for curiosity.

EDIT: To summarise:

It’s crazy. There’s like this dog and a cat. And the dog turns into stone. Then this octopus comes and gets attacked by this black fog. And there’s a panda in a building. That the walls have fallen off.

And there’s this engulfing music that makes you want to cry. And you just sit there shaking the remote. Stunned.

Too fucking hard.

I do like these “spin off” T-shirts though. Guess where it only ships too?

Wipeout HD Looks This Good. How Can I Be So Sure? Because I Took The Screenshot.

Wipeout HD is a rare game that has a stupid learning curve. There will be some of you out there who will just get it from the start. I was lucky to be one of those - I played a level, I got a gold medal, I come in the top 3 on 60% of the races I play online. I’m not being big-headed I’m just trying to explain that some of you will find it easy and the rest of you will crash, crash, crash. Seriously though - you’ll get better.

Wipeout (if you don’t know) is a futuristic racing game which could be described as the “love-child” of F-Zero and Mario Kart. It’s got futuristic ships, it’s got tight corners and it’s got lots of weapons.

I first experienced Wipeout on the PSP’s launch day a few years ago. Never having played the original Playstation versions I found it rock-solid from the get-go but I quickly learned racing is more about hitting speed-pads than it is about taking down your opponents. Once you get over that hurdle you’ll be an awesome Wipeout player.

Wipeout HD is a collection of tracks and ships from the PSP games (nothing new here I’m afraid) upscaled into 1080p. Don’t take this in a negative way because the game honestly looks outstanding. At the time of writing there are some freezing issues but presumably nothing that won’t get fixed ASAP. In fact when you overlook that, you realise Wipeout HD is probably one of the best looking games you’ve played on your PS3 so far. Sure other games like GTA4 and MGS4 all had great surface graphics but when you delved deeper you’d always find jaggies or problems with textures. Wipeout has no such problem, given that everything has a perfect amount of sheen. The world you race through is a phenomonal Brave New World universe. Coloured brightly it’s cutting edge-sci-fi.

Aswell as the graphics being outstanding, the sound is also handled in an extremely admirable way, with custom soundtracks not only supported but also being manipulated by the game. When in the tunnel your tracks will be lavished with reverb and then phased and flanged as you hit a jump. It’s quite satisfying.

Wipeout HD provides 3 main modes: campaign which has you earning gold medals by completing challenges; race box which has you competing against yourself and leaderboards to set a world record; and finally online play. The campaign and racebox modes are split into single race, tournament, speed lap, time trial and zone sections. All are pretty self-explantory apart from the Zones mode which pits you your ship with an ever increasing speed and only the ability to steer. The faster you get the harder it gets obviously and succeeding is all about seeing how far you can survive without crashing.

The campaign is large enough but with only 8 or so tracks on offer, it does suffer from repetition later on. Having said that, with trophies on offer and some clever AI the game will keep you hooked and there is always the prospect of DLC.

Which is where Wipeout HD comes into it’s own. It costs a mere £11.99 for the initial package and it’s easy to say that the game could be worth double that. If Studio Liverpool continue to enhance this PSN download with a constant supply of fresh tracks and gameplay modes I see no reason why this can’t be a constant time-consumer in many peoples PSN collection.

9/10.

Mega Man 9 Makes Me Love Capcom More.

PS3Fanboy put it in a way that I can’t really match without plagiarising (spelling?) but basically Thursday is the best thing since sliced bread for all you lucky Playstation Network Shoppers. In dramatic fashion I’m to put the announced (American) releases in bullet point form:

• MEGA MAN 9.
• WIPEOUT HD.
• BURNOUT PARADISE.

Gee-whiz-blimey-heck! 3 uber-awesome releases in one day. It’s like the awesomeness of the XBOX Live Arcade Summer ALMOST concealed into one spankingly great day.

The three games have been all announced for release on the same day in the American PSN store (whereas I believe only Wipeout has been confirmed for EU) but I would hazard if we don’t see all three in the European PSN store we will either: a) get 2/3 of the three this week and the third the following week; b) start nuclear war on Sony Europe.

Burnout Paradise is the full game that I’ve been playing this month, concealed into a delicious downloadable file. Mega Man 9 is the awesome sequel to the Mega Man series done in a NES style. If you don’t have a Playstation by the way you can grab Mega Man 9 from XBOX Live Arcade or WiiWare. Finally Wipeout HD needs no explanation, just a video trailer:

Fuck yeah! The music!

I worked out that going by American Prices this lot are going to cost you $60 which I believe is roughly the same price as you Yanks would pay for a full retail game. In which case here in the UK we’re probably looking at spending about £35-£45 for this collection of games.

If you’re sitting on the fence about whether to get these or not, I reckon go for it. Spend the same as you would on one new disc-based title from GAME on three awesome downloads instead.

Expect full reviews of all the games as soon as.

Siren Blood Curse Is £20 From Playstation 3 Store

I know, I know. Siren Blood Curse came out ages ago and I hyped and hyped about it and then only did an “initial thoughts and opinion” post. It’s because I had personal stuff going on and wasn’t in the mood for a horror game to put it cryptically. But I finished the game last week and I quite enjoyed it you know.

Siren Blood Curse is essentially the first Playstation 3 “proper download game”. And what I mean by that is with Warhawk and Tekken 5 aside this is the first package that has been released on the PSN that is not a mini game or short 2 hour blaster - this is a proper game with big environments, lots of mechanics and a full storyline.

It’s hard to know exactly what is happening in Siren Blood Curse virtually throughout the whole game because you’ll watch events happen and then get mighty confused over the fact that said characters are “alive” again or in different places. I’ll try not to give anything away but it does get vaguely wrapped up at the end of the game so you’ll have some idea. You might need a lot of patience to understand the game fully though.

Siren Blood Curse puts you in control of a set of different characters, some Japanese, some American as you are set out to explore the village of “Hanuda” — a vanished village where human sacrifices have occured before. Cue the setting for a survival-stealth-action-horror game.

The game is split into 12 chapters which can be downloaded in one go for £20 from the PSN store or can be purchased in blocks of three for £6. Be aware that downloading the whole game will fill 9GB’s of your Playstation HDD but it is available on Blu-Ray Disc in Japan and soon Europe.

Each chapter puts you in different areas of the village with seperate objectives. Usually this involves finding an escape route from the part you are in but the game throws up enough challenges and unique surprises along the way to make things interesting.

The enemy, named Shibito, are a particularly horrifying form of zombie with tears of blood flowing from their eyes. Kudos goes to the sound engineers on Siren Blood Curse because there are a helluva lot of twittering and moaning sounds that really add to the atmosphere. These aren’t your typical moaning zombies — the Shibito almost sound vocoded. It’s an other worldly sound that will see you quaking in your boots.

Playing Siren blood Curse is hindered by the lack of robust controls. The camera is tight to the action and movement at times can be extremely clumsy. It’s an interesting point for discussion though because the often shit controls really define the game. I don’t know how much of an unfair let-off I’m giving this game but the fact that the camera is tight and your movement is flawed really, honestly does add to the tension of the game. That’s not to say it’s not frustrating — just that it offers that “oh shit, got to get away, where the FUCK do I run to, ARGH!”-kind of tension. If the controls and camera are done like this on purpose then it’s a brave move from the developer and one I think they kinda just about get away with.

Graphically Siren is unbelievably dark with even a brightness option not aiding the games gloomy look. Obviously the darkness is another intentional area of the game which has you sometimes wondering out totally blind into a field full of the undead. You’ll have to use your ears a lot in Siren which is totally awesome if you have surround sound. You’ll be immersed.

The whole game is covered with a grain filter which makes everything harder to see but also adds a layer of grime to proceedings. Horror games are all about building atmosphere and Siren does that in abundance.

The main gameplay mechanic to aid your plight in Blood Curse is “Sight Jacking” which allows you to see through the eyes of the Shibito. Sight Jacking is essentially if you need to sneak past an enemy or just find out where they are. Trust me when I say there is nothing more horrifying than watching through the eyes of the enemy your main protagonist be caught and subsequently murdered.

While Blood Curse won’t be the longest game you’ll ever play (took me about 9 and a half hours) there is plenty of replay value in the form of finding all the “Archive” data.

There are 50 pieces of archive data to be found throughout the game and they become almost essential in understanding the plot of the game and characters background. There are also some easter eggs that are hinted in the game and are unlocked in the real world which really help to provide a background to the game.

Siren Blood Curse is a pretty straightforward game but it’s a tense and most importantly scary one at that. What it lacks in longevity it makes up for in thrills so if you’re looking for a game to fill a dull weekend look no further than Blood Curse.

8/10.

Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty on Playstation 3 Store

Sometime after the Sony conference concluded I realised that I wasn’t all that excited about MAG and God Of War 3, mainly because they are so far away. What I realised I am most excited about is a new Ratchet & Clank game. I’ve actually fall in love with the Ratchet & Clank series in recent months.

It’s interesting because Ratchet & Clank should (on paper) be the most repetitive, generic game ever invented. But somehow it turns out not to be. Blasting enemies with a variety of weapons and then collecting the nuts and bolts they drop to power up further is a winning formula. Somehow. Maybe it’s something to do with the presentation or the excellent cut scenes but I just think it works. And given my recent love affair with downloadable games — Ratchet & Clank’s latest adventure “Quest For Booty” just gets me so excited.

It seems like the price is going to be around about £9.99 and will have a good 5-6 hours gameplay to it. I’m also hearing that the game will have a few new gameplay mechanics, such as the ability for Ratchet to contol things from a distance with his wrench.

The story will continue from the end of Tools Of Destruction in which a cliff hanger conclusion saw Clank being taken away by the “Zoni”.

I’m playing through Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters on the PSP just now but I expect I might play through Tools Of Destruction once more before Quest For Booty comes out. That will take my tally of Tools Of Destruction play throughs to 3. Who said Ratchet & Clank was repetitive again?

There’s only one thing I really want to talk about when I think of Sony’s E3 conference and that is the inevitable showing of a new God Of War game. I was lucky enough to pick up a PSP recently and have a lengthy play of the PSP iteration of the franchise. I totally love it - it takes something which should be a linear affair and somehow makes it more fun than it sounds on paper.

I’m sure Sony will show off a fair deal of Killzone 2, Little Big Planet and Resistance 2 but it’s going to be God Of War 3 that will steal the show, and Sony need a killer-app in the pipeline now pretty much everybody has enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 4.

I’m expecting Sony will show a lengthy trailer, a bit of gameplay footage and a tentative date that Sony will announce relating to God Of War 3 and I think that would be enough to get people excited.

Aside from that I’m expecting Home to finally be dated and shown off at E3 for the last time before release. This game really has dropped off the radar a little as most gamers seem to have gotten annoyed with the constant delay of the product so hopefully we’re going to see interest rebuilt for Home and a date to get the hype building. It would be nice if the release was sooner rather than later too.

I presume Wipeout HD will be shown alongside the new SOCOM games and a range of other Playstation Network games.

As for the PSP, I hope Sony have some bits and bobs to show off but I’m beginning to question their loyalty in the portable. We know it sells well but the amount of content that drops for it is disappointing to say the least; Space Invaders Extreme and Secret Agent Clank being the only notable releases on the barren consoles recent lineup.

Hopefully Sony will surprise us with something we didn’t expect - but I expect that “surprise” will come from God Of War 3.

Remember this is just my opinion, be sure to share your opinions on Sony’s E3 2008 conference in the comments below.

With the release of the Playstation 3’s much touted “trophy” system, I moaned that there was currently no way of creating a Gamercard that you could post around the Internet. Step in Playfire who have created a service which allows you to manually show which trophies you have unlocked and your current level.

It’s exactly what Sony should be doing with Trophies but sadly will probably take many years for Sony to automate the service. Given we’ve been waiting forever for Home, in-game XMB and the trophies themselves - why should they get their fingers out of their asses yet?

These Playfire ones do look quite good though: