PlayStation News, Articles and Information for the UK and Europe

A brand new gameplay trailer for forthcoming open-world RPG Two Worlds 2 (or should that be 4 Worlds?) has just been released, showing off some pretty fantastic-looking graphics. The original Two Worlds game was released to fairly poor reviews and low sales but the developers claim to have addressed all the criticisms of the first game and created improvements throughout.

Two Worlds 2 is being developed by different teams for each platform, so with any luck they will be able to make maximum use of the PS3′s cell processor rather than relying on a rushed ‘port’ from the PC or Xbox version. Despite the shortcomings of the original game, hopes are high that Two Worlds 2 will be a big success for Polish developer Reality Pump. Two Worlds 2 is currently scheduled for release in September 2010.

This week’s Amazon Top 10 shows just two new entries with UFC Undisputed 2010 coming in at number 6 and Lost Planet 2 climbing up to number 9. Rumours of ‘very low’ sales of ModNation Racers don’t seem to tie up with this week’s sales chart as the game holds fast at number 5. It’s a fantastic ‘karting’ game with huge replay value due to the “play.create.share” ethos that the game shares with LittleBigPlanet. You can see our full review of ModNation Racers here.

Red Dead Redemption is holding the top spot once again and with good reason too - the game is an absolute masterpiece and surely one of the major contenders for Game of the Year. It’s incredible to see Modern Warfare 2 still selling so well – almost all the hardcore fans would have bought the game in the first week of release so we can only assume that more casual players or those new to the series are responsible for the high level of sales now. Read more

Another week, another episode of FirstPlay, and it’s pleasing to see yet another healthy dose of content on offer by the Future crew. This week’s episode saw a couple of racing reviews as well as a trailer for quite possibly the best looking game on PS3 – Crysis 2 (sorry Uncharted 2!). On the screenshots side of things, there are some awesome shots of Demon’s Souls, Saw II and the spooky Castlevania: Lord of Shadows. In Network Highlights, there’s some help for you God of War fans, and a round up of content on the store, minis, and LBP levels. This week also features Blast Off, a free PS mini for your gaming pleasure as well as a Dead Space 2 theme!

Read on for the full review…

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A brand new quiz game from National Geographic Society and Black Bean Games called NatGeo Quiz! Wild Life (isn’t ‘wildlife’ one word?) is just out on PS3 and Xbox 360 and we’ve got the trailer, screenshots and release info for you.

NatGeo Quiz! Wild Life features 90 minutes of High-Definition videos, 5,000 different questions and 2,000 High-Resolution images of the planets amazing predators, deadliest creatures and aquatic life.

With May being such a busy month for PS3 game releases (Red Dead Redemption, ModNation Racers), NatGeo Quiz! Wild Life has snuck out without much fanfare but for wildlife enthusiasts and quiz game fans this could turn out to be a cheeky bit of fun. It’s currently on Amazon for under £30 if you’re interested, though there is a distinct lack of reviews available for the game at the moment so it may be worth holding fire with your wallet until some scores come in. Check out the screenshots and video below (the screens are from the Xbox version but we’re told they are identical) and see what you think:

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From the makers of Zen Pinball comes Planet MiniGolf, a brand new minigolf game to be released exclusively for PlayStation 3 on PSN next week. 

Planet MiniGold will feature slick 3D graphics and the state-of-the-art physics found in Zen Pinball, and will be set across four exotic locations featuring a total of 144 holes. If that’s not enough for you, you’ll be able to design, play and upload your courses and then share your best replays with the world via the built-in Youtube uploader. Despite being a PSN title rather than boxed retail, Planet MiniGolf is packed with features and looks like it could be a lot of fun for fans of crazy golf.

Zsolt Kigyossy, managing director of ZEN Studios, is aiming to make Planet MiniGolf the ultimate arcade golfing experience:

“Planet MiniGolf gives casual players and golfing aficionados alike everything they could ask for in a golf game, with wacky courses, character customization, custom course builder and global competitions.”

We’ll find out if he’s right when the game is released next Wednesday on the PSN Store.

For those who don’t spend their days browsing the NaughtyDog website or their twitter feed, you may be interested to know that this weekend is the start of the Lab Playlist. The Lab Playlist will be available every other weekend or so and change the deathmatch mechanics for a few days. This weekend’s Lab will feature 2 vs. 2 Team Deathmatches, with a kill limit of twenty five and fifteen minutes to get those kills.

Those who aren’t interested in the Lab Playlist but still love a good online session will be pleased to know that this weekend (that’s May 28th to June 1st) will also be Double Points. That’s double points for everything – kills, medals etc. – and the match cash limit has been raised to $150,000 for the duration of Double Points.

The rest of the schedule looks like this:

28th May – 1st June (That’s this weekend) - 2 vs. 2 Deathmatch

11th – 14th June - Shotguns Only – spawn only with Moss-12 and Pistole. No grenades

25th – 28th June - Sniper Extermination – spawn with only Dragon Sniper rifle. One life per round. Best of five rounds.

Ok first things first, Final Fantasy IX will be available on the PSN Store as of this afternoon! To the many Final Fantasy fans out there this should come as a very welcome addition to the store. There are also two new PSN games to download, Söldner-X 2: Final Prototype and Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Episode 2, as well as two new Trial & Unlock PSN games, Fret Nice and Voodoo Dice.

There’s a whole raft of DLC from the usual suspects as well as three new MAG Dynamic Themes and three static themes from Harry Potter, Mafia II (free) and After Burner Climax.

Unfortunately there’s still no word on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (which was released on the US Store on April 22nd) but we’ve been told by SCEE to expect it ‘soon’ so there’s still hope! Don’t forget there’s also a new issue of FirstPlay out today which comes with a free ‘mini’.

It’s interesting to see Wakeboarding HD has dropped in price so quickly – perhaps the £11.99 price point was just a little too high. All in all though, another solid update from SCEE with a wide selection of new downloads as well as some decent special offers. Read more

Built as the spiritual successor to LittleBigPlanet (which now has its own fully fledged sequel) and created with the same ethos in mind, ModNation Racers is the second title in (hopefully) a series featuring the Play. Create. Share tagline. This racing game was announced at last year’s E3, and has since been highly anticipated. The developers have made a great job of highlighting how customisable the game is with the ability to create your own characters, karts and even tracks at your disposal. But will ModNation Racers live up to the hype which has been so elegantly built up? And is it worthy to be part of the Play. Create. Share. train? Read on for more details…

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Hello again everyone! Here we are with this week’s update, including a free download of the PS mini Blast Off. This week’s episode also contains the review of Split/Second: Velocity, as well as a review of SBK X. In the screenshots section are previews of Saw 2 and Castlevania: Lord of Shadows and in the Network Highlights section is a guide for God of War III. All of this for less than £1 (precisely one penny less). What’s more, it seems that a not to distant future episode of FirstPlay will include a demo, avatar and/or theme to download. Read more for the full content listing, stay tuned this week for a review of the episode.

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Big news for Killzone fans today as Killzone 3 is officially unveiled by SCEE, with confirmation of the rumoured 3D feature and details of the overall game design now available over on the Official EU PS3 Blog.

The game will start off when Killzone 2 left off, with a wider variety of levels this time around including more open level design and some ‘snowy’ areas in contrast to the highly industrialised nature of Killzone 2′s design. Also announced is the return of jetpacks from Killzone: Liberation on the PSP.

The big new feature that’s guaranteed to catch people’s attention is the addition of 3D: according to the developers, this will come with a minimal hit to performance. Herman Hulst, MD of Guerilla Games, had the following to say about it:

“Implementing 3D is a bit of work for our engine guys but it’s very doable – it’s actually easier for us than you would think and we’re already at the stage in our development where we can switch it on and off. It’s important to get it right but we’re quite lucky in that the Killzone universe, with so much going on all of the time, lends itself well to 3D.”

With E3 just around the corner expect to see more information unveiled soon. Killzone 3 currently has a proposed release date of May 2011 and will be available exclusively for PlayStation 3.