PlayStation News, Articles and Information for the UK and Europe

Top Gun, the game of the 80′s Tom Cruise film, is out now on the PSN Store in Europe, and those who buy the game before 16th September will get a free Top Gun flight suit for their PlayStation Home character. You can see a screenshot of the flight suit below:

 This limited edition costume is only available until 16th September so if you want one you need to hurry. Buying the game before the cut off date will automatically entitle you to the costume, which will then show up in your wardrobe on the 16th September.

Top Gun is out now exclusively on the PSN Store for £7.99.

Worms 2: Armageddon makes its debut on the UK PSN Store this week, with a free trial and £11.99 unlock, which is perfect for a game as good as Worms; with any luck, people will download the free trial and get hooked into the insanely fun gameplay before giving in and buying the full game. Top Gun also makes its debut on the UK PSN Store this week, almost a month after the US release. Early reviews have been ok but it’s hard to tell without a demo or free trial available, so perhaps wait a couple of days to see how the next set of reviews come out.

There’s the final set of DLC for Dragon Age: Origins (I can’t imagine how much I’d have spent on that game if I’d bought in all, including Awakenings at £31.99!) is on the store this week, along with some more Transformers stuff and the Jimmy’s Vendetta DLC for Mafia II. It doesn’t look like there are any dynamic themes this week but there’s quite a good library of them available on the store now so it might be worth checking out some of the older ones you may have missed if you’re hankering after a change of background.

As always, you can see the full list from this week’s store update below: Read more

The fifth Brink developer diary from Splash Damage has just been released, showing many of the ideas that form their fresh take on the FPS genre, from concept to implementation. They also show you how they got to take 45 different weapons out into the Nevada desert and record the sound of their gunfire! See the video for yourself below:

Gamers waking up to use their PlayStation 3 this morning will have found themselves signed out of PSN, with a new firmware update available to download.

 The new firmware, version 3.42, doesn’t add anything fun for gamers but, according to Sony, is a “minor” update that will add “ additional security features” to PlayStation 3. Whether this has anything to do with the recent PS3 ‘hacking‘ claims remains to be seen.

The Eurogamer Expo 2010 is being held between Friday 1st and Sunday 3rd October at Earl’s Court in London.

With the expo now just a few weeks away, we’ve got some of the first details about what to expect:

Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts is the first on the agenda this year, with a smashing line-up. FIFA 11, Crysis 2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Dead Space 2 will all be playable, as well as a massive head to head 16 player demo of Medal of Honor.

Bethesda

Bethesda will be bringing along playable versions of Brink, Fallout New Vegas and Hunted: the Demon’s Forge; we’re starting to see quite a bit about Fallout New Vegas but we’ve not seen much of either Brink or Hunted yet, so it’ll be great for gamers to get their hands on the playable versions at Eurogamer.

Developer Sessions

We’ve now had the first details of this year’s Developer Sessions confirmed. The creative director of id Software, Tim Willits, will be flying over from the US to present RAGE on all three days. With some serious anticipation building around RAGE, expect these sessions to be jam packed for what will be the first UK showing of the game.

inXile, who are developing Hunted: the Demon’s Forge for Bethesda, will be sending over Matt Findley, the developer’s president, and Maxx Kaufman, the team’s game director, for a UK exclusive presentation at 3pm on Saturday 2nd October.

As well as this initial line up we’ll be getting many more details over the next few days, including what Codemasters will have to offer, as well as details of the Eurogamer Expo’s brand new challenge area.

For more information, check out the official Eurogamer Expo website.

This week’s Top 10 sees quite a shuffle around, with Call of Duty: Black Ops shooting right to the top, two months ahead of its release. FIFA 11 drops one place to number two, while F1 2010 continues its steady rise to the top and lands in at number three.

Sports Champions is the first dedicated PlayStation Move game to rank in the Top 10 so far, coming in at number nine. From early reviews and previews, Sports Champions looks likely to be the best launch title for PlayStation Move, though there are plenty more games to come.

God of War 3 makes a surprise re-entry into the chart, no doubt helped by a recent price cut to just £24.70. Medal of Honor also jumps into the Top 10 for the first time in several weeks. You can see the full Top 10 below: Read more

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge – Special Edition is the second Monkey Island game to get an HD remake on PlayStation 3, the first being the original Secret of Monkey Island. Like its predecessor, Monkey Island 2 is given the ‘Special Edition’ treatment and like its predecessor, it really is quite special. 

The original version of Monkey Island 2 was released back in 1991, so as you can imagine the graphics are very basic and look well dated by comparison to modern games. 

A comparison between old and new

Thankfully, the clever folk at LucasArts have completely redrawn all the artwork, recreating all the original detail in glorious HD. The graphics, although essentially 2D, look brilliant and still manage to capture the essence of the original artwork.

Building on the success of the remake of The Secret of Monkey Island, the animation in Monkey Island 2: Special Edition goes one step further and actually adds in extra animation frames to make the character movement much, much smoother, which is a pleasant touch. The sound too has been completely redone, with high quality re-recordings of the original MIDI tracks. The only unfortunate omission is the iMUSE system, which was present in the original version but is sadly missing from the Special Edition. Revolutionary at the time, the iMUSE system subtly blended music from one scene into another, rather that sharply jump from one track to another each time you move to a new area or screen. Despite this glaring omission, the music sounds fantastic and again captures the essence of the original, highly popular soundtrack. Read more

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is being re-released tomorow as an ‘Ultimate Edition’.

This new version includes the standard game, plus all the DLC, the extra items that came with the original limited edition version, and also a code to download a copy of Battlefield 1943 from the PSN Store.

To promote the new version of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2, EA have released a new ‘Ultimate Edition’ trailer. See it for yourself below:

Some big hitters on the PSN Store this week, including Alien Breed: Impact, an HD remake of the classic Amiga top-down shooter Alien Breed.

For fans of PSOne Classics, one of the defining games of the original PlayStation era, Tomb Raider, finally gets to the PSN Store for non-PlayStation Plus subscribers. Also new for non-PS+ subscribers is the R.U.S.E. demo, which was originally released last week for PS+.

There’s also a whole bunch of DLC, including some free outfits for Red Dead Redemption in addition to the usual suspects. All in all a pretty good update this week, with enough to keep most gamers happy for a long while. Check out the full list below: Read more

Splash Damage have released their fourth ‘developer diary’ for their forthcoming FPS game, Brink. Entitled ‘Endless Horizon’, this new video details the team’s inspiration for Brink’s unique art style and setting. Check it out below: