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Rain drops onto PSN this fall
And now the weather: PSN can expect Rain sometime this fall. The Sony Japan Studio game, reminiscent of Ico, sees you play as a boy who's only visible as a silhouette outlined by rain. He finds a girl like himself being chased by similarly invisible monsters, and the pair work together as they try to escape the perils of the night. With Sony Japan Studio forecasting Rain to arrive in a matter of months, it's no shock we'll be seeing more of the game in a couple of weeks time at E3.%Gallery-189816%
Hunting down the secret Tokyo Jungle demo at E3
One of my goals for E3 this year was to find out if Tokyo Jungle was on the show floor and play it. For the whole show, I heard reports that it was playable, but couldn't find it on the floor. I had Sony reps escort me around the company's giant booth to no avail.Finally, I got a Twitter report that led me to the right place: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's private meeting room. And there I finally found a single Tokyo Jungle demo station, with the localized European version (it's also due for North America, Joystiq has learned.)This story would be a lot less inspiring and a lot more embarrassing if the demo turned out to be the quirky, but otherwise unremarkable, game I feared it would be. However, it's a clever, exciting, and, yes, intensely quirky game. It was worth the hunt.%Gallery-157097%
Sony's 'wacky' Tokyo Jungle headed to North America and Europe
Despite the absence of a pomeranian guest appearance at Sony's E3 2012 press conference, the company's delightfully bizarre-looking Tokyo Jungle is indeed headed to PlayStation Network in North America and Europe. A press release this week confirmed the EU release, and Sony VP of product development and worldwide studios Scott Rohde told us in an interview this week that the "wacky" internally developed PSN game will indeed arrive in North America as well."It'll ship here, it'll ship everywhere," Rohde said. To him, Tokyo Jungle's worldwide release is emblematic of Sony's "crazy innovative" approach. "That game is just wacky, but in a good way, because we like to show that there's still an art form, and you can still experiment," he said. "Is everyone gonna love a game like Tokyo Jungle? Absolutely not, but there's a whole bunch of people it's gonna make really happy. Specifically for the fact that it's so different, and so unexpected. That's a key part of the culture of Worldwide Studios and how our games are developed."Though he couldn't name one specific person internally who championed the previously Japan-only game, Rohde extolled the internal culture that allows games like that to be created. "Someone has a key vision in our [Japan Studios] about Tokyo Jungle, they wanted to build this game. And so we're gonna embrace that. And of course we discuss it, and if it doesn't make sense, we can walk away. We walk away from dozens and dozens of titles every year. But the difference is, we actually build them out to a certain extent. And when they hit a point where we think, 'You know what? This is pretty interesting and it's gonna make some people happy,' we're gonna build it."Frankly, we're pretty darn happy this one made it through the wringer. Tokyo Jungle doesn't have a release date or price just yet.%Gallery-157097%
Find out if you hate puppies with this Tokyo Jungle commercial
We probably don't need to make much more of an argument for Tokyo Jungle's localization beyond this wonderful commercial. It's nothing but adorable animals being incredibly adorable – something we think you, not to mention everyone else on the planet, will enjoy.Psst, Sony! With E3 next week, there's still time to sneak in some pomeranians and schnauzers to the Los Angeles Convention Center, you know. If you wanna surprise us during your press conference on Monday evening, for instance, that'd be totally fine.
Tokyo Jungle invades European PSN next year
SCEE has announced that the weird, kind of disappointing animal survival game Tokyo Jungle will migrate to Europe in 2011. Tokyo Jungle stars a collection of wild and once-domestic animals attempting to survive -- and eat -- in a post-humanity version of Tokyo. No announcements have been made regarding a North American release of this game. Concurrent with this announcement, Sony has released an English version of the TGS trailer -- which is worthwhile, since the trailer is almost all text. You'll find that after the break, and you can see more screens at the PlayStation Blog.
Tokyo is a battleground for animals in PS3's 'Tokyo Jungle'
The latest game to be born from Sony's "PlayStation CAMP" initiative, which brought us both What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? and Patchwork Heroes, is simple to describe yet difficult to explain. Tokyo Jungle is about animals running free in the streets of Tokyo in the year 20XX, and doing their best to survive against the other creatures roaming the city. Story Mode takes players through missions, each played as a different animal, including a race horse craving competition and a pet Pomeranian craving ... food. During these missions, you'll learn what happened to make the humans leave Earth. Survival Mode allows players to pick from over 80 different animals -- like elephants, chimps (in overalls!) and porcupines -- and survive as long as possible. Tokyo Jungle will arrive in the still-populated Japan this winter. [Thanks, Copland]
Million Ton Barabara demo coming to Japanese PSN next week
We'd gone ahead and written off Million Ton Barabara, the upcoming project from Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman creator Acquire, as a simple, extremely Japanese Qix clone. That is, until we watched the super catchy, seemingly Wes Anderson-inspired trailer posted after the jump. Upon viewing it, we fell instantly in love -- and became all the more excited that, according to AndriaSang, a demo for the game will find its way onto the Japanese PSN sometime next week. Importing stuff from the PlayStation Store is a huge hassle -- but something tells us this one will be worth it. Seriously, folks -- if you're looking for some good whistling material for the next few hours, check out the trailer just past the jump.
One Million Ton Barabara falling onto PSP in Japan
Acquire has teamed up with the Playstation C.A.M.P. project once again to produce another quirky and unique PSP game idea -- the last collaboration produced Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? In the new game, One Million Ton Barabara ("bara bara" being a Japanese word describing something breaking up or scattering), you play the leader of a town's protection force, charged with destroying the giant airships that loom over your city Independence Day-style. To do this, you and your squad grab onto the ship and tear pieces off. When enough of the ship lies in ruins on the ground, you've completed the level. It's kind of like tower defense meets Qix, or something. Last week, Sony launched a teaser site which provides a look at the game's aesthetic. One Million Ton Barabara will be out in February in Japan. [Image via Wii Everyday]
Joystiq hands-on: Trash Panic (aka Gomibako)
We already previewed Gomibako back in October at TGS, so when we were given the chance to take another look -- this time under the North American title Trash Panic -- we nearly passed it up. It's trash after all, right? Well, yes. "Gomibako" literally translates to "trash box," and plenty of attendees at Sony's Gamers' Day event walked right by, assuming, "Oh. Tetris with trash. I get it."It's easy to dismiss Trash Panic as a Tetris knockoff, but this puzzle game has a robust physics engine, whimsical graphics, and Katamari-like inspiration that'll find your trash bin growing with each level -- until it actually sits on top of Earth. As you play, the trash also grows in scale, and you'll graduate from tossing away routine office trash to comets, meteors, space stations, and even aliens.If this sort of gameplay counted as community service, then the world would be a much cleaner place. %Gallery-34460%
Gomibako trailer is a pile of trash
Seriously. Gomibako is all about trash. This quirky downloadable game is now available in Asia, and it has you playing garbage man. Pieces of trash fall in this Tetris-inspired game and it's up to you to compact it. Using real physics, this game embodies a quirky charm that can really only be found on the PlayStation Network. The design is from PlayStation CAMP, introduced last year as a way for independent developers to learn more about PSN and PSP development. Glad to see it's finally come to fruition.%Gallery-34460%
PlayStation goes to CAMP: Creator Audition Mash Up Project
Have you ever wanted to make games? For many, it's just a pipe dream. However, PlayStation has just launched a new search for talent in its Creator Audition Mash Up Project, or CAMP for short. They're looking for enthusiastic innovators to bring forth more unique games to the PS3/PSP. The audition is open to people of all ages and races ... so long as they live in Japan.The application is rather flexible, but it must effectively show your skills and your unique, innovative idea. Do what Dylan Cuthbert and Q-Games did with the PixelJunk series: use graphics to help convey what's bubbling in your brain.Check out the PlayStation CAMP website for more information. Who knows -- you may become the creator of the next innovative PlayStation project![Thanks, chocito!]
