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PS4 media blowout: Driveclub, Knack, Infamous Second Son and more
Sony's lengthy E3 press conference was riddled with lots of game trailers - so many that we have to pile some of them into this little post for your viewing pleasure. While you take a quick break from your freak-out session over the PlayStation 4's $399 price tag, check out this trailer for Infamous: Second Son. Additionally, you'll find the likes of Driveclub, Killzone: Shadow Fall, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Knack, Watch Dogs, Transistor and Batman: Arkham Origins after the break, each in trailer form. Grab some popcorn, you have plenty of footage to soak in.
Infamous: Second Son coming to PS4 in Q1 2014 [Update]
Update: A press release from Sony clarifies that Infamous: Second Son won't be available on launch day, but rather prior to March 31, 2014 in the first quarter of next year. Original: Sony has confirmed that Infamous: Second Son - the third title in the open-world series from developer Sucker Punch - will be available when the PlayStation 4 launches later this year. The release window was revealed during Sony's E3 2013 press conference. Also mentioned as launch titles were Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack: both previously confirmed as launch titles for the upcoming console.
Sucker Punch scans random faces for crowds in Infamous: Second Son
Sucker Punch uses real-life extras to populate the city of Seattle in Infamous: Second Son – developers recruited 75 friends, family members and professionals over three days to sit in front of a complex camera installment, absolutely still, while the lenses strobed out layers of their faces. With friends like Sucker Punch, who needs seizure medication? Everyone, probably. There's a visual breakdown of Sucker Punch's scanning process on Game Informer. Or, if you're patient, just buy an Xbox One later this year and sit really still in front of that always-on Kinect camera – and maybe you'll spot your own fine face in a next-gen crowd. (You probably won't. We hope.)
Infamous: Second Son coughs up details on smoky hero, Seattle setting
Sucker Punch announced Infamous: Second Son at this week's PlayStation 2013 event, following an intro by game director Nate Fox that can only be described as... disturbing. So can the electric series' latest entry live up to his intensity? Well, there's a ways to go yet before we'll find out - Sony hasn't revealed if Second Son will be at the PS4's launch - but Sucker Punch took to the PlayStation Blog to shine a bit more light on the game.Second Son is set seven years after Infamous 2, and in Seattle - a real-life location as opposed to Empire City, which was based on New York. It stars 24-year-old Delsin Rowe, who Sucker Punch paints as a self-described underachiever. Whereas previous protagonist Cole McGrath was all about electricity, Rowe's superpowers, at least initially, revolve around smoke. That may not sound as badass as electric powers at first, but the game's debut trailer showed a smoked Rowe can whip up plenty of havoc. As for Fox's (melo)dramatic intro, that was designed to underline the paranoia and restricted freedoms of Second Son's world in the wake of the last game's cataclysmic events. As you might expect, the prohibitory forces in charge and new hero Rowe aren't exactly best mates.On a final gameplay note, Sucker Punch suggested we could see the return of good/evil choices as per previous games: "As with all games in this series," said producer Brian Fleming, "the path the gameplay and story take will depend on the decisions you make along the way." %Gallery-179480%
Infamous: Second Son trailer takes back control
The announcement trailer for Infamous: Second Son asks the question, "In a future police state where everyone is monitored at all times, how many metal chains will you choose to wrap around your wrist?"
Sucker Punch reveals Infamous: Second Son for PS4
Infamous developer Sucker Punch is continuing its exploration of superheroes, putting a team of metahumans in a depressing police state in its new PS4 exclusive, Infamous: Second Son. The brief demo showed a team of antihero types taking on a surveilling organization in what looked like Seattle.Now, you can see the presentation for yourself here.
The Sly Collection breaks into PSN on Nov. 29
The Sly Collection, a high-definition bundle of the raccoon's most daring heists, will be available though PSN on November 29. Sanzaru Games president Glen Egan made the announcement deep down in the comments of a PS Blog post about the upcoming Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. The digitally distributed version appears to include everything that was in the retail title, with support for Trophies and stereoscopic 3D. Launched as a retail pack last year, the collection can be purchased as a bundle on PSN for $29.99, or as individual games for $9.99 each. The HD collection is currently available on Amazon for $19.99. [Thanks, Colin.]
PSA: inFamous 2 and Festival of Blood now support PlayStation Move
As promised earlier this year, PlayStation Move support is now functional in inFamous 2 and the franchise's latest iteration, inFamous 2: Festival of Blood. Even more thrilling? You can add Move functionality right into your user-created content, care of the game's level editor. Move support comes to inFamous 2 and Festival of Blood via an in-game update, which players will be prompted to download at the launch of either game. If that info weren't enough to get your arms waggling (get it? 'cause of the Move? yeah!), Sucker Punch creative lead Nate Fox starred in the handy video above, detailing the added functionality.
Latest Infamous 2 update adds more options, more bosses to UGC
If you're still getting your hands dirty in the extensive suite of user-generated content tools which Sucker Punch afforded to purchasers of Infamous 2, you've got another thing coming, buster. Well, a bunch of other things -- an update launched today unlocks the Titan and the Devourer (the two big minibosses from the game's campaign) for use in the mission creator. Why not tweak their settings to make them best friends? That's a thing you can probably do. Other additions in the update include an option to link your homemade levels together, and a peer review system for UGC missions -- which should help separate some of the wheat from the chaff while you're electrically sailing through New Marais. Check out Sucker Punch's site for more details on the patch!
See Infamous 2: Festival of Blood's resurrection
Sucker Punch and Sony are teasing Infamous 2: Festival of Blood with a brief cutscene. It shows a shriveled corpse drinking superhero Cole McGrath's blood, in order to resurrect as some kind of super-vampire. If that's the kind of imagery that interests you, we suspect you'll find a lot more of it in the PSN game. After all, it's not only about fighting vampires -- your character becomes a vampire himself. This will be the go-to game for scenes of blood drinking, electrocution, and, we're guessing, bloodtrocution.
Infamous 2: Festival of Blood gets Truly Bloody this October [update: trailer!]
Electro-monster Cole from Infamous 2 is now an electro-vampire in Infamous 2: Festival of Blood, available on PSN this October. In this downloadable game, New Marais is infested by vampires. Cole is bitten, and must find the head vampire before the night ends, to reverse his condition. Does electricity hurt vampires? We'll find out, we suppose. Also, can you make a vampire game set in Louisiana and avoid comparisons to both Interview with the Vampire and True Blood? This post has already proven that you cannot. This was called a "brand new game available for download," which sounds more like a standalone PSN game than DLC. Update: The PlayStation Blog confirms that you don't need any other Infamous games to play this. It also posted the above trailer.
Sony acquires inFamous dev Sucker Punch Productions
Having spent over ten years working on PlayStation-exclusive franchises like Sly Cooper and inFamous, Sucker Punch Productions is now becoming a Sony-owned developer. Sony announced the acquisition of the Bellevue, Washington-based studio this morning, formally adding it to the ranks of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. According to Sucker Punch Managing Partner Brian Fleming, "the relationship with SCE has provided us the flexibility and trust to take creative risks and invent new properties." Among the studio's known properties, inFamous 2 is notable for having been one of the top selling games in June. The next Sucker Punch project has not been announced, but we do know of another "acquisition" that may play a role in it: the studio was recently joined by former Halo designer Jaime Griesemer.
Infamous 2 gets vehicular DLC for user-generated content
You've designed the perfect Infamous 2 mission, but it's lacking one small detail: a truck. Good news -- you can totally download a truck now, along with an assortment of other vehicles, as the game's first user-generated content DLC pack. The free DLC includes five vehicles from the single-player game for use in the creation of UGC. And for those of you who prefer to consume user-generated content, Sony also announced a new search feature, accessible by pausing the game. You can find content by multiple search vectors, including PSN usernames. As of now, it's unclear whether you can sort by presence or absence of trucks.
Half-Minute Halo: An Interview with Jaime Griesemer
"In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun that happened over and over and over and over again. And so, if you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game." Or maybe even five games. The succinct secret to Halo's success, that half minute of fun, has long been a mantra repeated by developer Bungie, repurposed by game critics, and presumably whispered by Master Chief himself before he tosses a plasma grenade into a gathering of grunts. It's inoffensive, catchy and it sounds about right. Doesn't it? "Yeah, it's probably the most famous thing I ever said," says game designer Jaime Griesemer. "For some reason it really resonated with the community and got quoted and repeated to the point where I would hear it from people that didn't realize where it had come from in the first place! Especially with journalists." Like many of you, Griesemer has heard the phrase on podcasts (yes, including The Joystiq Podcast) and read it in several articles, such as Clive Thompson's examination of Halo 3 playtesting in Wired. "Some of the guys at Bungie were calling me 'Mr. Thirty Seconds' for a while ... heh." If only we had paid attention to Mr. Thirty Seconds for about, oh, 30 seconds longer.
Infamous 2 review: A study in power
Video games with super-powered protagonists must be a pretty sticky wicket for developers. Make your hero -- or totally rotten villain -- too weak, and they won't tear through crowds of the un-powered with satisfying gusto. Make them too strong, however, and they'll tear through them with unsatisfying ease. If the many, many superhero titles that accidentally tumble into these two unfortunate paradigms are any indication, the sweet spot between these two boundaries is extraordinarily thin. Infamous 2 integrates a number of minor improvements to its already polished predecessor, but it's biggest change might also be its most imperceptible. Moreso than in Infamous the First, Cole MacGrath has found the happy medium between strength and vulnerability. He finds his electrical equilibrium from his very first step into the lively playground of New Marais -- and, perhaps more impressively -- maintains that balance for the millions of steps that follow. %Gallery-118056%
InFamous 2 imPorts your inFamous Trophy data to grant rewards, alter story
Sucker Punch wants to reward its fans for being especially good ... or especially bad. IGN reports that InFamous 2 offers an option to import Trophy data from the original InFamous, which is then turned into starting bonuses in Cole McGrath's new adventure. We've got a rundown of what your Trophies are worth in the sequel after the break -- starting XP bumps and the like -- but the most interesting bit of info is that having unlocked specific story-related Trophies will actually alter the dialog and side missions in InFamous 2. We'd tell you what they are, but then you'd have to kill us. And also, we don't know, because IGN didn't say. Of course, you could also look at this feature as one big morality test: Will you be a goodie two shoes and choose not to import your data, or do it and effectively use a "cheat" right at the start of the game?
inFamous 2 Hero Edition unboxed, new trailer unleashed
If you have a penchant for messenger bags, world-ending beasts and "it's totally not a toy" figurines, today's inFamous 2 news is just right for you. Beyond a thoroughly detailed photo tour of the game's "Hero Edition" (an "unboxing," if you will), Sony today released a brand new trailer for this June's third-person superhero-er. Rather than show off the game's New Orleans-inspired location as so many inFamous 2 trailers have before it, this one's all about the destruction of Cole's hometown: Empire City. Turns out that the enormous beast he was worried about in the last game is kind of a dominant force in his second adventure. Head past the break for some minor story spoilers from inFamous 1 and a whole mess of destruction in inFamous 2.
inFamous 2's opening cinematic brings us up to speed
Sure, we could sit here and give you a whole mess of reasons why you should watch this opening cinematic for inFamous 2, but deep down in your heart, you already know why you should. So what are you waiting for?
inFamous 2 mission designer mode dissected on video
Want to know the ins and outs of the engine that powers inFamous 2's user-generated content? PlayStation Blog recently showed off the customizable innards of the open-world superhero sim's mission creator -- check out the steamy video exposé just past the jump.
New inFamous 2 footage shows off Behemoth, user-generated missions
A new inFamous 2 video reveals "The Behemoth" enemy in all its rancid glory, while a second movie showcases the possibilities of a user-generated mission. If you're trying to avoid spoilers, now is the time to bail out. inFamous 2 will be available June 7th on PS3. Check out the the 3:30 mark in the first video for a passive jab at the Xbox 360.
