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PSN Tuesday: XCOM: Enemy Within, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
It's a big week for PS3 content on the PlayStation Store. XCOM: Enemy Within makes its debut on PS3 today, as does the latest entry in the Ratchet & Clank series, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, from Insomniac Games. Two new Wonderbook adventures, Diggs Nightcrawler and Walking With Dinosaurs, are also available today, as is Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition and a special everything-but-the-kitchen-sink version of Grid 2. The first episode of BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea DLC is also up for grabs. Ibb and Obb is free on PS3 for PS Plus members, who will find a new plethora of deals to sift through on PSN this week. Highlights include cheap fighters like Divekick and Street Fighter X Tekken, plus Ubisoft franchises such as Scott Pilgrim, Beyond Good & Evil HD and From Dust.
Wonderbook gets more Harry Potter, dinosaurs, detectives on Nov. 12
We'll explain the header image in a moment. Wonderbook's library is expanding three times its current size on November 12, adding Book of Potions, Walking with Dinosaurs and Diggs Nightcrawler. The first and only Wonderbook game, Book of Spells, launched in December – even though it takes place in a Harry Potter universe designed for younger players, we had a blast crafting charms. Book of Potions also stems from Harry Potter's Wizarding World, complete with a new character written by JK Rowling and a Potions Championship tournament. Book of Potions links up to Pottermore accounts, just as Book of Spells did. It will be available in a bundle with the Wonderbook peripheral for $30. There's no mention of a download or game-only option. Diggs Nightcrawler was announced with Wonderbook at E3 2012, and it stars a cartoonish bookworm detective. It is listed for $15, download only. Walking with Dinosaurs is a partnership with BBC Worldwide, available as a bundle with Wonderbook or as a download. As for our choice of header image: Who would be better at mixing up potions than Walter White and Jesse Pinkman of Breaking Bad? We can see it now. Book of Potions, bitch.
New Wonderbook trailers walk with dinosaurs, encourage homebrewing
These new trailers for future Wonderbook games Walking with Dinosaurs and Book of Potions show what appear to be happy, well-adjusted children enjoying Sony's augmented reality peripheral, but if you look closely you'll discover a terrible secret. That's right, these kids are augmented reality fabrications themselves! Horror of horrors! Tremble as your fragile grip on reality is shattered! Okay fine, that's not even the least bit true, but this dinosaur thing does look pretty educational, even if these kids are overselling their zeal. We're not so sure about teaching children to drink strange foaming liquids they've mixed together themselves, though.
Wonderbook's 'Diggs Nightcrawler' due this holiday [update: May 29 in EU]
To date, the library for the PS3's augmented reality Wonderbook is one game deep: just Book of Spells. Wonderbook owners will have a second game to play "this Holiday," roughly a year after the first, when Diggs Nightcrawler arrives. [Update: May 29 in Europe!]The PlayStation Blog posted a development diary and a gameplay video today, revealing the good news: Diggs Nightcrawler looks pretty interesting! The time developer Moonbot spent figuring out how to implement gameplay appears to be paying off. It's a (cute) noir mystery set in a series of virtual books, each of which is a setpiece for investigation, conducted by folding the book, touching the pages, and otherwise manipulating the world as if it really did come out of a book. Imagine what Wonderbook developers could come up with if they iterated a third time.
Sony's 'Play Days' sale discounts PS3 accessories, Move bundles
Starting tomorrow, PlayStation 3 accessories (and even two actual games) will be discounted by up to 60 percent at participating retailers. The "Play Days" promotion, as Sony calls it, knocks dollar-dollar-bills-y'all off the MSRP of pretty much anything that plugs into a PlayStation 3, from Dual Shocks, to Move bundles, charging stations and media remotes. Wonderbook bundles and Sports Champions 2 will also receive holiday prices starting this Monday.The promotion runs until Saturday, January 12, so folks buying stuff for the PS3 they received during whatever winter-time gift-giving holiday they celebrate will be able to save some scratch as well. Hit the source link below for the full list of discounted products, or watch the above trailer and write very, very quickly.
Wonderbook: Book of Spells review: Inter-house unity
I've been unwittingly preparing for this review for eight months, since I joined Pottermore on the day it launched for the public.Pottermore is an official, browser-based supplement to the Harry Potter series, inspired by social networks. Each member has a profile and travels through the Harry Potter books in a series of active illustrations, collecting trinkets, learning more about the characters and events, and earning points for whichever house they are sorted into. There is a set of spell-casting and potion-concocting minigames that eventually lead to the House Cup celebration, where the house with the most points wins. Pottermore now has more than 4 million members worldwide, and yes, even as a woman in my mid-20s I think this whole thing is perfectly normal and necessary.When I learned there was a new badge for finding Miranda Goshawk's Book of Spells in the Restricted Section on Pottermore, I was excited (again, totally normal). My heart pumped half a beat faster, my cheeks flushed and I smiled, for Merlin's sake. I was filled with joy at the prospect of uncovering secrets about a fictional book within the universe of an already fictional book, and I reveled in it. It wasn't until I discovered the tome, which played a quirky promo for Sony's Wonderbook: Book of Spells, that I finally understood how this related to my professional life.If I could be excited for Book of Spells within Pottermore, I should give the actual PlayStation Move game the same chance.%Gallery-172524%
PlayStation Wonderbook starts augmenting your reality in November from $39
If you were intrigued about that Wonderbook PlayStation peripheral we saw back at E3, then your curious wait may soon be over. As of November 13th, you'll be able to get your wizardy hands on the accessory for the reasonably magic price of $39.99. This is for the book alone, but there's also a bundle for $79 that includes the Book of Spells game (in collaboration with J.K. Rowling) a Move motion controller and the PlayStation Eye camera. Three other forthcoming titles get a mention too, Diggs: Nightcrawler, BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and experiences from Disney, set for release some time in 2013. In the meantime, better start saving up the Galleons.
Wonderbook: Book of Spells hits November 13, Move bundle spelled out
Wonderbook: Book of Spells, the PS3's latest branch of Move wizardry, has a release date of November 13. Sony announced a price of $39.99 for the game and Wonderbook peripheral, and a $79.99 bundle which also includes the PlayStation Eye camera and Move motion-control wand.The Wonderbook, announced at this year's E3, uses augmented reality to turn a boring old hardback into a 3D pop-up of, well, wonder. So far only J.K. Rowling's Book of Spells is releasing alongside Wonderbook, but other books/games are scheduled for next year.
Wonderbook: Book of Spells trailer casts an angry letter
To Whom it May Concern,I am shocked and appalled by the recent advertisement I witnessed for Wonderbook: Book of Spells. To begin, I'd like to point out that there are cryptic symbols inside the book and it is against the natural order that a television should decipher such peculiar things for us.It is also wholly inappropriate and unfortunate that, upon utilizing this electronic literature, it should teach children perversion and cannibalism. To strip a man of his clothed dignity and show him in his raw form is unnatural. I also feel, and I believe most would agree with me, that even playfully asking children to eat eyeballs is profane.I humbly request this "Wonderbook" be banned from children's eyes until they are old enough to know better.Yours Truly,Nancy Ulysses Thomas-Smith
Diggs Nightcrawler solves the mystery of a great fall
Adam Volker from developer Moonbot spoke to the European PlayStation Blog about the new Wonderbook game Diggs Nightcrawler, revealing that while the concept is in place, the gameplay isn't quite yet.Humpty Dumpty is murdered, Volker explained. "And you know his story – someone pushed him off the wall, someone bumped him off – and the cops think it's Diggs. So when you start the game he's framed for the murder of his old buddy. The story unfolds from there, with you attempting to clear Diggs' name and find out who actually committed the crime."That's the setup for the game. "Because Wonderbook is new, we're still figuring out a lot of specifics about what the gameplay is," he added. The characters will be self-aware, and gameplay will involved physically manipulating the book peripheral a lot. Diggs will even tell you to "turn the page" or otherwise move through the book, allowing today's children to have an experience of the read-along books and audio cassettes we grew up with.
Diggs Nightcrawler, Walking with Dinosaurs are two new chapters in Sony's Wonderbook
Sony's augmented-reality Move accessory, Wonderbook, has two new, official stories to tell: Diggs Nightcrawler and BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs. We heard the Diggs Nightcrawler name at E3 this year, but today at its Gamescom press conference Sony showed a video, featuring a multi-armed insect detective in a noir setting as he solves fairy tale crimes. Diggs Nightcrawler is in development from Moonbot Studios.Walking with Dinosaurs, from Supermassive Games and the BBC, allows players to interact with a range of extinct creatures, including T-rexes and Allosauruses, in a suspiciously educational way.Disney has also signed on to lend its properties to Wonderbook, though Sony has yet to reveal any details about potential titles. Sony also showed off more footage of Book of Spells, the Harry Potter Wonderbook game, leading us to conclude that this bit of hardware is indeed intended for a family audience.
Augmented story time: A closer look at Wonderbook: Book of Spells
If you're going to demonstrate Wonderbook, it really should be done in a living room. Or, in Sony's case, in a fake living room set up on the second story of an E3 booth. We joined Sony senior producer George Weising – sitting cross-legged on our fake living room rug, naturally – and got a dose of Harry Potter-infused, Move-enabled virtual magic, courtesy of Wonderbook: Book of Spells.
Sony PlayStation Wonderbook hands-on (update: video added)
Last night, we caught a demo of PlayStation's new Wonderbook during the company's E3 press event. Today, we grabbed a few moments of hands-on time with the new PS Move peripheral at the Sony booth. As we learned last night, the first title for the new tech is a collaborative effort with J.K. Rowling, entitled Book of Spells. The kit makes use of an augmented reality book in tandem with the Move hardware to project images and animations (basically the game itself) right on the pages. Consisting of only six spreads (12 pages), the software will track your progression through the chapters, and beginning a new quest simply means heading to back to the front of the book. We got a closer look (free from last night's demo fail), so have a peep at the gallery below and head on past the break for some impressions. Update: We've added a video of the hands-on just beyond the break for your viewing pleasure. %Gallery-157207%
Harry Potter Wonderbook trailer brings childlike joy to your E3 week
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is contributing to Sony's Wonderbook franchise, an AR system that uses the PS Eye, an oversized book and, at times, Move. The trailer above introduces Book of Spells and the one below has an overview of Wonderbook itself.
Sony's Wonderbook is PS Move-augmented reading, launches with J.K. Rowling's 'Book of Spells'
If you were wondering what Sony planned next for the PS Move, the answer is apparently... books. Just displayed at its pre-E3 press conference, Wonderbooks will let users turn physical books into the best pop-up adventure of all time. As seen in the presentation, it could project images onto the book, letting users peer own dark tunnels, cast spells or even dodge a flying dragon that escaped from the pages. On the downside, the task looked a bit complicated for the target audience, requiring them to manipulate the book, look at their TV to see the effects and wave a wand with their other hand. There was a bit of a demo fail during the presentation, we'll see if things work more smoothly when we get some hands-on time tomorrow. The first PlayStation 3 Wonderbook title available is by none other than Harry Potter writer JK Rowling, who brings the Book of Spells for muggles to try their hands at Hogwart's best-known incantations. One other book was also mentioned, Diggs Nightcrawler. Check out our liveblog for all of the details. Update: Check after the break for two new trailers from the PlayStation.Blog, one for Wonderbook in general and another specifically for Book of Spells.
Sony's 'Wonderbook' makes reading more like TV with PlayStation Eye, includes J.K. Rowling's magic
The Wonderbook uses augmented reality to turn a physical book into a 3D pop-up book, Sony announced today at its E3 presser.Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling has contributed Book of Spells to Sony's Wonderbook endeavor, using the Move controller as a wand. Sony demoed Book of Spells, showing off a few spells and features such as earning house points and unlocking poems about unfortunate Hogwarts students. Wonderbook launches this holiday and is one of many books Sony has planned.Book of Spells will build off of Pottermore, the Harry Potter multimedia social and fan site.Another title for Wonderbook is Diggs Nightcrawler.
