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Dragon's Lair coming to HD DVD
More than a year after we first heard it was being remastered in high definition, Digital Leisure has announced plans to release Dragon's Lair on HD DVD. The old laserdisc classic, which already shipped on Blu-ray earlier this year comes to HD DVD August 15th. The 1080p visuals and 5.1 surround of the Blu-ray release are intact, and if that's not enough, it also plans to follow up with future releases of Space Ace and Dragon's Lair II on the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.
Lair absent from E3, should we worry?
Unless it was hidden away in some alcove, the upcoming PS3 exclusive, Lair, was absent from Sony's E3 gaming arcade. We had extensive time with Sony's upcoming games, but should we worry that this high-profile shooter from Factor 5 was unplayable on the show floor? Could control issues be plaguing the title? Let's hope not. [Update: A commenter noted that it was playable at Barker Hangar. Unfortunately, we only played games from Sony's arcade in Le Merigot.]Check out some screenshots in our updated gallery:%Gallery-3198%
Lair nearing completion; Devs speak on PlayStation.Blog
Ryan Hamlyn, associate producer on Lair, has written a post on the PlayStation.Blog explaining that the game is nearing completion and on track for its August 14th release date. Hamlyn has been playing the game for a while now and claims that the more he plays this game, the more fun he's having. The post also includes a short explanation on how they developed some of the larger creatures for the game, including the "Spiderwasp" shown above. It may be hard to see clearly at such a low resolution, so check out the official PlayStation.Blog Flickr account (just goes to show that Sony truly appreciate Web 2.0) , where all the screenshots from the "Inside the Developer's Studio" feature have been put up at full resolution. Simply click "all sizes" above the picture to view it in different sizes, including 1920x1080.Finally, the official Lair website is up, with exclusive new videos and "other cool content". It's pretty exciting to see the first non-launch AAA exclusive for the PS3 nearing completion. We just can't wait to finally play it.
PSP Fanboy Theatre: Volume 26
PSP Fanboy offers the latest and greatest movie and game trailers, formatted for the PSP in this new weekly feature. Check it out every Saturday. PSP owners can download files wirelessly via m.pspfanboy.com.Instructions: Save all movie and thumbnail files to the VIDEO folder. These high resolution 480x272 videos require firmware 3.30 or above. (Note: OE custom firmware will also play these videos.)New for PSP: Get selected videos delivered automatically to your PSP via our new RSS feed. Dynasty Warriors:Gundam [PS3, 360] Download MP4 (11.5MB) | Download JPG The following videos are featured after the break: Lair (PS3), Rise of the Argonauts (PS3, 360), Sicko, Interview
Lair: August 14th. Demo: July, we promise
It's been a long, hard road to travel down, but the time is almost here for Lair. Originally slated for release at the end of July, the game has indeed been pushed to August 14th. Their reasoning is simple: from that point on, nearly every week is going to see the release of a new game, many of which are high profile titles. It's going to be a great start to a whole lot of people's school season.In addition to the game's release officially set in stone, the rumor of a demo hitting the PSN is still circulating. Fortunately for us, we guessed right: the demo is set for July. We don't expect it very early in July, though that would be a very pleasant surprise. We're thinking it'll hit maybe a month prior to the game's release. Mid-July, then. Until that day comes, feel free to get your fill of dragons by checking out some video footage of all the mayhem you will cause this August.[Thanks, Joe!]
DS Dragon's Lair makes a Daring choice
The laserdisc classic Dragon's Lair is back again, after appearances on basically every system ever built, either in its original form (PC, Sega CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, Game Boy Color) or in some kind of terrible adaptation (NES, SNES, PS2). This time, Digital Leisure is releasing it in more or less original form on the DS, with some ... interesting options. Of particular interest is the ability to control the game via touch screen. We imagine this will involve tapping the appropriate side of the screen. There are also optional move indicators, voice control (?), rumble support, and multiple difficulty settings.And then there's the big feature. You can choose to play the game on one screen, or stretched across both. This allows Dragon's Lair to benefit from the advanced view obstruction technology not available in the arcade version. [Via NeoGAF]
New Lair videos arrive a bit scorched, but still good
Sony has recently updated the media section of the PlayStation 3 official website with nine new Lair videos. Above you can find the opening cinematic which, while being stunning, bodes well for the game's sense of humour and style. Coming up after the jump are eight more videos. If you'd rather download and watch them in their proper resolution (and let's be honest, you'd be mad not to) you'll find the links to the official site below.The videos show a lot of gameplay footage and tell a lot about the backstory of the game. The game is graphically stunning and, with a release within the next month or two, we simply can't wait to get our hands on it. Cinematic intro Beasts Lair trailer 1 Lair trailer 2 Lair trailer 3 Behind the scenes - The Call of the Beast Behind the scenes - Going for the Kill Behind the scenes - Mastering the Beast Behind the scenes - World in Chaos %Gallery-3198%[Via PS3 Forums]
PSP Fanboy Theatre: Volume 25
PSP Fanboy offers the latest and greatest movie and game trailers, formatted for the PSP in this new weekly feature. Check it out every Saturday. PSP owners can download files wirelessly via m.pspfanboy.com.Instructions: Save all movie and thumbnail files to the VIDEO folder. These high resolution 480x272 videos require firmware 3.30 or above. (Note: OE custom firmware will also play these videos.)New for PSP: Get selected videos delivered automatically to your PSP via our new RSS feed. Folklore [PS3]Download MP4 (24.2MB) | Download JPG The following videos are featured after the break: Call of Duty 4 (PS3, 360), Lair (PS3), Mercenaries 2 (PS3, 360), Motorstorm (PS3), Super Stardust HD (PS3), Transformers: The Game (All)
Lair extended battle trailer has more dragon-on-dragon action
Do you like dragons? Do you like dragons ... attacking other dragons?! Of course you do, it's fun. GameTrailers has posted an extended battle sequence from Factor 5's Lair. No gameplay footage, but more drama and excitement than the entire Dungeons & Dragons movie in just two minutes!Video embedded after the break.%Gallery-3183%
European PSN releases for June 15th
Are you ready for this? We feel like, for the first time, we are relaying some good news to all the Europeans out there. Read on to see what your PSN Store now contains. Rampart game (£1.99) Joust game (£1.99) Motorstorm Time Attack Mode (free) Lair trailer (free) Haze trailer (free) Super Stardust HD trailer (free) The Darkness story trailer (free) An interview with Paul Hollywood video (free) Where to start! Yes, the games are Midway rehashes (and you know how we feel about those) but, really, it's the thought that counts. Sony are finally pulling their collective finger out and releasing some decent content to the European market. As a quick aside, we can't stop watching that Haze trailer. Honestly. It's on repeat in the background at this very moment.But what of the Motorstorm Time Attack Mode? We only just got done telling you that it has been delayed, which it has. In America, at least. For those of you about to download it, take heed. There are reports of problems occuring unless you do things in the proper order. Load Motorstorm and update to version 1.2 in the online menu, then download the Time Attack Mode and install.
Dragons + Orchestra = Rhapsody of Lair
There are way too many heavy metal references just waiting to be discovered in our subject line. The idea behind it stays the same: an orchestral production of Lair's opening musical score has hit the web and it's pretty impressive. Sticking an orchestra behind anything is positively enhancing to the overall sound. Even if MIDI files are supposedly going to have equivalent sound quality in the future, we will always think a true orchestra has some kind of purist advantage. Listen to the music above, watch the performance if you'd like, then let us know what you think.
Lair gets new name in Japan: 'Rise from Lair'
Taking a video game across an ocean requires more than a simple trip in a plane. Localization experts spend countless hours crossing the language barrier to make sure different cultures understand the game's content. The title often gets shifted in the mix, such as the Japanese DS game I Would Die for You becoming Feel the Magic XY/XX in the US and Project Rub in Europe.According to the latest issue of Famitsu, the upcoming PS3 title Lair will have a new name in the land of the rising sun: Rise from Lair. It's more search engine friendly, for starters, but other than that we couldn't guess the reasoning behind the shift. We would have suggested Dragon Fly Ultimate, but we aren't publishing the game, are we?%Gallery-3183%
New name for Lair in Japan, plus screenshots!
We're all anticipating the release of Lair by the end of July, but we've got two different subjects on the Factor 5 game to cover for you today. First up, we've got a name change. No, not for North America or Europe, but for Japan, the title Lair just didn't seem to do it over there. The latest Famitsu Weekly magazine has the game listed as Rise From Lair. Good stuff, we guess.Also, we've got a handful of screenshots for you to check out. The screenshots are here. While you'd expect a plethora of screenshots with giant dragons floating around the sky and oceans and stuff, these are different. Kind of. Some pictures of actual characters, as well as the obligatory dragon-riding. We enjoy them. Don't you?
SGD '07: Lair gallery shows little new, but still awesome
While the gallery we've acquired for the upcoming dragon-riding, death-inducing, flame-spewing craziness known as Lair is very pretty, we're not exactly impressed. Don't get us wrong -- the images are spectacular, but since the game is due out by the end of July, we thought we'd get a lot more, especially in-game shots. In any case, you can check out a few more pictures of the armor-clad hero riding his noble ... er ... steed? around the skies and generally kicking some bum. We can't wait to try this game out, can you? Check out a video of the game, after the cut.%Gallery-3198%
Factor 5 wants to rock you like a Turrican
As we've previously mentioned, the Metroid-inspired Commodore 64 game Turrican might be making a return to systems, courtesy of original developer Factor 5. In yet another interview, this time with Gamasutra, president Julian Eggebrecht mentioned that they are still exploring ways to bring this series back. He's particularly intrigued with the way that Metroid Prime helped relaunch that franchise, turning it from a sidescroller into 3D, and wants to do the same with Turrican. Maybe without looking so much like Metroid this time around. The trouble is, any time you roll your character up into a ball, people are going to scream Metroid ... so get to work on fixing that, Factor 5.
Saturday PSP background explosion
Every week, PSP Fanboy brings you new backgrounds to keep your PSP safe from unbackgrounditis. Remember, you can save these images directly to your PSP by accessing the site wireless at m.pspfanboy.com. This week, we fulfill last week's fan requests, which were all PS3 game backgrounds. What games are featured? Continue on to find out. Backgrounds after the jump ...
PS3 offers limitless power, says Factor 5
There once was a lengthy interview with Julian Eggebrecht over at Mercury News' blog space. He's the big man behind Factor 5 and Lair, by association. We're going to summarize the interview, where a lot was talked about: mostly Lair and the PS3 in general. Factor 5 sought the most powerful of the next-gen systems -- in fact, it's implied that they started a game for the 360 before beginning production on Lair because Sony was so quiet about the PS3 at first. The see a lot of risk in Lair because it's unusual and defies classical categorization by genre. They've never been a multi-million unit selling company, either. But they find a good number of rewards, too. Seamless world, new genre, air to ground combat, combat systems, and the choice of the PlayStation 3 can be both a risk and a reward... depending. Have they found out what the PS3 can do? Not yet, they say, but "the PS 3 has more of the situation where you could go another six months easily and forever. You can get so much more power. RSX is a known quantity. But Cell is pretty limitless at this point." Poor port quality from 360 to PS3 has become an obvious issue, but PS3-specific titles look so much better. Eggebrecht explains the situation: "They created the 360 engine with a unified memory architecture in mind, with the embedded frame buffer with its advantages and disadvantages, and not thinking too much in early stages about multicore. If you try to get that over to the PS3, you're in for a bad surprise. The PS 3 is all about streamlining about the two different memory pools. They are separate. You don't have to do tiling because you don't have an embedded frame buffer. All of these advantages of the PS3 turn into disadvantages if you don't start making your game on the PS3. If you create first on the PS3, it is pretty easy to port it to the 360." What will we see in Lair not seen in other PS3 titles? Scale, really. Going from 20,000 feet down to the ground and keeping a consistent level of detail is pretty amazing. All lighting is calculating in real-time, giving a nice day-night cycle. Not to mention fluid water dynamics. Compared to Gears of War, Eggebrecht cites scale as the difference -- GoW is based on moving slowly from corridor to corridor (metaphors, though there is a lot of that anyway), Lair gives you a 32x32 kilometer bubble to explore with detail kept throughout, at extreme speeds. This scale allows for more non-linear play, with vague mission goals, unlike the linear fashion GoW plays out. Multiplayer is just leaderboards and chat -- they want online multiplayer, but are having trouble getting the streaming and latency issues out of the way. The SIXAXIS sounds great -- their implementation is pretty impressive but they realize it can be overdone... so expect an option to turn it off, but no promises. Cool. Long, but cool. Not sure why they kept going back to Gears of War for comparisons, but if you think of it on the macro scale, it does sound equally as impressive. Anyway, if you want to get much more in-depth answers, check out the interview in its entirety. It's pretty big.[Via GameDaily]
Lair: July. Demo? Probably July, too.
A great big ol' preview of Lair has been upped at IGN and they cover pretty much everything we wanted to hear. Aside from the fact that there will not, in fact, be any ground combat in the human vs. human sense, there will be havoc-creating dragon vs. human army ground combat. In all fairness, if you want to hear about their impressions of the gameplay, we can't really alter what they say. What we'll tell you is that the gameplay, from what IGN said, is shaping up pretty nicely. A large set of unlockable/learnable moves keep the battles fresh and while using your fire-breath is useful at the beginning of the game, later enemies will be all but invulnerable to fire, forcing you to rely on physical strength.The SIXAXIS controls are reported to still need "a little work". Understandable -- no one wants to accidentally turn 180 degrees when they're trying to smash heads with another dragon. But that's why it's just an alpha-build. Plenty of time to fix that up! Another point of note is the implementation of trophies for use in PlayStation Home. Yep, before Home is even released, you'll be scoring some great trophies to show off to people.The game is due out in July, which is a little later than we expected (we thought May, then September, so this is decent news). However, Factor 5 promises a demo of the game to hit the PS-Store at some point. Their estimate? Either before or after the release of the full game. Yawn! It seems we'll get our demo in July, too, then. Judging from the timing of our demos to-date. Still, great preview! Check it out!
Three Speech retracts PS3 BioShock, but not other release dates
Three Speech, the "semi-official blog handled by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe," has retracted their claim that BioShock is coming to the PlayStation 3. The kerfuffle began when Steve Boxer, one of the only non-anonymous writers for the site, stated the PlayStation 3 would be getting the game. He wrote in a post about upcoming games, "Another hotly anticipated title from 2K Games (also appearing on Xbox 360) is BioShock." Of course, having this posted on Sony Europe's semi-official blog did bring the statements some weight. The post also stated September would see the releases of Killzone, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank, Lair and Warhawk. None of these release dates have been retracted, but Sony America says the only game with a confirmed date is Lair in July.It would be nice to finally get a statement on what Three Speech is to Sony. This is the second time in two weeks Three Speech has gone off-message. They state on their site, "Three Speech isn't part of PlayStation, but it does get to speak to PlayStation. You could say we're 'semi official'." Our requests to Three Speech for the name of their editor and a list of their writers have been ignored previously. We continue to question who Three Speech is and what they represent. If they are a handled by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, like Sony America says, it might be time to tug the leash.
PSP Fanboy Theatre: Volume 14
PSP Fanboy offers the latest and greatest movie and game trailers, formatted for the PSP in this new weekly feature. Check it out every Saturday. PSP owners can download files wirelessly via m.pspfanboy.com.Instructions: Save all movie and thumbnail files to the VIDEO folder. These high resolution 480x272 videos require firmware 3.30 or above. Kingdom Hearts (Birth By Dream)Download MP4 (22.5MB) | Download JPG The following videos are featured after the break: Halloween, Lair [PS3], This is Living, Illegal Tender
