Back in December of 1992 Nintendo Power released it’s monthly magazine to it’s readers and inside was a little surprise…The Super Nintendo was going to compete with the Sega Genesis that was ever so popular and gaining steam on it’s competition with it’s Sega CD.  How was Nintendo going to do this?  They had formed a partnership with Sony to create the Super Nintendo CD-Rom system that would boast ” a custom 32-bit processor”.  The agreement with Sony didn’t last long as relations disintegrated. Nintendo was convinced that the world was not satisfied with 16 bits and that it was necessary to upgrade to the next generation of console gaming so they eventually partnered with Phillips to bring this new system.  Of course Nintendo didn’t announce it’s new partnership with Phillips until after Sony had announced their partnership with Nintendo, catching Sony off guard.

Sony and Nintendo did eventually patch things up and got back to work on the Super Nintendo CD but that didn’t last long. Nintendo decided that a CD-Rom based system would be impractical due to long load times and eventually dumped the idea.  Sony also saw the shelf life of the Super Nintendo as short and they too did not want to continue with their arrangement.

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Hey remember the format wars?  That’s right, long ago and far away there were once two different types of High Definition movies.  There was HD-DVD and Blu-ray, both looked the same visually but Blu-ray had a larger storage capacity and better backing from the movie industry.  Panelist debated long and hard over who would be the winner of the format war.  The nail in the coffin however was when Warner Bros decided to go Blu-ray exclusive.  Blu-ray disc was finally given the crown of the king of HD and skeptics speculated that the PS3 would skyrocket in the area of in-home-install-base due to the Playstation 3 being the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market.

It’s easy to associate the PS3 with Blu-ray. Sony took the title as the HD winner and used it till it’s juices were squeezed right out.  With Blu-ray being the HD winner why wouldn’t you think that Sony would do well with their Blu-ray player that happens to play video games?  The problem itself doesn’t even lie with Blu-ray although some may argue that society wasn’t ready for an upgrade in movie watching yet (C’mon the Wii doesn’t even play DVD’s).  It could be possible that part of the blame for Blu-ray’s lack of  appeal has to do with the small installed base of the Playstation 3.
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Ubisoft Montreal has taken it upon itself to try and re-invent the Prince of Persia franchise once again for the current generation of consoles. The series had taken a turn for the emo and lost some of its steam, but we have left all that behind us to follow a new prince and his attractive female counterpart on a journey to save the land.. Now the first thing I am going to do is mention Assassins Creed in reference to this game and compare similar aspects. I am sure half of the people reading this will be saying something along the lines of “What, Assassins Creed? Who likes Assassins Creed?! Is Hollywood trying to defend Assassins Creed?! What an idiot!” Well settle down my hot headed friend, no one is going to force you to love any game, in fact it’s just the opposite. For those of us who played Assassins Creed it was obvious that a fantastic game was being ruined by repetitive missions and the crazy’s on the medieval street who push you, and only you, for no reason. Prince of Persia takes a lot of good things from Assassins Creed, and unfortunately a bad thing or two come along for the ride as well.

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It is no doubt that LittleBigPlanet has become Sony’s game to back.  Ads for LBP are everywhere.  Costume DLC for this game come out at a staggering frequency.  This time it is Street Fighter costumes.  On thursday, LBP owners will be able to buy the Street Fighter costume pack for $5.99.  The pack include costumes for Zangief, Chun-Li, Guile and Ryu.

This article was written by the almost famous de Hollywood.

It appears that an ongoing struggle to find the proper and must profitable use of downloadable content is happening all around us. More and more current generation games feature some form of downloadable content and often times not much thought is put into what is being released. In some cases the content breathes new life into an aging game and turns a nice profit for all involved. Developers take time after the release to develop more content to help extend the life of the game and convince owners that trading their game in would be a mistake. That is when it is handled well, and unfortunately, this isn’t common. Allow me to demonstrate the good, the bad and the ugly of downloadable content.

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IGN has reported that Uncharted will be getting a sequel in the near future.  It looks like Nathan Drake will be getting new abilities (free climb) as well as having to perform some stealth sections of the game.  The story is said to include the exploits of Marco Polo.  A teaser trailer can be found here.  I cannot wait for this game.  It is going to be awesome.

This review comes from HCG member de Hollywood.

Every once and a while a game comes along that takes the boundaries set by traditional gaming, and throws them straight out a window. Mirrors Edge attempts to do this and succeeds in many ways.

Right off the bat you are throw into the shoes of “Faith”, a parkour expert and an information courier for hire. You leap, climb and slide your way through 9 levels of intense chase scenes and missions that can rival most films. However, unlike a movie, you get to decide how to approach the situation. A certain level of skill is required to enjoy the fluidity of the game, but practice makes perfect and you should be gliding across rooftops with ease after some time with the game.

Soon into the game Faith finds herself being hunted by the police, determined to find justice for her wrongly accused sister. The story line doesn’t stray too far in terms of creativity, but it works with the style of game.
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“The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon” is currently available in stores on all of the next gen console platforms. This final installment of “The Legend of Spyro” offers us a new gameplay experience, and the voice talents of Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings), and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker from Star Wars). This game is promising new faces, more entertainment, and the ability to play in a one and two player mode as Spyro and Cynder.

I had a chance to speak with Michael Graham from Activision about “Dawn of the Dragon”. Michael has been credited with work on Heavenly Sword, Twisted Metal, and all three of “The Legend of Spyro” games.

Candace:What is the first thing a player will notice when they start to play “Dawn of the Dragon”?
Michael:I think that the first thing players will notice when they start playing “Dawn of the Dragon” is that it has a more epic tone to it than any other Spyro game. Today’s platform adventure genre is filled to the brim with games based off of cartoons and animated films, nearly all of which have a very young tone. We wanted to make a game that was challenging and moody without being overly pandering or childish. Younger players are a lot smarter and more patient than they are often given credit for and we aimed to give them an experience that was similar to games and movies that have inspired our generation. The majority of games in the youth space seem to avoid themes of “good versus evil” or put players in intense situations. We wanted to change that and provide younger players with an experience that is unlike anything available in their demographic. This is evident right from the start of the game when Spyro and Cynder are attacked by a massive golem.

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Looks like there was enough people out there to brave the convoluted sign up process for MGO as it now has reached 1 million subscribers.  That is huge.  It did take all this time from June to reach it and I know that games like Gears of War, Halo, Warhawk, CoD4 and SOCOM probably reached those numbers quicker.  But for all the hype on how it was too much work to sign up for MGO for the type of game it is, that is a huge number.  I guess there are a lot of people in Europe and Japan that play MGO.

Anyhoo, Konami wants to celebrate by giving all MGO players 10,000 reward points (used to buy stuff in the game).  The only catch is you have to log on sometime between November 25 and December 9.  You may also be one of the lucky 30 people to receive 100,000 redemption points (10 from each major territory - North America, Europe, Japan).

Looks like this might be enough incentive for me to sign up and give it a try.

While searching through the Internets,  I stumbled upon this article.  Looks like someone has created a side scrolling shooter inside LittleBigPlanet.  This level looks awesome.  This goes to show you how creative people can get and that you can do more in LittleBigPlanet than I thought possible.  How am I supposed to compete with this?  I am going to try out the creator tool in LBP, but I seriously doubt I can make a level as awesome as this side scrolling shooter.  Just watch the video and be amazed.