Hi everyone!

We’ve had to cross the perilous lands of Pulse and wade through hordes of Chocobos in order to bring this to you, but we’re finally there: FINAL FANTASY XIII will be available in a LIMITED COLLECTOR’S EDITION, from 9th March 2010.

Along with the game, this special edition will include some exclusive pieces of content especially thought for the FINAL FANTASY fan that lies in all of us:

• FINAL FANTASY XIII Original Sound Selection: a soundtrack CD including a selection of tunes from the game, especially chosen for this Limited Collector’s Edition by composer Masashi Hamauzu. The CD is presented inside a slipcase featuring artwork from FINAL FANTASY XIII, with liner notes written by the composer himself.
• The World of FINAL FANTASY XIII: an exclusive hardback book featuring characters artwork, CG rendered images and environments from across the game production.
• Exclusive Art Prints: 3 highly collectable art prints showing artwork of the Eidolons, powerful summoned allies of the lead playable characters of FINAL FANTASY XIII.
• Unique ‘Brand of the l’Cie’ decal: Collectible decal featuring this most iconic symbol from the game storyline.

And if this is not enough, here is the game’s latest trailer, featuring some cool action as well as an amazing soundtrack.

Let us know what you think about all this here on the blog, and on FINAL FANTASY XIII’s official Facebook page!

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Hi – my name is Gareth Ramsay, Communications Manager at Square Enix London Studios, the publishing studio behind Just Cause 2. This week we’ve some fantastic Just Cause 2 news for PlayStation players and not just that it’s now only two months until release! Nope, this week we can reveal that – exclusive to the PS3 – players will be able to capture their favourite moments of mayhem and destruction in Just Cause 2 using a unique, in-built video capture function. Capture, view and share via YouTube your craziest stunts, your most over-the-top grapple kills or your moments of sheer jaw-dropping awesomeness that leave you and your audience lost for words!

If ever there was a game screaming out for video capture, it was Just Cause 2. The freedom given by the game to mess around in the over 1000Km² of game world gives you the power to pull-off some of the most incredible Hollywood-style stunts ever seen in a videogame. Whether surfing commercial airliners, freefalling from exploding jet fighters into fortified enemy bases or ‘grapple jumping’ from helicopter to helicopter (you’ve got to try this!), Just Cause 2 has moments you’ll want to watch again and again.

Capturing your chaos couldn’t be simpler. Once activated, the game will continuously capture the last 30 seconds of gameplay, whatever you’re doing. If you’ve caused great pain to someone on the island by grappling them to the back of a passing passenger plane and watched as they’ve been yanked off their feet and whisked through the sky screaming to their impending aerial doom, then we’ve got it covered. Simply hit the pause menu and you can save it to your hard drive or upload it to your YouTube Channel for the world to see.

But if you fancy getting a little more creative and 30 seconds is simply not enough, we’ve got that covered too! We’ve added a 10 minute capture option which, once activated, will start recording an extended clip for those moments you know are going to end in chaos. So, if you’ve just found yourself a military helicopter with undercarriage-mounted missiles and mini-guns and a government oil refinery, packed with fuel silos, gas storage stations and pipelines just ready to go ‘boom’… well, you know just what to do!

We’ve no doubt PlayStation players are going to love the video capture and upload feature, and sharing the videos via YouTube means you can share some of your greatest moments with the whole world. We’ve also plans to launch a dedicated section on the official Just Cause 2 website, showing off some of the best clips and allowing fans to vote on their favourites – we’ll even give away some prizes to the best of the best.

Just Cause 2 launches in Europe on March 26th. Check out the website in the meantime – at www.JustCause.com – where you can find a whole collection of videos, interviews, screenshots and links to some of the fantastic coverage the game has been getting in the press.

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Hi everyone! Following last week’s announcement, it’s been fantastic to so many of you accessing HeavyRainPS3.com and signing up for Four Days – The Heavy Rain Online Experience. So many, in fact, that I know that the site ended up running a little slow and some of you didn’t receive your voucher code for the Heavy Rain PlayStation Home t-shirt.

So for those of you that registered over the last week, look out for an email re-confirming your voucher code, just in case you missed it.

If you haven’t signed up for ‘Four Days’ yet, check out last week’s post for more details, and then get ready for next Tuesday, when the hunt will begin…

p.s. We’ve spotted even more homemade origami spreading across the web this week – search for #murderbird on Twitter to see some more cool examples of people’s creativity!

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Hey guys – I’m Robin Yang from Candystand.com (yup, that site you used to covertly play games on during class). We’re still building our catalog of high-quality online games, but we’ve recently expanded into downloadable territory with a handful of iPhone apps. Our team members are gamers at heart, however, which is why we’re excited to bring you our first PSP game, Vector TD. It’s a minis title featuring eight maps (two Beginner, three Normal, three Extreme) as well as all eleven tower and seven enemy types of the original Flash version.

50 waves of increasingly resistant enemies (we call them Vectoids) will spawn for each map — you can choose whether or not the next wave automatically shows up once you’ve defeated each one. There are seven types of Vectoids, each with distinct strengths and weaknesses.

At your disposal are eleven flavors of towers, each of which can be upgraded to level 10 (increasing the tower’s damage and range). The Green Lasers, for example, lock onto one Vectoid and deal ongoing damage. The Red Spammer fires heat-seeking rockets at random targets in range. Blue Ray towers drain power and cause Vectoids to slow down. The in-game guide lists each tower in detail.

Every few waves you’ll also be rewarded with a Yellow Energy Cell, which you can use to purchase one of three Boosts. Damage and Range Booster towers can be placed on a grid to increase the stats of other towers around it. The third boost increases the interest gained on the money you have banked at the end of each level (you’ll need interest boosts if you want to purchase a lot of high-leveled, high-powered towers).

Exclusive to the minis version is a brand-new control interface — you’ll be able to select each ‘grid’ using the D-pad or analog stick and place/upgrade towers. Given that we’ve been playing this game primarily with a mouse for over two years, it was surprising how quickly we adapted to the PSP controls (in fact, some of us actually like the PSP controls better than the flash/iPhone ones).

Vector TD minis hits the EU PlayStation Store today available for both PSP and PS3 — US and Asia versions will follow in February!

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Hello everyone we are now edging ever nearer to the closing stages of the Time Trial element of this year’s GT Academy.

With well over a million downloads of the GT Time Trial Challenge, its been clear that GT fans and newbies alike have heeded the call of what has proven to be a demanding test of driving skill and nerve.

Racing into this final week, a look at country rankings based on best individual times, offers a fascinating if highly non-scientific gauge as to which countries are currently earning bragging rights on the Time Trial.  The order of merit is as follows;

1st. GERMANY
2nd. FRANCE
3rd. AUSTRALIA
4th. SPAIN
5th. FINLAND
6th. ITALY
7th. PORTUGAL
8th. UK
9th. SWITZERLAND
10th. NETHERLANDS

So, what happens at the end of the Time Trial? Read on to get the lowdown….

The Time Trial Challenge will officially end on Sunday January 24^th at 23.59 GMT.

From 06.00AM GMT Monday 25^th January, you should check gran-turismo.com and if you are in the top 30 within one of the participating countries you will be invited to enter your details onto the registration form on the site.

Entrants ranking 21-30 will be placed on standby just in case any of the top 20 can’t take part.

You will have until 23.59 Tuesday 26^th January to enter your details – so make sure you don’t miss out.

If you haven’t been lucky enough to qualify within the top 30, fear not you will still be able to play the demo until 24^th February – if you have already downloaded it by the close of the Time Trial on Sunday.

However with five days to still prove you’ve got the skills, those national final places are still up for grabs so have another go, you can make it!

Check back on here for more information about what’s new in the GT Academy and also keep an eye on the Facebook and Twitter pages.

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