Hi everyone,

My name is James Grieve and I am the Technical Director on ModNation Racers here at United Front Games in Vancouver, Canada. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to all of you in preparation for the unleashing of the ModNation Racers European Public Beta.

As a lot of you may have heard, the response to the North American beta has been amazing. With tens of thousands of creations published and almost 100,000 online races run, the team here has been amazed at how people have taken to the game. The creativity of players’ creations just blew us away … there was stuff in there even we had never thought of doing

We have also received a ton of useful feedback from players, and likewise we hope to hear from all of you. The team is hard at work finishing the game now, and a lot of that feedback is being listened to and addressed. One of the key focuses of the beta has been online stability and load testing. The data we have gathered has been very useful in this regard and the European data will be even more so. We have already used some of this data to tweak our server configurations, so hopefully things should be running nice and smooth. We’re continuing our frame rate optimisations and load time improvements, and these will be ready for the final game.

One thing we were disappointed in was that we weren’t able to release the European Public Beta simultaneously with the North American version. Because of this, we have decided to open up a couple of new tracks and we hope you really like them. They will give you a taste for a little more of what the ModNation Racers experience will have to offer and hopefully they make up for the wait

I also just heard that the Public Beta will be released in Australia and New Zealand as well. Although I’ve been in Vancouver for a few years now, I am still an Australian at heart, so I am very happy all my compatriots will be able to join in the fun

Anyway, remember to log in to PSN January 21 to get in line for the download. We look forward to being even more surprised by all the creative and exciting stuff that goes on and hope everyone in Europe has a great time in ModNation!

James

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Headlining this week’s PlayStation Home update are two new Tekken 6 costumes and a selection of character ornaments. If you’re a fan of Heihachi or Paul Phoenix, we’ve got a costume for each that’s sure to impress. Alternatively, if your personal space needs a bit of sprucing up take a look at the full range of Tekken 6 ornaments. In addition to Heihachi and Paul Phoenix, there’s Asuka Kazama, Nina Williams, Anna Williams, Kazuya Mishima, Devil Jin, King and Mokujin. The costumes can be picked up at Threads, and the ornaments from Furniture.

Additionally, the V-Store has been updated with a large range of new shirts. If you’re a fan of rock music, this new release of shirts features several from the Worn Free range along with assorted others. Check them out at the V-Store!

Ever wondered what’s behind the massive doors in the Presentation Podium? It’s been a question that has intrigued many. Clues in the Home forums indicate that something mysterious is occurring related to those doors. Are they about to open and reveal the secrets that lie behind? Our spies tell us the doors are not yet ready to reveal the secrets that lie behind, but their opening can’t be far away. These footprints would seem to indicate that something sinister approaches…

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Hello Folks,

Happy New Year!

I’m the European Producer for Patchwork Heroes and I’d love to take this opportunity to give you the first few glimpses of it in its glory.

Something exciting and new is coming round the corner, so brace yourselves!

Picture this: Your city is being invaded by a massive unmanned warship! Nothing on the ground has any effect at all… You only have minutes to save everything! What do you do? Your job is to get on board this monstrous warship and destroy it before it’s overwhelming firepower strikes the city!

Rescue trapped comrades by releasing them from the cells.

Exclusive to PSP, Patchwork Heroes is arriving soon and the city needs your help.

Destroy the warship by cutting through it!

Defeat enemies on the ship before they repair the damage you’ve made.

You succeed in destroying the warship once it reaches a certain size and thus saving the city being destroyed.

Watch this space for more details!

Take care,
Flo

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Hi Everyone!

My name is Paul Croft and I’m Director of Games at Mediatonic. We’re a small indie games studio based in London in the UK.

I’m posting here on the PlayStation blog about ‘Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess!’, our brand new title developed specifically for the new PSP Minis service.

In the game the player controls a massively powerful (and slightly unhinged) aristocratic demon known as ‘The Duke’ who wakes up to discover his Princess is missing. Without a single clue to go on, he can only assume that monsters were (probably) responsible, and sets out to track her down by beating up monsters largely at random in the hope that it will (somehow) reunite him with his beloved.

At the centre of the game is the Story mode, which follows the progress of The Duke as he beats down monsters across six different levels in the quest for his Princess.

The real challenge of the game comes into play in Score Attack mode which contains eighteen unique levels, each unlocked by breaking target scores in the preceding levels. The Duke is a flamboyant character who likes to reward himself based on how stylishly he managed to complete each level and destroy his opponent.

Through moving the Duke from platform to platform in an unbroken chain the player can build up a combo which increases both the amount of points earned and also the speed of the game. To gain the maximum amount of points for each level the Duke must touch every platform and still defeat the monster before he escapes!

This is our first PSP title. We’ve been really excited about the potential of Minis since we heard of the program and have really enjoyed building the game. It’s packed full of humour, little details, rewards and a few secrets!

We’ve been working on the game for almost four months now and we’re all really excited about the launch in February – we hope you all like it!

To keep up with the latest news on our games you can follow Mediatonic on Twitter.

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I still have to pinch myself to test that I’m not dreaming, but it only results in my arms being covered in bruises. Which means just one thing: Final Fantasy XIII really is releasing in less than two months time. Okay, two things: Final Fantasy XIII really is releasing in less than two months and I need to cut my nails.

Luckily the wait will be slightly less painful for me because later today I’ll be seeing the English version of Final Fantasy XIII in action and asking some questions to the game’s producer, Yoshinori Kitase, and director, Motomu Toriyama. I can’t bring you guys along and let you play the game with me (even though I’d love to!), but I can get your questions answered.

So make sure you fill up the comments section with your most burning questions and I’ll pick the best ones tonight to ask to the guys behind the game. Unfortunately it looks like I’m not going to get this one video’d, but at least this means you’ll get your hands on the answers sooner.

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