Hi everybody,

And happy belated Valentines Day. Remember to check out our Naughty Valentines special offer that is still running in-store until this Thursday February 18th. A selection of movies, such as Cruel Intentions, School of Seduction and Fatal Attraction are available for you to own starting from £5.99.

New this week:
To Rent:

• Good Luck Chuck: Fruity Edition
• The Firm (2009)
• Clive Barker’s Book Of Blood
• August
• Bloody Sunday
• Double Whammy
• Five Seconds to Spare
• I’m Reed Fish
• Palmer’s Pick Up
• Baise Moi
• Triggermen
• Hit and Run
• District 9
• Dogging A Love Story
• The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3
• G-Force

To Buy

• Good Luck Chuck: Fruity Edition
• I Love You, Beth Cooper
• The Firm (2009)
• Clive Barker’s Book Of Blood
• August
• Adam
• Up
• Species
• Away We Go
• The Army of Crime
• Five Seconds to Spare
• I’m Reed Fish
• Palmer’s Pick Up

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The PSB.Europe weekly reading list (week commencing the 8th of February)

• Age Of Zombies Announced « TheSixthAxis
• GameSpot Video: Heavy Rain Video Preview
• Living with the PS Video Store – The PS3 Attitude Review | PS3 Attitude
• MAG Monday week 1 – “From a little spark may burst a flame” | PS3 Attitude
• News: Heavy Rain review – 88% in PSM3 – ComputerAndVideoGames.com
• TSA’s ModNation Mods « TheSixthAxis – PS3 and Xbox 360 News, Trophies And Opinion
• Heavy Rain AU Review – PlayStation 3 Review at IGN
• Heavy Rain UK Review – PlayStation 3 Review at IGN
• Heavy Rain Review | PS3 | Eurogamer
• Review: Heavy Rain | Joystiq
• Gamervision – How Gamers See the World – Video Game Review – Heavy Rain – PlayStation 3
• 3D Dot Game Heroes coming to Europe May 14, playable at Midlands MCM Expo
• Hands on: Heavy Rain – Wonderwallweb.com
• PlayStation LifeStyle » PS3 Review – Heavy Rain
• PlayStation LifeStyle » PSLS Presents – Relentless Software, Blue Toad Murder Files

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PlayStation.Blog.Europe Weekly Content Recap

Believe it or not, this week consisted of more than just the God of War III trailer. There were also two Final Fantasy XIII interviews (because, let’s be honest, you can never really have enough) along with a bunch of other content, which you’ll find listed below. We also celebrated the birthday of one of my personal favourite PSN games — Flower. The perfect palate cleanser between brutal sessions of God of War III when it comes out next month.

• Fairytale Fights Treasure Pack 1 Out This Week — The first Fairytale Fights downloadable pack is now available on the PSN Store.
• UK Video Store Update — This week’s UK Video Store update.
• This Week On The SingStore (11 February 2010) — A fresh batch of songs are now available to purchase from the SingStar SingStore.
• An Interview With Final Fantasy XIII’s Kitase And Toriyama — A chat with two key developers behind Final Fantasy XIII.
• Fieldrunners Super Secret Cheats Revealed! — The developers teach you how to cheat at Fieldrunners.
• Previously On Four Days — A look back at last week’s Heavy Rain Four Days events.
• PS3 The Game — Join in with PS3 The Game.
• Yakuza 3 – Premium Edition & Extras Coming Your Way! — A look inside the Yakuza 3 Premium Edition.
• Valentine’s Day in SingStar, Assassin’s Creed Costumes, and the Audi A1! — This week’s Home content update.
• ‘Heads-Up’ PlayStation Store Update (11th February 2010) — The newest content added to the PlayStation Store this week.
• Digital Comics Store Update (11th February 2010) — A whole load of new comics are now available to grab from the Digital Comics Service.
• SingStar Stereophonics — Stereophonics infiltrate PlayStation Home.
• Crash Commando Price Drop — You can now pick up Crash Commando for less.
• God of War III – New Trailer Revealed! — What more needs to be said? It’s a new God of War III trailer!
• Final Lap For ModNation Racers Beta — The ModNation Racers beta ends soon, so make the most of this final weekend!
• Final Fantasy XIII: Your Questions Answered — Another Q&A with the Final Fantasy XIII developers, courtesy of PlayStation.Blog US.
• Happy Birthday Flower! — It’s Flower’s first birthday and we’re celebrating!

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I am so thrilled to announce that today Flower is one year old and we are all busy getting candles ready on its cake ;o) But to let you also participate to such happy celebration, we decided to launch a fantastic promotion!

From yesterday (11th February) and for a week only, you will be able to buy Flower on PSN at just € 2.99 / £ 2.39 !!!

If you haven’t played this amazing and much awarded game before, run to the Store now and don’t miss this great opportunity!

And that’s not all… To say thank you to all Flower fans for their great support, Thatgamecompany created a fantastic dynamic theme that will bring a magic spring breeze to your PS3s from next Thursday 18th February.

A real treat!

And who knows, there could even be more flowery surprises coming later ….

Keep an eye out here for more announcements coming soon! ;o)

Here are a few words from Randall, Flower Producer at SCEA.

Hey Everyone.

Randall Lowe here with a lot of really exciting Flower news and announcements. It is my honor to be posting on behalf of Jenova Chen or Kellee Santiago, the creative geniuses at thatgamecompany behind Flower.

Today, February 12, we’re all very proud to be celebrating the one year anniversary of Flower’s release on the PSN! Before I get onto the news, perhaps I should recap for those of you who aren’t familiar with Flower.

Flower is a completely new experience in gaming that takes you on an emotional journey through vivid and beautiful landscapes. In it, you guide the wind to collect flower petals, float above grassy hills, and paint the world with color and light. Since its debut, it has won a ton of awards and recognitions, from critics and fans alike, as a truly unique experience and ground-breaking game. If you missed it, here’s Jenova and Kellee accepting the award for Best Indie Game at the Spike VGAs in December. If you haven’t tried the game out yet, now’s the perfect chance!

Even better than reading my words about how unique and beautiful Flower really is, please take a moment and watch this developer diary video featuring Kellee from TGC, and my boss here at Santa Monica, Eric Koch.

So, back to the anniversary. To celebrate Flower turning one year young, and all the success the game has enjoyed since its release, we’ve put together a beautiful and serene dynamic theme, complete with day and night cycles, for all the fans who want to bring the Flower experience to their XMB. This went live on the PlayStation Store yesterday for the low price of $2.99. Go check it out!

Want more than just the dynamic theme? Then you’re in luck! Coming soon, we’ll be releasing the original soundtrack for Flower composed by Vincent Diamante. This soundtrack has been remastered and mixed specifically for this release, and more details will be announced in the near future. So check back on the blog for a release date and pricing!

Speaking of fans, here’s a great fan-made trailer that the developers liked so much, they contacted the creators so we could release it officially on PSN!

Finally, I just wanted to take a moment on behalf of thatgamecompany and SCEA Santa Monica Studio to express the sincere gratitude and appreciation to all the fans of Flower; for the longevity of your support and your level of interest in this project that has meant so much to so many people.

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As promised, the guys over at PlayStation.Blog US have had their own chance to talk Final Fantasy XIII with the game’s Producer, Yoshinori Kitase, and Director, Motomu Toriyama. I know that those of you eager to get your hands on the game (as I am!) will relish this opportunity for more insight from the men behind the development curtain. As well as a written interview with these gentlemen, you’ll also find a video interview between the US Blog’s Jeff Rubenstein and Yuji Abe, Final Fantasy XIII‘s Battle Director. It’s a good thing the game is out soon, or all these interviews would be little more than some sort of teasey torture.

Just a few weeks to go…

Here are the interviews, courtesy of the US Blog’s Chris Morell -

Earlier in the week, we told you we’d be meeting up with Square Enix to talk Final Fantasy XIII with Producer Yoshinori Kitase and Director Motomu Toriyama, along with the Battle Director Yuji Abe. So all your questions went to the former, which you can read in full form below.

But the FFXIII love fest didn’t end there. With the game less than a month away (March 9!), Jeff and I got to play a nice chunk of the game…enough to get familiar with the battle system to chat all about it with Mr. Abe. In the video, you’ll get an in-depth look into the game’s battle system, which I have to say, once you understand it, it’s quite intense.

PSB: With western RPGs becoming so popular, how were you influenced in Final Fantasy XIII to encompass all audiences?

Kitase/Toriyama: No games were a direct influence in particular, but we definitely looked at the FPS genre and other Western games to incorporate more speed and increase the pace of gameplay in Final Fantasy XIII. In terms of the FPS genre influence, the story progression of FFXIII is very similar to that (FPS) genre in the sense that different challenges and situations are presented to the character one after the other. That’s how they progress in the storyline.

Of course, there are a lot of North Americans that imported the game. What do you say to those who say the game might be too linear? Does the accusation bother you?

The earlier part of the game was intentionally created to be a linear experience because we wanted to make the experience similar to a movie or drama where players really get to know the characters and what is behind their actions.

And also, since this is a brand new system for FFXIII, we wanted to take the correct steps to make sure players can control that system at will. So it is a surprise that so many people are commenting that the game is linear, but once you get into the area of Pulse in the game , it’s much more of a free world and the battle system really comes to life. And once you have a good idea of how to control it, you can go full force and it should be a completely different experience.

Do you think that the idea of RPGs from the 80s and 90s being wide open is a dated stereotype?

There’s sort of a template to the RPG system, traditionally, where players would go to the town and find out information through text, leave town to fight monsters and then come back to town and buy health and items, etc. FFXIII didn’t really look for some sort of template to follow, but we tried to go out and create and set a new trend for RPGs. So there isn’t really a thought to stick to tradition.

How long would a play-through of the game with missions take?

As far as hours, of gameplay…if you play straight through the story it would be about 60 hours of gameplay. But if you decided to play through all the missions, it would be, well, basically eternity. It could last forever. The enemies in the Pulse area are much stronger, as well, so there’s lots of replay value there.

(more…)

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