Hello, Rob Burman from SouthPeak Games here. Did you know it’s D-day in Europe? That’s right, it’s Dot-Day… the launch of super duper retro explosion 3D Dot Game Heroes on PlayStation 3. I’m excited! I hope you’re excited too. Hopefully by now you have seen the wonderful videos and the online character creator we made to give you a taste of the wicked in-game version (the competition we ran previously featuring that has now closed, by the way – I’ll be letting the proud owners of a giant foam sword know soon).

Actually – and here comes a seamless link – I’m not just here to remind you it’s D-day, I’m also launching a competition that could see a hero created by you appear on the official European 3D Dot Game Heroes website, where everyone can download it and play as your character in the game! Imagine how much you could boast about that in forums. You’d be treated like a king and it would obviously make you more attractive to members of the opposite sex*.

Here’s how the competition works… firstly, you’re going to need a copy of the game (but you were going to buy one today anyway, right?), then use the pixel perfect character creator to make a stunning hero that makes people feel powerful when using it.

Once you’re happy with your creation, copy it from the 3D Dot Game Heroes save game file of your PlayStation 3 onto a USB stick. Now pop the USB stick into a PC and email the contents, along with your name and country, to ukoffice@southpeakgames.com(ideally it would be great to zip the files up please). You can enter as many times as you want, so get creative!

There is one restriction though – please don’t copy any videogame, comic, movie or TV characters because we want totally ORIGINAL heroes to save Dotnia. We’ll select 10 unique heroes – alongside the name of their creator – to feature on the 3D Dot Game Heroes website where they can be downloaded by anyone who visits the site. The closing date for the competition is May 28th so what are you waiting for? GET PIXEL PLACING!

*It almost certainly won’t make you more attractive unfortunately, sorry.

Score:

• 24 Comments 1 Reply
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

Hi Everyone,

As you may recall, a couple of weeks ago we asked you to submit your ModNation Racers questions so we could ask the guys in United Front Games when they visited Ireland.

Unfortunately, thanks to the volcanic ash cloud the guys didnt make it over but they’ve kindly sent through the following answers to your questions:

DANTHEMAN121: What kind of PlayStation Home content will there be for ModNation Racers – Game space? Game launching? Items and outfits?

The ModNation Racers Event Space launched just last week! Straight away, you can explore a gallery full of Mods of all different styles. It shows off the versatility of our Mod Studio and hopefully it will give you lots of inspiration for what you want your Mod to be like. There’s even a mini-game that challenges you to hunt for Mods in record time. Try and top the leaderboard and you could win an exclusive Mod! There’s also a really neat hat available for your Home Avatar. It has animated karts racing around it, so you can literally have ModNation Racers on your brain!

Dave-The-Rave: Will there be DLC post release?

We’ve included an incredible amount of content for you to race and create with straight away. But for those whose imaginations can never have enough, we’re working on DLC plans right now. Stay tuned for more details…

(more…)

Score:

• 19 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

‘Turbo! Pack’ Development Diary 9: ‘Tanks A Lot’

Sam Dickinson, Designer

The Bridge Builder was a tricky proposition, because it had to be able to move around easily, but also create a bridge that the tank could cross (and the tank is a pretty weighty engine of destruction). Also, the gaps had to be big enough that the tank couldn’t just roll across them, and so the actual bridge emitting bit was getting a bit big and unwieldy. So we made bridge sections that cleverly expanded immediately after emitting. Not only is it useful, but it looks cool too!

We found that you can have fun emitting bridge sections while swinging the bridge emitting arm around. We also found that the bridge sections can get in the way, and that you can just emit lots on one gap to easily bridge it, so we limited number of bridge sections that can be emitted to one at a time.

The tank was good fun, but we decided that what we also wanted something that actually fires missiles. Technically (here comes the science bit), the tank fires projectiles, which aren’t self propelled, and we want missiles, that zoom towards their target rather than arcing towards them like a grenade (okay, not very scientific).

Making these guys actually go in the right direction was quite a challenge. Have a go yourself and you’ll see that quite a few factors come into play: what it’s made of, the angle it’s launched at, exactly where the rocket is attached, the power of the rocket, and the position of any explosives attached to them. Lots of fine tuning (and the invention of the microbomb) later, and it was done. Lovely.

‘Turbo! Pack’ Development Diary 10: ‘Tanks A Lot’

Jason Evans, Lead Artist

Aaaah more tanks and destruction. Spiffing stuff. Here the landscape of the level changes once more as we introduce the bridge builder and missile launcher. These vehicles are both built in the same style as the tank, so you can create a whole matching army assault force should you so wish.

A problem that we encountered however, is that if you want the vehicles to be able to run side by side you’re kind of limited to using stickers and the front thin plane for decoration. The vehicles in this level only take up two planes each (a thin plane and a thick plane), so they can drive past each other easily as long as the back and middle thin planes are kept free – we also use this handy tactic on the crane and cement mixer in the construction level (Construction Derby).

As previously mentioned, the military levels see the introduction of not one, not two, but eight (yes really!) different toy soldiers. Well OK, four different ones, in two different colours. We really love these little guys. In fact, we love them so much we stuck brains on them so that we could blow them up. Ka-boom indeed!

Whilst previous levels have been wholly based around using the vehicles, this level sets you loose to explore more on foot. Did you ever get a shiny new toy, and have more fun building a fort out of the box? We certainly did, and this “homemade” aspect was largely our inspiration for this level. The style is quite simple but very strong and effective, making great use of cardboard materials and some wicked new castle-themed stickers. We’ve also put our lovely fire effect to good use in order to make certain sections look like they’re smouldering away, again in combination with some cunning sticker usage.

To all this we’ve added a good spattering of 3D objects to pep things up – look out for some cunning secret areas to make sure you pick all the prize bubbles up! Rounding things off is a rather unusual boss that you have to defeat using the rather satisfying might of the missile launcher. We don’t want to give too much away however, so you’ll just have to believe us when we say it’s wheely good…

Score:

• 2 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

Hi All,

It’s Joey (again), and I’m here to give you some great news about Everybody’s Tennis PSP!

I can now officially reveal that the Helghast are coming to Everybody’s Tennis PSP!

Clap Hanz have collaborated with another celebrated developer, Guerrilla, to bring you the most feared and iconic soldier in the universe, the fearsome and dogmatic Helghast!

Who also just happens to love a game of tennis (when he’s not trying to wipe out the entire ISA)

Strike fear in to the heart of your opponents when you suit up as one of the Helghast foot soldiers and dominate the court with this fantastic character!

Enjoy the screens; a video is coming soon

Abandon hope, the Helghast are coming!

Score:

• 16 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

For those with even a passing interest in motorsports, there’ll be only one thing on the mind this weekend – a small town in Germany called Nurburg.

The next few days will see the annual 24HR race take over the famous Nurburg race track – Nurburgring.

Drivers and racing fans from all over the world will be present in huge numbers during a 4 day festival of all things motoring.

It’s at this event where lucky attendees will be able to experience the latest milestone in the development of Gran Turismo 5 – a bank of interactive pods hosting the very newest Gran Turismo 5 code featuring the Nurburgring in all of its full, twisting banking, flat out glory.

For the first time in the history of the GT series, gamers will be able to test their racing mettle on all three circuits of this iconic course.

So now you’ll have the option – do the 24HR race, get to grips with the full Nordschleife circuit or now try out the shorter but still technically difficult GP track.

Of course not everyone’s going to be lucky enough to make it to Nurburgring this weekend and more’s the shame but not to worry, feast your eyes on these images and look forward to getting your turn on GT5 very soon.

There’s more news to come on Gran Turismo 5 and its going to appear here on PlayStation Blog, gran-turismo.com and Facebook so keep checking back.

Score:

• 31 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook