There’s no Friday Debate, as such, as it seems a good time to round-up the week that was gamescom. There have been plenty of big announcements but, for me, gamescom is always about seeing thousands of excited gamers swarming around the PlayStation booth and playing the best upcoming games.
If you weren’t able to attend, here’s a video your of the PlayStation booth featuring me, stumbling around like a dizzy clown.

As someone pointed out during my live blog of the SCEE press conference on Tuesday, “you would think everything looks great – you work for Sony”. It’s a good point, well argued, so in classic Friday tradition (as of about two weeks ago) it’s up to you to tell us what the week’s highlight was with a good ol’ poll.


Thanks for reading and commenting on the blog this last week. We’re still not finished though – next week we’ll have a load more content from Cologne, including interviews for LittleBigPlanet 2, MotorStorm Apocolypse and Sorcery.

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After the SCEE gamescom press conference, we had an event where press and developers could mingle, overindulge and try out the latest PlayStation Games. I got talking to Bruce Oberg, co-founder of Sucker Punch Productions and development lead in inFAMOUS 2; without further ado, here’s what we said.

From what I’ve seen, you seem to have been working particularly hard on the game’s graphics. Has this been an area in which you’ve placed special focus?

We’ve tried to leave no stone unturned in just about every facet of the game and the graphics have been helped by us having another year of learning about Playstation 3 under our belt. We’re able to use more of the cell processors now than we finished the first inFamous, so we can have more characters on-screen, more complicated shaders, and much greater layering.

It basically means we’re able to up the amplitude when it comes to graphics and the number of breakable objects you see on the screen. The characters, in particular, look a lot better as we have learned things like light scattering under the skin that makes a big difference. We’re also using motion capture for the first time to create animations, which gives movement a more powerful, visceral look. It’s all looking great!

How much collaboration has there been with studios such as Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games on this project?

We’ve always felt like a little brother to those guys that you mentioned; they’re down in California so we don’t see each other all of the time, but we’ll occasionally give them a call if we’re having trouble with this or that, because they’re super smart.
We’re completely humbled to be mentioned in the same sentence as either of those teams.

Morality was at the heart of inFamous and I’ve always thought that the Holy Grail for those kinds of games is to nail the grey shades of personality in-between. Would you agree?

Morality was never our starting point with inFamous; it was ‘what would you do if you do if you were suddenly given superpowers’ and I think that karmic choice is a big part of that. What would you do? It’s not natural to give someone this power and then expect them to be a hero.

People responded really well to the choices we gave them, and we’re going to be doing more of that in inFamous 2, but I think we’re going to make the choices even stronger, taking you either further in the good or evil directions. We want it to be clear to people what kind of choice they’re making.

What are the storytelling challenges in that kind of forking narrative?

It’s incredibly challenging. You think of the story as a tree that ends up with so many branches that it becomes a daunting task creating all of that content. In inFamous there were essentially two endings that you could see and we might broaden that a little bit, but the real emphasis is on making sure that the way the game plays changing after you make certain choices.

What inspired the new setting of New Morais?

First of all we wanted somewhere that would offer more variation than a regular city. New Morais has echoes of New Orleans and other Southern cities, but there’s also a bit of Atlanta in there. We wanted a warmer, wetter climate with all these different districts like a modern area, a French quarter, a swamp and all these different shapes of the gritty world. It gives us a far more varied ‘jungle gym’ to explore.

What are the new powers like?

We showed the Ionic Vortex at E3, which is tornado made out of static electricity that just wreaks havoc. You have to remember that Cole is not a beginner any more like he was at the beginning of inFamous. He has a lot of powers already, so we’re giving him even more, but also a greater sense of limitation in that he has to consider the damage he’s going to cause to the city by using the really big powers.

For people like me that have played a LOT of inFamous, what’s going to surprise us in the sequel?

I think that the sheer amount of extra content in there and the scale of the new powers is really going to blow a lot of people’s minds.

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You may have read my impressions of Killzone 3‘s multiplayer mode earlier in the week, but why listen to what I think? Find out further details around the explosive mode from the game’s Senior Producer, Steven Ter Heide in this video interview direct from gamescom.

The Helghast weren’t the only things I shot this week; look out for a few more video interviews next week, here on the PlayStation.Blog and be sure to follow us on Twitter, @PlayStationEU.

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Hi guys, you may have heard in Andy House’s speech at gamescom that PlayTV is set for some pretty interesting extra features before the end of this year, so just wanted to run you through the new features with you on here. Although I’m in Cologne giving demos of PlayTV, I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have.

Just in case you haven’t heard much about this great gadget for your PS3, here’s a really quick look at the basics.

• PlayTV is the little black box that lets you watch, pause and record free-to-air digital TV on your PS3.
• Pause, rewind and record Live TV, watch one channel while you record another and even record programmes while playing games.
• PlayTV features an easy to use programme guide to help you easily plan your viewing.
• If you have a PSP, VAIO laptop or Sony Ericsson AINO phone, you can take all these great features with you, wherever you go. Remote Play enables you to watch live television in superb quality, access previously recorded programmes and organise your media library anywhere in the world. All you need is a wireless Internet connection.
• PlayTV also lets you upscale your Standard Definition TV programmes.

Now, check out the new features that will be coming to all current and new PlayTV owners, later in the year.

• Play TV is going to become an interactive experience with the great new ‘Chat TV’ feature. Text chat with friends and other PlayStation Network users while watching live TV, and without interrupting your viewing. This feature is a great way of interacting with friends while you watch TV, and especially great during the football as you can banter with your mates without taking your eyes off the action.

• The next new feature for PlayTV is a new premium programme guide (from ‘tvtv’) that lets you Plan your TV viewing 7 days in advance. You can also find tonnes of information on programmes and movies, as well as discovering new things to watch by searching TV listings by genre, actors, directors, producers and more. (standard PlayTV programme guide in Australia)
• You will also be glad to hear that PlayTV will be getting the much awaited feature in the UK, Series Link. Never miss an episode of your favourite series again. (Only available in the UK)
• Following on from the community theme of the new PlayTV features, you will be able to send recommendations for your favourite shows to your Facebook wall and also any of your PSN friends. People will be able to comment on your Facebook recommendations or even set a recording for the show directly from the PSN recommendation.

• The final new feature coming to PlayTV is designed to give you some added inspiration with ‘Community Favourites’. This feature lets you see what your friends and the PSN Community are watching and enjoying. So if you’re ever stuck for something to watch then just check out what everyone else is watching. (Not available in Australia)

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With That 3 November release date drawing tantalisingly close, Polyphony Digital isn’t afraid to hit us with a host of new features. I attended a Gran Turismo 5 presentation yesterday and will need to try hard not to write a novella about the stable of additions we saw for the first time.

The newest addition to the series is a track editor that allows to players to generate their own courses based around a complex scheme of parameters and share them with the wider community. There are four themes to choose from and a dizzying array of settings to tweak, including the number of turns, track length, weather, topography and speed of sectors.

We also got our first look at kart racing, which, according to Kazunori Yamauchi, “Completely changes the world of Gran Turismo”. He added that the team had been saving this feature for Gran Turismo 6 but, after it had been leaked to the public, he decided to add it to GT5. The presence of karts shows how capable the game’s physics are in coping with the differences between the lightest vehicles and those generating the greatest downforce.

One of the most eye-catching points was around the Photo Travel mode and the announcement that it will support 3D images; attendees were encouraged on-stage to put on a pair of glasses and see the effect for themselves. This demonstration also showed off the detail of the feature, which evens allows players to adjust the position of the front and back wheels of their parked car before taking the perfect snap.

The mode that Kazunori spent the most time demonstrating is B-Spec. You may remember a version of this in Gran Turismo 4. The father of GT introduced it claiming that they had intended to release this as a kind of sequel to Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec on PlayStation 2.

“In GT5 we have been able to create what I originally intended,” he said.

You take the role of a race manager in what he described as a ‘Racing Simulator RPG’. You start with one driver and, as the game progresses, you can control of up to six. During races you can issue commands such as drive more aggressively or overtake, and you must always monitor stats like how tired your driver is, mentally and physically, and how agitated they are. Different drivers have unique personalities and you can watch their performances via a near photo realistic video feed.

This contributes to what Gran Turismo fans know as GT Mode, now called GT Life.

It was a presentation that will make those with 3 November in their calendar even more excited. Knowing the GT community, I doubt that’s now possible.

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