While I wasn’t able to attend Tokyo Game Show this year, I was able to get some questions out to Fumito Ueda, creator of ICO, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, which is coming to PlayStation 3 in 2011.

Here’s the trailer shown at TGS, in case you missed it, and thanks to all the people that helped me come up with questions via Twitter and Facebook earlier in the week.

Since you announced The Last Guardian at E3 last year you have been fairly quiet. What have you been up to?

We’ve been working on the final concept for the game over the past year, and I’m pleased to say that we have now locked that down and we’ve moved into full production. We learned from our experiences on ICO and Shadow of the Colossus that doing Research & Development at the same time as making the game slows down the process, so we decided to spend more time on R&D up front, testing out technologies and mechanics, before moving into full production. I’m glad to say that, right now, we’re in crunch mode.

What are you able to reveal at TGS that our readers didn’t already know?

Two new pieces of information are that the beast is officially called Trico and that the game is coming out in time for Christmas 2011.

What are you trying to show us with this new trailer?

The last trailer we released sparked internet rumours of a sad ending, because of the arrows stuck in Trico’s back, and with people remembering the endings of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. We wanted to neutralise any assumption of the direction of the game. In addition, we wanted to show a bit more of the emotional attachment between the boy and Trico. The relationship between these two is core to the game experience.

What about the relationship between the hero and Trico – where does the balance of power lie?

The simple answer is it’s very similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors. There will be times when Trico is paper, the boy is rock and the enemy is scissors. It’s a triangular relationship where strength is relative to the situation. For example, as you’ll see in the video, Trico can’t squeeze into small places and the boy can’t climb to high places, so they help each other out.

How would you compare the boy’s relationship with Trico in the Last Guardian to Wander’s relationship with Agro in Shadow of the Colossus?

In Shadow of the Colossus, people really liked the relationship between the two. The difference lies in the fact that Agro and Wander already had an established bond, whereas the relationship between Trico and the boy is new, and it develops throughout the game.

Compared to Agro, who was a fully grown, tamed character, Trico is wilder, almost adolescent, and this comes through in his expressive personality which adds humour to the game.

How did it feel to revisit ICO and Shadow of the Colossus?

This is something I’ve always wanted to revisit on PS3 and I’m very happy to be able to accomplish this with even higher production values. I’m delighted with how it has turned out. Unfortunately, unlike the movie industry, videogames sometimes get forgotten when people move onto the next generation, so this is a great opportunity to makes these games accessible to both fans of the series and to a new audience.

What convinced you to support stereoscopic 3D with the new versions of ICO and SOTC and what does this add to the experience.

I’d first like to clarify that 3D is not essential to enjoy these experience – the HD element in itself brings a lot of life to the games. However, 3D will bring even more.

Both ICO and Shadow of the Colossus were designed with a huge depth of field in mind, demonstrated through the vast landscapes. Although 3D technology wasn’t at the point that it is now, it was certainly something we considered. Now that the technology allows it, it gives the product even more ‘juice’ so to speak. I’ve already experienced this throughout the trial build and was overwhelmed with the results.

That’s how much the 3D element brings to the title.

And finally, what are your strongest influences?

There are so many things; it’s hard to pick just one. But most importantly, I’m always thinking about creating a game that I’d want to play but that doesn’t currently exist – I want to make that happen.

As a creator, I think that developing a truly immersive experience and creating a believable reality even within a fictional world is very important and unique to the interactive nature of gaming.

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Hello, fellow PlayStation fans. We’re really excited to bring you Flight Control HD on the PlayStation Network. You will be the first people able to experience Flight Control on the big screen! If you haven’t come across Flight Control on other platforms, it’s a really simple but elegant game that invented a new genre, combining path mechanics and time management. It’s also incredibly addictive.

3D? In Flight Control?

Believe it or not, the stereoscopic 3D mode in Flight Control HD has some real benefits. It helps to separate the important action (the planes in the air) from the landscape, which is more distant. You can play any map in 3D mode, which feels like looking into a diorama or a snow globe. You can also easily switch back to 2D to enjoy full 1080p HD resolution.

How do you control it?

Flight Control HD supports both PlayStation Move and DUALSHOCK controllers. We weren’t really expecting the Move controller to work so well, but it’s incredibly precise! You simply move or point the controller, hold the trigger or Move button to select a plane and then trace its path to the correct runway.

The DUALSHOCK controller was a tricky one to get right and our coders spent a lot of time on this. The magic was in finding the right speed and acceleration for your selection cursor, combined with some subtle targeting magnets and a few other tricks to make the controls really natural. Anyone familiar with the analog sticks should find it easy. You can mix and match different controllers any way you want in multiplayer – they all work together.

Collaborative Multiplayer

We’re calling our multiplayer mode “collaborative”, but the way much of our own games turned out at the studio, I think collaborative is a very loose term. Each player can join or leave a game at any time and the idea is to work together to land as many planes as possible. It can get pretty crazy; we found that the best way was to assign very specific duties to avoid everyone going for the same plane.

However if you ignore a problem in another player’s domain then it could be game over for everyone, so the temptation to mess with their area is huge. Of course if you do have designated areas of control, at least you will know who to blame if there is a crash!

Here are a few Controller Archetypes we discovered during our extensive “testing” sessions:

• Control Freaks absolutely must grab every single plane but rarely do anything useful with them, leaving others to tidy up in their wake.
• The Ace leans back on the sofa looking far too relaxed (which really bothers everyone else). Somehow he manages to never crash.
• The Tourist always takes the scenic path and draws long, meandering loops. You’re dying to correct his paths because it kills you that they are not optimally efficient.
• You’ve just drawn a perfect path. The planes will zip past each other with sublime elegance, shaving dangerously close in optimum trajectories with mere millimeters to spare… except that the Backseat Pilot rips apart your brilliant paths because he is convinced that the planes will crash.
• The Field Marshall is so busy barking instructions at everyone else that he doesn’t watch his own planes and causes a crash. Usually has a very red face by the end of the game.
• The OMGer continuously yells “omg! omg! omg!”, and may also bounce up and down on the sofa.

So, over to you – let us know what your Flight Control “collaborators” get up to!

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A celebratory and synchronised woop can be heard around the world every two weeks at the thought of an impending blog announcement from VidZone about its upcoming features and videos. People holding their breath at what might be, at what VidZone can possibly do to outdo itself this time… What? That doesn’t happen? Way to spoil an optimistic bloggers dream! OK OK, That may not be true, but I think you will be excited by what we have in store for you this week.

You know “Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly”? You do? Of course you do. Well we have a little (aka massive) video exclusive for Mr Duckworth’s new single titled ‘The Uprising’ from his self titled album that is available and that you should buy now!

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Ninjatunes 20th Anniversary
Coldcut founded and ever as cool label, Ninja Tunes is 20 years old! And to celebrate we have a special 20th Anniversary promo video and videos from Roots Manuva, Mr Scruff and all your other favourite Ninja artists!

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Handpicked by the guys at OPM we really were impressed with the range of music that these guys chose. Some seriously good and a couple of suspect choices too. Go and check it out for yourself and see what you think.

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Kylie Minogue – Featuring new single ‘Get Outta My Way’ - Sweden,Norway, Finland, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Ireland

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While some of you already have the new PlayStation Move motion controller in your hands and others are just hours away, it seems a good time to post this tech demo from Move’s inventor, Dr Richard Marks. I particularly like the sculpting part and I really hope this makes it’s way into a game one day as a weapon customisation tool.

In case you missed it, here’s a video interview I shot with Richard when he visited London a couple of months ago.

I hope you’re enjoying Move so far, those of you that have your hands on it. Which games are your favourites? Have any of you managed a hole in one in Disc Golf yet?

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Today we can tell you what you’ve all been waiting for and reveal the SingStar Dance track list. Everything from modern hip hop to 60s classics is included in SingStar Dance, so there is definitely something for everyone.

You can get your groove on with Salt N Pepa, Lady Gaga and even MC Hammer if you’re up to the challenge. From early November, you’ll be able to grab your PlayStation Move motion controller, choose your song and get dancing!

Check out the track list below.

1. *N Sync - Bye Bye Bye
2. Black Eyed Peas - Shut Up
3. Blondie - Heart Of Glass
4. Chris Brown - With You
5. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
6. Diana Ross and The Supremes - Baby Love
7. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive
8. Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
9. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For?
10. Jamiroquai - Cosmic Girl
11. KC & The Sunshine Band - That’s The Way (I Like It)
12. Kid Cudi vs Crookers - Day ‘N’ Nite
13. Kool And The Gang - Celebration
14. La Roux - Bulletproof
15. Lady Gaga - Poker Face
16. MC Hammer - U Can’t Touch This
17. New Kids On The Block - Hangin Tough
18. Outkast - Hey Ya!
19. Paula Abdul - Straight Up
20. Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)
21. Reel 2 Real feat. The Mad Stuntman - I Like To Move It
22. Ricky Martin - Living La Vida Loca
23. Run DMC vs Jason Nevins - It’s Like That
24. Salt N Pepa - Push It
25. Shaggy - Boombastic
26. Sir Mix A Lot - Baby Got Back
27. Soulja Boy - Crank That
28. The Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)
29. The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
30. The Pussycat Dolls - Don’t Cha

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