Moving on from the trial of PlayStation Beta in 2010, PlayStation Access launches in February and is here for good! Touching down in Glasgow, Access will be giving Gamers the chance to get hands on with the great new software releases planned for this year as well as a host of other opportunities, giveaways, competitions and exclusives.

Access Glasgow will be taking place over the weekend of the 18th of Feb and applications are still open!

The event will be kicking off on Friday evening, which will play host to our 18+ session. We will then have 4 more sessions that will take place over the course of the weekend, including intimate developers’ sessions with Media Molecule and Open Emotion. We’ll also be hosting the FIFA Interactive World Cup tournament, where we will be taking the winners from each session through to the UK FIWC Final! What’s more, if you’ve recently got yourself a copy of GT5, get practicing, as we will be hosting a GT5 Time Trial competition, where you could be in with the chance of winning a pair of tickets to the UEFA Champions League Final taking place at Wembley in May 2011.

And if that isn’t enough, we’ll also have playable code for Infamous 2 Playstation Beta and SOCOM 4.

For more information and to register for tickets, please visit the PlayStation Access Facebook page by clicking through to www.facebook.com/playstationaccess.

Hope to see you there!

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Hello GT Academists,

By now you will hopefully be happily whiling your time away on the real driving simulator and enjoying the dazzling array of all things automotive that is Gran Turismo 5.

However it’s that time again…time to pit your driving skills against the best drivers in Europe, or perhaps just show your mates who’s got the GT5 skills.

Today, I can officially announce that GT Academy 2011 Europe is due to go live on March 4th.

For the benefit of those who have yet to take part in this amazing event, let’s have a quick recap.

The GT Academy is an innovative joint partnership between PlayStation and Nissan with one simple, but also rather ambitious aim – to take an ordinary Gran Turismo gamer, and turn them into a real-life racing driver.

Since the competition began in 2008, it’s been a great success at unearthing genuine racing talent.

In 2008, the inaugural year of GT Academy, a young chap by the name of Lucas Ordonez, a Spanish MBA student, entered the time trial competition within GT5 Prologue. Three years later, he is now a fully fledged international racing driver, with a very promising racing career.

In 2010 it was the turn of Jordan Tresson to emerge triumphant from the ranks of GT gamers. The story of our Academy graduate of 2010 is no less remarkable, with young Frenchman impressing all with a tremendous first year of driving, placing a respectable fourth in the 2010 European GT4 Cup.

This year’s time trial will be hosted within the Seasonal Events section of Gran Turismo 5 and will officially commence at 09.00 GMT on Friday 4th March and will run until 23.59 Sunday 17th April.

The Academy competition will be open to residents of the following countries, with leader boards composed of the same regional groups as shown below.

UK & Ireland
France & Switzerland
Germany & Austria
Spain & Portugal
Italy
Netherlands

More details of the time trial phase and the rest of the European GT Academy competition will be released shortly, but players can register their interest and be the first to receive news by signing up to the GT Academy Facebook page – www.facebook.com/GTAcademy.

So have you got what it takes to be the next Lucas or Jordan?

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Hi everyone, I’m really pleased to tell you more today about DISSIDIA 012[duodecim] FINAL FANTASY, the upcoming sequel to the original DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY.

To mark the game’s launch, we’re going to be releasing a special Legacy Edition, including some exclusive bonus contents. Check out the image below to get a glimpse of what’s going inside the box!

In the Legacy Edition you’ll get:

• A copy of the game in a white PSP case with special cover artwork
• Exclusive downloadable costumes for Tifa and Squall
• 6 character lithograph art prints
• A voucher for a 50% discount off the purchase of the original FINAL FANTASY game from PlayStation Store

DISSIDIA 012[duodecim] FINAL FANTASY is coming out on 25th March 2011, only for PSP. If you want to find out more about the game, head over to our updated facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/DISSIDIAFINALFANTASY and you can also take part in our Official Character Tournament to decide the ultimate FINAL FANTASY warrior.

Let us know your comments on the Legacy Edition below!

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As my wife is fond of saying, “I can’t live like this anymore, I’m taking the children to my mother’s.” I’m joking, of course. What she really says is that I never get her anything good, which can’t be true because in this week’s FirstPlay I’m very pleased to announce we’re giving away an exclusive try before you buy trial of the fantastically playable arcade scrapper TNT Racers. She’ll be back any day now.

In fact we’ve got plenty more giveaway content coming up in the next few episodes, so if you don’t already subscribe to FirstPlay now is a very good time to start. And for episode 45, it’s just the beginning. We’ve also got comprehensive HD reviews of universe-clashing scrapper Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate Of Two Worlds and addictive old school RPG Trinity: Souls Of Zill O’ll (catchy, right?). That’s on top of a preview of oiled nostalgia flex WWE All Stars, and a review of snappy horror Piranha 3D on Blu-ray.

And that’s not all. We also talk to the guys at DICE about their Vietnam-flavoured update to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and check out the latest downloadable movies on the PlayStation Store. FirstPlay’s James Jarvis explains to us why Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit‘s Autolog system is both a blessing and a curse, we take a look at the saddest moments in games, ever, and still have time for our regular round of screenshot galleries, which this week include PSN explore ‘em up Journey and UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception.

All of this comes for just 99p, or less if you pick up a 12 week subscription for £8.99.

If you have any feedback you can email at FirstPlay@futurenet.com, or we’re on Twitter at @firstplay_uk. I’m @nathanditum, producer Dave is @bodbod and assistant producer James is @James_Jarvis. We’d love to hear from you.

And don’t forget you can sign up for the FirstPlay newsletter at http://www.firstplay.co.uk/register to have regular news and content updates delivered directly.

See the Future of PS3. First.

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If you’ve owned a PlayStation system since 2002, chance are you will have played a Ratchet & Clank game. The duo has been one of the best-loved in PlayStation history and, nine games later, developer Insomniac Games is introducing the most radical gameplay addition for some years: four-player co-op.

I recently caught up with Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One‘s Production Director Shaun McCabe to try and eek out more detail on one of the most exciting PS3 exclusives on the horizon.

Seeing as it’s Valentine’s Day today, which three people, alive or dead, would you most like to have over for a four-player co-op party?

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