Greetings from the fabulous Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, CA, where we are in the middle of Insomniac’s 3rd Annual Community Day. Over the course of today, we have been letting fans get hands-on with Resistance 3 and Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. We’ve also been showing all sorts of cool demos and Q&As that we will be producing to bring you in the form of Full Moon Show podcasts in the coming weeks.

That said, today we are finally able reveal, due to overwhelming community demand, that Resistance 3 will support Stereoscopic 3D. Furthermore, for those of you who are enjoying the precision of the PlayStation Move motion controller with your copies of Killzone 3 and the SOCOM: Special Forces Beta, you will be delighted to know that Resistance 3 will also support Move and the sharp shooter. After KZ3 launched, we heard a massive amount of positive feedback, and were inundated with requests to support both Move and sharp shooter, so we’re glad to be able to finally confirm the news.

As you can see, our founder Ted Price and Resistance 3 Creative Director Marcus Smith are so pumped that they found 3D glasses and grabbed sharp shooters to pose for a photo (though we had to remind them that they need the cool high-tech stereoscopic 3D glasses to actually play, not those old “red-blue” ones).

Resistance 3 hits your 3DTV in September, so have your sharp shooter ready! In the meantime, if you want to hear about all the latest happenings at our community day, follow us on Twitter, (search for #InsomniacGames for some live contests!) like us on Facebook or check out eu.playstation.com for the latest news on R3. We’ll be posting audio and video from the event in the weeks to come, so keep checking in for all the latest.

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We want to give you a sneak peak at two SOCOM: Special Forces multiplayer maps that haven’t really been seen outside of Zipper Interactive yet – Von Heine Express and Cesspool.

Von Heine Express was actually one of the last MP maps we finished; the idea behind it was to create an environment that captured the spirit of our classic SOCOM II map, Fox Hunt, but was built on the themes of SOCOM: Special Forces and made for great sniping scenarios. Set on the coast of Southeast Asia in a makeshift military base that comes complete abandoned train cars, Von Heine Express is a favorite here at Zipper and has only been seen publicly once – at PAX East 2011 where it was part of that event’s SOCOM: Special Forces Championship Tournament. Check out the video below for a flythrough.

Another map that we’re happy to unveil is Cesspool. Cesspool was one of the earliest MP maps developed for SOCOM: Special Forces and it came about because of how much we loved the thematic from our “Means to an End” single-player mission. Set about half-way through the game, “Means to an End” takes place in a city slum currently under siege by the insurgents lead by SOCOM: Special Forces antagonist, General Razad. That SP mission was only an inspiration, though, and Cesspool was created entirely from scratch and is excellent for close-quarters combat-oriented players. Check it out for yourself in the video below.

While these two maps aren’t available in the beta, you’ll be able to experience Von Heine Express, Cesspool and seven other multiplayer maps for yourself when SOCOM: Special Forces hits stores across Europe from 20 April. Of course, competitive multiplayer isn’t all SOCOM: Special Forces has to offer, as it also includes our robust 14-mission cinematic solo campaign and our five-player custom-campaign cooperative missions as well.

If you haven’t tried out SOCOM: Special Force’s multiplayer and can’t wait until April 20, be sure to download the beta, already available to PlayStation Plus and the voucher folks mentioned above, when it opens up to everyone starting April 6.

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For updates, follow @LBPContraptions on twitter or check out the LittleBigPlanet forum.

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Hello everyone,

A quick heads up on what’s coming in this week’s episode of FirstPlay, which is number #51 and hits the Store this Wednesday.

First up we have a pair of lush HD reviews, with crisp New York-toppling shooter Crysis 2 and polished sim racer Shift 2: Unleashed going under the reviews hammer. We’ve also got a preview of Duke Nukem Forever (finished just before they shifted the release date – don’t write in!) and a round-up of recent PS3 releases including Top Spin 4 and Two Worlds 2.

Elsewhere we put our regular 10 Questions to Operation Flashpoint: Red River boss Sion Lenton, quiz lead designer Sten Hübler about the making of Crysis 2, and round-up the latest minis. We’ve also got a review of rhythmic update Chime Super Deluxe, and our regular screenshot galleries, this week including Shadow Of The Damned and Dead Island.

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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We’re excited to announce Novus Prime: Escalation, our biggest expansion yet for Novus Prime in PlayStation Home, is going live on March 31 with tons of new content. The Hellfire Games team has been working on Escalation for quite some time, and we can’t wait to see it go live! Until then, I’d like to give you a sneak peek at what to expect in Novus Prime: Escalation.

Multiplayer Sci-Fi Action, Escalated

At its core, Novus Prime is a free-to-play multiplayer space combat shooter that can be played cooperatively or solo. As a pilot recruited by the Earth fleet against the insidious Bot armada, you’ll learn the basics of space flight, personalize your ship with custom weapons and special add-ons, and embark on missions to earn XP and level up.

With Novus Prime: Escalation, we’re essentially doubling the game’s content in one huge expansion. It’s our biggest update yet, featuring new missions, enemies, weapons, companion bots, avatar items, leaderboards, voiceovers, a completed pilot outfit, a new personal space with zero-gravity simulator, and more.

We listen to our players to provide the strongest content offering possible in each update, and Novus Prime: Escalation outdoes every previous update so far. We hope you’ll like the latest content, and if you’re new to the Novus Prime universe, we hope you’ll stick around and check out what’s still to come!

The Metagame

Because our game lives in PlayStation Home, the full Novus Prime experience doesn’t end with completing missions and leveling up. The Novus Prime space station serves as a social hub for players to meet up and hang out, enjoy a nice spacewalk, shop for new items, and upgrade their ships for battle. Novus Prime: Escalation takes that experience further with a new personal space, the Officer’s Quarters, and a private hangar where players can play custom games with friends, view their customized ship up close, and track their score on a private leaderboard.

From concept to completion, a lot of work goes into creating new spaces for our players! We’re fortunate to have some über-talented artists on hand to create some of the best looking environments in PlayStation Home. For example, here’s the concept art for the Officer’s Quarters below:

And here’s how it looks in-game, complete with spacewalk simulator and decorative Novus Prime artwork on the walls:

We asked our community on the PlayStation Forums what they wanted to see in this update, and the majority wanted more missions and their own personal apartment. So, ask and ye shall receive, plus a whole lot more!

Developing for PlayStation Home

One of the great things about developing for PlayStation Home is the ability to continually gather feedback directly from our players in-game and make timely updates to make sure we’re providing our community with the most satisfying game experience possible. It’s super-gratifying to jump into the Novus Prime space immediately after an update goes live and talk to players about the new content as they check it out in real time.

Novus Prime launched in PlayStation Home in December 2010 and already boasts a very active community, with dedicated players constantly competing for the top leaderboard spot and new names showing up each week. It’s feedback from players like you that keeps us cranking out quality content each month, so keep telling us what you want to see in the next update!

We’re having a blast working on the premier sci-fi multiplayer experience for PlayStation Home, and we hope our players love the new content coming soon in Novus Prime: Escalation on March 31. Thanks for stopping by to read about the expansion, and join our Facebook page for the chance to win some awesome giveaways!

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