Monday, October 19th – The Polish office arranged a tour of the city for us. Our tour guide, Joanna, was a psychology student at the university and walked us through Old and New town Warsaw. It’s pretty incredible to realize how much of the city was re-built, and how faithful it is to its pre-war state. We also walked around the university area and headed to one very large park. After the tour, we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the SCE Warsaw office to meet the team there – who were putting last touches on the next day’s event.

We went out that evening for a fantastic meal at a local restaurant that translates to “In the Kitchen” – and very much feels that ways, because you are in the kitchen. The pots are literally brought right to your table and you are served table-side. Very cool! We ate with three Polish journalists who are all on the enthusiast side, and had a fantastic evening discussing games, culture, their work, and Insomniac. We ended the evening at a bar called Paparazzi, which had an entertaining LA Vibe to it, as well as a hilarious sign on the door.
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Rate: (Average: 4.20 out of 5)

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Hey folks,

My name is James Stevenson, and I’m the Senior Community Manager at Insomniac Games. Over the last couple of weeks, TJ Fixman, Insomniac’s senior writer, and I have been travelling across Europe to promote Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time. Over 12 days we flew across the pond, and visited 7 countries for demos. It was a whirlwind tour. The SCEE blog asked me to keep a diary along the way, which you’ll find below with some of our photos from the trip!

Monday, October 12th, 2009 – I actually went into work this morning. Our flight isn’t until 5, so I figured I should try and get some last minute work done. Grabbed lunch, and then picked-up TJ and called a cab to take us down to LAX. The site below would become something we’d see far too much over the next 12 days – in which we’d have 9 visits to various airports.

Monday, October 12th, 5:30pm – Settled into our Premium Economy seats on Virgin. TJ got the middle seat, I’m happy to be on the aisle. Takeoff. Dinner is served in the air. Couple glasses of red wine and some Advil PM get me into just the right mood for a red-eye international flight: Sleep. See you in the morning.

Tuesday, October 13th, 11:00 am – We landed in London. We have to transfer over to Terminal 5 for our British Airways flight down to Paris. TJ begins cracking Harry Potter jokes. I think he’s too excited about this London thing. I’m bringing a devkit PS3 (thankfully in the actually form factor of a PS3 now instead of the old massive boxes), so I look like a hunchback carrying around 50 pounds of bags through the terminal transfer station. We grab a quick bite to eat and then board our flight.
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Rate: (Average: 4.24 out of 5)

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Ratchet week continues today with a rather cosy sofa interview between myself and James Stevenson, Community Relations Manager at Insomniac. I asked you guys for some questions, and you certainly delivered. So excuse the length of the video, but I didn’t want to cut out any of your great questions.

James was on the last leg of his European media tour, having shown off Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time to press around the continent. I asked him to put together a diary of the trip for the blog, so look for the first part of that in the next day or so. In the mean time, check out this interview and prepare yourself for the release of the game later this week.

Rate: (Average: 4.51 out of 5)

36 Comments 4 Replies

Last week, two gentlemen from Insomniac Games, T.J. Fixman and James Stevenson, came along to SCEE HQ to talk to journalists about Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, now that it’s tantalisingly close to release. I caught up with T.J., who has been a Senior Writer on the series since Tools of Destruction, at the tail-end of a gruelling schedule of interviews.

Here’s the whole thing in magical interweb-video form:

Before you cry foul play, the questions you all so willingly submitted last week have been asked — Jem issued them to James Stevenson, Community Manager at Insomniac, and that video will be published later this week. Great game, by the way. Took two weeks of lunch breaks to finish it.

Rate: (Average: 4.25 out of 5)

17 Comments 3 Replies

Hi All,

This is Kevin Smyth the European Product Manager on Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time with a quick update on all things Ratchet related.

Release Date Confirmation
Most PAL territories (except Australia, New Zealand, UK and Ireland): 4th November 2009
Australia/New Zealand: 5th November
UK & Ireland: 6th November

Demo Date Confirmation
Two demos will be released on the store on the 29th October (Today)

• Demo 1 – Krell Canyon – featuring your chance to try out Ratchet’s awesome new Hoverboots.
• Demo 2 – The Great Clock – enjoy Clank’s time manipulation puzzle solving skills and an exciting boss battle.

Dynamic Theme
The very cool A Crack in Time Dynamic Theme is now available from the store. Check out the video for a preview

TV Commercial
Last but not least, I’m also delighted to share the SCEE TV commercial with you. It will run across Europe and the PAL regions as the game is released and follows the ‘The Game is Just the Start’ campaign which was kicked off with the launch of the new PS3 model. It features a mix of animation and gameplay which we feel does a good job of getting across the essence of A Crack in Time. Hope you like it!

That’s it from me, feel free to post any questions you have and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Rate: (Average: 4.63 out of 5)

62 Comments 11 Replies