For those of you that haven’t seen this already, check out the below brand-new gameplay footage of inFamous 2 that was first shown behind closed doors at gamescom and then last week at PAX in Seattle.

You’ll get to see one of Cole’s brand new electrical powers – the Kinetic Pulse – with which he can now hurl enormous objects (i.e. cars!) around the environment, plus one of the new enemies straight from the swamps of New Marais – the nightmarish Ravager.

Oh, and here are some new screenshots for you to enjoy.

Enjoy!

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As dark clouds have taken residence over London and the weather resembles a certain interactive drama, I don’t think I’ll be stepping onto a tennis court any time soon. Luckily, I have a PlayStation Move motion controller, a 3D TV and an early demo of Virtua Tennis 4 to tide me over.

I recently spoke to the game’s Executive Producer, Mie Kumagai, and asked why she had chosen to develop a tennis game when she served us the first in the Virtua Tennis series, back in 1999.

“When we first started the series, we wanted to make a casual arcade game that everyone could pick up and enjoy,” she said. “Sport seemed like a good place to start because it appeals to many people that wouldn’t usually play games. That was the start of the series, but we reached a point where we were looking for something new; it’s around this time that we heard about PlayStation Move.”

Virtua Tennis 4 lets you step into the shoes of some of the world’s best tennis pros. Every swing of the racquet can be performed with the PlayStation Move motion controller and you can judge the approach of the ball better than ever, thanks to stereoscopic 3D support. I asked Kumagai for her thoughts on Move and her philosophy behind working with a motion controller.

“I saw PlayStation Move at quite an early stage in its development,” she replied, “and I remember being curious about what Sony [Computer Entertainment] had been working on and excited about the new technology.”

“We have two points of consideration when it comes to the game’s controls. The first is that we want the game to be playable without the user having to press any buttons at all; in other words, you are relying entirely on your own movement.”

“The second consideration is to achieve a good balance between first and third person points of view. If we want the game to be totally realistic, then first person would be the way to go, but that way you kind of lose the fun of controlling top tennis players like Roger Federer, so we have aimed for the right mixture of the two.”

The demo available to play at gamescom (and my desk) features Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Your character’s left and right movement is automatic but each swing of the racquet must be performed by the player and you can drop back or rush to the net by physically stepping back or forward. There’s a dynamic camera system in place, so when the ball is in the other half of the court, the camera pans out so that you can see your position.

When the ball is coming towards you, it glides seamlessly into a first person viewpoint where you can see your racquet in front of you and time your swing accordingly. You can even twist the racquet to adjust its face when it connects with the ball, allowing skilled players to apply spin. It’s accessible and extremely intuitive, especially when playing in stereoscopic 3D.

“The balance between accessibility and realism in very important when it comes to gameplay, but I think that Virtua Tennis with Move has a really good system, where the gameplay and the controls are in perfect sync. Building the game up from this existing system wasn’t too hard for us,” Kumagai added.

Virtua Tennis 4 will be available on PlayStation 3 in Spring 2011.

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While thousands of eager gamers ran around the show floor at gamescom, behind closed doors, members of the press were treated to demonstrations of some of the hottest upcoming PlayStation 3 games. One of these was DC Universe Online and I was able to attend and get my first eyes-on of the superhero action MMO running on a PS3.

We jumped straight into a quest, with the developer playing the game choosing a hero based loosely on Batman, with high agility, enabling him to run up walls, a powerful sword and a suitably brooding outfit and cape.

He had been sent by The Caped Crusader to rescue Robin from the clutches of Harley Quinn. First, he had to fight off a horde of cronies using melee and special attacks, including a force field that imprisons foes in a sphere that can be picked up and thrown around the world.

This demonstrated the realistic physics that can be used to your advantage and sets the game apart from other MMOs. One arena was littered with giant balls, in keeping with The Joker’s maniacal playground environments. With skilful attacks, you can send them rolling around the room, crashing into damages and gaining more hit points.

The player then unleashed a smoke bomb, allowing him to demonstrate the stealth elements which will be a large part of the action, depending on which abilities you grant to your character. We were told that, alongside agility, you can equip flight, super speed and many more, and more 90 recognisable DC characters will be popping up from time to time at launch.

This appearances will happen mostly during quests, which are punctuated by gorgeous cut-scenes from the game’s Creative Director, Jim Lee. They play out like moving comic strips with voice acting from such talent as Mark Hamill, playing The Joker.

To close, we heard that Gotham City and Metropolis would be the two playable areas available at launch, with more planned as the game evolves.

There, as the presentation ended, I began my plot to tyrannise Gotham with a flying badger called Andy who only dresses in pastel green (this is not official badger confirmation… just a dream).

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For those not already sick of my blue T-shirt, here’s another video interview direct from gamescom. I managed to get five minutes with Zach Wood, Senior Producer of Sorcery, which is being developed between SCEA‘s Santa Monica Studio and The Workshop.

Sorcery is an action adventure, designed specifically for the PlayStation Move motion controller, where you control a young apprentice wizard forced to master his newly-acquired skills deep in the Faerie Kingdom.

You use PlayStation Move for just about everything in the game, including positioning your wand, casting elemental spells towards your enemies and shaking and drinking bottles of potion that provide unique abilities, such as transforming into a rat to access new areas.

If I was a wizard, I would create clones of myself so I could sit at home playing Pandemonium 2 while they run around Cologne filming interviews (or maybe I already did)…

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Walking around shows like gamescom, talking to journalists and developers, you pick up on certain ‘buzz phrases’ each time, and this year, one of those was “MotorStorm Apocalypse in 3D”.

Those that had played it were encouraging others to do so with anecdotes of physically ducking out of the way as a racing truck tumbles towards them. The other big news for the boys from Evolution Studios last week was that they were showing the first new track since the game’s announcement.

I managed to prise Game Director Matt Southern from his dark room for some well earned Vitamin D; check out the interview below.

It seems there are more MotorStorm Apocalypse announcements coming in the next few months, and I’ll be on hand to bring them to you.

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