Experience this event, exclusive to owners of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Blu-ray Disc and hear star Daniel Radcliffe and director David Yates answer your questions during this live screening on December 12th, 2009.

The worldwide Live Community Screening (LCS) will take place on December 12th at 8:00PM GMT live from London. The screening will allow PS3 owners to simultaneously watch the movie together with Daniel Radcliffe and director David Yates via BD-Live and hear an interactive Q&A where fans can ask questions about the blockbuster film directly to Daniel and David, directly from their home.

Warner Bros. BD-Live community members who have registered and signed up for the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince LCS will receive an emailed invitation to participate in the event. The first 100,000 members who RSVP will secure a spot for the screening. WB BD-Live registered users from the participating territories who own the Blu-ray Disc and have signed up for the BD-Live LCS event will be able to insert the disc, connect to WB BD-Live and logon to the LCS at this designated time to participate in this ground breaking exclusive event.

Score:

• 13 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

Last week, EA held their Winter Showcase in West London and Jem and I went along to meet a few developers and play some games. Among others, we checked out Dante’s Inferno, The Saboteur, Army of Two: The 40th Day and Skate 3. I also managed to grab an interview with Jonathan Knight, Executive Producer of Dante’s Inferno, just before lunch. Treat your eyes and ears by clicking play on the video below.

I still haven’t figured out why we had Star Wars characters walking around in the background… in fact, I’ve never seen Star Wars. Is that so weird? Elsewhere, Jem caught up with Tom French from Parisian sandbox title The Saboteur and that video should be live later this week.

Score:

• 18 Comments 6 Replies
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

We’ve got another interview from TGS today — this time Jeff chats to Makoto Shibata, the Director of upcoming 3rd-person shooter Quantum Theory. This PS3 exclusive title will be heading to the west next year. Here’s what Jeff had to say about the interview, which you can watch below:

Last time we saw Quantum Theory was at E3 2009, and the game was so early as to not even be playable. Now with this gothic 3rd person shooter at about the 50% point in development, Tecmo allowed us to go hands on before granting us an interview with Director Makoto Shibata. The playthrough helped us come up with a number of questions about the game, as did your readers. Here are the answers, as translated by Localization Producer Peter Garza:

I apologize for the fact that I’m practically yelling at Shibata-san; this dude over at the neighboring Alienware booth was incredibly, obnoxiously loud. If you were there, you know who I’m talking about.

Anyways, with a good deal more development to go, we’ll keep tabs on this game for you, and report back at the next milestone.

Score:

• 15 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

I know. Reading is hard. This interview wasn’t able to be captured on camera (as it was standing in front of Team ICO’s Fumito Ueda at the time — more on that next week), but I’m sure Valkyria Chronicles fans will be very interested in reading it, nonetheless. I snuck down to the show floor during a rare quiet period — more of those next year, please! — and got my hands on the TGS playable demo. You guys are going to love it.

What made you decide to develop the official sequel for Valkyria Chronicles on the PSP? (Submitted by user: Trollkotte)

For the original PS3 version of the game there were two key features: The Canvas graphics system and the BLiTZ combat system. So when we were discussing the sequel we obviously wanted to bring these two features over, but we wanted to upgrade it somehow. When we looked at the BLiTZ battle system specifically — especially in the Japanese market — co-op play and wireless play is becoming more and more popular and we felt that would expand the gameplay for the title in a great way. When we went further in that direction we discovered that the PSP is the perfect platform to take advantage of that.

Are you adding new unit classes, weapon types or vehicles? Will there be any returning characters from Valkyria Chronicles 1? (Submitted by user: BigBoss712)

Yes. In terms of new weapons and units, not only will there be more of each, but there will be expanded customisation options for both. We have Scouts and Stormtroopers, as we did in the first game, but Scouts may branch into Scouts who run faster or are more meant for battle. In that way, each of the units will branch into new units. In terms of weapons, in the first game a rifle might branch into three different rifles as you progress in the game. The amount of variation is even greater in the sequel. In terms of returning characters, you’ll definitely see Alicia and Welkin come back and you might see other members of Squad 7, too.

We can also customise tanks this time around. You can equip different weapons and change the colour, which will affect how the tank moves. There are many ways for you to customise your own troops, just based on all the different character, tank and weapon options.

(more…)

Score:

• 37 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

Tokyo Game Show officially begins tomorrow, but EA set up a special press showcase on the 52nd floor of Roppongi Hills in central Tokyo. Whilst there we met up with Mayumi Koyanagi and Jeff asked her a few questions about EA’s plans for PSP minis. Tetris and Sudoku were on hand to play during the showcase, but clearly there’s more to come from EA.

The PSPgo is only a week from release so you can see how these games play for yourselves then. Spoiler: it’s like Tetris and Sudoku, but on your PSP.

Score:

• 14 Comments
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook