Hi everybody! It’s John Day from Avalanche Software, the developer behind the upcoming Toy Story 3 video game. The game comes out in less than a week, and we can’t wait for you all to get your hands on it. Developing this game was an extraordinary experience and a whole lot of fun. Working closely with Pixar and in the Toy Story universe was an exciting opportunity, and we could not be happier with how the game turned out.

Back in April, we announced here that you can play as Buzz Lightyear’s arch-nemesis Zurg only on the PlayStation 3 . Despite being in Toy Story 2 for only a few minutes, he is our favorite character — we’re excited to have him in the game for you to experience and enjoy! And today I wanted to share some more details on what you can expect when you pop in your PS3 copy of Toy Story 3: The Video Game and unlock the evil Emperor Zurg.

Zurg is quite a bit different from our other playable characters, which allowed us to create some fun things to do specifically as Zurg in Toy Box Mode. He’s the only character with a cannon, and his move set is completely different from our other playable characters. He has many of his own missions, and he even has his own vehicle — the Zurgmobile — complete with hood-mounted cannon. My favorite Zurg pastime is just running around the Toy Box and blasting the townspeople. His evil laugh is great too…MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Check out our new video (above) on how playable Zurg came together for the PS3. Then, play as Zurg yourself when the game releases on June 15th.

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The Shoot is a title exclusive to PlayStation Move, an arcade shooter where you are an action hero and the PlayStation Move motion controller is your gun. Listen to the director and shoot your way through five different spoofs of classic B-Movie themes: the Wild West, undersea monsters, haunted house, mobsters and a robot invasion. Shoot through parts of the highly destructible set to see what they’re really made of.

You can use the PlayStation Move to activate special powers. Shoot into the ground to generate a Shockwave and destroy all your enemies in one blast, spin on the spot to slow time with Showtime, and fire in the air to activate your all-powerful Rampage gun. No more need for buttons or foot pedals – just duck behind cover and dodge projectiles, using the PlayStation Move. You can even co-star with a friend in your own action movies!

Oh, and don’t forget our Challenges. We’ve taken our movie themes and applied them to motion games like underwater baseball and haunted house bowling, and a few more surprises…

Putting The Shoot together has been a brilliant experience for me and the team at Cohort Studios. The PlayStation Move has been a joy to work with from day one, giving us amazing accuracy and opening new opportunities to take the shooter genre forward in the game’s design. Putting the PlayStation Move and the PlayStation 3 together, we’ve created a fast-paced, fun-filled action title that wouldn’t be possible with traditional controls or even a lightgun. Check out the video to get a taste of what The Shoot has in store for you.

We really hope you enjoy the game when it comes out around the launch of the PlayStation Move. Looking forward to seeing all your high scores!

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Welcome to Obsession Confessions – a community driven feature I have been running over at eu.playstation.com in conjunction with the official PlayStation Forums.

The idea is to give you people a topic and let you run with it, whether that’s the toughest boss you’ve encountered or the most gruesome toilet you’ve discovered in your gaming life.

This time, with the release of PlayStation Move drawing closer, we want to know which classic PlayStation games you think are screaming out for a motion control remake and write a few words on why. It could be the original Crash Bandicoot, with sickness-inducing realistic spin attacks, or even Pandemonium (does anyone even remember that game).

Either drop us your comments below or click on the links below to go to the local forum thread in your country (I know some of you prefer to write stuff like this in your native language). The most popular choices will be put into a top ten list along with our favourite quotes.

Official PlayStation Forum links:

• UK
• France
• Italy
• Germany
• Spain
• Netherlands/Belgium
• Portugal
• Poland
• Russia
• Denmark
• Norway
• Sweden

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If you stopped by the PlayStation.Blog recently, you got an exclusive preview of Toy Story 3: The Video Game, releasing on June 15th for PS3 and PSP. More specifically, you got to see Zurg, the playable villain found only in the PS3 version.

Jem Alexander and I recently stopped by the charming Pixar offices and got a few minutes to play around with the PS3 version of Toy Story 3: The Video Game. More importantly, we got a chance to play as Zurg in the game’s open-world, highly customizable Toy Box mode.

But let’s back up a bit. Distinct from the Story Mode, Toy Story 3‘s Toy Box mode is a standalone sandbox that enables you to build a town and populate it with whatever landmarks, characters, and missions you’d like. When playing as Buzz, Woody, or Jessie, there’s plenty to do: mine for gold, take on side quests, race in various vehicles, beat down baddies, and compete in challenges. The reward is more gold and, by extension, more unlockable toys and buildings for your custom town. Get a peek at Toy Box mode in the video below.

Enter Zurg. Formally introduced in Toy Story 2 as a villain and arch-nemesis to Buzz Lightyear, Zurg is a Vader-esque bad toy who possesses enormous offensive power compared to the milder, meeker Woody and team. Once you buy a special toy in the Toy Box mode, you can use it to transform your character into Zurg and begin a reign of destruction. Zurg is tough, and packs a rapid-fire blaster with plenty of ammo, a far cry from Woody’s single-shot ball throw projectile attack. You can also cruise around in the Zurg-mobile, outfitted with its own cannons, to terrorize the town, compete in races, or just bust sick jumps and flip tricks. On-foot, Zurg’s power comes at a tradeoff: he can’t pop double-jumps or grab onto ledges like Woody and the gang, meaning he’ll miss out on some secrets tucked in the game’s many nooks and crannies.

But he is really, really powerful. Given his destructive tendencies, many of the Zerg-only missions involve acts of cruelty: blasting townspeople, smashing objects and structures, and generally wreaking havoc. Zurg will also tie into the game’s PlayStation Move support, which will be available as a downloadable mini-games later in this fall after the game’s release in June. In one mini-game, Zurg will be able to shoot at targets from a first-person perspective using PlayStation Move to aim and fire. Details are still early, but the team at Avalanche Software sounded excited to be working on an early PlayStation Move-compatible game.

Thus wraps our hands-on experiences with Toy Story 3: The Video Game and Zurg, but stay tuned on the PlayStation.Blog — we’ll have some in-depth interviews from the team at Pixar (including the film’s director!) and Avalanche Software, discussing what it was like to collaborate on the game’s two-year-plus development cycle. It’ll be a good read! In the meantime, watch the video below for a sneak peek at Zurg’s gameplay, in case you missed it the first time.

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While much of the community response I read here and in the official PlayStation Forums is to do with playing games and asking about new titles or features, there’s a fair amount of interest in how PlayStation products are marketed.

That used to surprise me but, the longer I work at SCEE, the more I realised how much passion our hardcore fans invest in the brand and how it is perceived in the wider gaming world.

I kept this in mind when I attended a photo shoot for the upcoming PlayStation Move advertising campaign. The idea was to film capture real gamers playing with PlayStation Move for the first time and in a genuine fun home environment, not a pristinen empty white box.

There, I spoke with SCEE’s Head of PR, Charlotte Panther, about her aims for the day.

One of our agencies discovered this building, she said, and it is actually someone’s real home. It’s a space with a great deal of personality and it’s very PlayStation.

We recruited many of the models appearing today through the PlayStation Facebook page, asking them to send a photo of themselves and tell us why they love PlayStation. We did it because we don’t want fake models feigning an interest in gaming; it looks so much more naturalbetter if you have real gamers, genuinely having funa good time.

It was certainly worth the participants’ time: not only were they among the first to try PlayStation Move games such as Sports Champions, TV Superstars and Motion The Fighter (working title), they each took home goodie bags that included a PSPgo and games, plus the super rare ModNation Racers press kit.

But before that, I spoke to a few of the models in-between sessions to get their first impressions of the PlayStation Move motion controller.

Move is a great step forward because of the way it senses depth and it knows when you are moving towards and away from the screen, said lucky participant, Fortunate Fapohunda. It feels tight and logical – all of the action movements, like slicing and stabbing, work perfectly so I think I think it would work brilliantly with a Star Wars game or God of War, something like that.

Teresa Garratty added: The graphics of the games here today are excellent and the Move controller itself is really accurate. I live in a big family and games like Buzz! already bring everyone together, so I can see this being a big hit. I’m a fan of Heavy Rain and that’s a game that I think would work well with Move – actions like brushing your teeth would be especially realistic with this controller.

Me and my flatmates used to play WipEout with a fan blowing in our faces to make it more immersive,” said Eliot Mannoia. It’s a weird comparison, but seeing yourself on the screen when you’re playing Move Party kind of makes you feel like you’re in the game too.

Stay glued to the PlayStation Blog around E3 when we’ll be providing more detail on PlayStation Move and the array of games accompanying it.

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