With PS Vita’s launch week in full effect, we wanted to give PlayStation.Blog readers just one more slice of Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen. Have any of you elite assassins picked up both PS Vita and this stealth-action game?

My good friend from Acquire, Hiroshi Watanabe, wanted to share his experiences in developing Shinobido 2 for PS Vita. Fans are important to us and to this industry; even Mr. Watanabe started out as a student and was a BIG fan of the first Shinobido game for PS2. In his role as programmer, Watanabe put a lot of work into making the gameplay pop — and with the new trailer, and the game now out in the wild, you can see for yourself.

Check out our trailer and screens in the update below. Oh, and newfound PS Vita owners: let us know what you think of Acquire’s latest (and bloodiest!) adventure!

Hello. I’m Hiroshi Watanabe, a programmer for Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen. Like some of the other development team members, I was also once just a student who spent my fair share of playtime on the Shinobido series. I was already a huge fan when the PS2 game Shinobido: Way of the Ninja launched. So you can imagine my excitement when I got to join the development team for the game’s newest iteration on a new handheld console, PS Vita.

Anyway, as fans of the previous Shinobido titles know, I believe that the one of the most attractive features of the series is the “Harakiri engine.” It immediately responds to the situation between the three daimyo (warlords), allowing for a variety of stories, and of course missions. And let’s not forget the game’s fast-paced action. Without a doubt, the newly added “Fukurou” and “Zankoku” definitely make this game special.

Shinobido 2‘s many various objects in the game are actually what make the game stand out so much from other stealth titles — and I personally prepared them! These interactive objects provide extra spice to the world of feudal Japan, and mean that swordplay is not the only way to dispatch your enemies. The interactive objects provide new strategies, whether it’s making a pile of logs collapse on an enemy, you throwing a bucket to create a distracting sound, slashing right through sliding doors, throwing tiny Buddha statues at an enemy’s head, or detonating stacks of buckets using explosives. Of course, it was no small feat creating and adjusting so many objects.

Now that Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen is officially out in North America and Europe, we couldn’t be happier to finally have fans (just like I was and still am) getting their hands on the final product.

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It’s a fantastic day at Fun Bits Interactive as we and our good friends at SCEA Santa Monica Studio celebrate the official launch of PS Vita with Escape Plan on the PlayStation Network.

Exclusive to the powerful and touch-tastic Vita, gamers can interact and experience the irreverent dark humor of Escape Plan with tactile swipes, slaps, pokes and reach-around taps. Part of the fun of Escape Plan is taking a moment to figure out all the new ways to interact with the game, as well as exploring the new interfaces of the Vita hardware…all without splatting our hapless heroes all over the place. Never before have players been able to reach into a game from the front and back of a mobile device like this, and have it feel totally intuitive, natural and establish a real connection with the characters.

Right from the start you can tap characters to get their attention, give them a little slap to get them moving, manipulate dangerous hazards back and forth in the world, glide your hand along the back of the Vita and see your finger leave a ghost trail in the air. Use carefully placed knocks to distract minions, herd and poke sheep around as unwilling little test subjects, and orchestrate all of your carefully placed gestures to guide Lil & Laarg through the bizarre labyrinth of twisted puzzles rooms.

Our eager excitement to get Escape Plan in your hands is peaking, so grab your Vita, hurry to the PSN, download the game, pop your headphones on (we truly love the music and sound effects) and help Lil & Laarg escape…or die trying.

Escape Plan is available now on PSN for £9.99/€12.99.

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MotorStorm RC has very humble beginnings. It started out as a simple concept we were playing around with during lunch times; a pet project to challenge each other to set the fastest times, originally using post-its on the wall as a low-fi leaderboard!

Through a lot of love, care and attention RC has been transformed into the most exciting and addictive racing game we’ve ever created and it gives me great pleasure to finally be able to share that experience with you all — MotorStorm RC is available now for both PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 from the European PlayStation Store, and if you pay once you get both.

See how much fun it is for yourself by picking up the free trial on the PlayStation Store, and check out the extremely rare vehicles while you’re there, if that sort of thing takes your fancy.

See how much fun it is for yourself by picking up the free trial, and take a look at our MotorStorm RC launch trailer:

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Welcome to our first Storify post, where I’m going to curate all of the chatter and excitement about today’s PlayStation Vita launch. If you’re grabbing your console today then remember to share your first impressions, photos and unboxing videos via the Twitter hashtag #gotmyvita. This Storify will be updated throughout the day so refresh your browser to see the latest entries.

 

Click here to view this on Storify and to subscribe to PlayStation.Blog EU, and be sure to keep your pictures, videos and first impressions coming vita the Twitter hashtag #gotmyvita.

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The PlayStation Vita launch is only hours away and everyone at Zipper Interactive is very proud to be part of the launch window lineup with our latest release, Unit 13. Available in Europe on March 7th, Unit 13 lets you take a console-caliber shooter experience on the go as you take command of an elite group of operatives out to stop the world’s deadliest threats.

Of course, saving the world won’t be your only reward as Unit 13 makes full use of PlayStation Vita’s Trophy support. With over 40 Trophies available to earn, including a couple that will require some serious detective work to uncover, you’ll be a decorated veteran in no time.

Here’s just a taste of the sort of Trophies that you can expect to find in Unit 13:

For those of you that can’t wait until 7th March, you’ll be pleased to know the Unit 13 Demo will be available for download from PlayStation Store tomorrow! This demo gives you access to one of the game’s Direct Action missions and includes all six operatives and online leaderboards support. Perhaps best of all is that your scores and level progress earned in the demo will carry over to the full game once it’s released.

If that’s not enough Unit 13 content for you, check out our most recent video – the Unit 13 functionality trailer – below.

We’re really excited that PlayStation Vita fans everywhere will soon be able to get their hands on Unit 13 and can’t wait to hear what you think of the demo.

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