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On this week’s show, we highlight next week’s massive PlayStation Store bounty, running through Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Danganronpa to TxK on PS Vita, as well as more Dark Souls and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition talk. And even a Gold(en) new PlayStation headset! Expect even more off-topic nonsense than usual on today’s episode. Be sure to tune in next week, too! New interviews and juicy game talk await.

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Stuff We Talked About

• Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
• Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
• Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary
• Toukiden: The Age of Demons
• TxK
• Dustforce
• *sigh* Dark Souls
• The new Gold Wireless Headset
• Sportsfriends
• Board / card games

Recent Episodes

• Episode 107: Dark Souls 2025
• Episode 106: The Dark Souls of Podcasts
• Episode 105: Games of Future Past

Send us questions and tips: blogcast@playstation.sony.com or leave a voice message! 650-288-6706 The Cast

• Sid Shuman – PlayStation Social Media Manager
• Nick Suttner – PlayStation Account Support Manager
• Justin Massongill – PlayStation Social Media Specialist
• Ryan Clements – PlayStation Social Media Specialist

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

• Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

An exciting janitorial romp, with intense platform challenges and a few irritations.

Return to the island in high definition.

The fan-funded future free film has been cancelled.

Lost Planet 3 underperformed, but sales were solid for Capcom's other landmark releases in late 2013.

Dynasty Warrior 8 gets a next-gen rollout that includes a new expansion pack.

I’m Pascal Bestebroer, the indie developer known as Orangepixel. I’ve been developing games since 2004, which have appeared on older mobile platforms like J2ME, as well as newer ones like Android and iOS. That said, it’s likely you don’t know Orangepixel… yet!

With the help of the guys at Abstraction games, I hope to change that and make my games more known to new audiences, starting with PlayStation gamers. So, Gunslugs will be the first of the Orangepixel titles to hopefully land a spot on your PS Vita this month!

As I mentioned above, I’ve been creating games since 2004, and all the Orangepixel games have a few key elements in common:

First, they feel, look and sound “retro.” This is a very commonly used term these days, but don’t judge the games because they looks retro — I also try to imbue my games with newer tricks, gameplay concepts and even some triple-A ideas, bringing old-school style games to a more modern audience.

The final element that all Orangepixel games share, is that they are hard. Not brutal, and always fair… but they are really hard. Lucky for all you PS Vita players, you’ll get to experience them with actual sticks and buttons! It will be interesting to see if people actually manage to reach the Hell world and survive in Gunslugs.

But what IS Gunslugs? Well, it’s a chaotic run-n-gun style game — some might yell “Metal Slug” when they first see it, but that’s not it. Gunslugs is more chaotic, with a huge collection of weird and wonderful upgrades, bonus stages, unlockables, and an extremely satisfying soundtrack.

Originally, Gunslugs started as a single sentence that I had in my mind: “Extremely chaotic shooting action.” So, the first version of the game looked like this:

Just you and a bunch of enemies running around on a single screen, shooting each other. Not much to look at, but it did have a very pleasing core gameplay element that eventually became the basis for Gunslugs as it exists now.

The single screen got replaced with bigger, randomly generated levels. This means every game will be different (adding to the chaotic gameplay I wanted to achieve). It also makes a game much more fun for the developer if the levels are generated in this way — I get to play my own game without getting bored of the same levels over and over! It’s a win-win.

Creating Gunslugs, from this first prototype to the final product, took about 7 or 8 months with me doing all the programming, graphics and sound effects by myself. But you can’t have an action game like this without a good soundtrack! And since my musical talents are non-existing, I had to find a partner in crime.

So I contacted the talented Gavin Harrison, who did music for most of my other games, and together we decided to get some “80’s hero movie” music going. Make sure you play Gunslugs with headphones on… it’s really worth it!

Gunslugs is comprised of six worlds, not counting the various bonus worlds spread all over the place, and six unlockable characters. Each world has two levels — and an old-school end boss to deal with. On top of that, there are over 50 mission objectives to try and complete.

Let’s meet on the leaderboards… show me what you’ve got!

For those new to Frozen Synapse Tactics, it’s an evolution of the acclaimed, turn-based, PC strategy game by Mode 7. Players control an elite strike team of futuristic soldiers, from shotgunners and snipers to grenadiers and machine-gunners. Matches take place on procedurally generated, virtual environments, or players can create their own, choosing the amount of rooms, walls, windows, cover and so forth in the creation area. All battlegrounds are fully-destructible.

Players plot paths and issue orders for their units, aiming to predict their opponent’s strategies or complete the match objectives. Both teams commit their plans for each turn, we call this ‘Priming’, and the outcome of that turn is then played out, resulting in awesome fire-fights, exploding walls and cinematic kill cams.

Our real design challenge for Vita was to figure out how we would engineer away from a complex menu driven PC experience to an intuitive design that still maintains the immediacy of the original game. Intuitive for us meant that it should appeal to a much wider audience but at its core should satisfy modern day die-hard tactical shooter fans.

At its core every match in FST, whether you are protecting VIPs in the Campaign or Death-matching in multiplayer, involves placing, previewing and priming your plans. In FST, creating a path and adding orders such as dashing, ducking, aiming and checking corners, is quick and accurate with either touch or button controls.

Focus testing has allowed us to refine how the game’s interface improves on the overall experience. This has resulted in an entirely new on screen display (OSD), which incorporates huge visual and functional changes following a minimalist and context-sensitive design. The new Command Wheel contains all your unit’s orders, retaining everything from the original game as well as introducing some brand new options for casual and advanced players.

FST isn’t your typical squad-based shooter, it’s easy to jump in but challenging to master, so guidance for casual players was another important element to integrate and get right. Through focus-testing with new players, we’ve developed a range of new in-game planning assists.
One of these was the dynamic cone-of-vision; showing exactly what your unit’s can see, taking into account whether the unit is ducking, standing or moving through rooms.

Once a plan is laid down, players can quickly review and revise orders such as Aims, simply by touching and dragging the Aim handle, without using the Commands Wheel. Because each player has different strategies in mind for any given scenario, and different means to execute their plans; we’ve really tried to embrace the ability to do anything at any time within the design. Players can switch between units and commands mid-plan and hit the Time Bar button to preview their developing strategy for the turn.

When planning a turn, advanced players can also assign commands to their AI or human opponents (the red team), in an attempt to predict that squad’s maneuvers and counter them. FST is as much about the mind-games between players as anything else, inspiring players to anticipate and deceive their opponent.

The newly introduced Replay Theatre also allows you to save your favorite matches against friends or watch the best of the FST community face off. Within these replay players can also ‘toggle on’ the full-plans of their opponent to inspect their strategies, pick-up planning tips or winning moves for a specific match type.

There’s a load more we have done and still to do, so I hope to share more about FST on PlayStation Blog soon!

Hi folks. Today I’m here to reveal a brand new video showing alpha footage of Velocity 2X; to talk through some of the things we’ve been working towards; and to outline what we’re going to be adding next!

First, the video:

It’s starting to look the part, but there’s still a lot to do. The major thing left to do is improve the animation on the player character Lt. Kai Tana. We’re working on that right now.

The art style

One of the major influences for Velocity 2X was the art style of Flashback on the Amiga. For those of you too young to have played Flashback (poor you, play the original!), it was a stunning visual achievement, using rotoscoped animation and a simple yet stylish art style to create a highly atmospheric experience. 12-year-old me fell in love with it.

Artistically speaking, we wanted Velocity 2X to be the spiritual successor to Flashback (and indeed Another World), and also to create a level of atmosphere and production value that is rarely seen in 2D games.

Click here to see the full gallery

Despite being a small team of 10 (only three of which are artists), we set ourselves the ambitious challenge of reaching the kind of visual fidelity that makes people say “oooh” and “ahhh” and “take my money!”.

These are the benchmark images that we started with at the beginning of development. Chris (Goff) didn’t really know what was going to be possible visually, so he spent most of his time getting the art style in shape.

Hussain (Sheikh) our technical director, who worked as visual effects lead on Split/Second, was confident he could bring his experience in creating high end effects to the PS Vita, so Chris (Goff) set about creating some benchmark images that we could aim towards.

Chris set the bar pretty high, but when Shahid Ahmad at SCEE asked if we could raise the bar higher for PS4, Chris created these images:

Most of the team got very excited about what we were aiming for on PS4, but Hussain shrugged and smiled a quiet smile to himself.

When we showed the game at Eurogamer Expo, it had none of the effects that Hussain had been working on, and the artists had yet to make use of the dynamic environment lights. We also didn’t have a PS4 build underway yet.

However, as time went on it became clear that the game was actually going to visually exceed our original benchmarks, and it was even starting to look as good as the PS4 benchmarks on PS Vita.

It was then that Hussain told me he knew all along we could achieve the PS4 benchmark on PS Vita, but didn’t want to make any promises in case something came up.

But we have achieved and surpassed what we hoped to achieve, and now have the following high-end effects in the game:

• Particle explosions
• Dynamic environment lighting
• Vignetting
• Environment effects such as leaves in the wind, twinkling stars etc
• Bloom
• Light refraction
• Anamorphic lens flare
• Colour correction
• Smooth 3D camera zoom
• Screen shake & camera turbulence

As I said, there’s still plenty left to do. The artists have only just begun dressing the levels with all the effects at their disposal, and the design team still has many levels to design. And of course the animation on Kai is getting another pass. Rest assured we’ll put every drop of energy we have into making this game a delight.

If you don’t have a PS Vita, we want Velocity 2X to help convince you to pick one up. Why? We absolutely love the system. Pure and simple, it’s the best handheld ever, and that’s something I hear people saying more and more as time goes on – because it’s simply true. The amount of ENLIGHTENING FUN you get from the wealth of great games on PS Vita – indie and otherwise – makes it the most worthwhile gaming investment you can make.

We’re supporting PS Vita with Velocity 2X, and we suggest you do likewise!

Gran Turismo enthusiasts: Shift into neutral and kick back for the next 84 minutes or so, because KAZ: Pushing The Virtual Divide is now on YouTube, Vimeo, and Reel House.

The behind-the-scenes documentary came to Hulu in January, and now it's available across a number of streaming channels including Amazon Instant Video and Crackle. Director Tamir Moscovici said the film has full English subtitles on Vimeo, with additional languages on the way. Meanwhile, Reel House has some bonus content if you really want your fill of Polyphony's driving sim.

SoulCalibur: Lost Swords will launch this spring on PSN, Namco Bandai (soon to be Bandai Namco) announced today. The launch window for the free-to-play fighting game is for Europe and Australasian regions; no word on a North American release date as of yet. It was originally expected in winter 2013. Meanwhile, Japanese players should be able to check out the game today.

SoulCalibur: Lost Swords is exclusive to PS3, and features weapon forging and discovery as well as elemental combat. According to the trailer that accompanied the announcement, players will "gather allies from around the world" by using friends' characters for support in their battles. Other than that, it is entirely a single-player experience.

We've played (and beaten) The Last of Us' upcoming DLC, Left Behind. Here are some impressions of what you can expect next week.

So, we are two weeks since the launch of OlliOlli – the response has been AMAZING! Our tiny studio in New Cross, London, has been overwhelmed by the love that we have received from reviewers, but we’re mainly overwhelmed from the sheer Twitter love that the game has got in its first couple of weeks (you guys rule!).

As you may have read in our communications and on forums, there is a pesky bug that seems to crop up from time to time. We found out about this just as journos were doing their initial reviews, and the team has been working tirelessly to try to smash out a fix. It’s not an easy task, but we have help from our other Indie Vita friends and the splendid people at Sony – so fingers crossed we will have some news for you soon.

In other news, we have now had three people (that we know of) complete RAD mode, which is pretty special. Only half of the Roll7 team have achieved this, so it’s no mean feat! Maybe we need to make the game harder?

Anyway, you lovely people have now had a few days to get your hands around the controls, hopefully racking up some nice combos, so it’s time to put you to the test, skate comp style.

Next Thursday, February 13th, the Daily Grind Spot will be the Base Amateur 5 Spot. So, if you have unlocked it, get practicing! If not – crack on with career mode until you can access it (then rinse and repeat!).

The Daily Grind ends at the following times…

Friday 3:00 AM for GMT Europe
Thursday 10:00 PM for EST Eastern US
Thursday 7:00 PM for PST Western US

King of the Daily Grind for the day will win a custom OlliOlli skateboard, helmet and first aid kit, as modeled by the lovely Shahid Ahmad and Spencer Lowe from Sony below.

For those who don’t quite become King, please send a picture of your score on Twitter, tag it #OlliOlli and follow us. Our Lead Programmer Nikos will do a blindfolded run, and whoever posts the score closest to his will also get a helmet, T-shirt and first aid kit.

Everyone is in with a chance to win! Just remember to keep your calm and nail that perfect landing. Good luck peeps! May the score be with you…

Hi everyone, my name is Tamir, Director of KAZ: Pushing The Virtual Divide. it’s been over a year since we started the journey in documenting the evolution of Gran Turismo with Kazunori and his team. Since its debut on Hulu on 1/22, the response of the film from the PlayStation and Gran Turismo community has been overwhelming. KAZ has earned the #1 spot for the Most Popular Documentary and Video Game category for two weeks.

Due to the overwhelming response, I am very happy to announce that PlayStation is now releasing the full film in HD through the following video-sharing channels: YouTube, Vimeo, and Reel House starting today.

For those that want to watch the film with subtitles, Vimeo will have English available immediately, and we’ll be updating the site with additional languages as they become available, including Japanese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Canadian French.

Additionally, the GT team has partnered with Reel House to provide bonus content from the film. For those interested in the film soundtrack, be sure to visit the site as we’re planning to release a few of the originally composed tracks.

Thank you for your support of the film – we are incredibly proud of the project.

We've teamed up with Square Enix to offer you the chance to win a range of signed prizes, and the chance to attend a special event.

Strong PS4 sales see Sony's Game division profits soar, though plans are afoot to sell its PC business and layoff 5,000 employees.

The Killer Instinct and Strider developer now part of Amazon.

Every day, in addition to The Daily Fix, we list off the day's biggest stories in this simple and easy to read format.

"No publisher" will license content less than two years old, says Michael Pachter.

Five downloadable packs chock-full of outfits, weapons, vehicles and a bra hat.

Sega's PlayStation 3 rhythm game finds a portable home on PS Vita.

Ubisoft has announced the DLC formerly released for Black Flag will be available as a standalone title, only on PS4, PS3 and PC.

Hello again, PlayStation aficionados, Miku fans, and gentlemen and ladies with fine taste in music games. Aaron from SEGA here, and we’re excited to confirm with you all that Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f will be releasing for your PS Vita this March!

The game will be available on PlayStation Store, and will also feature a completely separate set of Trophies from the PS3 version (go for that double Platinum)! We’re also happy to confirm today that we will be bringing over the DLC that many have asked us about: the Snow Miku 2013 DLC, the Extra Character Modules Pack, and the Extra Songs pack will all be available at launch in March. We’ll be announcing details on pricing for these, as well as the full game, here on the Playstation Blog soon.

It’s amazing to look back and see how far we’ve come over the last year. For that, we have nothing but thanks for each and every one of you who picked up the game (or plans to) and is part of that story. From a Facebook post asking for your likes and shares, to a PS3 version announcement and successful launch, and now, for all the PS Vita owners, a portable version of Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f in just a month. A lot can happen in a year!

Questions? Comments? As always, we’ll be around responding to your notes below. Drop a line and let us know what you think!

P.S. Do you live in or near Birmingham, Alabama, or Kansas City, Missouri? Stay tuned for our next blog post if so!

Hi everyone! Dave from FuturLab here to remind you that Surge Deluxe launched yesterday, exclusively for PS Vita, for the stupendously good price of $4.99! If you missed it last week, here’s the launch trailer.

I’m also here to stock you up on some awesome tips for getting higher up on the various leaderboards. If you want to read even more info, check out last week’s blog post.

AWESOME TIPS

1) It’s always better to vent…

Venting makes the corresponding color blocks worth more points. For example, if you’re left with a bunch of purple blocks ready for clearance, but some of them are blocking the purple vents, it’s worth sacrificing those blocks to make the vents available, as triggering two purple vents will make your purple blocks worth a lot more points.

You’ll know you’ve got it right when all your blocks are shaking wildly with excitement before you unleash the clearance!

2) Leave the star blocks until the clearance!

Star blocks are worth double points, so chip away all the other blocks in a level to leave as many star blocks for the clearance as possible. If you can get some multipliers in there too, good times!

3) Stack up combiners (the question mark blocks).

Chaining a combiner block with a normal block uses it up immediately, but if you chain combiners together (or with multipliers) without any normal blocks in the chain, they’ll stack together for use later on!

They also stack at the location of the last block in the chain, so think about which blocks you want to clear out of the way before chaining them together. For example, if the star color is purple, you’ll want to clear the purple vent as soon as possible, so if a combiner is blocking the purple vent, you can move it away by stacking it with another elsewhere on the board. Cunning!

4) Use Frenzy blocks wisely.

Frenzy blocks are your ticket to enormous clearance bonuses.

If you’d like to know more about Surge Deluxe, please check out the web page here.

And follow @FuturLab and @FuturLabQuality on Twitter! We’d love to hear what you think about Surge Deluxe, the only way we can know for sure that we’re heading in the right direction is if you tell us — so please get in touch!

Thanks for reading, hope to see you on the leaderboards.

Featured Releases Now Available, Week of 2/4/14:

Check out what’s new on Sony Entertainment Network’s ultimate entertainment services! Read more below.

Music Unlimited Highlights:

• A compilation of pre-Valentine’s Day love song covers from some major nameslike Vampire Weekend, Beck & Brandi Carlile covering the likes of Andrea Bocelli, John Lennon & Fleetwood Mac.
• The sixth studio album from symphonic metal band Within Temptation, their first on metal stalwarts Nuclear Blast Records.
• The second album from X-Factor-formed girl group Little Mix, who took a more active role in co-writing many of the songs.
• An album of duets from Toni Braxton & Babyface, which cover the complexities of falling in love and breaking up (but mostly the latter).

For further exclusive access to all the new album releases – see details here.

Video Unlimited Highlights:

Whether you’re in the mood for big screen action or a Golden Globe winning performance, we have it all in this week’s New Release Recap. Thor returns to save the Earth and the entire universe in Thor: The Dark World, while Matthew McConaughey gives a Golden Globe-winning performance for Best Actor in the inspiring film Dallas Buyers Club.Find out what other amazing TV and film releases hit PlayStation Store this week below.

Chris Hemsworth returns to the big screen as Thor in Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World. After the awe-inspiring events unfolded in The Avengers, an ancient and evil enemy returns to plunge the universe into darkness. To defeat this enemy, which even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor sets out on his most dangerous and personal journey yet, one that forces him into an alliance with his treacherous brother Loki. But Thor must do whatever it takes not only to save his people and those he loves… but the universe itself.

It’s award season in the entertainment industry and the new film Dallas Buyers Club* is getting its fair share of attention. You won’t want to miss Matthew McConaughey’s Golden Globe winning performance for Best Actor in this uplifting and powerful film inspired by true events. Texas cowboy Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) sees his life overturned when he’s diagnosed as HIV-positive and given 30 days to live. Once diagnosed, Woodroof decides to take matters into his own hands by tracking down alternative treatments from all over the world, both legal and illegal. To help other AIDS patients get the medications they need he establishes a hugely successful “buyers’ club” that inspires people in ways no one could have imagined.

*Dallas Buyers Club is available for purchase in the US Only.

Want to get more Video Unlimited scoop on all the new releases? View further details here.

Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition is officially coming to PS4 soon, and three other titles are set to be announced in the coming weeks.

Square Enix has announced when Drakengard 3 will be released, and unveiled the game's opening cinematic.

We've known for a while that developer CyberConnect2 was planning to bring its manga-based 2D fighter JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle to Western territories, and now we have a few more details on how exactly that's going to happen.

According to Crunchyroll, when JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle makes its English-language debut, the game will feature all of the updates released to date for its Japanese counterpart. Additionally, the Western iteration of the game will include an exclusive arcade mode that pits players against randomly-selected opponents. By defeating these foes your character can earn gold which is useful in purchasing upgrades and items for use in future battles.

Despite the added content, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle will not see a wide-scale release outside of Japan. Instead, the PlayStation 3 game will appear as a download on the PlayStation Network, while limited quantities of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle will appear in physical, boxed form on Amazon and at publisher Bandai Namco's Club Namco online store. Both retailers have priced pre-orders of the physical game at $50.

While it's still unclear when JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle will appear, Crunchyroll claims that the fighter will be released in March. When asked, Bandai Namco representatives refused to confirm or deny this timeframe. [Image: Bandai Namco]

A free week-long beta for Ace Combat Infinity kicks off today on PS3. If you're looking to spread your wings, simply boot up your PS3 and grab the download now.

Ace Combat Infinity, a PS3 exclusive, is the first free-to-play entry in Project Aces' popular plane combat series. The game takes place on an alternate-reality Earth where the worlds' governments banded together and built large orbiting rail guns designed to save the planet from an incoming barrage of space rocks - the byproduct of the accidental destruction of a fictitious moon around Jupiter.

The beta, which ends on February 11, includes samples of two game modes: a single-player campaign and an online co-op game type pitting human players against NPC pilots. All of those who participate in the beta will be given a special in-game emblem that carries over to the full game, which is due for take-off some time this year. [Image: Bandai Namco]

Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses, Identity Thief, The King of Kong) is in negotiations to direct the Uncharted movie.