Looking for a great PS3 game to play this weekend? FIFA Street, Journey and Twisted Metal are out now – which means you can stay in.

The Journey begins

Discover a beautifully compelling world combined with an emotional experience that you won’t forget on PlayStation 3 this weekend in Journey. The latest title from the makers of Flower and flOw is available to download from PlayStation Store and gives you the chance to immerse yourself in a world full of mystery and intrigue as you cross a vast and awe inspiring landscape to discover the history of an ancient civilisation.

Experience a mesmerising adventure on PS3 now. 

Free your game

Inspired by street football styles and stars from around the world, FIFA Street on PS3 promises to be the most authentic street football game ever made. Enjoy a unique and fun-filled experience where everything from the environments to the music is true to the sport and its culture.

Take it to the streets on PS3 this weekend.

Release your road rage in Twisted Metal

The most insane motoring tournament on PlayStation 3 has arrived. Twisted Metal, dreamed up by lethal lunatic Calypso, invites you to test your racing skills in its carnival of high-speed chaos as a member of the Holy Men, Skulls, Clowns or Dolls gangs.

Tokyo’s final hope

The popular Yakuza series branches out in a new direction in Yakuza: Dead Souls on PS3. As one of four characters, it’s down to you to eliminate the undead hordes causing havoc in the Japanese capital using a wide variety of guns and upgrades.

Plan your escape

Head over to PlayStation Store this weekend to download Warp, a puzzle–based, stealth action game where you play as Zero, a little orange alien with a big score to settle. Have you got what it takes to help Zero flee the underwater research facility where he is held captive using his arsenal of unique abilities?

The ultimate Uncharted challenge

Download the Co-op Shade Survival Mode pack for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception from PlayStation Store this weekend and prepare to face some of the toughest enemies in the Uncharted series to date. Team up with up to two friends via PlayStation Network and tackle wave after wave of incoming enemies, using astute teamwork to survive.

Shoot down the robot apocalypse

The side-scrolling shooter genre gets a mischievous makeover in Shoot Many Robots this weekend. Download it now from PlayStation Store to your PS3 system and team up with up to three friends via PlayStation Network to stamp out the robot invasion with a wacky assortment of weapons and costumes.

Level Up your PS3 knowledge

PlayStation 3 turns five on 23 March 2012, so what better way to celebrate the upcoming celebrations than to test your knowledge in our PS3 themed edition of Level Up, the official PlayStation quiz. Tackle Level Up over at eu.playstation.com/levelup and show the world how smart you are. While you’re at it, head over to the official PlayStation Forums at community.eu.playstation.com and you can send in your very own birthday messages to the mighty home entertainment system.

Keep an eye on PlayStation.Blog at blog.eu.playstation.com for the latest PlayStation news.

Visit eu.playstation.com/competitions for your chance to win great prizes.

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/PlayStationEU.   

Join in with a variety of activities on the Official PlayStation Facebook page at facebook.com/SonyPlayStation.

Have your say in the official PlayStation Forums at community.eu.playstation.com.

Sign up to Inside PS Vita at eu.playstation.com/psvita for exclusive updates on the games and features of PS Vita.

Slim-PS3.com is updated frequently per day with the very latest Free PlayStation 3 news and reviews.

The latest news:
It looks like we’re getting closer and closer to “Final Fantasy XIII-2.” According to Andraisang the game is nearly 90% complete.

Not good enough for ya? Well, we should get an official release date for “Final Fantasy XIII-2″ at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.
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This morning, a press conference took place in Tokyo, Japan and the following press release is now being distributed worldwide. We would also like to once again thank you for your patience. Slim-PS3 is updated several times per day with the very latest Free PS3 news and reviews.

PS3; £39.99; cert 18; Sega

There are plenty of very good games that slip under the radar before eventually being accorded cult-classic status, but Yakuza is the only franchise I can think of that has been awarded that dubious distinction. Perhaps Sega’s Japanese gangster series fell victim (at least outside Japan) to the company’s withdrawal from the console race, which in turn decimated a once-healthy fan-boy culture that revered no game more than the rambling, evocative Shenmue. The Yakuza games are uncannily Shenmue-like, which is unsurprising given they were developed by much of the Shenmue team.

If you’re one of the few who played Yakuza 3, you’ll find Yakuza 4 agreeably familiar. Again, it’s an action-RPG, set predominantly in an ache-inducingly evocative rendition of modern Tokyo through which you wander, performing often offbeat plot-forwarding missions and fighting random thugs. There’s a stupendously convoluted plot examining the minutiae of yakuza life and its codes of honour, which unfolds in the form of long cut scenes. So, yes, it doesn’t exactly represent the state of modern gaming art – but even those cut scenes are so lovingly crafted that you won’t resent watching them.

Yakuza 4 does improve on Yakuza 3 in some crucial areas. It puts you at the controls of four characters, at first separately, although they come together at the end and you can switch between them. The combat has been simplified slightly (it was a bit fiddly), and there’s a much more sensible means of upgrading your characters’ abilities. Each character has a different fighting style, which sucks you deeper into the ins and outs of the fighting system. The familiar environs of Kamurocho – certain to evoke a nostalgic yearning among those who have spent any time in Tokyo – have been opened up slightly, with rooftops and underground malls now accessible. There’s even more to do when you just bimble around, GTA-style: the bizarre phone-photography Revelations are back, and you can while away hours in games arcades or gambling dens.

There are a couple of dodgy aspects, though. Yakuza 4 prides itself on conforming to Japanese ways which just might be a tad out of step with political correctness in the 21st century.

For example, the first character you play, apparently philanthropic money-lender Shun Akiyama, owns a hostess bar, so you must negotiate a sub-plot in which you turn a girl into a money-spinning hostess. At least that has the decency to be the dullest part of the game.

Nevertheless, Yakuza 4′s production values are through the roof, its plot is gripping and quirky, it’s often very funny indeed, and it would undoubtedly sell in millions if it was published by Rockstar rather than Sega.

It’s a hidden gem which you won’t find advertised on TV or pushed at you via the medium of a giant marketing budget, and it might just cause those who once owned Dreamcasts or frequented the arcades to shed a tear or two.

Rating: 4/5

Games

PlayStation

Sony

Role playing games

Strategy games

Steve Boxer

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Because of the earthquake in Japan, power is in short supply. A friend of mine in Tokyo notified me that they will have six hour daily blackouts there until, or past, April.
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Gangland treachery, power struggles and alley brawls? It can only be the history of the Yakuza series on PlayStation.

Honour and obey  October 1995, and when police arrive at an apartment in Tokyo’s red light district they find Kazuma Kiryu standing over the dead body of the Dojima family patriarch. Yet this is not the tragic outcome of some domestic dispute or petty gangland squabble, it is the cut-throat world of Yakuza on PlayStation 2.

Doing the right thing runs a distant second to maintaining the honour of your blood brother – even if that means a ten-year prison sentence and a dramatic fall from grace. And so Kiryu’s stellar rise through the ranks of the Tokyo underworld is halted by his respect for the yakuza traditions by which he is bound.

Fast forward to December 2005, and Kiryu breathes in the cloying air of Tokyo for the first time as a free man. But freedom for a man like Kiryu brings its own pressures. His old Kamurocho stomping ground has changed beyond recognition, one of his oldest friends is missing and, worse still, his Tojo clan brothers in crime consider him a traitor for the murder he didn’t commit.   

Akira Nishikiyama, the man Kiryu gave ten years of his life to protect, is now the head of his own family and far from grateful for Kiryu’s sacrifice. Meanwhile, the entire Tokyo criminal fraternity is tearing the city apart in search of ten billion yen recently stolen, and Kiryu is in the firing line.

All this is set against a neon cityscape of hostess bars, game parlours and seedy clubs, where light-hearted conversation can quickly turn into a brutal knuckle fight with the slightest word uttered out of turn. Trust no one and watch the shadows and you might just survive the treacherous world of Yakuza.

Dragons clash

Kazuma Kiryu is determined to leave his dark past behind him once and for all in Yakuza 2 for PlayStation 2, but fate conspires against the man once known as the Dragon of Dojima.

One year on from the events of Yakuza, Kiryu is trying to settle into a tranquil existence. It isn’t long before his former life seeks him out, however, as a bitter typhoon of secrets and clan rivalry whips up to sweep Kiryu back into the seedy fray.

Kiryu’s Tojo clansmen face a storm on two fronts: from Japan’s south, the Omi clan; and from within, a terrible secret which has never been forgotten by a powerful Korean organisation. Revenge and a hunger for power swirl through Yakuza 2, as terrible forces clash and quickly cause Kiryu to regret ever having left his new found peace behind.

If it’s not the murder of a Korean mob boss by Kiryu’s foster father some 20 years previously, then it’s the ruthless ambition of the Dragon of Kansai, Ryuji Goda, desperate to ditch his Kansai connection and become the most feared yakuza in all of Japan.

Kiryu must use the dubious skills he thought himself finished with to fight, outwit and bury once and for all the threats to his old clan. Only then can this battle-scarred dragon claw his way back to a life of relative serenity.

Ghosts from the past

As Yakuza 3 for PlayStation 3 proves beyond a doubt, once you join the ranks of the Yakuza, you can never truly leave.

World-weary Kazuma Kiryu has finally established the sedate life he craved in the idyllic islands of Okinawa. Running a seaside orphanage with the daughter of his childhood sweetheart, his time as one of the most feared gangsters in Japan seems to belong to another life.  But when two suspicious men begin stalking Kiryu and loitering around the orphanage, a painfully familiar anxiety takes hold. Kiryu is forced to take action – and he soon discovers that much more is stake than his peace of mind.

An eviction order arrives, placing the orphanage under the threat of closure. Its beachside location is prime real estate, and a holiday resort developer has the land in its sights. All is not as it seems, however, and the fleeting glimpse of an old friend’s face in Okinawa confirms Kiryu’s growing trepidation: the Yakuza are somehow involved.

The menace of the Yakuza has even deeper roots in Japanese society than even Kiryu could have imagined. Working in murky unison with the Japanese government, it soon transpires that these gangsters are paving the way for a military base to be built.

With powerful clients to satisfy, the local yakuza clan will stop at nothing in getting rid of Kiryu, and he finds himself tangled in an all too recognisable web of tradition, deception and cold-blooded killing.

Kiryu is reluctantly thrust into a struggle for his home, his honour and his future that can only be won by confronting the shadows from his past. But the Yakuza’s grip on Kiryu’s life is vice-like, and even at the conclusion of Yakuza 3, he knows only too well his struggle to shake free is far from over. See how the saga continues with Yakuza 4 for PlayStation 3.

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Blimey. While we were all distracted by the rumoured it’s-so-real-but-they-just-won’t-confirm-it Sony PlayStation Phone, games industry publication MCV is reporting that the next iteration of the Sony PSP (that’s PlayStation Portable don’cha know) the PSP 2 will be officially unveiled at a press conference in Tokyo on 27 January.

MCV says games publishers were informed last year of Sony’s plans, and that some of Sony’s biggest developers are already toiling away on titles for the new console. That means when it does become official, there should be some games for Sony to show off as well.

We’re not sure yet what the PSP 2 will have inside it, but considering how smart phones have taken off recently, we’d hope for a few mobile-esque features, such as 3G connectivity and Web browsing.

We’d also like to see some seriously meaty hardware, to keep the PSP ahead of the curve when it comes to mobile gaming — you’d be surprised at the kind of gaming kicks devices such as the iPhone 4 are capable of.

The PSP 2, if and when it becomes official, will also be up against Nintendo’s 3DS console, which we’ve already previewed. The 3DS offers 3D gaming without the need for wearing dorky glasses, and we like the look of it very much.

What do you think? Is this too little, too late from Sony? Or do you love your PSP and can’t wait to see what it comes up with next? The comments section and our Facebook wall are the place to vent that spleen. 

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On their own, Sony’s PlayStation Move and push toward 3D gaming mark two major initiatives toward changing the way people experience video games. But what happens when you take both of these technologies and combine them with the same game? That’s the question we sought to answer when we saw that Sony was allowing Tokyo Game Show attendees to play the upcoming first-person shooter Killzone 3 with Move motion control and 3D glasses. At the risk of looking like someone cosplaying as cyberpunk magician with all that fancy gear, we took a turn at Killzone 3 to see how the experience differs while playing with Move and 3D.

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The latest news:

Research from, yes, a mobile games publisher finds that print is yesterday’s news for bored travellers

A growing number of commuters are abandoning books and newspapers in favour of mobile games, according to research announced today. Okay, so the research has been carried out by Popcap, a social gaming publisher that has something of a vested interested in the market, but nevertheless, the figures are reasonably interesting.

Based on a survey of more than 1,500 adults, the company discovered that more than a quarter of Brits aged between 16-24 are playing mobile games rather than reading to pass the time on journeys. That’s compared to just 11% a decade ago. There’s no breakdown into specific gaming platforms as yet, but the figure takes in mobile phones, smartphones and handheld consoles.

I think we need to test this with some anecdotal evidence: on your commute to work this morning, how many people were playing games? I haven’t noticed a drastic increase, but then I live in Somerset and tend to travel offpeak, so I’m hardly in the middle of commuter hell.Meanwhile, will this be read as a damning indictment of modern culture? Is it bad that we’re using downtime to play, rather than catch up with current affairs or take in a chapter or two of the latest Booker winner? We’re seemingly hardwired to see the decline of print media as a tragedy for the collective intellect, but then, is playing Professor Layton any less valuable than doing the crossword? Will we get a richer narrative experience from Dissidia: Final Fantasy, or from the latest blockbuster crime thriller inexplicably hogging the bestseller list?

And while we’re on the subject, have you ever initiatied a local multiplayer gaming sesh with a fellow passenger? This apparently happens all the time in Tokyo, where Monster Hunter has made beast-slaying pals out of complete strangers. Could that ever happen here? According to Popcap’s research, only 7% of us are willing to chat to fellow commuters, so I guess it’s highly unlikely.

Also, what are your top commuting games?

Games

Mobile

Game culture

Keith Stuart

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A life of crime might get you decades in the slammer but, if the plot behind IO Interactive’s Kane & Lynch series is anything to go by, then at least there’s the opportunity for some travelling when you’re on the outside. The Danish developer’s 2007 original, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, had the pair flip-flopping between Los Angeles and Tokyo in the first half of the game – before they moved on to Havana and Venezuela during the latter stages – while this incoming sequel takes place in the hustle and bustle of Shanghai, China. It’s the city’s population density that’s precisely the reason why IO has chosen Shanghai as Kane & Lynch 2′s setting (not because it has the smallest  range of recorded temperatures of any densely populated area in the world, between 19.4 degrees Celsius at its coldest and 35.8 degrees Celsius at its hottest).

Interesting factoids aside, TVG isn’t a travel website (despite rumours to the contrary), so here’s a lowdown on Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days’ back-story to explain this location: while the first game placed Kane in the starring role as he attempted to track down the whereabouts of his daughter and escape The7, this sequel focuses on Lynch. During our first look, IO was keen to point out the different character traits that Lynch offers. As was clear from the first game, Lynch is a medicated psychopath (something that troublingly formed a minor gameplay dynamic in Dead Men), which is why IO describes him as a man who improvises under pressure, with little or no military planning; a criminal who’s often irrational and, above all else, is just trying to survive (aren’t we all).

Lynch has been hiding out in Shanghai to lay low from the feds and this is where the city’s population density comes in, as it’s harder for the authorities to track him down there. While taking up residence in the city, Lynch does some work for a British gangster called Glazer. Nonetheless, Kane manages to reunite with Lynch in what IO is describing as “a simple job gone wrong”, and the two of them manage to get wanted by the police. As with the first game, the dynamic duo of Kane and Lynch turns out to be more of an inadvisable mixing of nitrogen and glycerol to form a dynamite partnership that could explode at any moment. The result in Kane & Lynch 2 is a frantic chase that goes on for two days and two nights.

So that’s the back-story. The game itself looks unique, which is a word that’s far too overused in the game industry when, ironically, there are very few games that can be described in that way. In this case however, we can honestly say that we’ve never seen a game that uses a YouTube-style visual filter. As the initial teaser trailers for Kane & Lynch 2 hinted, IO Interactive is going for a kind of CCTV style depiction of the action in this sequel. On top of different forms of camera direction, such as an over-pronounced shaky cam effect that makes Gears of War’s sprint cam look like a Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch flick, IO has adopted a grainy filter on top of the visuals to make the gamer feel like an impartial observer of the action. By the developer’s own admittance, it has been looking at YouTube videos to replicate the kind of blocky artefacting that’s synonymous with the website’s content, and applying this style directly to the game.

This results in something considerably less gimmicky and markedly more immersive than initially expected. On top of this comes other strong improvements to the series in areas such as sound and AI, which make for a lightning fast pace to Kane & Lynch 2 that was lacking in the original. Quite simply, we’ve never heard a silenced weapon sound quite as exquisite as the effects made possible in our first look at K&L 2, while the AI seems much more aggresive than it was in Dead Men with noticeable flanking that applies pressure to move between cover quickly. Similarly, improved destructible environments from the first game (where the destruction was little more than cosmetic) also help to up the ante, ensuring that even if the AI isn’t flanking, then at least it’s quickly destroying any cover that Lynch is cowering behind.

This appears to complement IO’s decision to apply a traditional button-operated cover system for K&L 2, which replaces the Dead Men system that automatically stuck Kane up against nearby walls. Although developers have experimented with these ‘sticky’ cover systems with some success on current-gen systems, we’ve got to say that the standard button pressing dynamic is still the most solid and reassuring option for our money. Additionally, promises of a ‘Down not Dead’ feature for K&L 2 should help to make an already frantic looking game even more raucous by allowing players to continue fighting even when they’re crippled on the ground. This, coupled with the adrenaline shot revival system from the first game, guarantees that the game will at least boast some basic co-op features, although we’re hoping for a few more in the final build.

One thing that IO Interactive got more right in Kane & Lynch: Dead Men than any developer has managed since is the inspired Fragile Alliance multiplayer mode. This was one of the most original multiplayer modes to grace any shooter of the last decade, with superbly balanced gameplay and an ingenious risk/reward system to boot. One thing’s for sure, it put the endlessly repeated offerings of capture the flag, king of the hill, and deathmatches to shame. Gamers will be pleased to hear, then, that Fragile Alliance will make a return as an 8 player co-op heist mode (we use the term co-op loosely here) in Kane & Lynch 2 when the series returns later this year. A more genuine co-op experience will also be applied to the main campaign (as it was with the first game), allowing a second gamer to play as Kane alongside Lynch, either on or offline this time around. At this stage in development, Kane & Lynch 2 appears to be shoring up the gameplay elements that were left adrift with the first game. Third-person shooter fundamentals such as cover, AI, and environment appear to have been approached head-on by the developer in an attempt to cast aside the faults of the 2007 original. Although the most significant innovations appear to come from the game’s visuals, it’s reassuring to know that IO is focusing on nailing down the game’s foundations before it goes for the big money, back-of-the-box features.

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