It’s A Sabotage

Sean Devlin: Irishman. Race-car driver. Terrorist.

If that last word brought on a tiny bit of a wince, then you’ve just reacted the same way as I did when I first encountered EA Games’ The Saboteur. Sure, the game might be set in Paris during World War II (with Nazis as the bad guys, so killing them is a good thing), but there are still some connotations that don’t sit particularly well, and that’s one of them. To get away with something like that, you’ve got to have a pretty good game, or at the very least, one that’s incredibly fun to play.

Gran Turismo: Real Life

With Gran Turismo 5 released over the next few months on Sony PlayStation 3, gamers in Ireland have been given a special opportunity to download the GT Academy Time Trial and win a chance to become a real racing driver.

PlayStation 3 and Nissan Ireland have joined forces once again for GT Academy 2010. GT Academy wants to find Ireland’s fastest gaming racing driver and give them an opportunity to transfer their skills to real world racing tracks. Download the GT Academy time trial to your PlayStation 3 console and take the first step towards becoming a professional racing driver by posting your fastest lap time.

Driving fans with a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Network (PSN) account can download the GT Academy Gran Turismo 5 time trial from the PlayStation Store. Participants will race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and record lap times in both a standard road version of Nissan’s stunning 370 Z as well as a tuned version of the same car. Combined lap times will give each player their leader-board place and they have until January 24^th 2010 to complete and register their time. Holders of the 20 fastest lap times will then be invited to take part in a head to head final in February 2010 to determine Ireland’s national champion.

At this stage, the competition will move from the virtual to the real world. The national champion will travel to Silverstone to undergo an intensive weeklong training programme to see if they have what it takes to make it as a real world racing driver. They will compete against their European counterparts to find two overall winners who will go on to spend a further 8 weeks in Silverstone to qualify for their international racing licence. Only one of these final two participants will be successful and go on to race a full season as part of the Nissan team in the European GT4 Cup in a Nissan 370Z car.

If all that sounds appealing, you’ll need to download the time trial by steering your PS3 to the PlayStation Store and get practising on that fastest lap before January 24th. You can find more information on the Time Trial, and the PlayStation Store here.

A Crack In Time Saves Nine

In terms of great platforming duos, few names roll off your tongue like Ratchet & Clank: even Mario and Luigi or Sonic and Tails doesn’t sound right. The duo return to the PlayStation 3 for their ninth game, an epic intergalactic jaunt through space and time that the rest of us can refer to as Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time.

Separating our two lead characters for most of the game, A Crack In Time picks up shortly after Quest For Booty (the previous game) with Clank being abducted by the Zoni, mysterious creatures with an affinity for time and who are working with the villainous Dr. Nefarious. While Clank tries to attain freedom, investigating the mysterious “Great Clock” at the centre of the universe, best buddy Ratchet realises he may not be the last of his kind after all, and teams up with bumbling superhero Captain Qwark to find and save Clank.

Believe In The Assassins

Widely hailed as one of the best games of 2007, Assassin’s Creed never quite made it onto my own list of that year’s top games: it was fun, pretty to look at and with an assassin as the main character, the entertainment should have been assured. But this was a game with far too much exposition, simple controls and not enough killing, with the end result being a game that was far more watchable than it was playable and didn’t encourage future gaming sessions. It’s an interesting dilemma as the lines between traditional and interactive media blur, but one that doesn’t necessarily bode well as long as traditional expectations of video games remain.

But this is a conversation that can be held off for another time with the release of the much-improved Assassin’s Creed II, available now on PS3 and XBox 360. Like many recent sequels, this is a game which has improved upon its predecessor and earned itself a place amongst one of this year’s best games.

Take That (And Party…If You Want)

Even if you weren’t a teenage girl in the early nineties, with Take That posters on your walls, you now like Take That; if you say you don’t, you’re lying. But it’s okay, there’s no shame in liking Take That, a band whose career has covered two decades, spawned some pretty successful careers (and then there’s Robbie Williams too) and feature a man often regarded as one of the best songwriters of today. With the release of SingStar Take That on the PS2 and PS3, there’s a tough decision ahead of you: do you admit to knowing all the words and being able to sing the songs pitch-perfect, or do you embarrass yourself in front of all your friends when they realise you can’t?

Nathan Drake > Lara Croft

There’s a lot that Nathan Drake, star of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves on Sony’s PlayStation 3, has in common with Lara Croft, star of the Tomb Raider series: both make a living from some combination of being an archaeologist, adventurer and historian; both mingle with colleagues who aren’t always the most honest of business partners; and both know how to handle themselves in a fight. We’ve yet to see pictures of Nathan Drake in a clingy top that accentuates his cleavage, so I think it’s safe to say that that’s where the similarities end.

Uncharted 2 is one of the most eagerly anticipated games for relase this year on Sony’s home console, and if you’ve played the first game (subtitled Drake’s Fortune), it’s easy to see why: with a seemless blend of athletic platforming, puzzles and combat with an immersive story involving a hunt for lost treasure and a lovably charming lead character, where can you go wrong? And that was just the first game. Picking up about a year afterwards, Uncharted 2 raises the bar in terms of the gameplay and provides an even more thrilling storyline.

Get Your Gunn: MAG on the PS3

Produced by Zipper Interactive, MAG is already shaping up to be one of the most interesting titles to hit the Sony PlayStation 3 over the next few months. With the game currently in beta, we were lucky enough to play through some of the game and were also guided through the world and its inception by the game’s creative director, Ed Byrne.

Set in the not-too-distant future, MAG puts players in the role of a soldier working for one of three PMCs (or private military companies.) As worldwide resources dwindle and countries find themselves unable to support their armed forces, three PMCs come to the fore, Raven, Valor and SVER, who will sell their military services to the highest bidder. The competition between the three PMCs increases until it becomes a conflict known as the “Shadow War,” a reputation-based conflict as the three PMCs try to undermine each other and lay claim to various resources that will increase their own reputation, and therefore their own business.

Cover Your Ears, This Might Get Messy

It’s a Saturday night, and hordes of nobodies are making a name for themselves by murdering classic songs on TV. So you think to yourself, “I could do that…but I don’t much fancy the idea of having to sing for an audience, Simon Cowell kinda scares me and I can never tell whether Dannii Minogue is happy or sad.” You might even find yourself taken by urge to say “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be…” before realising they don’t show that anymore, and your dreams have been crushed.

So Sony PlayStation gave us the Singstar series of games, and coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Motown Records, the latest offering in the series is Singstar Motown, available now on both PS2 and PS3. Now, the only people judging you are your friends, neighbours and some red-and-blue lines as you sing to your heart’s content along with Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye and Lionel Richie.

The Dark Knight Is Nuts

Welcome to Arkham Asylum: check your sanity at reception and settle down for the craziest outing Batman has had in a while.

Developed by the UK-based Rocksteady Games, Batman: Arkham Asylum is the first original game to star the Caped Crusader in over five years (we’re not counting Batman Begins becuase it was a movie tie-in, and fun as it was, Lego Batman slipped under many a gamer’s radar.) Although graphic novels and mini-series have carried the name of Arkham Asylum, the game has a fairly original story as written by Paul Dini, one of the head writers of the award winning Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s, and taking its cue from the series, the game is surprisingly deep and mature, while also incredibly fun.

Arkham Asylum, the mad-house and prison  for many of Gotham’s worst criminals, is the setting of the game, an island separate from the city proper with several buildings, caves and the obligatory sewer system underneath. When Batman and Commissioner Jim Gordon arrive at the asylum with the Joker in tow, they find that they’ve been played, with the Joker all along planning to be captured so he can arrange to take over the island. With Gordon kidnapped, Batman searches for a way to stop his enemy’s plan, but the Joker isn’t working alone, and is being helped by fellow inmates, with Bane, Killer Croc, Zsazs, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow and, of course, Harley Quinn to help him out.

Make Them Eat Cake

Fat Princess is easily one of the biggest games to hit the PlayStation Network since the launch of the PS3’s downloadable service, and that’s not just because it’s been loading on the carbs. There’s been quite a bit of buzz generated about this game since its announcement, and having played it, it’s clear to see why, as it’s one of the easiest to play strategy games, and most addictive, to hit the home consoles in years.

With a Medieval-style theme, the goal of Fat Princess is simple: there are two teams, one wearing red tunics and the other wearing blue, each with their own similarly-coloured princess. The goal of the game varies depending on whether you play single-player or on-line multi-player, but both are similar: you must protect your own princess (whether that means keeping her safely ensconced in the throne room of your castle or rescuing her from your enemies) while also capturing the enemy princess and transporting her to your castle. It’s a simple enough task, but for the fact that you can feed the enemy princess cake. Predictably enough, that makes her fat, and more difficult to carry away, which can seriously mess up your plans.

Looking Through The Rain: A Sneak Peak at “Heavy Rain”

The Origami Killer

Announced at the 2006 E3, Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer (a PS3-exclusive title from developers Quantic Dream) is finally close to completion, with a release date expected in early 2010. The game received significant coverage at this year’s E3, and with further announcements coming in August at the Game Developer’s Conference in Cologne, the game is shaping up to be one of the most eagerly anticipated titles for the PS3 console.

We recently got a chance to meet with Guillaume de Fondaumiere, CEO of Quantic Dream and executive producer of Heavy Rain, who showed off two scenes from the game, spoke about its development and gave us the opportunity to play through one of these scenes. The experience left us adding Heavy Rain to the calendar and eager to see more.

Keep On Moving

Motion control is the name of the game at this year’s E3, and day two marked presentations from two names who, if not bigger than Microsoft, have been in the game just a little bit longer: gaming stalwart Nintendo and marketing machine, Sony.

Both conferences lacked the star-power of Microsoft: when you’ve got half of the Beatles and a big Hollywood director, where can you go wrong? (Actually scrap that, Ubisoft had James Cameron, and look how that ended up.) But that said, both had their fair share of surprises, both expected and otherwise.

Unfortunately for Sony, much of the weight behind their surprises had already been leaked with this weekend’s reveal of the PSP Go, the only new console to be revealed at this year’s E3. Significantly smaller than the original PSP, the GO promises downloadable content, media playback and 16GB of storage.

In terms of gaming, Sony showed a lot of footage: over a two-hour conference, it could really be considered the downside of their presentation that they showed a lot of footage as part of montages for the PS2, PS3 and PSP, naming few games. Some games were exclusive to the brand, others not.