Eurogamer in blog format - PSP

War's road to redemption begins.

Croteam's high-def update of the PC blasting classic gets a formal release date.

Rock Band gets light-hearted with the minifigs.

Dotnia experiences an expansion into an entirely new dimension.

Wheee! We're suckers for a bit of dog-fighting, especially with those crazy rear-prop driven Japanese planes.

Sneaky tactics and sharp headshots in the sequel to DICE's jolly battlefield romp.

Blood Bowl gets its first new race in the lithe and dangerous form of the Dark Elves.

As an ancient and powerful Umbra witch, Bayonetta has a few handy tricks up her tight sleeves. Here, learn about her flashy, demon-powered killer moves.

Sony has told Eurogamer that the PSP version of LittleBigPlanet will be uploaded to the PlayStation Store in Europe today ahead of the game's retail release tomorrow. It will cost £21.99 online.

The news comes after US gamers were told they would probably have to wait a little while for LBP due to "hiccups", in the words of senior producer Mark Green on the US PlayStation blog. The game came out in shops there on Tuesday.

Green said Sony was "currently working around the clock to get this issue worked out". In a separate statement to Kotaku, SCEA said, "The goal is to have the titles available on the same day, and that is usually the case." Read more...

Video on demand streaming is coming to the PS3 very soon, with a massive wedge of entertainment waiting at your digital fingertips.

When you're heading into a life or death battle against uncaring robotic overlords, you want to be wearing the right dress.

Ever wanted a zebra-striped AK-47? Of course you have.

The PSP title slips out, somewhat in the shadow of its big brother.

Meet the two opposing forces of the Avatar world, and choose which one you'll be fighting for.

Series creator Chris Taylor discusses his sequel, and what improvements have been made over the original.

Two short CCTV vignettes with those lovable, psychopathic rogues, Kane and Lynch.

Tecmo KOEI offers a first look at Again, a DS game made by Hotel Dusk developer Cing. Story and contenxt are explained in this clip.

Small as they are, the shadows of the little Pokemon loom large over Sony's new camera-based creature-capture game. As in the evergreen adventures of Pikachu and pals, you discover and catch critters, level them up through combat and then battle your friends to see who has amassed the toughest collection. The twist here is that you're not seeking the creatures out in some whimsical top-down fantasy land, but in real life, using the PSP camera to coax invisible monsters out of hiding.

This is all established through the stodgy single-player Story Mode, which explains how Kenichi, an enthusiastic worker in Sony's R&D department, has discovered that the PSP camera can detect lifeforms invisible to the human eye - Invizimals. Luckily, you have the sort of aura that attracts these mini beasts, and so you're roped in to help his studies. This involves hopping around a world map, undertaking various missions to capture specific Invizimals, and learning the intricacies of combat from Professor Dawson, played with surprising restraint by Brian Bloody Blessed.

The Invizimals themselves are a well-designed and varied bunch, with some groan-inducing pun names such as Porcupain or Bearserker [those are awesome! - Ed]. Combat is built around a familiar rock-paper-scissors set up, with each creature falling into a distinct elemental category - Ice, Fire, Ocean, Desert and so on. You have three types of attack - strong, medium and fast - and combat is real time, rather than turn-based, and mastering the timing required for blocking is essential. Read more...

A fantastic job of a sequel, building on strengths and addressing weaknesses - AC II hits the shops this Friday.

The perpetually confined simians return in their first balance board title, jonesing for bananas like the dirty little potassium junkies they are.

With social network integration a hot topic, Sony pumps up its Facebook app.

The hub of all starship activity, the bridge is where the important stuff happens. That and engineering, but engineering is far less glamorous and doesn't have the comfy chairs.

Sony has announced plans to launch the adhocParty system for PSP in Europe.

Although there's no word on exactly when, the software will be free to download from the PlayStation Store.

adhocParty allows you to play PSP games that normally only have ad hoc Wi-Fi multiplayer support over the internet anyway, by using the PS3 as a bridge. Read more...

Typical. You wait four years for a decent PSP platformer and two come along at once. First there was LittleBigPlanet, an almost perfect example of a great game made miniature. Now here comes Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier, another good-looking, highly playable platform game. And this one's got guns.

Like LBP PSP the game has not been designed by the series' creators. The Lost Frontier is the work of High Impact Games, previously responsible for the enjoyable Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters and the less impressive Secret Agent Clank.

Now the studio has turned its attentions to Naughty Dog's mascots (or so they were until Nathan Drake turned up, all lost Baldwin in a Gillette advert). The good news for veteran Jak fans is High Impact has done its history homework, taking elements and influences from the best instalments in the series - i.e. not Jak X. Read more...

Sony has confirmed 16-person multiplayer for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3 on PSP.

There will be eight custom maps and seven new game modes, each with custom objectives, said the company on the US PlayStation blog.

There's a brand new Leader mode that assigns one person who all team members will spawn next to on their mission toward objective points. Plus, there's a new Tug of War game where teams drain points from each other as they collect tickets. Read more...

Sony appears to be converting top-notch PS3 titles into Pinball Heroes games for PSP

The ESRB has rated four: Pinball Heroes: Uncharted, Pinball Heroes: High Velocity Bowling, Pinball Heroes: Hot Shots Golf and Pinball Heroes: PAIN.

Each will be designed around the artwork and themes of the subtitled game. Pinball Heroes: Uncharted has you "hit a ball around a crashed airplane into silhouetted character targets and off bumpers shaped like gold coins to score points", for example. Read more...

"Play, create, share." That's the official motto - or tagline, depending how cynical you are - of LittleBigPlanet. The idea being you play through a series of platforming levels, create your own (with the option to throw in items collected during the platforming bit), and share them online. Read more...

Arc System Works has announced that BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is coming to PSP.

At least that's the case in Japan, where it's due out on 25th February. There's no word on whether the game will also make it to the US and Europe.

All 12 characters from the original version will feature and up to four players will be able to battle it out in ad-hoc mode. The new Legion mode will see you manoeuvring round a map, knocking out enemies as you fight for turf. Read more...

Kojima Productions has said to expect a fully localised English version of the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker demo "soon".

The 150MB sampler is already available in Japan.

Speaking on the KP podcast, reps said that the English version would include voiceovers from the usual suspects - David Hayter, Tara Strong, Chris Randolph and so on - along with subtitles. Read more...

Sony has told Eurogamer that a European date for SOCOM: US Navy SEALs - Fireteam Bravo 3 has not been confirmed.

For the moment, we can only sit and watch as the US prepares for release on 12th January. That date was announced overnight on the US PlayStation blog, and represents a small delay for the PSP game there.

The Fireteam Bravo series has performed well for Sony's handheld, capturing solid scores across the board. Our first Fireteam Bravo review gives an idea of what to expect. Read more...

Nippon Ichi has announced a sequel to Prinny: Can I Really be the Hero? for PSP.

No title, let alone a date or game content, was given, according to IGN.

Prinnys are penguin things from RPG series Disgaea, and were given their own starring-role earlier this year. Our Prinny: Can I Really be the Hero review has more. Read more...

Capcom has announced a new spin-off Monster Hunter game for PSP.

According to Famitsu (as translated by Andriasang), the game will star the famous Monster Hunter cats, or airu as they're known.

It's titled Monhan Nikki Poka Poka Airu Mura, which translates as Monster Hunter Diary Poka Poka Airu Village. Read more...

Japanese developer Q Entertainment has said it wants to see PSP titles Lumines and Lumines II appear for download on the PlayStation Store, but a mixture of licensing and publishing issues are getting in the way.

"We would love to bring Lumines/Lumines II to the PSN store, but there are complications, music licensing, was published by Namco, etc," the developer tweeted this week (thanks GamePro/Kotaku). "That said, we're obviously looking into it."

"To clarify, we don't have any problems with Bandai Namco," the developer said a day later. "It's just not as simple a matter of slapping Lumines I/II up on PSN as it seems... The songs 'Shinin'' and 'Lights' were licensed for the UMD version of the game. To re-purpose the game for PSN, we'd need to re-license, etc. Read more...

Who knows what crease in Nippon Ichi's psyche continually draws the developer back to the anti-hero. Perhaps the scriptwriters were picked on at school, or maybe the CEO was never any good at team sports. Whatever the reason, from Disgaea to Makai Kingdom, the studio has rarely cast players as anything but a demonic villain hell-bent on the destruction of everything good and respectable. It's more than a decision to dodge the comfortable fantasy cliché of knights in shining valour; Nippon Ichi understands the perverse delight that comes from surrendering to absolute corruption, of assuming the role of an amiable hyper-villain, especially one hapless enough to be mocked and glorified in equal measure.

Badman - as we'll refer to it in shorthand, since our time on this page is limited and a tortuously long game title is a joke that tickles only once - is no different, at least in terms of its theme. You play as the God of Destruction, a supreme, disembodied entity charged with designing a labyrinthine underground lair, complete with its own devilish ecosystem, ready to entrap and destroy any would-be adventurers who enters. It's a good premise that clothes a framework which defies simple classification. Part tower defence, part-architecture-'em-up, part ant-farm biology class, it draws from a great many traditions, seasoning its hotch-potch systems with an 8-bit aesthetic that hammers home the premise's subversion of RPG tradition.

Your only mode of interaction with the gameworld is via a pickaxe, primarily used for hollowing out the cave system that forms an underground fortress for your as-yet-unborn horde to roam. You have a few minutes to make preparations, digging chambers and tunnels like you're on a Dwarf Fortress speed-run, before one or more archetypal RPG heroes storms your dungeon with a view to murdering your minions and carrying off your main disciple, the titular Badman. If they manage to make it out of your dungeon alive, with Badman in tow, the game is over and you need to start again from scratch, in an effort to build a less penetrable fortress and a more sustainable army. Read more...

If you thought Grand Theft Auto on the DS was unlikely, how about GTA on the DS ported to PSP? Already home to two of its own GTA games, which are also the two most popular games on the system, Sony's handheld could be forgiven for thinking it was above these top-down action-adventures, especially imports from the land of Nintendogs. Where are the fancy 3D graphics? Surely the PSP deserves better?

Well, first thing - no, judging by Sony's current hardware strategy, the PSP does not deserve better. But look on the bright side - the original Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was much better than anyone expected. "GTA as it first was, with the inherited wisdom of GTA as it's been since, finished off with all sorts of things that would happily belong in a GTA of the future," according to whichever idiot reviewed the DS version.

Chinatown Wars was - and remains for PSP - a more frivolous take on the Liberty City laid out in Grand Theft Auto IV. Protagonist Huang Lee, son of a murdered playboy, returns to the States to deliver an ancient sword to his uncle, but the sword is stolen, so Lee ends up doing missions for various wannabe Triad bosses. Forget the grim and grimy soliloquising of Niko Bellic, everyone here needs their heads examined, from the psychopathic Zhou Ming, who cuts out hearts and then boasts about the size of his manhood, to transsexual prostitute-loving Chan Jaoming, son of the current boss. It's very crass but keeps you smirking. Read more...

Hip-hop's prime producer Timbaland has said he used PSP game Beaterator to make a pair of tracks for his upcoming album Shock Value 2.

"Oh yeah, I made a couple from that... I had to," he told Invasion Radio after bigging-up the capabilities of the software (Koalition via Kotaku) he helped create.

Beaterator is a collaboration between Rockstar and Timbaland, and offers a bevy of music production tools to set you on your path to hip-hop fame. Read more...

Japan's not short of games that have seen far greater success on portable systems than they ever did on under-telly gameboxes, but Valkyria Chronicles seems a strange choice for downsizing. It's remembered for its beautiful sketchbook-style graphics and hour-long strategic battles - two things that have had to be scaled down to fit the PSP. Thankfully everything else that made it interesting is present and correct. This is still a game where your gay engineer will enjoy a stats boost if you make sure she's deployed near female squad-mates, or your racist scout won't fight with Darcsen soldiers. It's still a complex, politically engaging storyline framed in an innovative semi-real-time battle system, with likeable, developed characters. Superb!

Valkyria Chronicles II is part Japanese high-school drama, part war story. The main character is a 17-year-old called Avan Hardence, a student at a European military academy. It's set in 1937, two years after the original, and familiar racial tensions have stirred up a civil war in Gallia. The insurgents want to run an ethnic cleansing campaign to rid Gallia of people of Darcsen descent. This being two years after a world war, though, the regular army is depleted, leading wide-eyed cadets to be deployed on the front lines.

It's an odd juxtaposition - whilst the war gains momentum in the background, the little band of main characters is more concerned with the day-to-day drama of high school. It's a bit weird pressing X through screens and screens of Political Happenings and then being suddenly dropped into an adorably awkward conversation between Avan and one of his female classmates. According to Shinji Motoyama, the game's producer, it's an intentional contrast. Read more...

FluffyLogic has announced, on the PlayStation Blog, that it's bringing its downloadable PS3 game Savage Moon to the PSP.

The science-fiction spin on the ubiquitous tower defence strategy sub-genre earned a respectable 7 when we reviewed it back in January. The PSP version, called Savage Moon: The Hera Campaign, presents an all-new campaign with new weapons, enemies and maps.

There's also a new Tactical Layer, in which the player, as Supreme Commander of the human effort to kill space bugs with turrets, chooses which of the game's Imoon's to focus resources on, controlling the overall campaign as well as the action on the moons' surfaces. Read more...