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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Cobra Commander Plays Lego Rock Band With NextGen Player

It’s over a week later, and we’re still not done talking about Sony’s PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, which was on October 6 at the Burroughes Building in Toronto. Here’s a shot of our special correspondent, Cobra Commander, playing LEGO Rock Band with Alice and Paul from NextGen Player. If you click on that image, you’ll get to see a short clip of the band in action (tip: it’s also available in HD). It’s actually part of a longer feature we’re in the middle of editing here. Cobra Commander swears a lot, and we’re finding it difficult to keep things family-friendly. That, and he’s hard to understand most of the time.

We mentioned wanting to send Cobra Commander to the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event in Episode 11 of our Podcast. Now that the event has passed without incident on his part, we can safely say it went off without a hitch, and that he was a big hit at the event.

Why would we agree to send him to this? Several reasons. The first is that the poor guy needed some work after another gig recently fell through. The second is that he’s actually a pretty avid gamer. The third is that he threatened to kill us if we didn’t get him in.

That being said, a big thanks to Kyle Moffatt at Sony Computer Entertainment Canada for allowing the Commander in even though he wasn’t on the guest list. I hope he didn’t do anything too sinister when I wasn’t looking.

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Posted in Awesome, Music, PlayStation 3, Sony | 5 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
LEGO Rock Band

I remember having to track down a store to purchase my copy of the original Rock Band back in 2007. I played it so much that I got a passive aggressive note taped to my apartment door by my old neighbours complaining about the noise who, get this, ended up buying Rock Band themselves and serenading us through the walls with Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” for weeks afterward.

It’s hard to believe that it was only two years ago.

Now we’re about to have another Rock Band title unleashed upon us. LEGO Rock Band is set to release this holiday season and from what I’ve seen and played, it should be a big hit – particularly with families.

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Posted in Awesome, Music, PlayStation 3 | No Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (not to be confused with The Last Airbender) is a game adaptation of the movie. Or, at least, it sort of is. Many videogame adaptations of popular Hollywood films suffer from a disease called lastminuteitis. It’s a horrible affliction where, in a desperate attempt to cash in on the entertained public as much as possible, a half-assed game is created at the last minute that does nothing other than empty your wallet and leave you feeling cheated. Speaking to Ubisoft about Avatar: The Game, however, leaves me feeling somewhat assured about the quality of this title.

The development of Avatar started during the pre-production phase of the movie. Ubisoft had access to all of the assets being used for the film. James Cameron himself did not want a simple re-telling of the story, nor does it seem like he just wanted a direct port of the movie. Instead, he wanted something a bit different. So, a new story was written expressly for the game – one that is set two years before the events of the movie take place. Once he gave his blessing, the project began to unfold.

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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Dead To Rights: Retribution

Dead to Rights is a “Gun-Fu” franchise involving a good guy surrounded by corruption who kicks that corruption’s ass fairly hard. Dead To Rights: Retribution marks the first time a game in the series will hit the current-generation consoles.

The game places you in the shoes of Jack Slate, Grant City police officer, and details the origins of his relationship with his faithful dog, Shadow.

The build I played was still in its Beta phase, but was nonetheless very impressive. The combat system is simple, yet effective, allowing to switch back and forth between melee and ranged combat. Currently some of the fancy options (like grenade targeting arcs) have yet to be implemented (it’s also possible they weren’t enabled on the demo I played).

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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is possibly the most messed up game I’ve ever tried to play. I couldn’t quite get into it at the Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event as I was too distracted by every other game being played near it (God of War III, for instance, was right beside it).

What I do know, however, is that I could probably end up spending hours with Heavy Rain when it’s released early 2010.

Check out our Heavy Rain gallery »

Posted in Art, Awesome, PlayStation 3, Previews | 2 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Where the Wild Things Are

When I first heard that Spike Jonze was helming a film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, I was somewhat skeptical. How is such a short book going to translate onto the big screen? Of course, if memory serves me correctly, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was originally an eighteen-page short story in a magazine in the early half of the century before it was adapted into a three and a half hour movie. Strangely enough, game adaptations don’t puzzle me as much, so when I approached the display for Where the Wild Things Are at the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, I wasn’t really surprised.

At first glance the game looks just like the movie. Actually, for a brief moment I thought it was the movie and that perhaps Warner Brothers was using a PS3 setup as a trailer display. When I finally clued in, I was enthralled by how life-like the game looks (which is something to say considering all of the characters except for Max are monsters).

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Posted in Art, PlayStation 3, Previews | 2 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Dragon Ball: Raging Blast

I didn’t really spend too much time with Dragon Ball: Raging Blast at the Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event. Reason being? It was right beside Tekken 6. Another reason is that I’m not really a big fan of the Dragon Ball series. Despite this, it’s hard to deny how fluid, crisp, and all-around impressive the game looks.

The characters are completely cel-shaded, and from what I’ve seen of the anime the likenesses were great. What’s funny, actually, is that the game looks better than the anime. I’ve never actually played any of the Dragon Ball games before (the only thing I’ve played that’s remotely Dragon Ball is Battle Stadium DON for the GameCube), but I have seen enough of the anime to know that the fights are over-the-top crazy, so I was wondering how that would translate to a console.

Well, this game is to Dragon Ball what Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is to the Naruto anime.

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Posted in PlayStation 3, Previews | 2 Comments »