PlayStation 3

Some of the most thought-provoking and original games on the E3 show floor were tucked away in a nearly hidden corner of the PlayStation booth.

Through its Pub Fund initiative, Sony is reaching out to indie game creators and giving them the development support they need to make their bold new ideas into more fleshed-out, commercially viable games. This in turn helps grow the PlayStation 3′s catalog of unique exclusive games. Coming out of E3, we were quite impressed with titles like The Unfinished Swan, Papo & Yo and Dyad.

It has been confirmed that Okami is getting the HD treatment for the PlayStation 3, boasting 1080p graphics and PlayStation Move support. The HD re-release is set for a November 1 release date in Japan¹ and is confirmed for the US and Europe this Autumn.

Okami was originally released for the PlayStation 2 and was developed by Clover Studio and was a commercial failure despite critical success. The game combined a number of Japanese myths and legends with a unique cel-shaded art look and a gesture-controlled brush. It has since been re-released on the Wii with motion controls and also had a sequel, Okamiden for the Nintendo DS.

Notes

1. Okami PS3 Confirmed with Move and 1080p Support - Andriasang ↩

Sources

• Okami HD coming to PlayStation 3 this Autumn - Eurogamer

In addition to Square Enix's Agni's Philosophy demo shown at this year's E3, LucasArts showed off an impressive selection of clips from Star Wars 1313, an action-shooter that, although shrouded in mystery, shows real-time gameplay using photo-realistic graphics. LucasArts' offering differed from that of Square Enix in that Star Wars 1313 is a real game in development, and the demo video shows supposedly real gameplay. According to this post at Giant Bomb, LucasArts has not yet revealed the platforms 1313 will run on, though the tech used was clearly running on the best PC hardware you can get right now, which should be significantly better than the hardware running on the six-plus year-old PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles...

While we often see the evolution of artists working in old media, ever-shifting technical terrain tends to obscure videogame makers' aesthetic trajectories. In Thatgamecompany's pathbreaking and gorgeous games for the Playstation 3, we get the rare chance to watch these artists at work against a fixed technological backdrop.

BlogKonami has announced that the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection will be available in the United States on November 8. Great if you live there. If you're in Europe - too bad. You have to wait until sometime next year, in 2012. Do we really still live in an era that requires months of extra waiting time for PAL releases because companies were too slack to get their European language localisation sorted earlier? Really? I call bullshit frankly, and I wish companies would move forward and localise things on time. It's not like Konami Europe didn't know the title was coming - what's the deal here? Final Fantasy XIII had no problem with this, neither did Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Even God of War III was only out a couple of days later in Europe than its United States release. Read on