11w ago - Sony Blog Manager Fred Dutton has shared a God of War: Ascension PS3 Q & A update below today which takes Kratos to the next level.

To quote: With God of War: Ascension's launch just a few days away now, we sat down with the game's Lead Combat Designer Jason McDonald and Lead Game Designer Mark Simon to find out how they've kept the formula fresh six games into the series, and what challenges the addition of multiplayer presented to the team.

We'll have more insight from Game Director Todd Papy next week before Santa Monica's lean, mean new actioner hits the shelves on March 12th. In the meantime, over to Mark and Jason...

PlayStation.Blog: How difficult is it retro-fitting a prequel story onto the existing God of War trilogy?

Mark Simon: It's kinda nice actually. At the end of God of War 3 Kratos is completely rage-filled. His sole-focus has been figured out. With Ascension, we can go back to a different time period before he was this character.

He has a wider range and you can explain things about him that you didn't know before. You get to find out what turned him into the guy that he is - what makes him snap, and why is it that breaking a bond with a god like Ares does this.

PSB: If I was to plot Kratos' anger on a graph,...

12w ago - Sony Santa Monica Studio Lead Game Designer Seth Killian has shared some video footage today spotlighting the new PS All-Stars Zeus & Isaac, MediEvil + The Unfinished Swan level below.

To quote: Happy to be back to tell you about some new surprises from PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. More costumes? More minions? Well, okay, yes. But also more new characters!

Our newest challengers are Isaac Clarke from Electronic Arts' Dead Space, and Zeus from... well, from some of the foundational myths of Western society, but also from a little PlayStation game you might know called God of War by SCEA Santa Monica Studio.

How did these two emerge as All-Stars from the vast PlayStation multiverse? Synchronicity. We were talking with some friends over at EA who were hard at work on Dead Space 3, and with a lot of Dead Space fans on our team and all the cool tools at Isaac's disposal, some quick concepts emerged and we knew he'd be a great addition.

We've also wanted to add another "heavy," hard-hitting character into All-Stars (Big Daddy was getting lonely), and with all the work on God of War: Ascension around Sony Santa Monica, Zeus emerged as a perfect fit.

25w ago - SuperBot Entertainment Game Director Omar Kendall has shared details today on Kat and Emmett in PS All-Stars alongside a new level reveal below!

To quote: It's been a couple of weeks since Seth let the Kat (and the Emmett!) out of the bag, so I thought I'd stop in and give you guys some insight into the philosophy behind putting these two great characters into PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

The team and I attended an event at the Santa Monica Studios last night where we gave media attendees the first hands-on look at our new DLC, including the unveil of a brand new level, so I wanted to give you all a sneak peek at some of their moves and show off our newest level, Fearless! It's all exciting stuff that I'm eager to tell you all about, so let's get started.

Gravity Rush landed on PlayStation Vita earlier this year, introducing us to Kat. Her tremendous gravity powers, combined with a really charming personality made her an instant fan favorite, and thus an obvious candidate for PlayStation All-Stars.

When looking at Kat's play style in Gravity Rush two things immediately stood out to us: her reliance on aerial mobility and her arsenal of powerful kick-based attacks. We felt it was important to use these two elements as the cornerstone of Kat's play style, and as...

42w ago - Today Mathew Kumar has shared a fresh video trailer alongside preorder details for Sound Shapes complete with a Level Editor and Trophy Mode below!

To quote: Fellows! We've are absolutely gagging here to get Sound Shapes into your hands. Gagging! We wish it could be in your hands right now!

But unfortunately that can't be, as this week saw the release of The Expendables 2 as part of the PSN Play promotion, not us. However! If you're popping into PlayStation Store to pick it up at any point this week you can also pre-order Sound Shapes and get an exclusive PS3 theme.

That's not to forget PSN Play's money-saving promotion: the more games you pick up, the more money you save. So if you've already picked up The Expendables 2, you'll get a cool three bucks back if you pick up Sound Shapes.

But enough of that waffle. Because we're excited to get Sound Shapes into your hands, we wanted to kick start your imaginations by having one of our founders, Jonathan Mak, walk you through level creation using our level tools. And if you're the kind of player who is more excited to *play* than create (and that's fine, too) we're revealing our Trophy mode. And yes, there is a Platinum.

So, until this point we've been showing you lots of different parts of our...

51w ago - Ubisoft International Product Manager Assistant Arnaud Marchand has shared a Mad Riders developer interview today with Lead Level Designer Marek Sobol below.

To quote: What is Mad Riders?

It's a super-fast, super fun arcade racer with beautiful environments, incredible stunts and unrivalled speed. Mad Riders is full of content: 45 tracks, customizable vehicles and drivers, various single-player and multiplayer modes.

The challenge was to do something different than the traditional package for a racing game and we think we have a game that offers great value for money!

Can you describe the idea behind the development of Mad Riders in one word?

Most definitely 'fun'! Mad Riders was never meant to be a simulator, it's an arcade game that had to be easy to pick up and enjoyable for anyone.

We needed to get into this crazy mind-set of creating an arcade game in the best sense of the word, old school fun for everyone but infused with the spirit of competition, and this "No way! Did you see THAT?!" feeling you get when playing with friends.

So you're getting hours of fun for the price of a large pizza, now is this stuff extreme or what?!

How does that...