Hello again! This is Ollie Barder from doublesix. Since I spoke here last, the studio has been really busy with Top Gun – a new air combat game for the PlayStation Network based on the classic 80′s film. Needless to say it’s been a lot of fun making this, as screeching across a blue sky in a F-14 Tomcat never gets old.

For those curious as to how we’ve tackled the game we went down a more arcade focused route for ..read the full article

PlayStation Game Runners is an experimental project where PlayStation, members of the public and young people from diverse backgrounds come together to create social games. We at PlayStation believe that the best games are played as a group.

The project has been developed by PlayStation and Hide & Seek with a team of eight initial Game Runners who have been picked to train as game designers and work to make the games relevant.

There are three games in development: Flags, Blocks ..read the full article

Who here loves Bomberman? Well, you’ll be glad to hear that the Hudson Gate public space arrives in PlayStation Home this week! Each disc of this futuristic space offers something new, from information on Hudson Soft games, to a store selling Bomberman outfits and Hudson Soft games. Stick around for the regular Dolphy races – correctly vote for winner of this sky race to win rewards!

If watching the Dolphy races isn’t enough for you, drop into the ..read the full article

Today at IFA 2010 in Berlin, Sony announced that Music Unlimited Powered by Qriocity, a cloud-based digital music service, will be coming to PlayStation 3 later this year.

The service will give you access to millions of songs that are stored and synchronised through the cloud and can be accessed via PS3, BRAVIA TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, Blu-ray Home Theatre systems and VAIO computers, with one single account and without the need to manage digital files.

Further details, including exactly when and ..read the full article

Forty-five brand-spanking new titles are unleashed in the Digital Comics Store this week, pushing the total number of comics to choose from to over 2000. How many have YOU read?

Here are this week’s highlights:

The magnificent 2004-vintage Captain America continues with the action packed 3-issue Time’s Arrow arc (#43-#45), featuring World War II flashbacks with Cap, Bucky, the Black Widow and the Human Torch. Best of all, we get the return of Batroc the Leaper! ..read the full article

Well, hello again – fancy meeting you here! It’s update time again and we’ve got some shiny, new PSN offerings for you, so without further ado let’s get on with the main event.

As you can see from the handsome fellow in this week’s post image, Alien Breed: Impact hits the EU PSN this week. An HD remake of the awesome Amiga classic, ‘Alien Breed’ (what do you mean, “What’s an Amiga?”) you and a friend can take on hordes ..read the full article

I hope everyone who has signed up during Aug has enjoyed the continued LBP sign up offer?! If you signed up early in the month (or are in German, Greece or South Africa) and didn’t get your copy of LBP in the Plus section straight away, then don’t worry, you will be emailed a voucher for this as soon as possible.

Now, for all those who haven’t signed up to Plus yet, here’s just one more reason! Sign up for a ..read the full article

As a dev team, we’re beyond excited to see the release of R.U.S.E. drawing near – it launches in Europe on September 9, so we’re just over a week away.

For those of you new to the game, R.U.S.E. enables players to use manipulation and trickery against their enemies.  In fact, deception is at the very heart of R.U.S.E., and you’ll find that without it you cannot succeed. With R.U.S.E., we aimed to create an RTS that goes beyond the ..read the full article

Earlier today I received this strange image with a bunch of gaming sites listed on it. I checked some of them out and they seem to have received similar images.

We’re told that this all leads to the announcement of a new minis title and that more details will follow but, in the meantime, does anyone fancy trying to solve the puzzle?

Having briefly considered mounting a campaign to abolish Mondays and have three-day weekends forever, I’m back in work after the bank holiday to tell you about the next episode of FirstPlay.

Episode 22 is up on the Store from Wednesday, and this week features an all-new hands-on with LittleBigPlanet 2, the second part of our big PlayStation Move playtest, and a preview of Ubisoft’s under-the-radar strategy contender, RUSE. Oh, and a chat with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president Andrew House.

..read the full article

In a studio in South London, professional dancers, choreographers, principal designers, members of the SingStar team and myself gathered for something pretty special.

This was the shoot for the upcoming SingStar Dance game, due for release later this year. The team were recording footage of the dancers that will be presented in-game for users to follow when playing. Fully rehearsed and in costume, the dancers were ready to begin.

For me, watching anyone perform a well thought out dance routine is pretty ..read the full article

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is shaping up to be pretty slick Spider-Man adventure, not just because it’s a wholly original game ripped from the pages of the Marvel comic, but because you get to play as four (count ‘em!) alternate Spider-Men.

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Read on for the skinny:

The finest example of a Spider-Man game to date – for me anyway – has been Spider-Man 2 The Game on PlayStation 2. It brilliantly fused the open world ideas behind Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto ..read the full article

First, an apology of sorts: I didn’t do a recap last week because I collapsed in a heap after gamescom and switched off all communications devices until Monday. However, if you would like to relive the Cologne madness, you can see all related posts here. [linkto: gamescom tag] Not that this week has been any quieter. We’ve had some good news and some good times. Here’s your recap.

PlayStation.Blog.Europe Weekly Content Recap FirstPlay Episode 21 - The latest features and reviews from the ..read the full article

While thousands of eager gamers ran around the show floor at gamescom, behind closed doors, members of the press were treated to demonstrations of some of the hottest upcoming PlayStation 3 games. One of these was DC Universe Online and I was able to attend and get my first eyes-on of the superhero action MMO running on a PS3.

We jumped straight into a quest, with the developer playing the game choosing a hero based loosely on Batman, with high agility, ..read the full article

One of our @PlayStationEU Twitter Followers, @Milereb, can take credit for this week’s Friday Debate. She pointed me in the direction of this piece of editorial by Sean Murray, developer of Joe Danger, on game length and how his attitude towards it has changed during the course of his life.

I completely empathise with the piece; I pored over every single wall texture of the first half a dozen Resident Evil games. In fact, I could probably produce an accurate sample ..read the full article

PlayStation Network will undergo routine maintenance on Monday 30 August between the hours of 08:00 and 21:00 BST.

During this time you will not be able to access PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home or any part of Account Management, such as your Download List.

However, you should be able to play games online and sign-in here on the PlayStation Blog, at eu.playstation.com and on the official PlayStation forums.

If you have any questions or experience any problems, please head to the official PlayStation forums.

It’s a proud week for us here at Zipper Interactive as tomorrow marks the 8th birthday of our first-ever PS2 game and the title that started a huge multimillion-selling franchise, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. To celebrate the eight-year mark, we’ve put together a special video for our fans.

In it, you’ll experience the gamescom 2010 SOCOM: Special Forces demo in its entirety with commentary by lead designer, Travis Steiner. This is the first time anywhere that you’ll see the gamescom demo ..read the full article

For those not already sick of my blue T-shirt, here’s another video interview direct from gamescom. I managed to get five minutes with Zach Wood, Senior Producer of Sorcery, which is being developed between SCEA’s Santa Monica Studio and The Workshop.

Sorcery is an action adventure, designed specifically for the PlayStation Move motion controller, where you control a young apprentice wizard forced to master his newly-acquired skills deep in the Faerie Kingdom.

..read the full article