PSP Consoles

Ready at Dawn, the studio finest known for working on the PSP God of War games, is operating on a new IP for an as but unnamed next-generation console.

That’s in accordance with a job listing posted on the firm’s web site, which confirms the developer is busy beavering away on a third-person action/adventure title.

“Are you prepared to operate on an exciting new AAA IP for a Next-Generation property console game program?” reads the job advertisement.

“Ready At Dawn is operating on a 3rd Person Action Adventure and is searching for talented, motivated and self-directed developers to join our team.”

Prepared at Dawn worked on both God of War: Chains of Olympus and God of War: Ghost of Sparta for Sony’s aging pocket brick, as well as the celebrated platformer Daxter and Wii port of Okami.

Sony has announced that its Digital Comics service for PSP is going to be discontinued in September.

The studio confirmed that the platform will receive a final update on March 15 ahead of its closure, Andriasang reports.

Users who wish to help keep their digital comics purchases beyond 2012 are needed to back them up via the MediaGO service. The Comic Reader app will be available to download until the end in the year.

Digital Comics debuted on PSP in late 2009, enabling users to download comics from publishers including DC, Marvel, IDW Publishing, Archie, Tokyopop and BOOM! Studios. The platform amassed a library of much more than 4,000 titles.

Sony went on to say that it is preparing to bring a digital comics service to its other devices within the future, with its PlayStation Vita a most likely recipient.

The Vita is Sony’s newest handheld gaming program, and in lots of techniques it represents Sony’s answer towards the Nintendo 3DS. Following on the heels of Sony’s earlier PSP and PSP Go mobile gaming systems, the Vita was announced last year and really came out in Japan last December.

It really is shiny and new, is not that sufficient? No? The Vita’s biggest selling point is arguably the 5-inch 16:9 OLED multi-touch screen. That may well not sound significant, but for a portable device it really is positively big. The screen’s packing some impressive specs also, having a 960-by-544 pixel resolution that displays up to 16 million colors. I went hands-on with all the Vita earlier this week and also the screen looks bright, clear, and excellent for video.

Even so, videos aren’t the only thing that could appear fantastic on the Vita. The system’s graphics are powered by an ARM Cortex A9 processor, a potent quad-core CPU capable of rendering some actually impressive graphics on a mobile platform. Sony’s taken to comparing the Vita’s graphics with their PlayStation 3 console, and when the graphics aren’t quite at PS3 levels, the Vita absolutely shows off some of the most impressive graphical effects I’ve ever noticed on a mobile device.

Sony’s also thrown in a lot of other new bells and whistles that open up lots of exciting gaming possibilities. The Vita has front and rear facing cameras, a GPS sensor to generate it place aware, Wi-Fi capabilities (as well as 3G on the extra expensive models) and an accelerometer for motion control. With all these selections the Vita is potentially capable of supporting practically any gameplay mechanic game developers are currently utilizing, including tablet-style touch-based games and Nintendo Wii-style motion controls. The apparent exception is the lack of a 3D display, but, offered the literal and figurative headaches the Nintendo 3DS’ screen has caused some players, it may possibly happen to be a intelligent choice to leave that feature out.

Sony released a extended list of PSP games that may surely be playable on the PS Vita. You may expect that each and every game downloadable by means of PSN ought to just perform automatically, but that does not appear to become the case. Sony has also posted a guide to transferring games to your new Vita either via PSN or your PS3 if you’ve downloaded them there.

The initial list features 275 PSP games and PS Minis that Sony guarantees will work on the Vita. Sony has stated that they’re working to make extra games compatible, so the list will grow as time goes on.

Don’t go off deleting your games just because they’re not on the list this second. Joystiq has already confirmed at the least two games not on that list that should perform on the Vita right away; Valkyria Chronicles 2 and PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. Though it is not explicitly stated, Sony’s list is most likely restricted to games they’re positive will operate perfectly on the new platform.

Check out the full list here.

Based on Andriasang, Corpse Party are going to be hitting the Japanese PSP App Store this week for  ¥2,200 which in US PSP App Store pricing would be $29.99. No word yet on a localized English release, but I figure if the game will likely be out there for iOS devices with Japanese text, an English adaptation can not be that far off, considering the fact that presumably the translation already exists from the PSP game.

The Corpse Party series of video games happen to be loitering around my “I seriously need to play these some day” game list since I 1st heard about them a number of years ago. The games have some crazy roots behind them, because the first title was produced in RPG Maker, a point and click game studio that was accountable for countless terrible ultra-indie RPG games. My personal favorite of these RPG Maker games was Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. Anyway, Corpse Party has had two different remakes considering the fact that then, the most recent of which landed as a downloadable title for the PSP in late 2010. A sequel arrived about a year later, and there have even been two manga adaptations. One was even published by Square Enix.

If this is the initial time you’ve heard of Corpse Party, Joystiq’s JC Fletcher put together an awesome description of what the game is all about. In essence, it’s your typical 16 bit JRPG that jumps the rails in a big way. You quickly find yourself in a nightmare dimension where no one can see each other, doors don’t work, windows are blocked by human hair, and evidence of numerous child murders are everywhere. There’s a cast of characters who are subjected to the torture of this environment, and you sit by and watch what unfolds.

What interested me about this crazy game is that there’s tons of “bad endings,” like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I’ve always truly liked games that divert from a linear roller coaster ride to letting you screw up, and then showing you the consequences. The PSP version is even constructed with selectable chapters to allow you to go back and explore all these different outcomes.