Here’s the footage of our visit to Sony’s Liverpool Studios. There, we interviewed Graham Ankers, game director of Formula One Championship, who talked us through how Formula One Championship squeezes the maximum out of the PS3’s HD capabilities, the impressively realistic weather (which gives you an accurate rendition of what F1 drivers see in the rain), the dynamic pit-stops and ultra-sophisticated AI (which makes the drivers behave like their real-life counterparts).

In Liverpool, we also gained a rare audience with Namco Bandai’s Hideo Teramoto, the associate director of Ridge Racer 7. Teramoto showed us the best ever version of the much-loved arcade classic, and chose to highlight the vast array of cars – there are 40 types, and no less than 370,000 customisation possibilities – the sophisticated, upgradable nitrous system, and how the multiplayer aspect of the game will feature team battles and pair battles, in which you can invite a mate to drive with you. See for yourself.

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Hi Res

Kyle Shubel, US producer for Sony Computer Entertainment America, has released a few tips for Genji Days of the Blade. Even if you’re not one of the lucky few to have got your hands on a PS3 yet, we thought you’d still find them of interest.

Don’t Forget to Block – Some folks mistake Genji for “just a button masher”, this will get you killed in Genji: Days of the Blade. Remember to block when the situation merits it.

Dodging as a Dance Move – The new dodging mechanic is key when in a crowd, or pretty much whenever you are in a fight. Many times dodging about the battlefield is even more effective than blocking.

Character Swapping – Use the correct character for the situation. Each of the four characters has their advantages so definitely use them. Many folks will fall in love with a particular character and then won’t have that character available in a fight and will be lost without them. Switch up; get familiar with all four characters as they each are fun in their own way.

Do Not Forget to Level Up Weapons – The Mashogane you pick up after the first act can be used to upgrade your weapons. Find your favorite weapon for each character and keep upgrading it. Also, do not neglect your new weapons. There are five weapons per character, as you get new weapons, check them out and see if you like the way they play. If you do, put them in your weapon swap and start upgrading the new weapons.

Mashogane Farming – When you find a battlefield, especially one that you can go back to (Ichinotani), hang around and get as many kills as you feel comfortable getting (without dying of course). This Mashogane will power up your weapons before you move on to the harder levels. It is not required, but does make life much easier.

ALWAYS Use Kamui – You have a limit to how much Kamui you can ’store up’. When the bar is full, you are ‘wasting’ Kamui. This is not to say that you should pop it immediately, but don’t run around forever waiting for the perfect time to use it. The bar fills up really quickly, so use it often. When I play, whenever I have 3 or more enemies around me and a full Kamui bar, I usually use it. There are exceptions to this rule, when you know (or feel) you are about to run into a boss fight or have just died trying to go through a tough section, store up the Kamui prior to the ugliness and make your life easier. Another thing to note about Kamui, it is character independent, meaning that each of your up to four characters can all have full Kamui. So if you have a really, really bad fight, store up or use items to cap off all four characters and then use Kamui from each in succession.

When You Get Knocked Down, Not If, When – Press X to get up. If you time it right, just as you hit the ground, you will pop back up to your feet. If you don’t time it right, mash the button a few times to get up more quickly and avoid the cheap shot from the AI.

If anyone ever asks you what all the fuss is about as far as next-gen consoles are concerned, all you need do is show them MotorStorm. This outrageous mud-plugging racer, set in a near-photo-realistic Monument Valley is the most anticipated European PS3 launch – and it was created in the less than salubrious surroundings of Runcorn, between Liverpool and Manchester.

We visited developer Evolution Studios, TV camera at the ready, and asked the key MotorStorm players how they managed to create such a monster, and what is it, precisely, that makes the game stand out. In this video you will find CEO and Founder Martin Kenwright talking you through MotorStorm’s “off-the-scale” physics, unprecedented car deformation and accurately modelled mud, as well as confirming that there will be downloadable content available for Motor Storm via the PlayStation Network.

Meanwhile, Producer Simon Benson describes the extreme lengths Evolution went to in their quest to film Monument Valley in HD, and the difficulty of getting the levels just right so that they could accommodate seven types of vehicle. And Lead Designer Nigel Kershaw describes how MotorStorm’s AI, with its so-called Gag system, focuses on entertaining human players, by such diverse means as getting bikers to flip you the finger, or gaggles of trucks to gang up on you and run you off the road.

Steve Boxer

Here is the first of our films. Hopefully the footage reflects how much fun it was actually playing the game. There’s also a few gems about the downloadable content that CEO Martin Kenwright let us in on. Enough talking - take a look for yourself…

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Hi Res

Much as the promise of all that HD gaming is an enticing prospect, the geeks have already bent the PS3 to their will – by installing the Linux operating system on it.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that, given its attitude to the PSP, Sony would be against this sort of thing. That it would take a load of hacking, breaking of warranties and installation of legally dubious chips. But actually, Sony completely supports people that want to do a bit more than simply play games, browse the web, watch high def movies, listen to music, view photo galleries and all that on their PS3s, with a set of comprehensive instructions that explain how to do it.

Sony’s support of Linux on PS3 is, after all, just a continuation of a policy it began on PS2 when it released the Linux kit in 2002, which allowed budding programmers to create their own games and applications for the console.

Apart from providing instructions for how to install Linux on the PS3, Sony has also sponsored the development of a version of Yellow Dog Linux designed specifically for the system. It’s already available for download for existing Yellow Dog Linux users, but a DVD installation disk will be out on December 11 for $99, and it’ll be released for general download on December 25.

So, aside from a bit of light word processing and going through the budgets in OpenOffice, what does the chance to fiddle about in Linux actually do for PS3? Well, think homebrew games development. Sony executive Izumi Kawanishi has said “Because we have plans for having Linux on board [the PS3], we also recognize Linux programming activities… Other than game studios tied to official developer licenses, we’d like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3.”

Hooray! Quite how this will eventually work out is currently unclear, however. Sony won’t be releasing the high-end development tools it gives professional developers to the hoi polloi, so it’s up to the community to figure out how to access the PS3’s complexities. And how games can be distributed is a mystery, too – PS2 Linux developers are unable to release their games to anyone that doesn’t also have PS2 Linux. Will Sony feature PS3 homebrew games on the PlayStation Network? Perhaps we can get Phil Harrison to provide some answers next week…

If you’re not a coder, there’s still plenty that Linux on the PS3 can bring you. After all, there are many, many applications already available for the operating system. Using VLC you can play pretty much any video file you like on your telly. And though we couldn’t possibly condone it, you could play old games using MAME and other emulators, and there are many native Linux games, too.

As more and more people get hold of PS3s and get fiddling around with Linux, it’ll only get better and better. At the very least, Linux transforms the PS3 into a very capable living room PC.

Alex Wiltshire

Here’s some footage we’ve found of the 3Rooms venue, where we’ll be holding our Phil Harrison Q+A evening next Tuesday (December 12). Wouldn’t say it captures all of the venue’s “wow” factor (there’s plenty more than what’s on this film) but it gives you some idea of what to expect.

And if anyone else is interested in attending the Three Speech evening drop us an email here - blog@threespeech.com - asap, as we’ve pretty much finalised the list!

Speaking to SmartHouse.com.au, the Vice President of Technology for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Paul Holman, said a PS4 is in the pipeline for 2010. Between then and now, Sony plans to introduce a series of firmware upgrades that will give the PS3 more media centre capability and allow for the introduction of third party applications and hardware “Such as interactive controllers” similar to the Nintendo Wii.

Head here for the full story - www.smarthouse.com.au/

In advance of our video content (which is being edited at the moment), here’s a few hastily assembled notes following our visit to Evolution and Liverpool Studios.

MotorStorm

Having all but finished MotorStorm – it currently awaits certification - developer Evolution Studios lifted the lid off its mud-plugging racing game, confirming that it will be a must-buy for the PS3. Taking place at a fictional motor-festival in a near photo-realistic rendering of Monument Valley, Motor Storm features tracks with multiple routes - and the best route depends on what vehicle you are driving, with lighter ones such as dirt-bikes and ATVs best off avoiding the thick mud at the bottom of each course. Other key aspects of the game are its artificial intelligence - which aims to give players exciting racing rather than to slavishly act like real human beings - and its sheer attention to detail. For example, the mud which splatters your windscreen and the side of your vehicle has varying levels of viscosity, and is cleared from tracks to an extent as races progress. The impressive car modelling - yielding spectacular crashes in which bits of vehicle innards are left strewn on the track - also impressed. And MotorStorm will be ready for the European PS3 launch in March.

Formula One Championship

Formula One fanatics are in for a treat when the PS3 arrives in March, thanks to Sony Liverpool’s Formula One Championship. The developer has availed itself of the power under the PS3’s bonnet, adding a number of features to the official F1 game. Especially on the visual front - racing in the wet generates a startling impression of water on the camera lens, which is particularly severe when you are in the spray of another car, so causes you to adjust your driving style. With driver aids off, Formula One Championship offers the most real-life experience yet as far as driving an F1 car is concerned - at last, you can see for yourself how tricky they really are to drive. Uprated driver AI is designed to act like the real drivers - drive behind Michael Schumacher, for example, and he won’t get flustered, but do the same to Takuma Sato and he will probably make a mistake, letting you through. And you can hit any track for morning practice and see what it would look like at dawn.

Ridge Racer 7

Namco also came to the UK to demonstrate Ridge Racer 7, the first PS3 installment of the arcade classic. Most of the company’s emphasis was placed on the game’s online mode -which is new for the franchise and sure to be a big draw on the PlayStation Network. But car customisability has also been given a more important role in the game with, for example, various types of nitrous boost, with different characteristics, available as you progress through the game.

Stay tuned for the vids…

Three Speech travelled up to Liverpool last week, to pay a visit to both Evolution and Liverpool Studios, getting hands on with Motorstorm, F1 and Ridge Racer. We got everything on camera as well, so over the next week expect to see plenty of footage containing insight from the producers and programmers, exclusive interviews with the likes of Martin Kenwright (CEO of Evolution Studios) and some, um, unofficial behind-the-scenes footage as Three Speech took a peek at what really goes into the making of a game.

I always knew it. Whatever the warnings from my elders and betters, it was clear from an early age that playing computer games would neither make me blind nor lead me to “no good”. With early Parental Guidance warnings ringing in my ears (”You’ll never amount to anything at this rate”; “There’s more to life than flashing lights”), I plugged my Spectrum into a tape deck and struggled through level 4 of ‘Manic Miner’ all the same.

The thing is, I knew better. I had the evidence before me. The cinematic milestones of my pre-teen life - ‘Wargames’, ‘Tron’, ‘The Last Starfighter’ - all pointed to one of life’s eternal truths: playing computer games will help you save the earth. Not only that, you’ll also win the affections of your childhood sweetheart along the way. And possibly defeat an evil, faceless corporation - preferably with a sinister acronym like C.L.A.W.

In the intervening years, gaming systems have grown ever more complicated and ‘realistic’. But it’s not so much the fact that graphics have improved, or that you can now brandish your Wii stick above your head like a sword; more that most aspects of modern life now involve a degree of computer competence. Whether we’re talking desktop publishing or helicopter gunship warfare, learning about point-and-click technology is an essential career skill.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can take Dr Richard Wood’s instead. Dr Wood is a chartered psychologist and senior researcher at Nottingham Trent University, where he works for the International Gaming Research Unit (I.G.R.U.). And if any of my former teachers are reading this, I’d just like to reiterate that last sentence. “No good”? You never told me I could get a job researching the bloody things did you? And with its own sinister acronym thrown into the bargain.

But anyway, over to Dr Wood: “There’s a lot of hype focusing on the negative aspects of games, but in fact there’s a lot of positive reasons for playing games.” He dismisses the idea that games ‘addiction’ is a serious issue in the way that it is for people addicted to gambling, drugs or alcohol, or that there is any link between computer generated violence and actual violence. Meanwhile, Mark Griffiths, his colleague at Nottingham Trent (which is beginning to sound like the best educational institution in Britain), points out that computer games improve hand-to-eye co-ordination and spatial awareness, and can also be used to improve one’s health and fitness. And yes, you did read that last bit right. The newly launched ‘Active Games Project’ is examining how video games can be used to promote physical activity in children. Me? I want Dr Wood’s job.

By Mark Hooper (while waiting to usurp Dr Wood, Mark occupies himself as editor of www.channel4.com/music/)