An interview with Guy Wilday of Sega Racing Studios comes up with some pretty good details not just about the upcoming game, but also about Sega Racing’s future, and developing a multi-platform game. It’s worth reading the whole thing to find out more.

Here’s a good piece from Gamesradar about the most boring screenshots ever sent out by publishers. There’s too many to choose from frankly, but extreme close-ups of nothing in particular seem to be the best at making good games look really dull.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that November this year, as every year, will be packed full of new game releases. Following shortly after the October 16 release date of GTA: IV Ubisoft have followed by announcing November release dates for most of their big games. As reported earlier, the main PS3 release dates to watch for are:

Assassin’s Creed - November 9
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway - November 16
Haze - November 23

Other companies are sure to be bringing out their big hitters for the last three weeks of November, so watch this space to work out what you’re going to buy, and what you’re going to have to persuade someone else to buy for you. Now where did I put that calculator…

By Chris Blenkarn

This is slightly late, as the show came out at the end of last week, but if anyone is interested in the life of a games developer they could do a lot worse than checking out the Full Moon podcast from Insomniac Games, who you would know better as the developers of Resistance: Fall of Man and the upcoming Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. As well as news on both of those titles, they’ve got an interview with Evan Wells of Naughty Dog studios about the upcoming Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, which is well worth a listen, as this really seems to be a title which is making people sit up and pay attention.

While doing the podcast thing, there’s a PS3 podcast around, brought to you by Joystiq–affiliates PS3 fanboy. They’ve only been going for a few episodes, so any downloads and feedback would be appreciated I’m sure.

Other general gaming podcasts you might want to have a look at are the CAGcast from cheapassgamer.com, who are currently experimenting with live shows with varying success, but it’s always worth a listen. Show host CheapyD has a voice which reminds me of a cartoon character, but I can’t place it exactly - it’s nearly like Top Cat but not quite. Answers on a postcard please…

For some furious debate you might want to have a listen to Unclegamer radio from Unclegamer.com. All of the above shows normally weigh in at over an hour and a half in length, so you may need to schedcule in some time to listen to them all.

Finally, but by no means least, you may want to pay a visit to http://www.red-rant.com/. Having already put together a special Three Speech podcast, we are currently in the process of creating another… Watch this space.

Any other UK games podcasts out there? Let us know..

Evolution Studio’s Paul Hollywood tells us all about MotorStorm and its downloadable content:

Play Quicktime version

The following PS One games are now confirmed for 22/06 on the Store (for PS3 and PSP):

- Crash Bandicoot
- Wipeout
- Medievil
- Jumping Flash
- Syphon Filter

Further announcements are:

- Calling all cars is confirmed for 22/06
- SuperStardust HD for 29/06.
- MotorStorm Time Attack mode: Will go live later today on PlayStation Stores.

While we wait to find out exact details of when this will become available, here’s some screens for you to look over:

Read more…

Following on from the recent conflict between the Church of England and the inclusion of a digital representation of Manchester cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man, it’s probably worth looking at the issues surrounding using real-life locations in games. As Sony and the Church are in talks to resolve this one, I won’t comment on this particular instance, but as luck would have it there have been more than enough examples of gaming coming into contact with the real-life settings for their games. For example in the last year we’ve seen:

1) Rainbow Six: Vegas was criticised for featuring Las Vegas in the game. The mayor of Vegas Oscar Goodman said that the whole game was “based on a false premise”

2) Another Ubisoft title and another mayor clash as the mayor of Juarez, Mexico objects to most of GRAW 2 being set in the town.

3) Of course, Rockstar Games managed to draw the attention of New York’s authorities over the location for GTA: IV, even though it’s supposedly set in fictional Liberty City. It didn’t help that the trailer for the game featured photo-realistic representations of New York landmarks like the Chrysler building. The New York authorities issued a statement saying that GTA IV in New York would be like setting “Halo in Disneyland”.

4) A student was suspended from an American school because he made and distributed a Counterstrike map based on the school premises. Although he made the map a long time before the Virginia Tech shooting and with seemingly no intention of any violence, the two events were linked and he was eventually removed from the school and forbidden from graduating.

Read more…

So folks, you’ll be happy to hear that Tekken 5 will soon be playable online. We don’t have an exact date for release, but we can tell you that it will be available as a single download from the Store soon. An update pack containing the Online modes will also be available for those who already own the title!

Press release below…

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This one’s from American-based Three Speech regular and industry insider Anthony Hanses…

Like many of those who are likely reading this now, I grew up as a gamer. I was born, raised, and obtained my lifeblood through video games and the industry. While not as old as many in the industry, I still remember programming little games on the Commodore64, tweaking my autoexec.bat and config.sys for hours on end to get games like Dune2 and the old SSI games running right. I remember hating it when Command & Conquer moved to Windows 95 because it lost its cool install animation. I remember more oddities about the gaming industry than most people my age, but less than some of my best friends in the industry.

I have lived through the fall of two greats who I thought were invincible and recently witnessed the possible return of one of them. I have seen franchises I once loved get abused and destroyed only to be replaced from new and (in a lot of ways) better franchises. I have participated in more gaming forums than most casual gamers know exist, and moderated at more than my fair share, I even run my own gaming forum now.

Throughout all of this I have heard the same things over, and over, and over, and over. Statements like…

· Gaming will rot your brain!

· Why don’t you play outside more?

· What are games really teaching out kids?

· It’s not like you learn anything from games!

· Doesn’t it bother you killing things all the time in games?

· I wish there were games that didn’t involve fighting!

Read more…