I might be going a bit mad. Sony showed off the PlayStation Vita, formerly known as NGP, at E3 with some great titles including Uncharted 2 and LittleBigPlanet but all I can think of is the augmented reality fighting game Reality Fighters. The games uses the consoles front camera to take a picture of you to use as a character, the back camera then provides a background to fight on. It looks insanely gimmicky, but also really fun! Somehow, this has become my most wanted game. I need a lie down.
The PlayStation Vita is due out at the end of 2011, though it looks like this will be the Japanese release with Western countries getting the handheld in early 2012. Check out the introductory video below:
Marketing a motion game must be very difficult – TV ads often look rather clumsy with people flapping about the place so kudos to UbiSoft for hiring out a shop to let people try out rhythm shooter Child of Eden on Kinect for Xbox 360. The game can be played with a standard controller, but it looks like a title that should really be played with motion controls. If you fancy having a go, head to 34-35 Dean St, Soho, London from tomorrow afternoon. Check out a trailer for the game, and a look behind the scenes of the London demo store.
Hardcore coder Shantanu Goel has managed to get the Xbox Kinect up and running on the PS3 – and most impressive of all is that the console is not running hacked firmware. The video below shows the technology working pretty well for controlling the XMB, but playing Killzone 3 looks a real challenge. Shantanu plans to keep refining the code and if you want to try if for yourself you can download the source code from his website.
Google have finally launched the Android Market web store, which should mean a much better browsing experience for Android phone owners hungry for new apps on their phone. Until now the only way to browse for apps was through a very fiddly phone interface or by using a third party website called AppBrain. One of the best features on the site is once you have picked out an app you simply click install and as long as your phone is connected to the internet it will start installing – no need for cables or long syncing processes. This was the best feature of AppBrain till a naughty OS update killed remote installs from that site, bit evil Google. Non English speaking countries have complaints about very poor localisation, though Google promises more languages to be supported in the coming weeks. If you from a country with no Market support you are left with a blank screen with banner ads – very pretty. Hopefully later iterations of the site will provide more punctuality, but it looks a good – if extremely late start – and gets kudos for not needing to install any software clients on the computer.
