Behold, zero escapists! Aksys Games and Spike Chunsoft proudly announce that Zero Escape: The Nonary Games is making its way to PS4 and PS Vita in Spring 2017!
Exclusive to PS4 and PS Vita, The Nonary Games is a double pack collection of Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (999) and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward (VLR). Nonary Game uninitiated who missed out on these two mind-shredding titles before now have the perfect chance to grab both in one collection. Pretty great, right?
What’s that? You’ve already managed to escape the clutches of death and played both games through to completion? Fear not! 999 has been rebuilt from the ground up and now features HD graphics, as well as English and Japanese voice acting. Prepare to experience 999 as it was intended, and lose yourself in unparalleled immersion.
So what exactly is a Nonary Game? In essence, the game contains nine “players” or participants. You assume the role of one of these participants and compete towards a common goal. “No big deal, I love a good, friendly competition!” you say to yourself. Well, not so fast… The rules of each game vary from title to title, but the end goal is always the same: you must fight for survival and do everything in your power to escape with your life! That’s right, the price for losing this game is death. Did we mention that you’ve been “entered” against your will?
The main antagonist in both games is the enigmatic Zero. Who is Zero? What does Zero want? Why are you in this situation to begin with? Fair questions to be sure, but to answer any of these would simply ruin the experience! A special feature of each Nonary Game is the implementation of a watch-like device, which is attached to each participant’s wrist. Unique to each game, the watch serves a few sinister functions, most notably as the very probable agent of your demise! Needless to say, your quest will focus on solving the mystery of your surroundings and successfully removing the lethal time piece.
The Zero Escape franchise is renowned for its engrossing narrative and complex story, and The Nonary Games collection serves as the definitive version of the first two games. For both the uninitiated and seasoned escapists, The Nonary Games is the perfect gateway into this deadly and thought-provoking world.
Prepare yourselves gamers, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games makes its way to PS4 and PS Vita next year!
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2efgNNK
via IFTTT
I can’t believe we’re finally here. The season finale to an amazing journey for Hitman, for Io-Interactive, and — I hope — also for all of you.
Agent 47 has arrived at a hyper-exclusive hospital in Hokkaido, Japan, for Episode 6, and you can play it today. We’ll be watching livestreams, reading forums, and scrolling through reviews of everything that we have released in this season with an incredible feeling of excitement and pride. We took Agent 47 to seven different cities on four continents and truly created a World of Assassination, which has been our ambition right from the start.
Now we’re finally there. It’s a bit overwhelming when I look back on everything we’ve done to get here.
For the Season Finale we’re going to take you to Hokkaido, Japan, with a mission called “Situs Inversus.” The term relates to a real-life medical condition where the heart and other organs of the body are on the opposite side to where they should be. Your main target suffers from this condition and has checked into the hyper-exclusive GAMA private hospital for life-saving surgery.
As Agent 47, you must make sure that doesn’t happen, one way or another — and as always there are many ways! And this target is also going to close the story in a full circle that started back when Agent 47 joined the agency.
The GAMA hospital is a fusion of Japanese beauty and cutting-edge technology, featuring its own Zen gardens, organic sushi restaurant, and traditional Japanese hot spring — so plenty for Agent 47 to get up to. It’s equally tranquil and clinical and a great environment to create some unique possibilities that you could only find in a Hitman game. Suffice to say, you’ll need your wits about you and also everything you’ve learnt in the previous episodes.
From when we first released our beta back in February, through to the release of our Season Finale today, it has been an incredible journey for us and for Agent 47. I want to say a big “thank you” to all you players making this possible. Together we’ve built and run the biggest and most replayable locations of any Hitman game and added new live content every single week since launch. We have continued to improve our Contracts mode and created Escalations in collaboration with you, including Challenges and Challenge Packs based on what you have pulled off, and seen equal measure of joy and heart-pounding tension whenever we feature one-time Elusive Target events.
It’s been fantastic, and although we have now completed this season, this is only the beginning for our ever-expanding World of Assassination.
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2e5iY38
via IFTTT
Happy Halloween! Here’s your treat: I Expect You To Die, the acclaimed, spy-themed, escape-the-room game, will launch this December on PS VR. The wait to experience the many ways a spy can perish in VR is almost over. After all, when you develop a game named I Expect You to Die, the trick is having more than one way to die.
When we started making I Expect You To Die, we knew there had to be consequences for agents that didn’t “escape the room,” but we also knew we had to be careful crafting those consequences. Make the level too hard or the puzzles too obtuse, and players would be frustrated and quit. Too easy and it would be boring. We also didn’t want the design to be unfair. You never want the player to feel cheated by some lame trap that they couldn’t possibly have known about until after it killed them.
The flipside is that dying in hilarious ways in VR can be very fun, and we knew we wanted that experience to be a large part of the game. With these variables in mind, we formulated two strict rules for each death:
Always have at least one clue before a death trap.
Make it clear why you died so you’d learn for the next playthrough.
As long as we followed those rules, we felt pretty good about adding in a bunch of ways to die. In fact, for each level we had three or more ways the game would try to kill you and three or more ways you could accidentally kill yourself. When deciding on new venues for puzzles, we’d always make sure that there would be interesting ways to die that would be in theme.
While there are more than 30 ways to die in the game, they basically boil down to six categories: explosion, fire, laser, gunshot, drowning, and suffocation. Our UI artist created the coroner’s reports you see in the “death scene” based on that info. Not only are these humorous pieces of art in their own right, they serve to reinforce and remind the player of what killed them, so they can avoid it next time.
Speaking of next time, we thought long and hard on what happens when you die in the game. We wanted the player to be able to take a breath, process what happened, and then get back in. Early on we had considered checkpoints, but we found that sometimes players would get themselves in a bad state, or miss a clue that would help them complete the puzzle if they picked up midway through.
We decided that starting fresh each time was important, but armed with the knowledge you gained from the previous run, you’d be able to quickly progress to where you left off. That’s why we consciously avoided any long timing puzzles, like avoiding swiveling security cameras for instance. Puzzles like that are questionably fun the first time and can quickly become annoying on subsequent playthroughs. This focus on letting the player progress through the puzzle as fast as they can lets them get back to where they left off quickly and allowed us to make speed-run challenges.
Experimenting in VR is fun! Death shouldn’t be a punishment, it should be entertaining. So when you pick up your copy of I Expect You To Die, don’t be afraid to cut that bomb wire, pull that grenade pin, or anger that bear; after all, we expect you to die!
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2e528BI
via IFTTT
A devastating attack on Earth has left the United Nation Space Alliance scattered and bloodied. Lt. Nick Reyes is thrust into a position of command and lives are at stake. Commandeer an assortment of advanced weapons and warships to push back against the opposition in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which launches November 4 on PS4.
The next chapter in the explosive FPS franchise, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare drops players into the boots of Lt. Reyes as his team fights a fanatical enemy on the ground and above atmosphere. Blaze through the action-packed campaign, or load up and engage other players in the critically acclaimed multiplayer suite.
For a full list of games coming this week, read on. And enjoy the Drop!
New Releases: Week of November 1, 2016
BlazBlue: Central Fiction
PS4, PS3 — Digital, Retail
BlazBlue: Central Fiction is the newest installment in the storied BlazBlue franchise and stands alone as the pinnacle of next gen 2D fighters. Like a well-timed 2D punch, BlazBlue: Central Fiction bashes massive amounts of content and innovation into one slick title that hits hard and keeps the pummeling steady!
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
PS4 — Digital, Retail (Out 11/4)
Players take up the mantle of Captain Reyes, a pilot turned Commander, who must lead the remaining coalition forces against a relentless enemy. And in multiplayer, master a fluid momentum-based movement system and brand new combat mechanics for an intense gameplay experience where every second counts.
Destroy All Humans!
PS4 — Digital
This is your chance to experience the other side of an alien invasion. Take on the role of alien Cryptosporidium 137 and terrorize the people of Earth to harvest their DNA in the most brazen action-adventure you’ve ever played. Take over all of humanity using a variety of alien weaponry on land or in the air. Take one giant step on mankind!
Earth’s Dawn
PS4 — Digital, Retail
Earth’s Dawn is looming and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance! Become a member of A.N.T.I. — a squad of super-human soldiers powered by alien technology — and fight to reclaim Earth from the alien invasion known as E.B.E!
Grand Prix Rock ‘n’ Racing
PS4 — Digital (Out 11/4)
Get ready for some speed with your family and friends! Grand Prix Rock ‘N Racing gives you the fastest, most exciting races. You can evolve your car, improving the engine, brakes, tires, and more until you’ve achieved the perfect evolution to win the Championship!
Honor and Duty: Arcade Edition
PS4 — Digital
Fast paced, arcade style, FPS action awaits in this World War II based shooter. Traditional FPS gameplay is joined with some elements of RTS base building to provide a unique FPS experience.
O! My Genesis VR
PS VR — Digital (Out 11/4)
O! My Genesis is made exclusively for VR. You are the Lord of Everything. What’s more, as the Creator of the universe, you will face bizarre challenges in hostile environments, and be tested on your wisdom of conquering these challenges, while building civilization.
Ronin
PS4 — Digital
Ronin is a stylish, turn-based action platformer following the exploits of a vengeful heroine determined to strike down five prominent figures of a powerful corporation. Move with precision by meticulously planning out each silent step, soaring leap, and devastating swing of your blade.
Seraph
PS4 — Digital
Seraph is a super-slick, skill-based, acrobatic shooter. Take the role of an angel who’s mastered the art of “Gun Fu” as she battles her way through hordes of twisted demons.
SteamWorld Collection
PS4 — Retail
Two action-packed games from the SteamWorld series in one box! Available together for the first time, discover the critically acclaimed titles SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Heist (which comes complete with The Outsider DLC).
Super Dungeon Bros
PS4 — Digital, Retail
Embark on a quest from the gods of rock with heavy metal heroes Axl, Lars, Freddie, and Ozzie in Super Dungeon Bros, a fast paced, action focused, rock themed dungeon brawler! Play on your own or with up to four friends in couch or online co-op as you raid the deepest dungeons of Rökheim in search of epic loot, hordes of evil undead, and the legends of long lost fabled rock stars!
Tumblestone
PS4 — Retail
Tumblestone is the first original action-puzzle game of the past twenty years. Race your friends in multiplayer or challenge yourself in story mode. Solve progressively more difficult and creative puzzles, help a sausage make friends, and find out what happened to the Tumble crown.
Wick
PS4 — Digital
Wick is a survival horror game where ghost stories are brought to life. Explore a local legend about the long lost children in the woods who can still be seen — but only by those who dare to enter alone by candlelight.
Bon Jovi – This House Is Not For Sale
Common – Black America Again
Kungs – Layers
Sausage Party
WWE: Night of Champions 2016
Army of One
People of Earth – October 31 at 9/8c (TBS)
Expedition Unknown – November 2 at 9/8c (Travel)
Stan Against Evil – November 2 at 10/9c (IFC)
The information above is subject to change without notice.
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2f6BOb0
via IFTTT
Join us for an episode of PlayStation Blogcast positively packed with interviews! First up, IO Interactive enlightens us with stories from the development of Hitman. Next, voice actor Kari Wahlgren talks about her role in the upcoming Final Fantasy XV. Other highlights include Sid’s obsession with Darkest Dungeon, a roundtable discussion of the fantastic anime One-Punch Man, and more. Enjoy!
Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2ffp4Eh
via IFTTT
I have fond memories of Infinity Ward’s breakout hit Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, so earlier this month I stopped by Raven Software in Madison, Wisconsin to check out how progress was coming with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered on PS4.
Check out highlights from my conversation with Raven above. Again and again I was reminded of the studio’s extensive experience in the FPS genre, including Soldier of Fortune and Quake IV, among others. Despite the radically improved visuals, lighting, and animations, Raven went to extreme lengths to retain the feel, pacing, and timing of the 2007 classic. I’m expecting this one to be fully faithful to the original game.
Here are a few key takeaways from my visit to Raven Software:
Raven’s number-one priority: keeping the gameplay fully authentic to the original game
PS4 Pro support is a definite go, with support for richer textures and dynamic 4K graphics on top of the series’ signature fluid framerate
Modern Warfare Remastered’s multiplayer mode will ship with 10 multiplayer maps, followed by another six in December. Interestingly, the game will include Kill Confirmed, which was not offered in the original release
Watch our full discussion above! Modern Warfare Remastered is available with the Legacy and Digital Deluxe versions of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, out on PS4 November 4. If you want to jump into the Campaign early, pre-purchase one of those editions from PlayStation Store.
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2eY3xvO
via IFTTT
Hi, I’m Zoe Flower — Design Director at Hellbent Games and Narrative Designer for our indie horror game Wick. I have to admit that I never thought I’d write a sentence that included my name with the word “horror,” being that I’m the biggest scaredy-cat out there. Turns out though, making a horror game is a whole lot different than watching or playing one.
A year ago, I was merrily designing cotton candy colored worlds and stories for a LEGO game (About as far from horror as you can get!). But being an indie developer, you need to be quick to adapt. So when a publisher asked us how we felt about working on a big horror franchise, our Creative Director — and perhaps the biggest horror fan you could meet — jumped at the chance.
Some of us were a little more hesitant…
That’s not to say I hate horror games, having white knuckled my way through many a Silent Hill and Fatal Frame back in the day, even keeping my eyes open for much of PT (mostly out of respect for Hideo Kojima). But asking me to fully immerse myself in horror was a daunting task — part fear of facing what lurks in the dark and part fear that I lacked the skills to create something worthy of the genre.
But as it turns out, beneath the cheery LEGO surface, apparently I am full of twisted malevolence and darkness (Yay?!). While we didn’t end up working with that publisher, I was suddenly hooked on making a horror game. Which of course presented a larger problem for our little studio. Nearly the entire team was heads down in production, save a couple of coders and designers out of a staff of 20. But there is something beautiful in the challenge of building games within tight parameters, and we began to brainstorm just what was possible with a small team with an even smaller window of time to build something. We had a month to prototype something meaningful.
It wasn’t a tough sell to the team. Like any game studio, you throw out an impossible challenge and, after hearing “Can’t be done!” and “Designers are insane!” by the end of the week you usually have a multitude of possible solutions presented to you. Initially, we were compelled to make a rich story heavy adventure — Wick was almost an 80’s Babysitting Simulator (If you grew up in the 80’s, you can surely recall that particular horror!).
Eventually, we narrowed our focus to a much smaller concept. It needed to be one environment with a high tension mechanic that offered replayability. We studied the body of work that is the horror genre (Hello, insomnia!) — particularly Creepypasta and other indie successes like FNAF. We saw a pattern emerge, with a surprising amount of experiences operating on rails and often set indoors to maximize claustrophobia.
We loved the idea of being out in a forest (insert token Canadian joke here). But building horror without keeping the player on a single path presented a unique challenge. Can we make a game where you move how you like but the horror still finds you? And why are you scared in the first place? Lucky for us, humans tend to have common fears and we all agreed that being lost in the woods with creepy ghosts was definite nightmare fuel. But one environment, free-roaming, unpredictable horror with a high tension mechanic soon became the “impossible” challenge.
For a solid week we battled “can’t be done” until our programmer Neil landed on the concept of keeping dwindling candles alight to create safe spaces in a level. The mechanic held instant appeal and the first concept for Wick was born.
In its earliest form, Wick was a slow paced game of tense strategy, challenging you to locate fresh candles and place them around the level to create safe zones where enemies couldn’t reach you. But this iteration presented numerous design challenges — like how to define the radius of safety, what to do when players hid in corners or how to prevent a cheap kill from behind. It was also boring and not scary.
To solve this, we designed a creepy, organic, forest level to set the right mood for horror (designed by Chris Mair, our CEO with just a tiny bit of pedigree in level design including Counter-Strike’s DE_Train). The woods in Wick are an unsettling maze of continuous loops and turns, making it hard to get your bearings. The big bonus with a free-roaming space is that play becomes unpredictable — a keystone for creating a great horror experience.
As we began to explore our forest in first person, the candlelight mechanic changed dramatically. The only safety would be the light from the candle in your hand, making a much more intense solo experience that better supported the story that you are alone in the woods by the light of only a candle. We actually went out and did tests at night in the forest with just a candle. It is truly a harrowing and potentially deadly experience — mostly because you can’t see anything beyond your candle so you trip and run into blunt objects frequently. Wick uses a fair bit of poetic license.
The next step was populating the forest with diminishing candles so that the player is encouraged to keep moving. Again, this sounded good in theory, but in reality you really have no idea where you are or where the candles are (they are procedurally generated on every playthrough) so you tend to run in circles until you get killed by something in the shadows. The tiny twinkles in the fog were a brilliant addition to the game — hinting at where a candle is without giving away its exact location.
With a working candle mechanic, we had to face the much larger impossible problem of how to bring the scares to a player who is moving unpredictably through the level. We couldn’t guarantee they would cross any physical threshold to trigger an enemy or event. We couldn’t offer any narrative if we didn’t know where and when things would happen. Sure, we had a creepy level dotted with dwindling candlelight, but the gameplay was still only lurking in the shadows.
It was our programmer Stephen Spanner who dreamt up the solution and built what would become the heart of Wick. The guy has a deep passion for system design and Dark Souls — both of which heavily influenced the final design. Wick can be highly stressful and punishingly hard, thanks to a deviously intelligent system that takes a variety of measurements from your play style, then decides what to terrify you with next.
The event system in Wick guarantees you’ll likely never have the same playthrough twice. It also guarantees you will be terrorized no matter where you go. Candle light provides safety and keeps your fear metric at bay, but candles run out quickly. How much you run, how long you stay in the dark, and how quickly you cope with enemies all factor into just what the game will serve up. The power of the event system was a game changer for us. With a systematic approach, we found it much easier to design events and triggers that rewarded — and stressed/terrorized/punished/murdered the player based on how they approached the game.
Within a month we had a solid core loop for the game! But there is no rest for the wicked — we still had no idea just who or what was hiding in our forest.
Designing a believable urban legend is a unique process. I grew up in the woods of the Great White North and not a camping or canoe trip went by without rumors of a ghost/serial killer/lake creature/haunted cabin/missing kid, so I had plenty of material to draw upon. But of course, we had no time or resources to produce complex animation, or professional acting. And even the best cinematics can’t do justice to the horrors in your own mind. So we used that to our advantage.
I really love the opening scene to Wick. It may not seem like much — a black screen with white type written to suggest a police officer’s file, teenagers talking over each other on their way to play some game called “Wick,” then straight into gameplay with no tutorial or explanation. While the scene feels simple, it is highly effective at suggesting a story without needing to tell one.
Once in the forest, you start to see and hear the breadcrumbs of a darker tale. There are layers of story to explore if you aren’t too busy just trying to stay alive (Thanks, Dark Souls!). Using a “found footage” style with plenty of notes and strange objects — all accompanied by suitably creepy audio and dialog — we brought our urban legend to life.
As for all the voices you hear throughout the game, we bribed, borrowed, and begged our staff (And their families… and friends… and even some local high school drama students…) to read for us. Chris — the same guy who is CEO and designer — is multiple voices in the game. The format was so effective that he had his son Maceo take up the torch in our “No Way Out” bonus chapter- recording over 800 lines of audio for “TBubber!”
Of course, we couldn’t make a game that relied on the player’s imagination alone. Designing enemies was by far the biggest challenge in Wick. The story was getting darker and darker by the day, as I spun tales of deranged children and evil twins (strange because I actually have two kids and they are lovely). While writing the characters was easy, creating the look and the functionality for each child became a design and balance nightmare. Our core event system was potentially limitless but each event — whether audio, animation, encounter, or attack — had to be carefully thought out to ensure it worked in every scenario the player could put themselves in.
“Can’t be done!” made a comeback in the office that week.
Wick plays out by the hour as you attempt to survive from midnight to 6:00 AM. Initially, we tried just one enemy per hour. Then we tried increasing the number of enemies each hour culminating in a crazy hard “survive them all” level. But the ramp made the game feel too repetitive. Eventually we came up with the idea of mix and matching different kids together whose mechanics balanced each other in unique ways. You start out playing with Tim and later meet him again but now he’s in the forest along with Tom, or perhaps Lillian, creating a new strategy to how you play through that hour. We even built custom events where the enemies work together with joint encounters and attacks.
After just 5 months, we found a balance and finished the game. The forest is rich in atmosphere (We love fog!) and the audio creates the perfect sense of mystery and dread. The enemies stalk and hunt you ruthlessly and there are clear paths to success if you can figure out a strategy. The game is punishingly hard and highly replayable.
Wick isn’t a large game. Nor is it a perfect game. But it is a free-roaming unpredictable horror game where the scares come to you. Try and survive the night starting November 1 on PS4. A word of advice though… stay in the light. And as a tribute to overcoming the impossible, we dare you to unlock the bonus content in our No Way Out chapter.
“Can’t be done!” you say?
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2eZGNul
via IFTTT
Since we last convened, Here They Lie has crawled out of the shadows and into the collective psyche of PlayStation VR acolytes. A nightmarish trip full of malevolent creatures, hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, esoteric realms, and existential questions — all created to get under your skin, keep you up at night, and leave you terrified about your insignificance in the vast universe.
Coincidentally, those are also all of the things I love about Halloween.
To help fuel your Here They Lie Halloween nightmare even deeper, I’ve prepared 13 (my favorite number) recommendations of books and films that were big influences throughout development.
Check them out at your own risk…
13.) The King In Yellow — Robert W. Chambers
The King In Yellow was written in 1895. It’s still scary as hell. My definite go-to for early supernatural and cosmic horror. An inspiration for the dark, symbolic, occult overtones in Here They Lie, as well as the Hanging Theater you’ll encounter in the city. What color is Dana’s dress again?
12.) Upstream Color — Shane Carruth
A beautiful, surreal, and extremely smart film. Upstream Color influenced the Dana character in Here They Lie, as well as the overall pacing and tone of the experience. The focus on foley and ambient tones were big influences on the sound design and musical score of Here They Lie.
11.) The Holy Mountain — Alejandro Jodorowsky
I’d say that this film inspired the symbolic journey the player makes in Here They Lie more than any other work. An interpretive work which pushes the viewer into thought-provoking scenarios — inviting you to take a step back and compare them to your own life, your own understanding, your own decisions. Sound familiar?
10.) Beyond The Black Rainbow — Panos Cosmatos
One of my favorite movies of all time, Beyond The Black Rainbow was a massive inspiration from the start of development of Here They Lie. The film’s usage of color, the strong composition of its shots, the slow plodding build-up of dread, and the raw, synthesizer-driven soundtrack were big influences for us.
9.) Funny Games U.S. — Michael Haneke
This is a unique film because (spoilers) the villain/murderer is also the director of the film. He takes control of the film directly at certain points, breaking the fourth wall and rewinding to prevent the victims from escaping. This technique, along with the creepy upper-class psychopaths in tennis uniforms, were a strong inspiration for elements of Here They Lie.
8.) Naked Lunch — David Cronenberg
Such a strange, wonderful, disturbing, amazing film. Naked Lunch’s twisted dance around the themes of sanity, guilt, addiction, lust, and self-worth inspired the journey of Buddy in Here They Lie.
7.) A Scanner Darkly — Philip K Dick
Like many of Philip K Dick’s stories, this one asks some very strange and ultimately disturbing questions about physical reality, consciousness, and identity. He’s a master at lulling you into a false sense of security before unveiling the dark questions behind our existence.
6.) Eraserhead — David Lynch
We are huge fans of all of David Lynch’s work, but this film was a direct influence on our visuals and narrative in Here They Lie. A disturbing film for sure, but also a strange symbolic discussion of existential themes.
5.) Baraka — Ron Fricke
A beautiful work of cinematic art — Baraka was where we went for meditative inspiration throughout the development of Here They Lie. You can see and hear direct influences in some of the more surreal sections of the experience — like the scorched-earth desert space or the psychedelic boat ride in Here They Lie.
4.) Jacob’s Ladder — Adrian Lyne
Another huge influence for us on Here They Lie — Jacob’s Ladder reminds me of moments in real life when things just don’t quite add up… when you see a shadow or a shape just out of the corner of your eye. This film inspired the dark psychological journey in Here They Lie, as well as the Subway/Underground sections of the experience.
3.) Antichrist — Lars Von Trier
One of the most disturbing films ever created, but also one of the most beautiful, haunting, and dreamlike as well. Antichrist inspired the sequences with Dana, as well as the overall tone and symbology of Here They Lie. Careful with this one. Seriously… I warned you.
2.) The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath — H.P. Lovecraft
It may be obvious when you play Here They Lie that H.P. Lovecraft is one of our big influences. This story from Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle is one of his stranger, more dreamlike incantations. There are many connections to this story in Here They Lie. There’s even a track in the soundtrack called Nyarlathotep.
1.) The Shining — Stanley Kubrick
An absolute masterpiece of filmmaking — a true work of art, one of the best films of all time — horror or otherwise. This film works on so many levels — creeping under your skin and then up your spine as you tumble through its twisted labyrinth. The Shining inspired our take on horror in Here They Lie more than any other work.
So, now that you know 13 of my dirty little secrets, which of these are your favorite? Do you have some more tasty recommendations?
I can’t wait for you to jump into the PlayStation VR and experience the terror of Here They Lie for yourself. It could be the perfect accompaniment to your Halloween nightmare. And don’t forget the non-PSVR version of Here They Lie is coming later — stay tuned for more details!
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2eP9ePa
via IFTTT
If you can’t even save the one person you love, how can you save the whole of humanity? This is a question that really underpins Steins;Gate 0 and will resonate with Steins;Gate fans who saw mad scientist Okabe go back in time to save the girl he loves. The first time he tries, he fails. The second time, he succeeds. But what if there never was a second time? What if someone had stopped him from trying again?
Steins;Gate Zero follows the story of a world line where Okabe fails to save Kurisu, and is forced to live with the consequences of his choice to sacrifice her. Six months later, he’s a broken wreck, taking medication, rarely meeting his friends. His only goal in life: to continue Kurisu’s work.
But fate isn’t done with Okabe, when he discovers, early on, that Kurisu may not be as lost to him as he first thought…
Steins;Gate 0 is a much darker, more somber story than Steins;Gate. The original asked you to repeatedly make a choice about how much you were willing to sacrifice to save Mayuri. Zero is a story about living with the consequences of those choices, even if they’re not necessarily what you want.
There’s also a much bigger cast this time. I was a big fan of the original cast (I’ve had a small figure of Kurisu on my desk for the past 6 years!) so in my mind the new cast had a big hurdle to clear. I think that after finishing the translation, I like the new characters more than the old ones. My personal favourite is Maho. She is one of the most well-developed characters I’ve seen in years. Similar to Okabe in many ways, with a strong exterior personality that hides a heart that isn’t nearly as tough as she’d like it to be.
Like Okabe, her life was forever changed by her interactions with the genius named Kurisu Makise, and I loved the way she grows and changes throughout the story.
Over the last year I feel like I’ve really gotten to know the cast, like they’re a part of me. Localizing Steins;Gate 0 was a really big job — a 5 month project from the time we got the script to the turn-in date. We worked at it several hours a day, five days a week. The project came to us in the form of several massive spreadsheets, and we started at the beginning and worked our way to the end.
From there, we gave it a second pass through to check for consistency issues and improve the general flow of the story. I’m not sure how many hours, all told, that it took, but it was a tremendous project, certainly comparable to the original in size.
It was also a challenge to work on. First, it’s a science-fiction game with very accurate science, which means there’s a lot to look up to make sure that we’re phrasing it right. I know I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia looking at articles on artificial intelligence, brain science, and different time travel theories!
Then of course, there’s the fact that it’s a very Japanese game, that’s written primarily for a specific Japanese audience who understand things that a western one might not. This was less of a problem than it might first seem for players of the original game, because Steins;Gate 0 is a lot more serious and has less of a focus on internet and otaku culture, and also because the game has a built-in dictionary to explain some of the more obscure concepts.
The biggest challenge, at least, one of the challenges that I spent the most time thinking about, was actually one that fans might not expect: localizing Mayuri’s dialogue. Mayuri is a very unusual character, and she speaks in a very unusual way. She acts a little spacey, but she’s not stupid or ditzy, and there’s a nuance in her speech that betrays a caring and an awareness that you might not see just by looking at a direct translation of the words themselves. Because she’s such a critical character, getting her personality right was a high priority for me.
Inevitably you come across things in the text that are tough to localize. It’s tempting to try to replace it with something similar that is culturally more filling — though we tried our best to avoid this wherever possible.
The game’s setting and culture are extremely important aspects of the story, and we would be doing a disservice to the fans if we tried to overly westernize it. Fans of the first game’s translation should find that the level of westernization is one they’re very comfortable with, and that most of the more culturally obscure ideas are handled the exact same way they remember.
For example, there’s one point in the game a specific Japanese word (Senpai, used to refer to an older girl at a school in this case) becomes important to the plot. Rather than trying to find a way to abstract this out and come up with an American equivalent, we left it in and added some very brief dialogue about what it meant, and what its usage meant to the characters.
That said, I wrote the Steins;Gate 0 translation with a general console/portable gaming audience in mind. I wanted it to be very accessible and readable, no matter how much the player might know about the setting of the game, and I’m confident that we succeeded.
One thing I’m often asked is how accessible it is to those who never played the original. I think missing out on this because you’ve not seen the anime or played the original is a mistake — the story really works on its own. The first Steins;Gate is now a seven year old game, and when the writers created Zero they were well aware that many players wouldn’t have beaten it. Steins;Gate 0 takes place in a world line where many of the events in the first game never happened, and it very quickly becomes its own story. While it’s a direct sequel, it assumes the player has no knowledge of most of what happened in the original, beyond the basic outlines of the plot.
I would say that if you’ve seen the anime, read the manga, or have even been immersed in the fandom long enough that you think you’d be interested in the title, you have everything you need to know to get the most out of Steins;Gate 0.
Steins;Gate 0 is a wonderful game, and I’ve seen many, many people say that they enjoy it more than the original. While it only requires a little bit of knowledge about the first game, it wraps up certain plot threads, and also answers what’s probably the biggest, most long-running mystery in the series.
If you’re at all interested in this series, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
from PlayStation.Blog http://ift.tt/2dOWpVv
via IFTTT
