Playstation Store Update Tomorrow

PS3 owners, don't be alarmed when you go to log onto the Playstation Store tomorrow and you find you can't. Believe it or not, this is a good thing.

Sony is finally going to be fixing the Store and making it much more function able (hopefully). The maintenance will start at 8 a.m on the 14th, and end at 11 p.m. on the same day, if all goes right.

A new patch will be available after the fixing has been done, so get your bandwith ready.

The PLAYSTATION®Network will be taken offline for a scheduled maintenance to our network during the following times:

Start: April 14, 2008, beginning at 8:00 a.m., Pacific Time
End: April 14, 2008, ending at 11:00 p.m., Pacific Time


During this time, the new PLAYSTATION®Store upgrade will be taking place. As a result access to the PLAYSTATION Network will be restricted, including:


* No access to the PLAYSTATION®Store


For information regarding the changes to the PLAYSTATION Store, please visit the PlayStation.Blog.

It is not anticipated that this will affect other PLAYSTATION Network services


Once the new PLAYSTATION Store upgrade is complete, a new system software version will be available for download. This new system software must be installed before you may access the PLAYSTATION Network.

[via Playstation Knowledge Center]


-Undrallio

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Lair To Be Slightly Less Sucky Come April 17th

Everyone remembers when Lair was on it's way, sounded like an awesome game to most of us. Piloting a dragon using the Sixaxis motion control and eating little dudes while you breathe fire and wreak havoc. The idea was awesome coated in a light sauce of genius. Unfortunately the game hit the dirt hard and never came back up, the controls were terrible, graphics par, music was pretty good, but the overall experience was very disappointing.

That may get changed though, and very soon!

Factor Fail, *cough* sorry, Factor FIVE has announced that a much needed update will be coming to Lair on April 17th. The update, should of course make it less suckish, probably not unsucky, but not so much sucking should be going on while you play. Hit the jump to see why the update will, in theory, de-suckify Lair. I promise no more suck jokes.

Suckers! Alright, now that I've sucked myself dry (there I go again..), the new update for Lair is actually going to be action-packed with goodies.

Analog control will be enabled, meaning no more horrid Sixaxis

Two new dragons for you to munch humans with.

Dualshock 3 support, so you can feel every chomp, tail swing, and devastating roar.

Finally, some new cool little themes that will show on the main menu and change randomly.

Will it fix Lair? Probably not. Will it make it much, much better for people who already have it? Hopefully; Lair owners are certainly praying their balls (or feminine parts) off on this one.



-Undrallio

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Paradise Patch v1.2 Date Announced

According to TeamXbox Burnout Paradise's Patch v1.2 (which you can read about in my previous article here) is now known as codename Bogart, and has a release date of April 24th.

[UPDATE] Alright, it's all good, Criterion put up a post with a cool little countdown timer too. Here's the link. [/UPDATE]

However when I went to Burnout Paradise's main site, I found nothing about the release date anywhere. So I'm attempting to get in touch with them to confirm. Until then, let's hold that date tentatively.





-Undrallio

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Warhawk's Free, Biiiig v1.3 Patch Details

Finally we see a release date for this huge v1.3 patch for Warhawk that I've been getting so excited for, April 2nd, 2008. Best thing is the patch is going to be Free and includes a whole pile of new stuff. Watch the video then hit the jump to read about the rest of it.

First of all, you can view a majority of the patch pictures over at the Playstation Blog's Flickr.

If you take note at all the new funky Warhawk designs, you'll come to realize that those are the winners of the design contest that are having their patterns go into the game itself. Congrats to all the winners, I can't wait to fly around in your artwork.




Then there's the Wrench, which is new for troops. It can do all of three things, beat the enemy troops to hell, repair your vehicles, and destroy the enemy vehicles really fast. I foresee that one becoming the next knife.

As if the wrench wasn't cool enough, we get a Bio-Field Generator, which is like a mobile health station. You drop it down like a land mine and it emits your team's color, now if your teammates stand in the radius of it, they get healed; however, if your enemy team gets near it, they get injured. Super cool!




To begin integration with the up and coming Playstation Home, Warhawk will be able to have a team meet up in an apartment and discuss plans for the upcoming match, whip out a virtual PSP and begin the Warhawk game without ever having to switch through menus. Tactical lovers should look forward to that one.

Finally there will be new VOIP options as well, with an Open-Mic option to be enabled. Yaaaay, I've always wanted to sit there and have the enemy just scream at me. Or...wait...will they be hearing my never ending harrassing insults. Either way, sounds fun. That's not all the new VOIP options give though, now there will be a little menu in game and between games that shows who's talking and when, so no more guessing of which voice goes to whom.

It seems like we're going to be getting a lot of bang for our buck. The buck that we aren't spending on it.




-Undrallio

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Burnout Paradise Patch v1.2 On It's Way

Criterion Games already has a biiiig patch in store for Burnout Paradise that'll fix all sorts of problems in the game (even though there weren't that many to begin with), which we should be getting...when? Well, right now all we know from the main site is that it's "nearly done". Patch Notes after the break.

Burnout Paradise v1.2 Patch Notes

The Top 10 problems reported by you have been fixed, these are:

* PS3 game can crash when a player is taken down and the player that has performed the Takedown leaves the game.
* The game indefinitely displays "Connecting to Paradise City Servers" if it's having problems pinging the rebroadcast server.
* Disconnecting the controller before a race begines can mean that race timings can be manipulated with players who didn't cross the line first being awarded the win
* Repeatedly joining and leaving a game with 8 players can cause the game to hang.
* Hammering the A (360) or X (PS3) after unlocking a car can cause the game to hang.
* East Crawford and Watt St achievements can not be achieved if the player goes online and sets road rules before attempting them.
* Audio distortion when using 5.1 / DTS and looking rearwards.
* Enhanced 360 streaming performance stops instances where the game seems to pause for a second or so.
* Total time driven in player stats would stick at 145 hours :)
* VoIP connection problems with 8 player games.

Game experience enhancements

* We're going to be running road rule timers in all events and online challenges.
* Tuning Online Takedown logic & physical behaviour to iron out instances where it doesn't feel fair.
* Increase online race timer timeout so players have a greater chance of finishing the race.
* Fix drifting bug when drifting and boosting there wasn't any real control on the brake so players would grind around the walls of the corners. Getting better control.
* Boost fix, stabbing the boost has too much of a jerky behaviour in the car handling.
* Surround sound fix
* Centre speaker was 4dB louder, ruining the mix and the speech has now been positioned correctly.
* Tweak Marked Man gameplay AI, was easy to exploit by driving in reverse.
* Increase the # of search results returned for online games.
* Increase Picture Paradise timer so it doesn't kick in so quickly.

Other high priority issues being fixed

* Some online race start points face the players in the wrong direction
* Instances where Barrel rolls were not registering correctly in Stunt Run
* Instances in Stunt Run where players would crash but not wreck & score multipliers by driving away
* Fixed instances where the counting of Boost Chains would drop out
* Some instances where Revenge Rivalries desync & don't get fixed until players are updated online.
* Some instance where the Host couldn't change the game access if the game was created through an invite.
* Achievements, Awards and Challenges numbers sometimes not updated if the player didn't leave the game cleanly
* Online challenge issues where the challenge couldn't be completed if it was started at the exact time that a player left the game.
* Incorrect rivalry updates when European players played against English or Japanese players. Online connection issues
* Force timeout if the 360 gets stuck on "Connecting to Paradise City Servers"
* NAT error
* Rich presence on 360 didn't change correctly when there is a change in the game parameters.
* Instances where Friends were not being displayed on the mini map.

-Undrallio

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