If ever you’ve wanted to know the sure-fire sign that it’s a slow news day or there’s a need to fill some space with cheap content, you need only look for a Top ____ List. Top 10, Top 100, Top Boobies, Top Explosions… Yes, they’re sometimes (okay, often — okay, usually) pointless bits of fluff, but this one is different. Why? Because… uh… well, because it has lots of pretty pictures! Also, despite the title, it’s not really Top anything, it’s just our ramblings about what makes us giggle like schoolgirls with excitement.

No, in all seriousness, it’s important because for the past year and half-plus, the PlayStation 3 has been the industry whipping boy and only most of it is self-generated. Thing is, every Sony system takes about two years to get its shiznite in gear and start properly rocking. The only difference this time is that Sony has competition from two different sides and both are doing some things better. So how do they turn things around? Simple: G-A-M-E-S. Software is the key to providing initial attraction and maintaining it into the long term.

Surprisingly, though, both of the other systems either haven’t really talked about what they have coming for this year beyond a select few titles or simply don’t have much right now to show. Sony, on the other hand, is poised to rock a serious block o’ awesome throughout most of this year. Sure, some of these games might slip, but at least as a value proposition, this is what gives the PS3 some serious rallying power.

10. Grand Theft Auto IV

Were this a popularity list, all ten entries would be GTA IV. It’s that big. There will not be a more significant game than this one, be it because of the inevitable controversy, the sheer amount of awesomeness burned onto the disc or the fact that people will likely be sharing their experiences with the game for years to come. The only game that will top GTA IV in raw hype will be whatever follow-up Rockstar ends up making. Speaking of hype…

9. Metal Gear Solid 4

Again, if we’re just talking hype here, MGS4 could probably claim its own list. The fact that every person we’ve talked to that has finished the game talk about it in a kind of hushed reverence should say a thing. Will be it amazing? Oh yes — the only question is how amazing?

8. WipEout HD

Who would’ve thought the MotorStorm a modified version of the Formula One CE Engine was this flexible. Not only does WipEout HD look amazing (especially the new living equalizer that is Zones Mode), it also runs like a dream in bullet point-friendly 1080p/60fps. Just like WipEout games should. The fact that we’re capitalizing that E should show just how big a fan of the series we are, but don’t worry. After playing the bestest HD anti-grav racer ever, you will too, just watch.

7. SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation

Ahaaa, but the PS3 isn’t quite done with kicking out the brown straight to your peepers just yet. No, there’s still trrrstststsss to kill In the Name of Freedom with SOCOM Confrontation. Sure, the single-player part of the series may have hit a peak a while back, but the online is still one of the franchise’s biggest draws. With Confrontation, all that pesky offline stuff is ditched for a pure multiplayer experience that’s… well, considering we only got a peek almost a year ago, we’re gonna go ahead and say with a bit of faith that it’s going to be fun.

6. Home

Laugh all you want, buddy; Home is more than just a Second Life clone. Sure, there’s all the chatting/customization crap, but this is also the portal to 3D representations of your Accomplishments in games. Yes, virtual trophies are our reason for looking forward to a graphical chat room. But hey, it worked for Gamerscores, right?

5. Resistance 2

You might notice there’s no link to a game page with tons of screens and movies here like there is in the titles of all the other games. Why? Because Insomniac Games hasn’t been kind to gift us with pretty, pretty pictures of their new epic yet. So why is it on the list, you may ask? Because, silly person, the first game was rad-tastic and with the promise of 60-player online multiplayer, a completely separate 8-person co-op campaign, a full single-player game and all the crazy ass advancements that Insomniac has been making to their core engine, it would take a miracle for the game to not blow us away. So there.

4. MotorStorm 2

Oh, hey, another game without pictures? All these words are starting to get in the way, we know. Here’s the difference, though: we’ve got video of this one. G’head, click the title of the game there and check out the teaser trailer under the Movies link. See if that doesn’t just make your pants just a liiittle bit tighter. Don’t worry, it’s probably just the end of the trailer. Probably.

3. Killzone 2

Words can’t properly describe how technically impressive Killzone 2 is. Not even still pictures can illustrate just how close Guerilla Games came to the infamous CG trailer (yeah, that one). Luckily, we have a trailer of it just for you, at the link just above. Honestly, we don’t even care if the game turns out good (okay, we care, we do), those visuals are going to justify HDTVs all over the place.

2. LittleBigPlanet

Truly, there may never be a more “awwwwww”-worthy game on the PS3 in its entire lifespan. Not only is LittleBigPlanet contender for Game of the Year already (and we’ve only played like an hour of it so far), but it represents a grab-the-bull-by-the-horns approach to embracing and channeling user-driven content like few games ever can. The charm is undeniable. The freedom is incredible. The creation of giant levels filled with blocky penis-like shapes will be unstoppable.

1. How to Destroy Your Credit in One Year: The Game

Ah, the most gripping and visceral of them all. The one game on this list that will stand head and shoulders above all else. Yes, kids, it’s The Game… of Life. This list, Sony-development-heavy though it may be, really only represents a sliver of what the PlayStation 3 is going to get that already registers as a 7.8 or higher on the Awesome-O-Meter. There is a ton of incredible content not only on the PS3, but on just about every system out there this year, which means that the greatest battle of all will be on our poor, defenseless bank accounts.

They will be drained, oh yes. They will be drained.

Agree with our made-up list? Disagree? Want to just call us a bunch of doodie-heads? Fine, Sport, hit our fancy new forums and made with the name-calling. Just make sure you do it with lots of extra, pointless words. It’s the TPS way!

Is it wrong for fans to remake older games?

I thought about this after learning the outcome of the Chrono Resurrection project a few weeks ago. Despite being relatively four years late to that party, I’m admittedly a huge role-playing fan, and I sharpened my teeth on many Square Co. Ltd. classics on both the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II US, Final Fantasy III US, and Chrono Trigger were staples of my early years, so imagine my excitement regarding a re-imagined Chrono Trigger using an updated 3D engine.

That was the essence of the Chrono Trigger Resurrection project. Back in 2004, a talented group of individuals got together and asked “What would Chrono Trigger look like if updated for the modern PC?” With a custom built 3D engine that “…runs on GameCube, Xbox, and PC…,” the Chrono Resurrection group set out to craft one of the finest looking examples of fan remakes ever conceived, taking ten key sequences from Chrono Trigger and updating them for the modern audience.

Chrono Trigger Resurrection was set in a fully 3D world, with lighting, shadows, fantastic camera work, and the same Chrono Trigger charm that fans of the series have come to expect. But with a project this huge, it’s only a matter of time before it began garnering attention from all over the globe. After all, Chrono Trigger was one of the greatest games for Super Nintendo and one of the most cherished RPG experiences the world over. The fact that a “dream team” of developers, artists, and sound composers crafted it is icing on the cake. How could something this massive be kept secret for long?

With that in mind, the Chrono Trigger Ressurection project was fully underway, but little did they know that the dark cloud of Square Enix Co., Ltd was hovering on the horizon. In September 2004, Square Enix Co., Ltd issued a “Cease and Desist” order and the project was shut down soon after. The team scattered to the proverbial winds but not without strewing their work across the ‘net, sharing everything they’d created, aside from playable code. In that way, all of the team’s hard work would live on as one of the greatest achievements in the name of fan remakes.

But was Square Enix Co., Ltd right in asking the team to cease the project? Was the Chrono Trigger Resurrection team wrong for wanting to recreate ten of the most memorable sequences that Chrono Trigger had to offer? Considering it was non-commercial, with only the Gamecube and Xbox ports being internally playable when all was said and done, was it necessary for Square Enix Co., Ltd to step in?

Forgetting the fact that Square Enix Co., Ltd repackages all of its older content and, besides Final Fantasy III and IV for the Nintendo DS, leaves virtually the original experience untouched, what would lead the company to call for the cancellation of Chrono Trigger Resurrection? Would it be that Square Enix Co., Ltd wants to redo Chrono Trigger as a 3D world all their own? That would be nice, but it’s unlikely.

There’s a fair amount of politics surrounding anything Chrono related. The primary developers associated with the project have either left Square Enix Co., Ltd. or work under their own companies in association with Square Enix. You could fill a landfill with the amount of paperwork it would take for a re-imaging to get underway. Even with tidbits dropping once every few years concerning a possible Chrono Trigger sequel (Chrono Cross is widely considered an extension of the universe and not a true sequel to Chrono Trigger), nothing has yet to materialize. The best fans could hope for is an update of the holy grail of all things Chrono.

But it goes beyond Square Enix Co., Ltd. As the industry pushes forward with better technology, it’s becoming more expensive to craft the AAA experiences core gamers require. If a company like Square Enix Co., Ltd wants to re-release a previous franchise, then it’s easier, and less expensive, to re-release it with all previous assets intact than to re-imagine these assets. If Square Enix Co., Ltd. wanted to re-imagine those assets, then they would turn to portable systems. A redone Chrono Trigger, or any other popular franchise that has yet to find life in the latest generation of consoles, would have to be on the PlayStation Portable or Nintendo DS.

That’s assuming that major corporations want to attempt a repackaging. More often than not, companies cancel intellectual properties that don’t succeed. We have only to look at Clover Studios, which was forced to shutdown, and Capcom for an example of that. Though Okami was finally released on the Wii, the idea of a sequel or a higher resolution re-imagining for the PlayStation 3 is virtually out of the question. And what if fans wanted to create a non-commercial remake of it for PC? Capcom would most likely issue a cease and desist order, even though it would be highly unlikely that the release of the non-commercial fan remake would hurt Capcom’s potential sales for a true, developer sponsored canon remake.

Where does that leave us then? It leaves us with IPs that fans create messageboards about, trade valiant tales of victory over, and write fan fiction about that have yet to get either sequels or developer remakes. When fans wish to continue the adventure with characters that they’ve grown to love, where else is there to go?

So are fans at fault for wanting to create remakes of groundbreaking game series? If major corporations won’t do it, and as the physical game machines and physical media of the respective games dwindle in number as time goes by, are we supposed to forget these experiences? Are cease and desist orders really warranted when all fans wish to do is play the games that brought them into the industry to begin with? We’ll never know, honestly, but that still doesn’t stop us from wondering what Crono would look like with a nice splash of normal mapping and the processing power of a quad-core CPU behind him.

This is a very interesting piece on how PlayStation was launched. There are four parts in all:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

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When was the last time you stopped to think about the audio side of video gaming? I don’t mean the Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, high speed bit rates, frequencies, or codecs, but the way sound is used as both auditory stimulation and gameplay device. Chances are, aside from the obvious rhythm games and a few revolutionary gems like Rez for PlayStation 2, you haven’t seen or played many.

A discussion came up recently about the role of sound in gaming. It’s no secret that the PlayStation 3 allows developers to reach into Hollywood’s bag of tricks. Rob Bridgett, sound designer for Scarface: The World is Yours, discussed this very idea in an article he wrote for Gamasutra entitled “Designing A Next-Gen Game for Sound.” But designing with cinema in mind is as rewarding as it is limited. Though games such as Grand Theft Auto IV will show how powerful current console systems sound capabilities are, there are restrictions; not necessarily in scope or depth but most certainly in the player’s natural ability to fully interact and control those sounds. In these circumstances, sound does not affect the way a game plays, but only how the player enjoys the experience of the game.

We live in a visual society, where higher resolutions and more on screen effects are the norm, and subtle tricks of the trade largely go unnoticed. More often than not, we turn off the audio tracks in our games, either because of the repetitive nature of the sounds presented to us or because we’re marching to the beat of our own drum. Throw on a CD or an MP3 player and away you go. What happens, though, when audio cues not only affect the way you play the game but they’re the only way you can enjoy the game? How immersive will games become then?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane to a time when the Sega Saturn still sat on store shelves; a time when the original PlayStation had not yet decimated all competition as it most surely would years later. In 1997, a little known game named Enemy Zero, which started life on the PS1 but later moved to Saturn, was released. Starring Laura Lewis, of CGI heavy game “D” fame, it took place on the AKI space station after she awoke from a cryogenic sleep. The story borrowed heavily from the Alien series of movies and featured first person corridor sequences and lots of great CGI scenes.

But what set Enemy Zero apart from everything else on the market wasn’t its 3D graphics, which were mediocre at best, or its FMV, which was surprisingly good, but it’s audio. Only by paying attention to mandatory audio cues could the player make his or her way through the game. Like the game’s title suggests, the enemy was invisible but a special device that Laura acquired in the game gave off a high frequency pitch that fluctuated based on the creatures’ proximity and cardinal direction to the player. When the creatures were further away, the device beeped slower but when they were close it became a frantic scramble to figure out exactly how much time you had before they killed you.

Enemy Zero is only one example of audio used in interesting, gameplay oriented ways. Another such title is The City of Metronome by Tarsier Studios AB, which currently as no definitive release date. Pinned as “a unique third person adventure game where sound is your weapon,” Tarsier hopes to distinguish TCoM from other adventure games through the use of audio interaction. By recording sounds, whether natural or simulated, the player, a young train conductor in the city of Metronome, will use the recordings to solve puzzles, fight, and change the mood of the world’s inhabitants. And if the player can’t find a natural sound to use, he can create his own by throwing rocks through windows, shoving bookcases down stairs, among other things, and recording them for future playback.

The push for high quality visual fidelity has driven the audio part of gaming into a limited cinematic space. Not to say that cinematic audio is wrong, but variety truly is the spice of life.

Whatever the case may be, the power of the current machines on the market leave no room for excuses. Audio-based gameplay has advantages in the current climate that it never had before. Maybe with software like the aforementioned The City of Metronome and Rez, which is experiencing a bit of a rebirth on the Xbox 360 thanks to Rez HD, the possibilities of sound oriented gameplay have never been better. Perhaps then gaming will be as interactive as it should’ve been all along, with players using their fingers, eyes, and ears to manipulate and participate in the action.

About a week ago, Editor-in-Chief Sam Bishop and I were having a talk about downloadable content and its future in the video game space. It’s been a hotly debated topic as of late, both in the console and PC markets, so I wanted to share some thoughts with him on the subject. What I found out is that we both view it as a completely different monster, as does the rest of the industry, I’m sure. Is download only the future or will physical media still have a place in our homes?

It’s no secret that hard drives are getting bigger and people are becoming more technologically astute, as well as internet savvy. Fifteen years ago, the internet was a foreign monster to many households, but now it’s a way of life. It’s even extended itself to portable devices, the smallest of which can barely squeeze a couple lines of text on the screen from our favorite website. But that doesn’t stop us.

As it becomes easier for us to connect to the internet, it only makes sense that it would be easier for us to get content into our homes. Enter iTunes. Though it was hardly the first, it is one of, if not THE largest of all the online music distributors out there. Ten years ago, the idea of downloading entire music albums, TV shows, and movies was a pipe dream, but now we can do it with the click of a button. And storage space is becoming less of an issue, whereas ten years ago we were forced to burn everything to CD-Rs.

Even with that in mind, there is no definitive way to get that content. Consumers can use a myriad of choices, ranging from the Apple TV, a somewhat elegant solution, to Net Flix, which also offers a myriad of choices for the consumer, but none offer the fullest range of content or ease of use that would truly help download only technology go mainstream. Plug and Play this is not.

There are also other issues, most notably those of the hardcore variety. For those who demand the most out of their equipment, HD over the net doesn’t come close to a Blu-ray Disc running in the PS3. High fidelity picture and sound is a must when one invests thousands of dollars in equipment that is meant to deliver an eyeball melting, ear massaging experience.

But, if the equipment were in place, would the physical media experience matter to a consumer who still awkwardly attaches composite cables to their brand new flat screen LCD or plasma?

Sam and I arrived at a crossroads in our discussion. He supported the idea of physical media, stating that the utmost quality, as well as the sleek packaging, will always maintain mindshare in the mainstream. There’s also the notion that, as a species, we like to collect “things” to show off. I, however, believe downloads will be the future, with people purchasing a few physical discs a year of their favorite shows, and downloading or streaming the rest.

Granted, in the current consumer level environment what I envision is far from possible. But the push to broadband, and even wideband, could change all of that.

Location also plays a huge part in the download push, as a country’s internet infrastructure will dictate whether its citizens have the necessary bandwith to download large files quickly. Asia, with its dense populations, have infrastructures that far outstrip those of the western world, mostly especially Japan. With China and India becoming burgeoning world economies, it would only make sense to provide high speed internet access that even North America might not see for another decade. Huge population centers, as well as spending habits, determines content delivery and China and India may affect that delivery scheme in the next decade.

Combined, we could see a download only push in a little under a decade. The possibilities are endless.

So what do you think, fine readers: will download only be the future or will physical media still maintain its place? Let us know!