PlayStation News, Articles and Information for the UK and Europe

Many gamers buy games as much for the multiplayer content as they do the single-player content, and adding a multiplayer mode is a great way of extending a game’s longevity well beyond the point that most single-player games get boring. Although there are new methods of generating income from multiplayer gaming (forcing buyers of second hand games to buy ‘Online Passes’ for example), most online gaming is “free” once you have purchased the game (on PS3 and PC at least).

Online gaming not really free however, as the servers used for these games have an upkeep cost of their own and ultimately this has to be paid for by someone. Read more

If there’s one thing that Gran Turismo 5 is sure to do it’s grab headlines. No other PlayStation game since the launch of PS3 has managed to gather quite so much pre-release hype and it’s not even out until Wednesday.

We’re big fans of the Gran Turismo games here at PlayStation Future but there are already enough stories about how fantastic Gran Turismo 5 looks so we thought we’d have a tongue in cheek look at some of the silliest headlines Gran Turismo 5 has managed to attract in the last few weeks: Read more

Released a massive eight years after the original Mafia: City of Lost Heaven game, Mafia II was eagerly anticipated by gaming fans. The original game had a few problems, like having checkpoints set too far apart – leading to some incredibly frustrating battles made worse by the dodgy AI of your companions, but niggles aside it was a fantastic game, well received by critics and gamers alike. Hopes were high for Mafia 2 then, the first of the series to debut on consoles as well as PC, but the first reviews turned out to be a mixed bag.

Some of the main complaints about Mafia II focused on the linear nature of the gameplay, with few side-quests or points of interest outside the main storyline, despite the incredible, massive and detailed open-world of Empire Bay. In addition to this, there are problems with the controls which can feel a little awkward, and there are definitely still a few issues with the checkpoints. As a game, we stand by our review score of 7.6 out of 10, which on our system equates to a “solid game marred by occasional flaws”. As a mob story however, Mafia II is an absolute masterpiece, and easily rivals the Sopranos as one of the most enjoyable Mafia experiences in modern media. Read more

Any release day buyers of Fallout: New Vegas who have even touched upon the card game of Caravan within the game will understand me when I say that the tutorial on how to play the game is, well, pretty bad. When you are given your first deck of cards, you also retrieve a note, containing several paragraphs on how to play the game, and that’s it, you learn the rest yourself – if you don’t quite understand what the game is instructing you to do, then you’re helpless to play what can be an intriguing game of tactics, skill and, as with any card game, luck.

Read on if you want a more clarified and elaborate explanation on how to play the game, adapted from the official instructions included with Fallout: New Vegas, complete with helpful diagrams to aid clarity.

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Final Fantasy XIV is out now on PC and is scheduled for release some time in March 2011 for PlayStation 3. As the second Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG or MMO) in the Final Fantasy series (the first being Final Fantasy XI) Final Fantasy XIV will also be the first MMO to be released on PlayStation 3 (unless DC Universe Online gets there first). Sadly, despite the hopes of many games, the PC version of Final Fantasy XIV has had a pretty poor reception so far, generally focusing on a whole host of playability problems. So what’s gone wrong, and will Square-Enix be able to set things right in time for the game’s release on PlayStation 3 next year? Read more

After May’s unrelenting pace of dishing out great new games for your PlayStation 3, it’s been good to get a break to catch up on some of the gems you might have missed. Now, looking to the future, with the PlayStation Move hitting your PS3 any day now; and another packed schedule heading this way, you’d be forgiven for forgetting one or two of the most anticipated titles of the season. But fear not, as PlayStation Future is here to put the best upcoming releases all in one place. Want more info on the latest PSN and PSP releases? Stay tuned for a follow-up article soon…

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With E3 now everything but a distant memory, it’s safe to say that this year’s event brought some huge surprises to nearly everyone, with a Gran Turismo 5 release date being announced and the Sly Cooper HD Remake also making an appearance as well as tonnes more stuff coming, I think we can be pretty sure that this year’s PS3 (and PSP) line-up could quite possibly be the best yet.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, seeing as this is where we tell you what we’ve been up to in the gaming world recently. With those May releases slowly drifting away and the relentless pace of video game releases slowly decreasing, it’s been a nice month to catch up on all of those little gems that we missed out on when they were first released.

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It happens now and again in the gaming world; a classic series brought to its knees by the industry’s obsession with sequels. This isn’t just a problem in the gaming world either, movies have it just as bad if not worse; just look at the James Bond films to see a text-book example. Generally, the only way to fix the situation is to kill off the series altogether (Home Alone) or bring it back to life with a ‘reboot’ (Batman).  

Let’s take a look at three critically acclaimed gaming franchises that have taken one too many wrong turns and have reached the point where they can only be saved by a full reboot: Read more

So, here at PlayStation Future this week we’re starting up a new monthly article – What We’ve Been Playing. This article will go live at the end of each month detailing how we at PlayStation Future have been spending our time in the gaming world. Every member will list a game that they have been putting the most time into over the previous four weeks before saying a few words about other games they’ve been playing, games they’ve been looking at getting, or games that are shaping up to be really exciting.

This May saw a bombshell of games drop down from the developers’ heavens with the likes of Red Dead Redemption, ModNation Racers, Split/Second, Blur, Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time, 3D Dot Game Heroes and much much more landing on our consoles. With E3, arguably the biggest gaming event of the year, just a few weeks away it’s no wonder that a buzz of excitement has been building in the videogaming industry. But enough of the future, what have we been playing this month?

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For many years, you may have seen game that you’ve wanted, but not absolutely had to get on day one, so you wait for a bit. One day, you go into a shop and see a pre-owned version of the game for about half the price. Great! Right? Well for you, maybe, but for those same years, the developers have felt left out – a pre-owned title does not gain them money as it is merely one person selling to another person in the superficial hands of a retailer.

Well, now developers are starting to get their own back, they’ve had enough of this and have decided to alter the content which second-hand gamers get. Yes, it could be classed as wrong, and many oppose this system; but many others also see the point that developers have. But is this fair to the gamer? Do the developers know how it feels to buy a game and then realise that you’ve only really bought most of it?

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