So the other day I got a beta invite for LittleBigPlanet, a mere five days before the beta is due to end. Ah well, I shouldn’t complain. I’m getting something for nothing, right? You can read about the beta from a ton of other sources, so I won’t go into that here.

But here’s the kicker.

When you’re in a game and add another player, you can choose if you want that player to be a guest of your main profile, or if you want that player to be tied to a different profile! Yay and hurrah! So two years after the release of the PS3, I finally had a reason to add a friend to my list of PS3 users. Sure enough, when he entered the game, he could choose his own profile. So next time he plays, he can again choose that profile, and get the character he made along with the costumes and everything he unlocked. What a lovely concept! It’s something that the 360 has been doing for three years now, and it’s finally on the PS3.

So, Sony, what other games are going to support this feature?

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift - The Tracks Revealed! shows off all the tracks from MotorStorm: Pacific Rift with screenshots and top-down views.

It’s small, and there are no enemies, but it’s still fun to watch:

Source - If you live in Europe check your e-mail to see if your lucky enough to get into the Killzone 2 beta. No word on other regions .. yet.

I heard people having issues with the game freezing and online not working. But I didn’t have a chance to play this game until later last night. So maybe it was fixed by then, because I played for over a hour and it played flawlessly. I even tried online.

I created a game and I noticed there is a friend reserve type option. I thought cool, I can invite and reserve a spot for friends. But no, you can not, or I’m not seeing how to do it.

Anyway the gameplay is great, classic WipEout action in gorgeous 1080P. The have a few new weapons which are fun. The pilot assist mode is perfect for people new to the series, it helps steer you away from the walls. You can turn if off if you want. I finished the first 2 sections of the campaign, and got a few trophies for it already.

Click for full size

The photo above is from the zone mode which looks amazing in motion. The walls and street are just a huge music visualizer. You can see it in the photo. In the zone mode you are alone on the track and with each zone you clear your ship gets faster and the neon looking highway your on, changes color in front of your eyes, it’s a great effect! You just keep going until your ship takes enough damage to fall apart.

WipEout has been around since the PS1 days, I actually remember playing the demo that came with my brand new PS1 long ago before I got my first PS1 game (which was Twisted Metal for the curious).

I’m excited to put together a custom techno playlist for WipEout. In fact NeoGAF has already done that, check it out here.

In short buy this game. It’s a steal at $19.99. It’s everything you want in a futuristic racer and more.

Here’s LittleBigPlanet doing Tetris!!! Need I say more?

Is Activision going to screw PS3 users once again? So far the Call of Duty: World at War Limited Edition has only been revealed for the 360 an PC.

I e-mailed Insomniac about splitscreen support in Resistance 2, and this is the email I got back:

Hey Henning

This is Bryan Intihar, Community Manager at Insomniac Games. Ryan passed along your questions about splitscreen. I have some of those answers for you:

So far, we’ve confirmed that we’ll have splitscreen (offline) for up to two players in our new co-op mode. Expect more announcements concerning splitscreen as we get closer to launch.

Thanks againfor the e-mail.

–Bryan

Two player splitscreen co-op! Woo-hoo! Resistance 2 is moving up the list again! Unfortunately, nothing else has been confirmed. But things look promising…

Darrin just wrote up a nice post about LittleBigPlanet and it’s potential, and mcloki had a great reply. So much so that I (Henning) thought it deserved its own post in case you didn’t catch it there. Here it is:

The hype and marketing [about LittleBigPlanet] will be enormous. I’ll only talk about the marketing of the product. LBP has the potential to be the poster child for the industry.

1. It’ll receive tons of press.
   Every Christmas news show will create their own level. You will see Breakfast Television LBP levels. You will se a “The View” Level, a Regis and Kelly Level. Local News shows will have their own level created. It’s a marketing dream. I’ll bet you a coke that before Christmas you will see a LBP level for the Fox NFL sports Show. Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long Sackboys. How about a downloadable Regis Sackboy. Not to your liking. How about a Jay Leno, or John Stewart Sackboy. And who is going to say anything bad about a game that they are in. 4 player View action with Barbara Walters. All the soccer Moms that bought Wii’s last year have something new, family friendly to play. Dad sees it as a way to get a Blueray player.
2. Emotional Connection.
   LBP is full of it. If Sony were to run an ad showing. dad/granddad playing with their son in creating a new level it would have something that just resonates with every dad. If Sony portrays this correctly and in the full Family positive way that it can be portrayed, they will have a monster success.
3. It can help sell the PS3.
   Play with your kids all day, Watch Blue Rays at night. The marketing aspect is going to be huge. This Christmas is going to be about choice for many households. Sony should position itself as the family choice. And I’m sure you’ll hear it on plenty of TV shows. “If I get a PS3 and LBP I can create a game with my child and have him use his imagination and creativity and I can help. What Dad is going to say that’s a bad thing? Or get him a 360 and teach him how to shoot people.” Is the above statement fair. No. But most people don’t have the level of sophistication with video games that PS3Blog readers have. So the generalization is going to stick.
4. It’s self marketing.
   When I create the PS3blognet level. Grabbing the Gravatar images of Henning and Tosh’s head and making little sackboys out of them.The mcloki level will all be text by the way. How do you buy that kind of marketing. The grassroots marketing of this are going to be huge. The user generated content is going to be better than you think. Sure some of it is going to be crummy, but the cream will rise to the top. And you will be astounded. People will stop playing Warcraft and endlessly grinding away their lives and start building and creating.

I’m looking forward to it and it will be a day one purchase for me.

Burnout Paradise Trophy patch - Good news the patch is now out, the bad news … they are not retroactive. You have to start all over. Forget it, I’m not doing that. I just completed 100% on bikes too, oh well.

There will be no split-screen co-op mode for Resistance 2. Remember that in the first Resistance, you could play through the single-player campaign with a buddy, splitscreen? My friend Steve and I had a blast doing that. Well, that’s not gonna happen for Resistance 2. My chances of purchasing this game just went down.

Here’s a nice MotorStorm Pacific Rift promo trailer called Lunatics Unite. Fun stuff!

Sony has some big products coming out, but I don’t think any of them has gotten such universally positive buzz as LittleBigPlanet.

The concept is grand, but often games with such ambitious concepts don’t gel into great finished games. Some of those preview videos look great, but are regular people really going to enjoy creating these levels? Will user-generated levels really be good enough to compete with the flood of high quality profressionally developed games on the market today? Are gamers really going to fall back in love playing a traditional side-scroller? Can you see a vibrant community behind this game thriving or even lasting beyond the launch window?

I’ve been rather skeptical on this in the past. When I heard this topping all the critics list, my hype alarm started ringing. The preview videos all seemed a little on the corny-side, with that annoying music, and it trying to be just a little too cutesy.

But the more they have recently shown of this title, the more it looks this game might actually become a genuine sensation. Some of the levels actually look cool, and from the brief shots of the 24-hour LittleBigPlanet GameJam, it really looks like regular people can make unique and exciting stuff.

In general, user-generated content won’t match the technical expertise or production quality of professional content, but user-generated content will be able to deliver a certain type of personality, emotion, and diversity that professional development isn’t suited for.

So, call the shot? Will this game kick off a resurgence of user-generated content? Will this take the concept beyond what we’ve seen in the past with the Doom/Marathon customization craze or Eamon modules?

Here’s some nice campaign-mode gameplay from Resistance 2. Very very nice! Anybody know if this game has splitscreen?

A handful of new Resistance 2 videos has come out. Below is a good one and gametrailers has several more.

This game definitely seems to have polarizing effect on the enthusiast community. This game has a very large number of passionate fans and a large number venomous haters. There are also some who are lukewarm and in between the two extremes, but in general, this game definitely seems to evoke an unusually large number of highly emotional reactions on both ends of the spectrum.

So let’s hear it: Great game with an even more amazing sequel? Or wildly overhyped run of the mill shooter?

I definitely vote in the former camp. The first title is one of the best single player shooters on the market today, based on a high variety of shooting mechanics and level design. And this sequel looks impressive: In addition to major technical upgrades, this seems like it has some very clever gameplay enhancements for single-player, co-op, and multiplayer modes.

IGN’s preview was surprisingly strong:

Although I only had a few hours to play all three modes of Resistance 2, it struck me as phenomenally deep — much more than we’d ever expected. Essentially three full games in one cohesive Blu-ray package, Resistance 2 could easily be one of the largest games of the year and definitely in contention for Game of the Year honors when it is released at the beginning of November.