Now you see it, now you see it only in Europe.

It's pretty isn't it?  That's the collector's edition of Heavy Rain that so far, has only been confirmed for a European release.  Bummer.  I'm a big soundtrack fan, and with this game concentrating so deeply on emotions and choices, the music is going to have a much deeper impact than most other mediums.

What's include is,

• The Taxidermist - a bit of stand alone DLC
• Official Game Soundtrack 
• Dynamic XMB Theme

The DLC is priced at $4.99 according to the PS Blog (America), Dynamic Themes go for $3 and with a soundtrack averaging around $15 we have a total of about $23 in goodies.  This is all stuff I would like to eventually purchase so I'm hopeful a good price is announced.


What is interesting is the DLC that is included with the deluxe edition in Europe, and all pre-orders in America.  A similar offering to what EA did with Dragon Age by including something that needs to be separately purchased if you don't buy a new copy.  This is a pretty good idea that it helps drive new sales and plays down on used copies.

Here we can take two stances.  One, we can say that this content is already ready to go so it should be included in the purchase of the game.  Two, we can see it as an added bonus that compliments the main experience.  If the DLC included is something visual, or a small sub quest that does not alter the main storyline, I am inclined to go with the second choice and see it as a bonus.

What I really don't like is how gamestop sells used games for almost new prices and insults you by offering a pathetically small buy back price.  I think bonuses for new copies will become more popular in the future and help support the exploding budgets companies are putting into games. 

PS Blog Europe Release Info
PS Blog America Pre Order Info

UPDATE:
The dynamic theme was released on the American PSN recently for $3.00.  This helps to solidify the European deluxe version will not be heading to America.  I can only hope a different version will be made available locally.

Lastly, don't waste your money on the Heavy Rain Dynamic Theme.  It's pretty horrid in that it is only a single scene of an alley with rain coming down and some origami on the floor.  No lightning, no change of backdrops, no characters from the game making appearances, nothing.  For all the love I have for Quantic Dream, I really hope they didn't have anything to do with this.  And if they didn't, get in there and put something out better than this dreary thing!  You want to see a theme done right, look at the Bioshock challenge rooms DLC on the PS3.  It included a non dynamic theme, but you could tell a lot of effort and love went into it.

Will It Ever Die?

Probably not, but it appears that Arthas, the nemesis of Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, will.

After being older than five years and boasting millions of subscriptions, W.O.W. continues to thrive off the multitudes of addicted computer gamers stupidly hunched over their keyboards, flirting with pixelated, non-existent night elves from another world. Oh, and unfortunately those millions include me, too.

But there is a reason for this shameless stupidity. Last week marks the release of patch 3.3. Blizzard continues to add instances and content even a year after its release, including the unveiling of Tier 10 armor, three more dungeons, and a 25-man instance (also able to be down-scaled to a 10-man raid instance). The three instances involve a linear story where players take part in a small infiltration party attempting to exploit weaknesses in the Icecrown Citadel -- Arthas' home and fortress. The dungeons involve dramatic scenes that players take part in with Jaina Proudmoore and Arthas; the raid involves a joint Alliance-Horde siege on the Citadel go to hell in a hand basket with a gunship battle between the two factions, confrontations with the various denizens of his realm, and a confrontation with Arthas himself.

I have tried all the new content including the Icecrown Citadel raid, and I have this to say: the raid instance is quite challenging for those who aren't prepared. In typical modern World of Warcraft style, the battles are very dynamic, usually involving multiple phases, and require incredible management, skill and attention on the part of the players. No one is ever left out of the chaos. For some, this may be too much trouble. For others (including myself) this is the most exciting thing to come out of World of Warcraft in years. And as for the dungeons, they are by far the most difficult I can think of within the game. And this damned game has over five years of content.

But that's just the icing on the cake. The biggest advancement is the game's new cross-server looking-for-party tool. Before, players had to pray and go across the four-corners of the earth to find party members for certain dungeons. The new cross-server system allows for players across different servers to find each other rather than being limited to one server. What this means is that, instead of being limited to a pool of a few thousand players, a player now has a pool of tens of thousands of players to draw upon and party up with in dungeons. Instead of taking an hour to find players to party up with you, it now sometimes takes only a minute (five minutes at most). Never before have the game's player-versus-player battlegrounds been so empty -- they're all flocking to the new dungeon system. Blizzard says that the technology exists for raids and can be turned on like a switch, but they refuse to do it right now because of several problems they believe such a thing might introduce.

Five years ago I would have thought that the game would have died out by now, in favor of other competition. But that's really not the case -- instead, WOW continues to swallow the computer gaming industry up. And with a new movie coming out, it doesn't seem like its going to slow down. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? As much as I love World of Warcraft, I also love to hate it. I enjoy it, but I feel as though, these days, there just isn't enough competition for it to breed new, better games. In fact, the only real competition I can think of is Blizzard's other flagships -- StarCraft II and Diablo III -- neither even being massively multiplayer. When one company can afford to throw its own gaming convention, I think that says a lot. I hate Blizzard! But ... long live Blizzard?

Not quite a game, but ....

It only takes one image. One image to get me all excited, and yet, ready for memories of years before to be completely destroyed by commercialism.  We will all see in one year what is to come.

(it's in 3D! Finally a reason to hit up the local IMAX)

Free Games! -nuff said

Well, looks like the month of December is quite the iPhone/iPod gaming month. Check out http://appventcalendar.com/
for a free game on the App store each day of the month! From the easy and cute finger swiping Snorkeling, to the puzzle game Totem, there are some creative and interesting apps to be had here. Enjoy!

How to define Fail

Fail
Pronunciation: \ˈfāl\
Function: verb
1. to lose strength
2. to fall short
3. to have three shots at close range and direct hit the floor!