Remember that David Jaffe fellow? You must do. He's that guy that makes those games you love. Games like God of War and Calling All Cars. You must remember him. He had a blog, once upon a time, but it went dark about a month and a half ago. Made a rather scathing post after a certain website commented on him pulling Calling All Cars back just before launch to fix some bugs. Ah, now you remember. Good.
Well it seems that the darkness that once shrouded his blog has been banished after a new post was made today. Jaffe clearly believes in the old cliche "a picture speaks a thousand words," so he's given us two of them. Words? No, pictures.
The pictures show the insides of an empty building. Empty apart from one thing - potential. Could these be images of his new "small games" studio? Especially considering the title of the post is "coming soon." With a dedicated work space for Jaffe and his casual-games making cohorts, we could be seeing more games being produced by him at a much higher pace. We're intrigued to see how this turns out and will definitely be keeping an eye on his, hopefully frequent, blog posts from now on.
The European PSN Store is a bit of a tragic tale, as we're sure you've noticed. According to Three Speech, however, that's about to change with two new games available to download before the end of the month. None of that Midway rehash rubbish, either. These are full, specially made for PSN, titles. Ok, I've kept you in suspense long enough, check out the list below.
Not too shabby, eh? While our US cousins have had Calling All Carsfor a month now, Super Stardust HD should be a worldwide release. If you're as impatient for these games as we are then you might also like to know that this coming friday, the 15th, sees the release of the highly anticipated Motorstorm patch.
Looks like Sony are finally pulling their finger out with their PSN releases. Let's just hope it continues beyond the end of June.
David Jaffe, the revered designer of God of War and the more recent, Calling All Cars, delivers some interesting banter via an interview with Three Speech. He says the difficulty of developing a title like Calling All Cars was the inability to rely "on old tricks" to alleviate the obviousness in areas with weaker game play. In regards to arcade titles, he says "if [the] core gaming isn't working, you have nowhere to hide." Near the tail-end of the interview, when asked if he has any more ideas planned for more downloadable games, Jaffe says his team is "in the design phase with two and three." Hmmm ... Calling All Cars 2 and 3? Or maybe a redesigned remake of the original Twisted Metal? Hey, we'd buy it.
Finally, after a month or so of doing the will-it-won't-it dance, David Jaffe's Calling All Cars has a set release date: Today! It will appear alongside Rampart (as promised) as part of the US PlayStation Store line-up tonight. There's no word on when it will be coming to Europe, but we're hoping it'll be within the next few weeks.
All in all, not a bad haul. You lucky Americans. No doubt we'll have a review up for Calling All Cars before too long. Until then, be sure to comment and let us know what you think. Enjoy!
Yesterday, David Jaffe announced on the NeoGaf forums that Calling all Cars! was delayed (again). The general reaction on the Internet to the announcement was disappointment mingled with acknowledgment that fixing bugs is a worthy reason for a delay. Some people took it better than others though and when our parent site Joystiq compared Jaffe to "a little girl struggling to keep her favorite doll out of the garage sale bin," they clearly hit a nerve on the outspoken developer.
Though he didn't specifically call out the Joystiq post as the one that pushed him over the edge, Jaffe posted another one of his infamous rants in which he expressed his ... strong dissatisfaction with a certain 'unnamed' website and declared that he is going to stop blogging:
"I'm going to go dark. My stylings have upset some folks within the biz I care very much about and that I can not live with"
Personally, I'll miss his blog but he's such a volatile guy that maybe some time out of the limelight will be good for him. According to Jaffe, we can expect to hear from him next in July when he announces details on his next PSN title - or until somebody gets him drunk on camera.
Considering the game has only taken 11 months to make, it seems like we've been waiting forever for Calling all Cars. Unfortunately, it appears we're going to have to wait a little longer. David Jaffe confirmed today on the NeoGaf forums that Calling all Cars! will NOT be coming out this Thursday, negating what he said last week.
Evidently, there were a handful of major bugs that were discovered at the last second that caused Sony to delay the release and push the game back indefinitely. It also turns out that the May 3rd release date was never official, and that Jaffe actually got in trouble from Sony for suggesting it did. Jaffe expressed hope that it will pass QA soon, but was clearly wary of offering up an exact release date.
But don't worry, according to the rumors, we are getting Super Rub-a-Dub as a replacement this week!
After delay after delay, Calling all Cars! has finally gone gold and the initial rounds of reviews have started to trickle in. Gamespot, 1up, and IGN have all weighed in on David Jaffe's 'casual' follow-up to God of War, and the response has been... interesting.
IGN gave it an 8.5, stating that "Calling All Cars is Sony's first truly original, must-have title on the PlayStation Network, and it bests just about everything there is to be found on Microsoft's online arcade center."
1up gave it an 8.0, calling it "a chaotic successor to the likes of R.C. Pro-Am and Super Off Road that's easy on the wallet, and it's also among the best examples of how the concept of downloadable content should be used."
And then there's Gamespot.
Gamespot gave it a 6.7. They said it was a "frantic good time that's cut short by a serious lack of content." They dinged the gameplay for being too random and luck based, and practically rioted over the inclusion of only four maps, saying "that it feels more like a demo than a full game."
As you can see, there is some interesting contrast in reviews between the 'big three' gaming sites. Unfortunately, we cannot really give a rebuttal at this point, since us mere mortals will not be able to get our grubby little hands onto it until next Thursday.
Conveniently though, David Jaffe has posted a rebuttal for us! It is a surprisingly thoughtful critique of the Gamespot review and game reviewers in general. Check it out, I highly recommend it:
Posted Apr 19th 2007 1:30PM by Nick Doerr Filed under: News
ThreeSpeech, the semi-official blog under Sony's umbrella of ultimate justice, have posted a quick reminder of what titles are coming to the PlayStation Store in the next month or two. Not surprisingly, more delays! Awesome.
Calling All Cars - May 18th
Nucleus - May 25th
Super Stardust HD - June 15th
Will Calling All Cars ever come out? Probably not. Will the US ever get Super Rub-a-Dub? Of course. While it is surprising to see the two crazy spaceship-ish shooters coming out so soon, we really wanted to get our hands on Calling All Cars back on March 22nd. Jaffe, you're a crazy guy, but you shouldn't drive us to insanity, too.
David Jaffe is the closest thing to a mascot Sony has right now (we've actually got a nice feature detailing that coming up -- so long as this weekend allows Nick the time to research and write it up), so naturally whatever he says will be taken with a grin, nod, and written down to report on later. GameDaily had another interview with the guy, and we'll take the honor of posting some of his fabulous quotes.
What would you change about the PS3?
"I probably would have taken the Blu-ray out and sold it for less money." Fair enough. Is this the first time someone affiliated with Sony said something like this?
Any plans to start up an independent studio or anything?
"I think it's a great idea and it's an idea that I've explored and will continue to explore." He talks about how he's not sure whether the studio would be within or outside of Sony, but he plans to continue contributing to Sony either way. However, he's not sure about the idea.
Are bigger games better than smaller titles? How do you feel about being driven to create blockbuster titles one after the other?
"It's like, 'F**k you capitalist society that says all I need to do is work and contribute to the bottom line. F**k you up your a**.' I want a life." Now that's what we're talking about! It was strange how Jaffe's attitude was absent from the rest of the interview. Heh, capitalism.
He's certainly entertaining. His games are, too. Even if he decides to shy away from those "bigger" titles permanently, he'll definitely become a force to be reckoned with once those downloadable games start rolling out. His latest, Calling All Cars, should be out next week. Probably Thursday, since the PS-Store loves updating on Thursday. Just like Phantasy Star Universe... speaking of, there's a huge update in that game today.
Posted Apr 4th 2007 2:30PM by Nick Doerr Filed under: News
The Full Moon Show, an Insomniac podcast, recently released "Episode 2" where they interviewed some guy who called himself David Jaffe or something like that. Ever heard of this lout? He thought he could explain why Calling All Cars, made by this other guy named... hmm... well, shoot, we completely forgot! Was it something like Javid Daffe? Either way, here's the explanation from the man himself.
During their extensive playtesting, there were instances where one player would just blow away the other players, creating a gap in score that kept growing to silly amounts. Sensing that it would draw away from the fun, Jaffe retreated to some devs who worked on older, arcade-style games for some coding help. Enter the image of Jaffe conversing with a Council of Elders in Developerland. Jaffe and crew are currently testing out some of the strategies for fixing the issue as given by these other developers. At least he's trying to make it fair for everyone, right?
It's really closer to three. David Jaffe's insanely hyped downloadable game, Calling All Cars, was supposed to hit the PS-Store right around the launch of the European PS3. Obviously, that is no longer the case, as the title has been pushed back to mid-April. Why? No idea. No word from Sony on it, but we're going to assume it's because there's already a lot coming out at the end of March -- Sony wants Jaffe's game to get as much attention as possible.
While we're on the topic of downloadable games, what is your favorite? We'll include game demos here because, well, sometimes demos can be really, really fun. I've had the most fun with flOw... not myself, but because I enjoy everyone else ask to play it and grin as they awkwardly begin learning the SIXAXIS, then smile softly once they've mastered it.
While we can't be sure about what movie trailers are making their way to the PS-Store, we would like to remind you of a couple of games that should be getting released in a week or two. These two games are Mortal Kombat II and Calling All Cars. There's an exclamation point at the end of the second title, but it would just be complete silliness should we put a ! and a . right next to one another. They would fight, one would be taller... it would get ugly.
As we said, Mortal Kombat II will be released very soon. Around March 15th soon. So if you're already tired of MotorStorm and want to get back into some bloody good fights, you'll just have to wait until Thursday evening. Calling All Cars! is getting its release on March 22nd, much to a couple of people's surprises -- a handful of people tried to tell me it had been delayed. I assured them March, they scoffed. In turn, I now scoff. So, which of these two sultry vixens of PS-Store games will you be grabbing? Or are you a hound dog... and will only settle on both?
Posted Mar 10th 2007 11:00AM by Andrew Yoon Filed under: News
Calling All Cars, David Jaffe's upcoming PlayStation Store-exclusive game, was available for play on the GDC show floor. The game, which has you competing against up to three other players, has you controlling wacky cop cars trying to catch criminals. The game is easy to pick up, fast, and most importantly, totally fun.
Playing with three other players resulted in a game of total chaos and mayhem. The cars were incredibly responsive, and the various weapons created constant clashes. The levels were highly destructible, encouraging players to enter total rampages.
Be sure to check out Calling All Cars when it hits the PlayStation Store later this week.
Well, we last spoke of David Jaffe's Calling All Cars game sometime last week. He was going to show the build to 1UP and like someone who keeps his word, he did just that. What did they think? What did they learn? We're going to talk about just that. But we'll say this: they had fun and that's a good sign.
The premise of the game is fairly simple: choose a car, knock other cars out of your way (either bumping or weaponry works -- more on that in a bit), nab the criminal and port him off to the nearest prison drop-off. Bam! You receive points. There are other ways to get points, like nailing a helicopter or a paddy wagon instead of the regular prison drop-off point. Most points at the end of the game wins, just like golf! I always win at golf.
Weaponry is a good assist when it comes to knocking your rivals out of commission. They're one-time use items, but they get the job done. First up is the Hammer: it's short-range and you can imagine what it does. If the car subject to your attack has a criminal inside, he'll pop right out. Next is the Magnet: it's medium-range and seems to suck the criminal right out of a car nearby. Handy. Lastly is the Missile: you can figure it out. Jaffe claims each weapon has defensive abilities too, but the 1UP staff didn't understand his hints. Like we said earlier: there's probably a rock-paper-scissors effect (magnet attracts missile, missile stops hammer, hammer crushes magnet is what this clever blogger is assuming).
There's a bit more coverage about the game, but it's just the control scheme and their final impressions -- all positive. We're looking forward to this one!
Yeah, we've said that March is going to be a huge library-increasing month for the PS3 (thanks in part completely to the European PS3 launch) but it's also going to be a big month for downloadable PS-Store games, too. We've told you that flOw is coming out near the end of February (may as well be March), but now we've been told that Calling All Cars may be completed before the end of March. Along with the newly renamed Go! Puzzle (formerly Go! Swizzleblock 2), that's a triple threat of casual gaming awesome.
As David Jaffe has said about Calling All Cars, it's sort of a mix between Bomberman, Twisted Metal, Demolition Derby, and fun. There's a video of it if you're curious, but really, we'd rather play it. These smaller releases will definitely prove to be a nice distraction between all the huge releases in March. Personally, I'm itching to get a hold of Armored Core 4, MotorStorm, Lair, Heavenly Sword, flOw... oh hell, I'm itching to get a hold of everything!
Remember that David Jaffe fellow? You must do. He's that guy that makes those games you love. Games like God of War and Calling All Cars. You must remember him. He had a blog, once upon a time, but it went dark about a month and a half ago. Made a rather scathing post after a certain website commented on him pulling Calling All Cars back just before launch to fix some bugs. Ah, now you remember. Good.
Yesterday, David Jaffe announced on the NeoGaf forums that 
Considering the game has only taken 11 months to make, it seems like we've been waiting forever for Calling all Cars. Unfortunately, it appears we're going to have to 
After delay after delay, 
