PS3 Fanboy

Did you notice the Prince in Ubisoft's new Prince of Persia game sounds exactly like Nathan Drake from Uncharted? In a Q&A on the PlayStation.blog, Ben Mattes said the selection of Nolan North was "entirely intentional." North's portrayal of a Indiana Jones-esque character in Uncharted landed him the role of the Prince. "When we were designing the character of The Prince and trying to identify his personality, the two characters we returned to most often were Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Both, of course, played by Harrison Ford. Nolan North showed in his characterization of Nathan Drake an uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones both in terms of tone and delivery. We thought it particularly appropriate given the heavy influence of these characters in the writing of The Prince that the voice actor we use be one who manages to capture the essence of the influencing characters deeply."

With North returning in Uncharted 2 in the not-too-distant future, it seems like he has a pretty good voice acting career ahead of him. Prince of Persia will be available in stores this week.

Not too long after the release of Far Cry 2, Ubisoft has announced a new DLC pack to be made available by the end of November (so, next week, perhaps?). The Fortune's Pack DLC brings new vehicles and weapons to both the single-player and multiplayer aspects of Far Cry 2. It will be available for $9.99.

The Fortune's Pack DLC for Far Cry 2 will include:

Single-Player Mode

• Three brand-new weapons:
  Silenced shotgun; Sawed-off shotgun; Crossbow
• Two new vehicles:
  Unimog; Quad

Multiplayer Mode

• Four new maps:
  Cheap Labor; Last Resort; Lake Smear; Fort Fury
• New single-player weapons and vehicles also available in multiplayer

It appears the stealthy assassin Altair has left his creed for greener pastures. First his likeness finds its way into Metal Gear Solid 4, and now he's moving on from the shores of The Kingdom to ancient Persia. Ubisoft have announced that a special Altair costume can be yours for free in the soon-to-release Prince of Persia. Gamers who link their Ubisoft.com account to their PlayStation Network account can grab the costume as soon as they load up their copy. Create an Ubi account here. According to IGN, you can also unlock the prince from The Sands of Time some time in the future, too.

With all this info, Prince of Persia looks to be a rather entrancing buy. Well, the fact that Ubi is offering free costumes, Trophies, a free Limited Edition upgrade for pre-orderers and, oh, just an all around freaking great looking title, should be more than enough to sway any PS3 owner. PoP hits North America on December 2 and Europe on December 5.

[via press release]

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is a relatively new title. It was just released almost exactly one month ago. It's a first-person shooter, which means it's a dime a dozen; there are already a lot of them to go around. To help make it stand out of the crowd and appear more visible, Amazon has the title discounted by 33 percent with a $20 savings. If you're looking for a new World War II shooter and are on a budget, $40 for Hell's Highway doesn't sound too bad.

[Thanks Juan P.!]

Prince of Persia Classic will be available on the PlayStation Network this Thursday. The downloadable game is a revamp of the original Prince of Persia 2D game, rendered in a new 3D engine. Not only are the character designs and animations new, there are newly added traps, puzzles and enemies. For those that enjoyed Bionic Commando Rearmed's 3D reinterpretation of a 2D classic, this might be worth a look.

Here are the Trophies for Far Cry 2 -- all 49 of them: 38 Bronze, 7 Silver, 3 Gold and 1 Platinum. Far Cry 2 places you in the role of an arms dealer in Africa that's "Playing both sides," which incidentally is the name of a Bronze Trophy. The game will be released on October 21st in the US and the 24th in Europe.

The monthly PlayStation Underground newsletter is always a great source when it comes to revealing what to expect in next issue of Qore. The October issue of the digi-zine will feature three somewhat 'scary' titles, all of which are multiplatform games. Capcom's Resident Evil 5, Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3 and EA's Dead Space are all featured.

There's also going to be more on Shaun White Snowboarding. That one is not particularly horrific enough to fit in with the Halloween-vibe theme, but snowboarding can be quite a suspenseful spectacle. We guess it's a shoo-in in that way. Look out for the fifth episode of Qore early next month.

We'll be honest, we're surprised to hear that Prince of Persia is going to make it out this year. We've seen very little of it at the various Summer trade shows. Only E3 judges have actually played it. Despite that, an official release date of December 2nd has been announced. From what we've seen, this game will be worth picking up on art style alone, but probably isn't worth prioritizing over the likes of LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space or Mirror's Edge. Which all come out earlier, anyway. Up to you though, really.

There usually isn't much of an incentive to pre-order games from shops. Putting down cold hard cash long before ever having the pleasure of owning a game sounds pretty preposterous to some. However, perhaps the pre-order campaign for Prince of Persia will make hard-of-parting gamers rethink their ways.

So, what makes the Prince of Persia deal so good? Well, if you pre-order the game in North America, you'll be treated to a free upgrade to the Limited Edition version. This is the only way to get the LE version, and we must say it's a rather nice way of doing things. Considering that most Limited Editions add on an extra 20 bucks, this free, no additional cost set feels mightily attractive. For the full details on what's included in the LE version, check right after the break.

Download to PSP

Ubisoft made quite an impression with its latest console footage of Far Cry 2. While we'd like to say that it's simply the gameplay that caught our attention, we'll admit that this is purely for the eye candy. We're impressed to see that the console version looks just as good as the PC. Word to Ubisoft, though: can we please have a little bit of color into this unusually bleak representation of Africa?

Download to PSP

While we typically focus on PS3-exclusive games, we can't help but get enchanted by a number of multiplatform games. Prince of Persia has been revamped and cel-shaded, and this seven minute developer walkthrough will give you a great idea on what the game will be like. Listen carefully to the main character: does he sound a little familiar to you?

He should.

Looks like Armored Core: for Answer will be arriving on our shores fairly soon; Ubisoft has announced that the game will be released on September 16th. GameSpot scored an interview with associate producer Kenan Alpay, who tells us a couple of facts about the game. Here are some highlights:

• Online co-op mode: "30 missions and eight-player online melees in 80 different arenas."
• Story mode: You play as a mercenary who can eventually choose which missions to take from different factions within the game. There are over 40 missions and the decisions you make can lead to multiple endings.
  
• Arms Forts, which are giant battle stations much larger than yourself, will be the featured enemies of the game.
• Control scheme: new control scheme for beginners, as well as an option for other players to join in via co-op mode to assist them with difficult missions.
• New customization options: 130 new mech parts, including "interesting" parts such as an "auxiliary boost jets that increase your mobility and are ideal for hit-and-run attacks."
• Voice chat will be supported, as well as cross-regional (North America, Japan, Europe) play.
  
• No trophy support for "the Western version."