Lair won't be the only PS3 game soundtrack on iTunes. Next week, the soundtrack to Warhawk joins the growing list of downloadable game scores on Apple's music service.
Christopher Lennertz and Timothy Wynn both worked on the soundtrack, which was performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The duo ended up recording over 100 minutes of music over the course of a 6-day period.
Adding such a symphonic score is no easy task, and the team at Incognito had to create a suitable way of applying the music to the gameplay experience. According to a 1UP report, it appears that the music is triggered by the amount of enemy fire near the player. "If a certain threshold of enemy gunfire is met, the combat music starts to play." Listen to samples of the soundtrack before its release at 1UP.
Regardless of what the critics may say, there's one undeniable great thing about Lair: its soundtrack. Composed by John Debney, the rich score of Lair is filled with epic drama and a full, textured sound provided by the London and Royal Symphony Orchestras.
All 26 tracks, which include hits like "Bridge of the Ancients," "Bridge Battle," and "Bridge Attack," are now available for purchase on iTunes for 99 cents each. The entire album can be purchased for a mere $9.99.
No, we don't mean the graphics are 3D. We mean the game displays in 3D. Just like all those early 90's rides at Disneyland. If you think this is a really crazy idea, you may be right. Rumors abound that movie theaters are going to adopt new 3D technology over the next decade to "enhance" our movie experiences and attempt to justify raising ticket prices again, but this Ridge Racer 7 remix into the third dimension is particularly interesting.
This idea takes the console version of the title, tosses it back into arcades and displays it on a special television that requires you to wear special 3D shades to have the images pop out at you -- no, they aren't cardboard green and red glasses, rather, a single shade that should be less embarrassing. To outsiders, the screen will simply look a little blurry. It's a neat idea, but we aren't sure if it will catch on outside of a select few arcades in Tokyo.
We recently checked out the official site for Unreal Tournament 3, because we love all our PS3 exclusive games equally, and noticed there have been a series of updates that loyal fans may be interested in checking out. Previously only found in a plethora of different places, all the high-res screenshots and videos of the game are listed in one convenient location, saving you the trouble of searching different places for different videos.
Their latest updates deal with interviews as well as the videos shown at Leipzig, which are impressive in their own right. There's not really much else for us to say except to check it out if you haven't before, because if you're looking for an all-things-UT3 site, this would be the place. Come November, we'll gladly accept any challengers willing to test their mettle against the PS3Fanboy staff! And we'll gladly get our bums kicked, too.
We're going to assume everyone reading this is a huge Ratchet and Clank fan. As a result, we're going to assume you've played all the Ratchet and Clank games through to Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters on the PSP (you do own a PSP, right Sony fans?). Well the space battles are back in Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Don't believe us? We have proof!
The video above shows a classic space battle sequence from the game, while the video after the break shows a huge boss battle. In space. Exciting stuff, right? Well, not really. As fun as these parts of the games can be, we ultimately play the Ratchet and Clank series for fun platforming joy. Sometimes these bits feel a little tacked on. Despite that, enjoy the videos!
Continue reading Ratchet Week: fighting in space videos
John Debney, the composer of Lair has updated the PlayStation.Blog again with more details behind the musical score of the game, as well as an additional theme you can listen to. Titled "Crossing at Dawn-Bridge Battle," Debney describes it as a more brutal and primal theme versus the track he posted earlier which he felt displayed a more high-culture sensibility.
While this is probably way over the head of most of us, the new track is indeed quite beautiful to listen to and is worth checking out (sorry no direct link this time). For the more visually oriented of us though, they also included a new screenshot (shown above), which can be checked out in full resolution here.
The London and Royal Symphony Orchestras don't just work for anyone. Composer John Debney, who worked on films such as "Passion of the Christ" and "Sin City" was given almost unprecedented musical freedom when he was asked to score Lair. In a recent PlayStation.blog entry, he notes: "Creating new, original themes for this primal world has been one of the most stimulating experiences of my career, something I will look back on and cherish. The overall tone of the work can best be described as operatic, ethnically rich, lyrical, elegant and, at the same time, tragic." The musical landscape looks to be quite complex!
And he also offers a sample [Download MP3] of one of the tracks from the game. In typical Factor 5 fashion, it is incredibly epic. No, it's not from some big-budget movie ... this will be coming from your PS3 when the game comes out next month.
Read
Permalink
Email this
Linking Blogs
Comments [9]
Want to play echochrome now? This is the closest you'll get
echochrome, Sony's upcoming PSN downloadable title, looks set to bend our minds in ways we've never experienced. If you want to see the software that inspired the game, then check out the OLE Coordinate System here. This flash Java version allows you to create "levels" and populate them with artist dummies and floor-holes. While not as fully featured as the version shown at E3, the mind-bendiness of the whole thing is still very much apparent.
Something we've found quite entertaining is creating a few lone blocks then attempting to drop dummies directly on top of them from a great height. When you've mastered this, try having two layers of blocks, the top layer of which has holes in them so that the dummy falls straight through to the bottom one. There you go, two games for the price of none. Don't say we don't ever give you anything.
Seven developer interviews, shown at the Sony E3 Press Conference, have been hidden around the PlayStation Network Store. This is on top of all the other content that we told you about. Here's a list of all the secret vids and where to find them:
LittleBigPlanet interview: Games > Downloadable Games > Super Rub a Dub
Ratchet and Clank interview: Featured Items > Ridge Racer 7 > Ufra Special Events > Page 3
NBA 08 interview: Featured Items > Go! Puzzle Game Packs
Behold. The first gameplay footage from Rock Band. The great thing about this video is that it shows what's going on off-screen as well as on-screen. Though the people playing are a little over the top, they're also very good. That song looks incredibly hard, for all involved.
The drumset pleases us. Especially after the worries we had when we head it described as a "dinner tray stand". It's also great to see that you can use wooden drumsticks, which means that the hardware will have to be fairly well built. This game presses all of our buttons and we can't wait to see more. Here's hoping some song titles are released during E3.
This video, captured at the IDEF in Cannes, shows almost six and a half minutes of gameplay footage for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. From a graphics and animation standpoint, this game look amazing. The jungle reminds us of a much more photorealistic Jak and Daxter (the first one, before it sold out and became a GTA clone), which would make sense considering they're both by Naughty Dog. The main character's movements are fluid and nimble. This game promises to be a true feast for the eyes.
Whether the story can live up to expectations is another matter. Though with Amy Hennig (writer for the Legacy of Kain series) directing, we have high hopes. Check out the video for yourselves and see what you think.
The above video, captured at the official press event at the Mayfair hotel in London (again, our invitation must have got lost in the mail), may just be enough to get fence-sitters to buy the game. Opening with a cinematic revealing some backstory of the eponymous Heavenly Sword itself, the video then launches in to some frantic in-game combat. Expect bone-crunching combo moves and a bazooka to feature heavily. Yes, a bazooka.
Despite being captured on shaky-cam and then uploaded to YouTube, the video is still able to impress. From the way the barrels move to the explosion partical effects. Another, clearer, video has been uploaded to Jeuxvideo.fr from the IDEF in Cannes. In it we see a new character talking to Nariko (friend, sibling, lover?) as well as one of those "press the button at the right time to make stuff happen" sequences that are all the rage nowadays. This game is one to watch out for at E3, where no doubt we'll be seeing plenty more of it.
Sony has recently updated the media section of the PlayStation 3 official website with nine new Lair videos. Above you can find the opening cinematic which, while being stunning, bodes well for the game's sense of humour and style. Coming up after the jump are eight more videos. If you'd rather download and watch them in their proper resolution (and let's be honest, you'd be mad not to) you'll find the links to the official site below.
The videos show a lot of gameplay footage and tell a lot about the backstory of the game. The game is graphically stunning and, with a release within the next month or two, we simply can't wait to get our hands on it.
Yesterday, during the keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, John Carmack revealed some footage of a new game engine. The video above is the best quality you're going to get for a little while. At least until id release some footage themselves. Despite this, however, it still looks stunning.
Dubbed "id Tech 5," the new engine promises to almost completely remove any limitations on texture size, allowing "for the unique customization of the entire game world at the pixel level." Examples include changing material colours on the fly and etching fine detail, such as initials, into existing geometry. As the video says, the footage above uses over 20 gigabytes of texture files. Presumably, with their developments into new compression methods, we'll be seeing all this fit onto a 9 gigabyte DVD. It'll have to if they plan on releasing games that run on this engine onto the PC and Xbox 360. Games on the PS3, on the other hand, will be able to take advantage of the 50 gigabytes of storage on Blu-Ray discs, allowing for lower compression and, we assume, faster loading as a result.
This is all just speculation for now, however. Other than the above video and the blurb that has been posted on the id Software official website, there's no specific information. We'll have to wait until E3 for that.
In an effort to mirror the simultaneous release in America and Japan (Europeans are fighting back the vitriol) that was announced with the game, a US and a JPN version of the site have been opened at the same time. The difference between the two is minimal, but only because both suffer from a lack of content. Much like the Dissidia site did when it launched. It is worth visiting both sites, just for the different background visuals. The Japanese version has that great concept image we saw come out of the Square Enix Party, while the US site has a new piece of art.
It's clear that the character on the left is Rush Sykes, the 'Japanese' character who we've seen before. Does that mean that the character on the right is the 'American' character, The Conqueror? Looks that way. Interesting look. Definitely nothing we've seen of a playable character in any of the Final Fantasy series. Chances are I'll still be playing as Rush, though.
As a final treat, each site has the same background music that will most likely be the theme music for the game. It's pretty good. Though it's getting less and less good each time I listen to the minute-or-so long loop, it has to be said. We'll keep checking the site for updates and let you know. Be sure to view the Japanese site as well as the American one. And why not? They're both in English.
Seven developer interviews, shown at the Sony E3 Press Conference, have been hidden around the PlayStation Network Store. This is on top of all the 
In an effort to mirror the simultaneous release in America and Japan (Europeans are fighting back the vitriol) that was 
