Kotaku has three separate articles up discussing how three major games will be integrated into HOME in ways that will definitely excite gamers. Here is what the articles say:
While Home for the PlayStation 3 may have generated plenty of buzz for Sony at last year’s Game Developers Conference, its late arrival and the setting in of reality may have made it put a damper on the hype surrounding the service. We’ve had our doubts that Home may ultimately be nothing more than a prettier Second Life, a glorified 3D chat room, one that only makes getting to the games we actually want to play a bit of a chore. But we’ve recently learned some very interesting things about how three first-party published games will take advantage of Home’s features that have us very excited.
One of the first games expected to shine in one of Home’s series of game portals is Insomniac’s Resistance: Fall of Man. Resistance is said to provide Home visitors with an interesting room to explore, one that will let PlayStation 3 owners visit unseen areas of the game and tap into bonus content in the form of “intercepted” radio communications between European and U.S. forces.
These hidden transmissions will help to flesh out the Resistance story, giving players a better understanding of the game’s conflict. We hear that Home avatars will have free roam of unpopulated levels, not unlike a virtual Resistance museum.
As interesting as these plans are to Resistance fans like us, they’re not as impressive as what we’ve heard about what Home in store for Warhawk and Uncharted. Stay tuned.
The Article:
http://kotaku.com/361560/how-resistance-fall-of-man-makes-home-really-really-cool
While Resistance: Fall of Man’s integration with Home should have bonus content fans excited, old school run-and-gun shooter fans should be pretty pumped about what they may be getting with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’s contribution. We hear that the Home portal for Naughty Dog’s PlayStation 3 adventure will follow in Resistance’s footsteps, allowing Home avatars to explore the game’s levels without the threat of being shot at, a nice feature.
But it’s the Uncharted mini-game that has us far more pumped.
According to our sources, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune comes to Home armed with a side-scrolling 2D arcade game, described to us as reminiscent of both Contra and Out Of This World. Sounds kind of like Capcom’s 2D remake of Bionic Commando in its execution, full of enemies and exploding barrels to shoot.
Sony is apparently pitching features like these to developers to extend the lives of their titles, using strong first and second party development showcases to prove that Home can effectively market outside of traditional means. We hope they take them up on their offer, because we’re definitely excited about the prospects.
The Article:
http://kotaku.com/361563/how-uncharted-drakes-fortune-makes-home-really-really-cool
Sure, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Resistance: Fall of Man may have wicked cool feature sets for PlayStation 3’s Home, but it’s actually Warhawk’s planned game portal that has us most excited. According to our sources, the Home lobby for the Incognito dogfighter will serve as a “war room” where up to eight players can meet to discuss their strategy for an upcoming match.
Sure, you could do that with text or voice chat, but it sounds like the developers have gone the extra mile to make planning your battles even cooler.
Using a three-dimensional “sand table” replication of the level, Warhawk players are said to be able to lay out their strategies in a properly scaled space. They’ll even be able to place little army men avatars around the map to envision their formations, something we hope they can also do with teeny tiny Warhawk planes, tanks and Jeeps.
The Warhawk war room is said to also serve as a launchpad for games, thankfully, so jumping into a match shouldn’t require leaving the Home interface.
This is one of the coolest additions, in my personal opinion, to come to Home and the kind of thing that we hope is replicated and improved upon by other developers for their team-based titles.
The Article:
http://kotaku.com/361562/how-warhawk-makes-home-really-really-cool
HOME is going to be a love or hate situation for people. You are not forced to use it but it is there and it is free for those who do want to use it. I myself am interested in the concepts that HOME is bringing to the table. When it was first unveiled last year at GDC, I thought it was cool but nothing to amazing but now we have seen many significant changes to the HOME code and I think Sony is onto something here. I personally am excited to see all the neat stuff that happens to HOME and HOME is a program that will continue to grow over time. Can’t wait to explore HOME for myself when it gets released this summer.
