“Deep Red” PSP announced

Releasing this June is a new red PlayStation Portable. It’s a beauty, actually. Nice red enamel and on the back a silkscreen of Kratos, the protagonist of the God of War franchise.

It’s part of a package that includes the PSP, a copy of the game Chains of Olympus, Kratos' first appearance on PSP, the movie Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download the PSP game Syphon Filter: Combat Ops onto a Memory Stick. The God of War package deal has a MSRP of Cdn$199.99.

God of War: Chains of Olympus, the new PSP game starring Kratos, will be available on March 4 for those of you already in possession of a PSP system.

In related PlayStation news, Sony has come up with a PS3 bundle for late Q2 that includes an 80GB PS3, a new Dualshock 3 wireless controller, and a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for only Cdn$499 (suggested).

The Dualshock 3 game pad combines the rumble feature of the old PS2 controllers with the motion-sensing Sixaxis technology. They will be available in April for Cdn$54.95.

Writers rewarded for work on video game

Dead Head Fred writers Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan have been presented with the first ever Writers Guild Award for video game writing.

Dead Head Fred is a PSP game about Fred, a private investigator, who is looking into the affairs of businessman Ulysses S. Pitt. Pitt claims to be the saviour of the people, but is actually rotten to the core. He cottons to Fred, though, and Fred ends up dead.

And beheaded.

A scientist in Pitt’s employ preserves Fred’s eyes and brain and reanimates his corpse in the hope that Fred can turn the tables on the bad apple.

Fred’s new head is nothing more than his brain and eyes floating in a jar, but he collects other heads - including a corpse head that can spew fluids that it’s sucked up and a stone head that can break through walls - and Fred is able to swap one head for another depending on the situation he finds himself in.

Rated mature, Dead Head Fred is hindered by long loading times, uninspired level design, and terrible gameplay mechanics, but there are two elements of the game that are great: writing and voice work.

The main character, Fred, is voiced by John C. McGinley and the main antagonist, Ulysses S. Pitt, is performed by Jon Polito. They make the game.

Therefore, the writers of the game deserve recognition, because without their witty dialogue, there would have been nothing clever for McGinley and Polito to say.

Congrats to Ellis and Cogan. And to all the other writers who were nominated, who also deserve the recognition for their hard work.

Handheld Xbox still a possibility?

There've always been rumours floating around that Microsoft had a portable, handheld Xbox in the works, something to compete with the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

For a while, it was thought that the Zune might be this device, but now that we've seen the Zune - most have been unimpressed - we know it is not in the same market segment as the DS or PSP. And, it should be noted, Microsoft has always denied it had a portable game system in the works.

Well, in an on-stage interview with New York Times video game reporter Seth Schiesel, Shane Kim, corporate VP of Microsoft Game Studios added some fuel to the perpetual motion machine that is Xbox Portable.

When Shiesel asked about Microsoft's plans for a portable gaming device, Kim said:
Never say never ... launching a portable device is like launching another Xbox 360 ... you have to really step back and ask, devoting whatever bandwidth and resources you would have to to make the Zune a multifunction device, is that really the best way to go?

So maybe the Zune is going to be a gaming gadget after all. The Zune seems to be having troubles getting traction against the iPod, so maybe this is how Microsoft tries to keep the device relevant.

Anyone out there used a Zune? Let us know what it's like in the comments.

CES 2008: Blu-ray support for PSP

Sony has revealed Blu-ray Discs that include not just a bright, fancy high-definition version of a film, but also a lower-resolution version of the same content.

The idea here is that you can watch the high-def version on your high-def television, and copy the low-res version to your PSP for remote viewing. One price gets you multiple versions of the same content to use on the devices you prefer.

That's more like it.