Jason Olander brings the Playstation blog tips about MAG’s Skill Tree system, pay close attention guys:

“Hey there, this is Jason and it’s a fact that the skill tree is the heart of your character, and the place where a soldier’s identity is forged. Specialization is the name of the game here, as becoming comfortable with a particular weapon set and support role, and then spending skill points wisely to improve upon those skills will help you become an effective combatant and squad mate. Following these few tips will help you become a force to be reckoned with out on the battlefield.

• Choose your weapon. Rather than spend precious skill points across several weapon types, pick one and spend points to continually upgrade that category’s weapon selections, attachments, and skills.
• Choose your role. Electronics warfare? Combat medic? Field engineer? Explosives expert? MAG is all about teamwork, and a balanced squad is a good squad. Decide on your “support” role immediately, and just like when specializing with a weapon, continually spend skill points to improve that skill set rather than scattering points across disciplines.
• Save your skill points. Just because you leveled up and have a shiny new skill point to spend, that doesn’t mean you have to spend it “right now.” Decide first what your next ‘must have” skill is and save up for it. That new foregrip attachment for an assault rifle or the electronic sensor jammer may be worth the wait.
• Respec early and often. Your current Respec points are shown in the “Skills” tree. When you have enough points, opting for a respec will reset all purchased skills and give you all of your earned points back to spend again; it’s basically a do-over. This is a great opportunity to hone your specialty and personal play-style to a razor’s edge.
• Be prepared for an ever-changing battlefield by “packaging” new skills and equipment together as loadouts in the Armory. Use attacker and defender skill sets as a starting point, and build from there with your specialties. Packaging up gear skills into an easily selectable loadout can make all the difference when a stealthy assault on an AA Battery is called for, or when a last stand against heavy APC’s can mean the difference between victory or defeat.

In closing, the key is to maximizing the skill tree is to choose your weapon, choose your role, then work up the ranks to become effective at both, while using the respec function liberally to find that perfect combination for your play style.”

A lot of useful information in this installment, I hope you guys are finding this information useful and tearing up the battlefield with our brothers and sisters in the D-GU Clan! If you don’t know about the D-GU.co clan, then you need to check it out!

Another day and another batch of tips delivered from the developers of the 256 player phenomena Massive Action Game. (MAG) Today we have Zipper’s Chief Software Architect, Nate Klee.

Direct from the Official Playstation Blog they posted these helpful tips:

Basic Tips:

The goal of the attackers in Domination is to destroy a rival PMC’s oil facility in 3 phases. Each attacking platoon first needs to simultaneously grab control of two burn-off towers. Once these are both held, they are destroyed and can’t be repaired. Destroying these towers also unlocks a pair of cooling towers which operate in a similar fashion. Once those are taken out, the attackers move in to take over oil pump controls and destroy the facility. The more pumps that are held, the faster you can damage the facility. The goal for the defenders is to keep the facility from taking too much damage before the attackers run out of reinforcements.

• Try to stay near to your squad. Not only do you receive leadership bonuses but you are more likely to be resuscitated quickly.
• Come in prepared with a loadout that has a repair kit for defending and a rocket launcher for attacking.

Advanced Tips:

If you are attacking:

• Focus on taking out the defender bunkers and possibly the AAA before you go for the cooling towers.
• Make sure that you take out the bunker turrets from behind cover before you rush in to plant charges on the bunker.
• You can damage the bunker turrets with rockets, grenades, APC turrets, and even small arms fire.
• Make sure that your squad leader puts down FRAGOs on each objective.
• Lead objective assaults with grenades.

If you are defending:

• Keep your bunker turret repaired. You can repair it faster with multiple people repairing at once, though there are diminishing returns.
• Repairing the AAA is a great stall tactic since it can push back the attackers. You can often grab a motor pool vehicle and drive up to repair it with some protection.
• You can force offensive Helicopters to fly off by damaging them, forcing attackers to spawn further away from the front lines.
• Repairing the doors around the objectives can prevent the attackers from flooding in.

The developers of the 256 player (Holy crap that’s a lot) First Person Shooter MAG, has dropped some survival tips and tactics for it’s fans. Beginning with Suppression, CJ Heine of Zipper Interactive posted on the Official Playstation Blog:

Basic Tips

For players that are new to MAG, Suppression is one of the first game types they can play – keep these things in mind as you get your feet wet:

• Wins and losses in Suppression do not count in the Shadow War, but you may also find Suppression missions less stressful because you don’t have to worry about impacting the war as you learn the game.
• Remember to stick with your squad. You will improve your survivability while learning how to fight alongside your team.
• There are no vehicles or objectives to repair in Suppression, so modify your loadout appropriately (no need for the Repair Kit or Anti-tank Mines).
• Learn the locations of the Resupply Points as they’ll refill your health and ammo, so knowing the way back to these quickly will keep you alive longer. They also tend to be player magnets, and can often become the center of combat.
• Most default loadouts contain a First Aid Kit, so practice using this on yourself when your health gets too low. If you have upgraded to the Medical Kit or have the Resuscitation skill, seek out wounded allies and try healing them.
• Don’t bleed out if you’ve been killed! Get familiar with the incapacitation and bleedout mechanics in Suppression, and see if there is anyone available to revive you before you choose to respawn.

Advanced Tips

• Go easy on the low level guys! They’re in Suppression trying to learn and gain their first few levels. You are all in the same PMC, and taking the time to help them and answer their questions could make the difference down the road in a Shadow War mission.
• Suppression is a great place to experiment with your new skill unlocks. The Suppression missions are small and time to combat is quick, making them a great source for practice targets. Use this closed environment to experiment with things like anti-personnel mines, items from the Electronics skill tree, new weapon upgrades, etc.
• Right on the edge of your next player level but short on time? Often times, it’s faster to play a quick Suppression match instead of a full Shadow War mission for that last bit of needed experience.

Yesterday, Producer Alan Van Slyke provided readers with this batch of helpful tips:

“Hey everyone, Sabotage is the first mode available in MAG that pits you against another PMC for control of the Shadow War. It’s one of the most accessible game types as it only requires you to secure three objectives for victory. Follow these guidelines, and you’re sure to do your part!”

Basic Tips

• Squad cohesion is important. There are multiple approach routes as an attacker, so talk to and follow your squad leader and steamroll the opposition as a unit.
• Having problems getting your squad to A or B objectives? Two or three medics per squad can pick up any fallen teammates along the way, which keeps the squad together on approach.
• The faction that typically prevails in Sabotage is the one that’s willing to make a focused charge at the objective. Sustained firefights at 100 meters from the objective as an attacker may give you a nice kill/death ratio, but will more often than not, result in your loss.
• If you have a headset, let your squadmates know about the guy under the stairs or in the church tower (yes, I hate that guy too). If you don’t have a headset, listen for callouts from your team.
• FRAGOs mean double points. They’re set by your squad leader as a mechanism to give the squad a unified goal and provide double XP when you’re in the FRAGO’s vicinity. If you’re interested in getting more points, these will get you there fast.

Advanced Tips

• On approach as an attacker, drop smoke grenades about 80-100 meters from A or B. This will get your full squad to within striking distance where you can regroup and make the final push to the objective.
• All final C objective buildings have front entrances (attackers) and rear entrances (defender). A few attackers can often flank C towards the back to disrupt the defender’s spawn into the final objective building. This provides a critical opportunity to secure the final objective. Ten seconds of spawn wave disruption can often result in an Attacker’s victory.
• Poison Gas and Frag grenades are great ways to clear Sabotage objective buildings of enemies. Poison does nasty proximity damage over time and Frag grenades can insta-kill if they’re too close – this provides a huge additional bonus in that fragged enemies can’t be revived and must travel back to the objective from the spawn point.

If you pre order Yakuza 3 you will gain access to a pretty sweet set of 4 pieces of DLC available through redemption code. Once you redeem the code you will have:

• Battle for Survival – Take on all the bosses of Yakuza 3 as Kazuma
• All-Star Tournament (7 character tournament)
• All-Star Tag Tournament (8 team tournament)
• Haruka’s Request – This unique series of challenge missions will send you on a task of exploration throughout the entire Yakuza world, playing mini-games and entertaining Haruka.

In addition to this DLC, Yakuza fans that pre-order their copy from GameStop will also receive bonus content via the Challenge pack. You will be able to enjoy 2-player games competing against their friends at Pool, Bowling, Darts and Golf. They will also be able to customize their main character with four alternative costumes for Kazuma, Haruka and Rikiya.

Yakuza 3 is slated to be released on March 9th, 2010; So you have plenty of time to reserve your copy now.
Does anyone else get the urge to splay Smackdown Vs. Raw when you look at the picture above?

Recently, David Jaffe posted on his personal blog about Twisted Metal’s future, whether it has one or not. This was posted under the section of his blog called: “WHAT’S ON JAFFE’S MIND”

“Just to be clear, I’ve never said we were or were NOT making a new Twisted Metal. Ever. But just to be 100% clear, if we were to make a new Twisted, I would consider it a reboot. The last console Twisted was 10 years ago. If we were to make a new one, we’d be starting with the assumption that no one knows what Twisted Metal is anymore and we’d have to re-earn each and every fan the series ever had. So in that sense, IF we were to ever make a new one, we’d consider it a brand new series/game/franchise.”

So, he does not clarify the existence on a new Twisted Metal. However, He does not deny the fact either. An enormous amount of designers, producers, etc. rarely give out clues to what they are working on. But if you think about it and then analyze what was said. You’ll realize that this just means that there is a very real possibility that the game may make a comeback. And if Jaffe is at the reins of this project, we can expect great things considering he is talking about it being treated as a whole new IP. Basically saying to hell with remakes and picking up where the last Twisted Metal left off. We would treat it as a new IP and earn the respect of our fans all over again.

Bravo Jaffe, make it happen this decade!

Just recently, Rockstar Games stated that they “Promised to be very good” to Playstation 3 owners in 2010. Well, it looks like they are going to get started on this promise sooner than expected…
Very early this morning, Rockstar Games announced on it’s newswire that they will releasing GTA: Episodes from Liberty City on the Playstation 3 and the PC on March 10, 2010. Each episode (The Lost and the damned, Ballad of Gay Tony) will be available via the PSN and Games for Windows Live.
Alternatively, Playstation 3 owners will also have to opportunity to purchase both Episodes on the same disc as they were also available in this manner for the 360.

I’ll admit, I was pretty disappointed with Rockstar’s deal with Microsoft to make GTA DLC exclusive to the 360, but it looks like that deal has finally expired and Rockstar is making an effort to redeem themselves after practically abandoning the GTA PS3 community. Granted, a part of me says: “To little, too late” But I can’t help it…
Rockstar Games is like that ex-girlfriend that you hate to death, but for some weird reason you can’t dump her ass.
Well played Rockstar, but I want to know what else you have in story for us. Buttering us up with pre-released DLC isn’t going to be enough my dear.

Tonight is the night, we say goodbye to 2009 and say hello to 2010.
Annually, (whether we want to or not) we celebrate and make our personal resolutions that we may or may not keep. (Sometimes we make resolutions with no intention to up hold them.)
New Year’s Eve is a celebration for a new beginning and an ending.

But why go out in the hustle and bustle of your city?
Is it really worth being clambered together with a group of people you don’t know, (in the cold I might add) just to watch a glass ball “drop”?
Of course it is to an extent, but you will be able to do the EXACT same thing tonight on Playstation Home WITHOUT freezing your ass off!

Tonight at 11:59pm, the floating orb in the Central Plaza will drop and I personally will be there to witness the first New Year’s celebration on Home. I invite you to do the same and witness this historical event!

Sony seems to be pretty damn excited by this event, here’s the official tweet:

SonyPlayStation
Grab special New Year’s Eve items in PlayStation Home and watch the ball drop in Central Plaza at 11:59pm on 12.31. http://bit.ly/8yzYvw

Here is the message of the day for PlayStation Home:

CydoniaX, Locust_Star, & GlassWalls (PlayStation Home Community Management Team)

Apparently this update was a silent one, it came out about 2 weeks ago (December 15^th, 2009) and not a single word has been mentioned or published about it. I stumbled on it tonight while I set my controllers up to charge and to do my part in the research conducted by Stanford University.

This new update brings added support for Photo slideshows and Video Playback.
“Video playback?”  You probably are asking yourself, along with those said items…
Update 1.2 provides us with a new channel called:
Playstation Network Game Trailers Channel.
This channel is an exclusive to the US territories.

Taken from the official Life@Playstation website, it is described as:
“With the PlayStation® Network Game Trailers Channel, you can quickly and easily check out the latest video trailers for game content available on PlayStation® Store.

You can read additional information about each title, and even purchase the games directly from PlayStation® Store without ever leaving Life with PlayStation®.

For a more TV like experience, allow auto playback mode to kick in and trailers will be streamed automatically.”

Go jump on Life@Playstation and download this update, the file is less than 100mb and it will not take very long. Play around with it like I did.

Now on a different note and yet relevant subject…

Sony with all of these improvements over Life and Home, I have a bit of a challenge for you.
With the millions of PlayStation Home users, it would be great to see a merger between the two applications, both of which can easily stand by their selves as incredible applications. But imagine if millions of Home users; While conversing in Home and going about their daily Home lives are not fully aware that Life@Playstation  is running in the back ground fully maximizing the efficiency of Home and Life. I’m not saying scrap Life@Playstation to do this, hell no! I enjoy using it to listen to random music my PS3 selects and Looking at the news of places I have either been to or I am fond of.

I’m just saying it would be a wonderful step for both Home and Life if this were to be realized.
(Don’t make me get my dueling gloves.)

This evening in PlayStation Home’s theater, Capcom was hosting a Q&A session and answered a lot of the fan’s questions.  D-GU.com was right there to collect some data for you fans!
The night began crowded, the moment the staff arrived in the server I was in; they were pummeled with questions and of course the typical Home default insults and questioning of one’s sexuality. Order was being enforced by the Home Mods as they were out in full force. The first room that I was in just so happened to was being patrolled by GlassWalls and the Capcom employee that was there, we will call him Sven from here on out.

When a Home user asked what the Monster Hunter series was about, Sven responded by stating:

“ The first Monster Hunter on the PS2 was an attempt to some degree to jump start online console gaming particularly in Japan. It wasn’t very successful there or in the U.S. The PSP version (What we released in the US as Monster Hunter Freedom) is what became a HUGE success in Japan, and has grown popularity since then in the U.S. We run HUGE festivals in Japan where thousands of people show up to play. Our hope is with the release of AdHoc Party on the PSN, we will see a growing U.S audience playing online.

A Home user asked if Home help boost the popularity of Capcom Games in the U.S.
Sven responded by stating Home has helped Capcom capture new fans. He continued by stating that the Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4 areas and content helped the PSN community. Pointing out the give a little, get a little business relationship.

When asked about a PlayStation 3 version of Monster Hunter, Sven stated : “Still talks about a PS3 MH product from time to time. One never knows what the future will bring.”

“What is Capcom’s next Home project?” came a question from the crowed and Sven’s response was:
“Not sure yet. We have a number of potential projects and they tend to tie to major upcoming releases… Many of which aren’t announced yet.. New Premium themes will be coming.”

A question appeared in the crowed text bubbles, Was AdHoc Party Capcom’s brain child?
Sven responded by stating that it was “All Sony… Though we evangelized it a lot, it’s a great service that makes MHFU much better.”

When asked if the Street Fighter 4 game saves would work with Super Street Fighter 4, Sven stated “Not really, but it’s NOT necessary there is none of the unlocksneeded in SSF4 that SF4 had. There will be new SSF4 trophies; it’s like a whole new game.”

At this point, Sven and GlassWalls departed to move to a different server, I jumped to another server as well where I ran into two more Capcom employees, One by the PSN name of Mountain and the other: Snow.

When asked about a level cap in MHFU, Mountain stated that the levels are ranked and there are nine rankings, the rankings will take a very long time to achieve.

Mountain stated the game was in development for a long time and took about a 70 person development team. Snow interjected by stating that the size of the development team varied on the current time of development, but it usually averages out to be about 70 people.

Soon Mountain had to depart and Snow was left behind.

Snow mentioned that they have “Talked about Home items and Home spaces internally but no plans were made.” He continued by saying:” With enough interest, we may consider it Go to Capcom-Unity.com and ask for it on the forums.”

A Home user asked about the possibility of a Monster Hunter for the PS3, Snow responded by stating that it would depend on how well Monster Hunter Freedom Unite does.

Someone asked about the story and Snow stated that it does not have much of a story other than your village is attacked by monster and you must slay those monsters.. You will be mostly creating your own story and experience with friends. Try it online with AdHoc Party.

I would like to once again thank the Capcom team for taking the time to appear in Home to answer many of the burning questions on so many people’s minds.

Michelle Rodriguez speaks out about her lifelong addiction to video games with GameCulture.com
She speaks highly of Assassin’s Creed 2 calling it “awesome”  and pointed out that she hasn’t had the opportunity to enjoy it very much because she has been “to busy playing freaking Call of Duty”
Michelle was not aware of the controversial airport scene that has been in the media lately. She commented by saying: “There’s an airport sequence?” she asks GameCulture. “… Uh-uh. I haven’t gotten that far. I’ve been playing online.” Her reaction after being told more details about the Airport Scene was repeatedly saying: “Holy Shit” followed by “Holy Shit And do you have to do it? … Fucked up. Talk about collateral damage.” Eh-hem… I concur my dear Michelle, I concur.
I have to say, Michelle is a feisty one with her opinion on movie based video games, I honestly could not agree with her more.