PixelJunk Monsters will getting patched soon to include new features and improvements to the game. The patch is already available to download in Japan but will be heading to North America and Europe on October 30th 2008, if all goes to plan. The update will include trophy support, new game difficulty settings, changes to the tower selection menu, YouTube video upload support and custom XMB soundtrack support. See below for details on the new features and improvements

Game Difficulty settings

You can now choose between three different difficulties of gameplay! There is a Casual mode, the Regular/Ranked mode, and Hard-core mode. The great news here is that you can use any combination of difficulties to complete your progress through the islands! Is there one particular map that’s too hard? Try it in Casual mode. If you Rainbow the level, that rainbow counts and will remain on the map no matter what difficulty the other rainbows were achieved at! Only the Regular difficulty will register on the ranking boards, though.

Tower Menu selection

You can now set the default menu to appear when selecting a tower! How many times have you sold off a tower and run over to another tower to quickly upgrade it and accidentally sell it by mistake?Now you can choose which option appears as the default, instead of the last action you selected.

Tower Balancing

Those of you who have purchased Encore know about the reduced cost on the Ice Tower, and balanced functionality of the Tesla tower. This patch applies those changes to BOTH islands, not just the Encore island.

Video Recording / YouTube Support

Ever since Q-Games included this feature into PixelJunk Eden, they knew it needed to be in Monsters as well. You will be able to record up to 10 minutes of gameplay and upload it directly to your YouTube account, or send it to your video folder on your PS3’s XMB.

XMB Custom Soundtrack Support

You can now make your own custom soundtrack to listen to as you play PixelJunk Monsters and Encore! I’ve personally been enjoying listening to the PixelJunk Eden soundtrack while I play Monsters, as well as listening to the PixelJunk Monsters soundtrack within Eden! It’s great how well those fantastic soundtracks work in other games.

Trophies

Trophies are now added for both PixelJunk Monsters and Encore. Trophies won’t apply retroactively to the previously played data, but Q-Games didn’t want to force people to play everything all over again. They came up with a great idea by creating Trophy Challenges. These challenges have specific maps with set rules or objectives that will reward you with Trophies if you complete them properly. There are 14 challanges meaning there are 14 trophies to unlock.

­

Hi everyone. We have upgraded the XTREME PSP website to be available over a secure HTTP connection (or HTTPS). If you prefere, you can now access the site using https://www.xtremepsp.com. We hope you feel more secure using the new URL. Of course, if you prefer to use XTREME PSP as normal, you can still access the website using the regular address (without the HTTPS).

In other news, we are approaching the public beta of PSP M4M. We will be opening up the website for full public access within the next few days so be on the look out for that.

­

With the recent PSP Firmware update (v5.00), a few bugs were found on the system, notably when downloading from the PSP PlayStation Store to large Memory Stick PRO Duos (8GB or 16GB), which reports that you don’t have enough free space available. As a result, Firmware v5.01 is now available to download to fix the problem. A message on the PlayStation.Blog confirms that the update will fix the aforementioned bug.

"PSP firmware update 5.00 added direct access to the PlayStation Store, and we’ve since found an issue related to larger-capacity Memory Stick PRO Duos, which we’ll be addressing with a new update (5.01). When downloading content from the Store to a PSP with an 8 GB or 16 GB Memory Stick Duo media inserted, you may see a message indicating that the media does not have enough free space, even when sufficient space exists."

You can download the update using the Network Update feature from the PSP [Settings] menu.

­

­

If you have been busy building up your trophy collection over the last few months, you will be glad to know that some sort of trophy reward system may be in the works. According to the latest issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine, SCEA is considering some sort of reward system that will give something back to users. According to OPM, it could be access to early betas, wallpapers or themes. If you haven’t got yourself any trophies yet, you should start building your collection now.

You should be aiming to get between 300 to 400 trophies – there are lots of games out so this target should be easy to reach, even if you don’t complete every game 100%. SCEE hasn’t commented on a similar system for Europe. OPM stated:

"We’ve heard that SCEA is mulling over some sort of Trophy reward system. We doubt it’ll be cash (or the equivalent), but we suspect it might be exclusive access to early betas and the like."

The first official PSP Store update is in, and it’s somewhat disappointing. There is nothin new for Europe and the US have received a small update, consisting of a new game demo, two new downloadable games and a PS1 classic. Check out the list below.

European Additions:

• Nothing new for Europe

US Additions:

• Game Demos
  • Lego Batman: The Videogame Demo
• Downloadable Games
  • Dead Head Fred ($14.99)
  • PQ2: Partical Intelligence Quotient 2 ($14.99)
• PS1 Classics
  • Sno-Cross Championship Racing ($5.99)

Yesterday, the Far Cry 2 Game Space was made available to beta testers taking part in the extended beta of PlayStation Home. We’ve decided to make a video of the game space and have included it below to show all you non-beta testers what the space has to offer. You can also see a video of the Uncharted Game Space in our earlier post. The game space lets you explore the station, learn about in-game characters, check out the special map, and play a few rounds of Mancala.

The game space will continue to evolve, with more features and mini-games coming soon. If you are in the extended beta, open up the world map and click on the Far Cry 2 icon to see the available areas.

­

Sony seems to have missed a big feature of the recent PlayStation 3 Firmware update (v2.50). The recovery menu can be loaded by holding down the power button, while the PS3 is switched off, for 10 seconds until you hear three beeps. The recovery menu allows you to perform various operations on the console to fix any problems you may have, this includes performing firmware updates, restoring default settings and restoring the file system. We have included a video of the features below.

PS3 Recovery menu features:

1. Restart system
2. Restore default settings
3. Restore file system
4. Rebuild database
5. Restore PS3 system
6. System update

The recovery menu is useful if you have happened to brick your PS3, though you can only use it if you have installed firmware v2.50.

­

SCEE has released a statement to announce that the release of LittleBigPlanet has been worldwide, and not just in Europe as some sites have been reporting. The official statement says that the delay is due to a licensed track in the game which contains expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. MediaMolecule have taken immediate action to rectify the problem and as a result, the release date has been pushed back to October 31st.

Official Statement:

"During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.

We will confirm the new launch date shortly."

[Via: ThreeSpeech]