Tag: Culture - Page 10
News Sony's Legendary PlayStation Underground Has Returned
But perhaps not as you remember it
PlayStation Underground was a big deal in the late 90s. Produced by SCEA in North America, it allowed fans to sign up in order to receive regular CD-ROMs produced by the platform holder. These included both demos of popular games, as well as interviews with notable names. Want to know an interesting piece of...
News Some UK Schools Are Cracking Down on Children Playing More Mature Games
No more GTA for little Timmy
In an effort to crack down on children playing games that aren't suitable, a group of head teachers in the UK are warning parents that they're entitled to contact the police or child social care if they're found to have access to inappropriate titles. The Nantwich Education Partnership covers numerous schools in...
Weirdness These The Last of Us Plushies Are Pretty Cute
D'aww
Sony recently launched a gear page on its official website, where it's flogging various bits and bobs of merchandise. A lot of the goodies range from t-shirts to posters, so it's all pretty predictable stuff. However, we had to post about these The Last of Us plushies, as they're sure to delight fans of the franchise. Alright, they're a...
Feature The Seven Deadly Sins of Game Design
You should know better
Frustration is an emotion that none of us want to feel, especially when we're playing video games. The problem is, of course, that frustration is always lurking just around the corner, unless you're like the gaming equivalent of the most meditative monk in the world – in which case, we salute your patience and understanding...
Weirdness Some Idiot Traded in Their Ultra Rare 20th Anniversary PS4 at CEX
Just another unloved appliance
Sometimes you need a quick sale, and stores like CEX are always available to purchase your unwanted goods. This is fine if we're talking about your crusty old PlayStation 2 and scratched copy of Pro Evolution Soccer 3, but if you're offloading your 20th Anniversary PlayStation 4 at the high street store – well, you...
News What If Indie Games Got Collector's Editions, Too?
Anything AAA can do, indie can do better
Ah, the Collector's Edition – a publisher's attempt at extracting even more money out of your unsuspecting wallet. There's always been something ever so slightly insidious about the extortionate box sets that almost all AAA titles command, but what if they were crowdfunded, reasonably priced – and...
News A Very Happy Birthday to You, PlayStation 2
The third place
Seeing as Sony ceased production on the PlayStation 2 a little while ago, we assumed that we were done celebrating the system's birthday, but what the heck – pour one out for the old guy. The black behemoth turns 15 today, if you take into account its 4th March, 2000 launch date in Japan. Those were certainly heady days, as not...
These Are the Players A Conversation with YouTube Game Reviewer Caddicarus
Caddick addict
Here at Push Square Towers, we're constantly blithering on about the most famous game developers and designers, but there's always been a hole in our coverage: the players. We're talking about the fans – the people that love the brand as much as we do. Ultimately, we're referring to folk just like you. In this new series, we'll be...
Weirdness Sony Craftily Joins Dress Colour Debate
Introducing the new white and gold DualShock 4
Those that have topped up their Tumblr knowledge of late will be aware of the dress debate that's taken social media by storm. For those out of the loop, an image showing a white and gold dress [It's white and gold, darn it – Ed] has prompted an online rift, as some argue that it's actually black and...
News Apparently, People Buy PS4s Over Xbox Ones and Wii Us for the Resolution
Hmmmm
This should go down well. According to a report by Nielsen, the PlayStation 4 is selling like hotcakes due to "better resolution". We know, we're not exactly sure what to make of this, either. The publication quizzed consumers on what aspects of current-gen consoles they found most attractive, while in the process of purchasing their new...
Opinion How Reviews Can Colour a Game's Reception
Good and bad
There's a growing sentiment among the gaming press that sites like this one are an outdated concept. Apparently, people no longer want to read a considered critique of a game – they'd rather watch a playthrough on YouTube or Twitch, with some commentary from a popular personality. It's something that's constantly on this author's...
News The Order: 1886's 256 Page Strategy Guide Is Pure Gold
Push square
We're not ones to kick a game when it's down – after all, we really like parts of Ready at Dawn's inaugural PlayStation 4 exclusive – but The Order: 1886 is probably the last title on the planet that needed a 256 page strategy guide. Still, that's exactly what Brady Games has produced, and it's already proving a hit in some hardcore...
News UK Publisher and Gamer Charity Weekend Includes World Exclusive Gameplay
Gaming for all
If you hadn't noticed it already topping the trends on Twitter, this weekend marks GameBlast, a 24 hour charity gaming marathon by gamers, for gamers. Everyone is gaming hard all to help donate to Special Effect – a UK game charity devoted to helping those with physical disabilities play games. It isn't just streamers getting...
News Wait a Minute, Sony Bought a PS4 for £85,000?
All for a good cause
Remember those 20th Anniversary Edition PlayStation 4s? The sleek grey consoles proved to be incredibly popular despite their extremely limited availability, with many machines getting resold for extortionate prices on websites like eBay. Sony recently held an auction for the very first 20th Anniversary unit, and the bidding...
Talking Point How Important Is Game Length?
Time to find out
The Order: 1886 has caused a bit of a kerfuffle this weekend for supposedly being short, but how much does game length really matter? Some would argue that there's no point in spending money on a release that can be wrapped up in an evening or two, but many of us simply don't have the time to work through a 100 hour epic. It's a...
Weirdness This Abandoned Mall Looks Just Like the One from The Last of Us
Out of business
Spoilers: you spend a good chunk of The Last of Us: Left Behind in an abandoned mall. Here's the really, eerie bit, though: the derelict shopping centre appears to exist in real life. Cleveland-based photographer Seph Lawless recently snapped some shots of the snow blanketed Rolling Acres Mall in Ohio, which was shuttered in 2008...
News Happy Birthday to Sony Executive Shuhei Yoshida
Many happy returns
Are we doing birthday notices now? Gosh, this site's gone right down the pan – we'll be posting pictures of DualShock-themed tables on Twitter next. Still, we suppose that Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida is just about big enough to have his date of birth acknowledged on these hallowed pages – after all, he has...
Talking Point Do Review Scores Have a Future?
Number games
After an incredible 15 years – and more 8/10 jokes than we care to count – Eurogamer.net has dropped review scores. It's not the first site to do so – both Kotaku and Joystiq (RIP) ditched numbers and stars a while ago – but the news seems significant this time because our buddies from Brighton operate a more traditional...
News EA: Games Are Still Too Hard to Learn
Don't pull that face
A top executive from EA Games has suggested that most video games are still too difficult for the average person to learn. We suspect that this statement is going to go down like a lead balloon, but we reckon that chief creative officer Richard Hilleman, who was speaking at the 2015 DICE Summit, may actually have a point. "The...
Soapbox Why We Need More Grounded Games
Sammy Barker's sick of the surreal
I did something that I don't usually do last night: I cancelled my late night session at the Push Square coal face in order to finish Life Is Strange. The debut episode in DONTNOD's episodic escapade has received a mixed reception from critics, with some lauding it as a minor masterpiece, while others try not to...
Weirdness Don't Pimp Your 20th Anniversary PS4 Like This
Glitter fugly
Given how rare they were, it was maddening to see scalpers charging extortionate fees for their 20th Anniversary PlayStation 4s on eBay last year – but this is a step above. As spotted by the ever tasteful eyes of Eurogamer.net, one up-and-coming entrepreneur has opted
News Attackers Behind PS4's Christmas Outage Hit by Heavy Hack
What goes around, comes around
Behave badly and your actions will catch up with you eventually, as some members of the so-called Lizard Squad may be realising right now. After attaining plenty of mainstream media coverage following the PlayStation Network outage which it apparently initiated over Christmas, the group launched a DDoS service,...
News Watch PlayStation Titles Get Destroyed in the Awesome Games Done Quick Marathon
Supersonic
It's the start of a fresh new year full of gaming, and to help kickstart it into turbo gear is the bi-annual Awesome Games Done Quick marathon. Running from the 5th to the 10th January on Twitch to support the Prevent Cancer Foundation, an army of titles will be blasted through at speeds that may make you cry. The lineup ranges from old...
Weirdness This Christmas Gift Is the PS4 Equivalent of Coal
Stone the crows
If you reckon that you had a rough Christmas trying to connect to the PlayStation Network, then spare a thought for Igor Baksht's poor 13-year-old niece, who almost received a box of rocks for the big day. According to the Daily Mail, the aforementioned unfortunate shopper picked up a PlayStation 4 from Wal-Mart, but was sold a box...
News Season's Greetings from PlayStation's Premium Developers
They wish you a Merry Christmas
Christmas wouldn't be the same without more greetings cards than you know what to do with. Waltzing wintery streets with a square of cardboard that won't fit in your pocket is what the holidays are all about, so it kind of makes sense for game developers to acknowledge their fans with bits and pieces of custom art...
News Sony Boss Adam Boyes Made Someone's Christmas with This Gift
For the lucky
In theory, Secret Santa is a great idea. Everyone in an office or school gets assigned one random person, and they’re responsible for purchasing said individual a gift. The problem is that when there are already established relationships at play, phallic objects are usually the order of the day. Involve a stranger, though, and things...
Feature 10 PlayStation Gifts That Need to Be on Your Christmas List
Stocking fillers
We were going to produce a bog-standard buyer’s guide this Christmas, but we figured that we’d be re-treading old ground. After all, you can peruse what we think is hot on PlayStation courtesy of our nifty games page, and chances are you already have an idea what software you’d like Santa to lug down your chimney anyway...
Weirdness Sony's Made a Watch Out of E-Paper
Time for something different
Under the leadership of former PlayStation president Kaz Hirai, Sony is secretly exploring new methods that it hopes will propel it back to profitability in the future. One such subsidiary that it’s created on the quiet is Fashion Entertainments, a small startup consisting of five younger engineers, which has been...
News Watch PlayStation's Iconic Controller Evolve in Front of Your Eyes
The whole world in your hands
There’s absolutely eff all going on today, so we’re going to pad out our article quota with an animated GIF. To be fair, this addictive image loop is fascinating, as it shows the often subtle evolution of the PlayStation’s iconic controller, from its original grayscale guise on the PSone all the way through to its...
News Rockstar Chops Grand Theft Auto V Gear Prices for Black Friday
Cut and shut
Black Friday may be mainly about loss leaders, late nights, and bar room-esque brawls, but Rockstar Games is aiming to keep things both simple and civil on its online store. A bit of a hidden treasure, the developer’s personal plaza includes various pieces of gaming-inspired gear, from a Gr
News Blood Sport Is Probably the Worst Kickstarter Idea Ever
Bloody hell
It takes a special kind of Kickstarter campaign to make this author feel squeamish, but as your humble host taps out this story, let it be known that his skin has turned a subtle shade of green. Blood Sport is quite possibly the most mind bogglingly terrible idea in the history of crowd funding – and it’s no surprise that the drive...
News There Are Only Ten of These Knack Statues in the World
Cerny you want one
Incredibly, it’s been a year since Knack first attacked the PlayStation 4 as a launch title – and in order to commemorate the occasion, Japan Studio has prepared ten ultra-rare statues, which will be given away at Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation Experience event. The trophy itself shows the titular hero standing alongside...
Weirdness What if You Could Play PSone Games on Your Watch?
Watch this
Back in the day, video game watches were all the rage. This author has a Double Dragon timepiece kicking about which includes a pretty terrible LCD replica of Taito’s beat-‘em-up – but things have gotten a little more sophisticated since then. With smart watches a current curiosity, it was only a matter of time before someone got an...
Weirdness Final Fantasy XV Looks Fantastic on PS4, But It'd Be Better on PSone
Low polygon fan
Look, we’re with you: Final Fantasy XV’s recent PlayStation 4 trailer was a real slice of emo entertainment. However, have you ever wondered what Square Enix’s latest would look like if it was in development some 20 or so years ago? Us neither, but we’re appreciative of Tumblr user
Weirdness What if the PS4 Was a Really Nifty Laptop?
Forget your MacBook Air
There are people that don’t have much spare time – and others that have way too much. One such talented individual is Ed Zarick, a self-taught engineer who may have abnormal amounts of free time, but is at least putting it to good use. Having previously designed the Xbook – a portable Xbox 360 for those out of the loop...
News This Woman Likes Silent Hill Way More Than You Do
No argument here
This particular author may be penning this article while proudly wearing a Pyramid Head t-shirt – we kid you not – but we’ll happily concede that there are much bigger Silent Hill fans in the world. One such person is Whitney Chavis, who’s just won the Guinness World Record for the biggest – and probably only – Silent...
Weirdness These PS4 Sneakers Are Sublime
"Please could you not step on my dunks?"
Confession: this editor purchased a pair of Air Jordans a few years ago. As has become a parody for some parts of popular culture, they never get worn – primarily because they cost an arm and a leg. Fortunately, they weren’t as expensive as these custom PlayStation 4 sneakers, which will set you back...
News Naughty Dog Looks Back on 30 Successful Years in Promo
Fawn over firm's iconic paw print
Naughty Dog is arguably the greatest developer in games today. While the Californian company has fairly humble origins as JAM Software, it exploded in popularity during the mid-90s when it released a little PSone exclusive named Crash Bandicoot. Since then, the company has gone from strength-to-strength, building...
Weirdness How Would You Like to Study PlayStation at University?
Korean institute even has DualShock themed desks
Well, that's us here at Push Square absolutely drunk with jealousy. Sangmyung University in South Korea is going to be hosting a course all about PlayStation, in a classroom that's, er, all about PlayStation. The learning institute has teamed up with Sony to create the course, in which students will...
News PlayStation Boss Gets Punished for All of E3's Boring Bits This Year
This is for Powers
Regardless of whether or not you liked the content, Sony’s big Gamescom 2014 press conference was much better paced than its E3 2014 one. The folks at SCEE cut out all of the fat, and peppered the organisation’s media briefing in Cologne with trailers, announcements, and very little corporate gobbledygook. SCEA boss Shawn...
Weirdness PSone Classic MediEvil Rises from the Dead in a Skyrim Mod
En garde, Fortesque!
For some reason, Daniel Fortesque from the 1998 PSone classic MediEvil seems to pop up every now and then in surprising ways. He made his way onto the PlayStation Portable in 2005 with a remake of the first game called MediEvil: Resurrection, and even joined the roster of fighters with a sword and shield in hand for
News That Rainbow PS4 Raised a Truckload of Money for Charity
Heartwarming hardware
You may remember a story that we ran a few days ago about a decidedly colourful PlayStation 4 with an important message. Dubbed the 'GayStation 4', this colourful custom SKU was constructed to coincide with the Stockholm Pride festival, and was planned to be auctioned off in order to raise money for Swedish charity RFSL. Well,...
News This Multicoloured PlayStation 4 Has an Important Message
Lovin' it
Sony has announced a wealth of different PlayStation 4 skins for its next-gen super machine, but they all pale in comparison to this one. Available exclusively at Swedish retailer Webhallen, the colourful unit has been designed to tie in to the Stockholm Pride Festival, which is set to kick off today. The vibrant device will be auctioned...
Weirdness Bloomin' Heck, Someone Made Shenmue in Minecraft
Search for sailors all over again
It’s funny how you can remember your way around familiar locations even if you haven’t been there for years. We spent so many hours in Shenmue’s eighties recreation of Yokosuka on the Dreamcast that we know every crevice of this incredible Minecraft replica. It’s been built using a modified edition of the PC...
Weirdness Beat the Heat with Media Molecule's Innovative Arctic Facebreeze
#Coolvolution
The downright debilitating temperatures here in the UK are showing no signs of coming to an end – just like the current video game drought. Seemingly discontent with both the weather and the absolute dearth of industry news, Sony first-party Media Molecule has announced its latest innovation: Arctic Facebreeze. This is a real doozy,...
News The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Didn't Look Like This on the PS3
To be fair, it didn't boot half of the time
As much as it pains us to say it, the PlayStation 3 didn’t provide the best home for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In addition to late expansion packs and the usual roster of Bethesda bugs, the game was borderline broken on Sony’s popular platform. Things did improve over time, but not to a degree where...
Weirdness Garrus, What Are You Doing in Doctor Who?
Mass Effect's popular Turian must have hopped into the TARDIS
Doctor Who will always baffle this particular editor. The low-budget BBC sci-fi series is a British institution like James Bond and Bourbon biscuits, but has always prompted a raised eyebrow from this dismissive scribe. Alas, a new trailer for the latest episode in the never-ending...
Weirdness The Last of Us' Ellie Can't Play Guitar, But She Can Sure Rock a Violin
Audio from the end of the world
Father figure Joel may promise to teach Ellie how to play guitar at one point in PlayStation 3 – and soon-to-be PlayStation 4 – exclusive The Last of Us, but we didn’t realise that the potty mouthed protagonist was already something of a whiz on the violin. In truth, she’s not – that’s just musician Taylor...
Weirdness What Is BioShock Infinite's Logo Doing on Fox News?
Parallel universe
Fox News appears to be a big fan of Irrational Games’ politically charged first-person shooter BioShock Infinite, as the United States station adapted the PlayStation 3 adventure’s logo for a recent segment on immigration, dubbed ‘Defending the Homeland’. Seeing as the game itself deals with the very idea of xenophobia, the...
News Flaunt Your Format Allegiance with Fresh PlayStation Threads
Console warrior's uniform
Gaming clothes can be awfully geeky, but British tailor Insert Coin has made it its mission to produce a selection of trendy threads based upon our favourite pastime – all of which, you could actually wear on a night out. And as part of its ongoing partnership with PlayStation, the clothing line has added a couple of new...
