At Leipzig Games Convention 2008, Sony announced the development of an online, massively multiplayer action title for the PS3 and Windows known as The Agency. Is it an arcade shooter? A gritty realistic spy simulation? A Team Fortress 2 multi-operative escapade? The answer, oddly enough, is all of the above.

The Agency HQ, an independent fan site devoted to coverage of the game, recently interviewed some of the developers of Sony Online Entertainment or SOE at Fan Faire 2008. For those familiar with those haunting initials, these are the same folk who helped bring about Everquest, Everquest II, the various (read: never-ending) EQ expansions, The Matrix Online, Champions of Norrath, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Untold Legends, the upcoming Force Commander (PSP) and Ramayan 3392 (based on the same Virgin Comics property). At least you can’t fault them for lack of quantity.

Almost everything you need to know about The Agency has been discussed — PVP combat, mission structure, the disposal of weapons on the fly, cooperative efforts in several missions and oh-so much more. JonnyG (yes, you read that right, Bollywood) interrogates Steve Kramer, Hal Milton and others in this 90-minute long interview divided into three parts, each discussing a different aspect of the game. Hit the different jumps for details.

If you were one betwixed by the anomaly that was LittleBigPlanet’s enormously cute music and easy-breezy gameplay, welcome to the club of red-blooded gamers.

And if you clutched your head with the sounds of a million gamer hopes crying out at once before being silenced, we all felt your pain, brother. Such Force-altering news came when it was announced at LGC 2008 that LittleBigPlanet user-generated content would be region-specific.

However, it has been declared once and for all on Sony’s Official European forums that there would be only one region for the game: LittleBigRegion.

“Hi all, as many of you may have heard already in an interview at Leipzig the senior producer for LittleBigPlanet announced that the game is region locked. This is in fact not the case, and all shared levels in the game will be available worldwide. The confusion arose out of regional differences in how moderation will work as there are different legal rules each region have to play by, and at one point this looked like it may require the game to be independent in each region - however this has been worked around and there will only be one region for the game…. a LittleBigRegion.

Apologies for any confusion over this issue, however I’m pretty sure you’re happy with the result.”

If it hasn’t made any sense yet, LittleBigRegion is Earth. Now that Sony has “worked around” the issue of different legal rules in each region, it has confirmed that user-generated content will be equally available to all players around the world.

The wait for Epic’s sequel to its alien-infested, chain-saw revving, blood bath (which, ironically, is the only violent game not to have inspired any real-life murders or shootings) Gears of War is still underway, but at least the wait for goodies upon release will be marginally shorter.

In a recent interview with Joystiq, lead designer Cliff Bleszinski stated that additional content would be released, “very soon within the [Gears of War 2] launch time frame.” Assurance, you ask? Downloadable content (DLC) for the game is being developed side-by-side along with the actual game at this point. Hopefully, they won’t skip on graphics quality. Don’t they know some gamers have the eyes of a hawk these days (can’t say how intelligent aforementioned hawk really is)?

DLC will be “multiplayer map focused”, according to Bleszinski. This could mean new gameplay modes and co-op features, along with new maps, which is surprising considering the number of additional features announced already. As of yet, no price frame has been announced for the content, but that just means you can get a head start on donating blood for a good cause (and cold, hard cash).

Source: QJ.Net

Valve has recently announced that with the recent “success” of the Playstation 3, they’re open to re-evaluating their stance on development for the platform (the last Valve PS3 title, a port of The Orange Box, wasn’t handled by the company). To many people following the events of Left 4 Dead, Valve’s upcoming online zombie shooter, this could possibly mean the game’s arrival on the PS3. According to CVG, Valve’s Doug Lombardi was quoted as saying,

“We’re always evaluating what’s happening in the marketplace and certainly something that’s happening in the last couple of months is that Sony’s managed to sell some boxes. So whether or not you like developing for that platform, if they’ve got millions of people connected to that platform and buying their games you have to take it seriously. They’re in the race now, so we’ve got to re-evaluate that for what it is.

Which is fabulous and all, but Lombardi went on to state that the PC is their primary platform, their second being the Xbox 360. Also, in the “slight possibility” of their being a PS3 Left 4 Dead, it had “zero chance” of releasing in 2008 (talk about flipping off millions of potential customers right off the bat). Chalk up another timed release for the gaming cadres. Sadly, it appears Valve is still biased against the PS3, as evidenced by their “50-50 chance” development stand. Not that this is anything new, since Gabe Newell is as fond of Sony’s console as a vegan is of road-kill. Sample a few comments he made on the device in the past few years:

“PS3 is brand new and PS3’s online is kind of scary… It’s always the devil you don’t know that you’re the most scared of.”

“I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a do-over. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it’. The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels. I think It’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted” [January 15th 2007]

“If Valve were to develop in-house for another format, it would be the Wii.” [February 21st 2008]

Is the Leipzig Games Conference supposed to be the real E3 of this year? Already so many big announcements have been made, many more than that excuse of a games convention we had this past July that it’s nothing short of embarrassing. The showcase of gameplay from Heavy Rain: The Casting (from the makers of Indigo Prophecy), the dating of LittleBigPlanet, a new XBox 360 controller design… and the show’s not over yet.

Just recently, a number of PS3 hardware announcements were made, one of them being a wireless Blackberry-style key-pad that can be attached to the Six-Axis and Dual-Shock controllers. What’s more, there’ll be about eight versions of this particular keypad on its release in PAL territories this year. SCEE president David Reeves stated his hope of the device’s use for game development in the future (without actually commenting how, but that issue wasn’t raised).

The final big announcement was the release of a limited edition 160GB HDD PS3 to retail for €449 when it launched this Friday in Europe. It would be bundled along with about €70 worth of downloadable content. That Sony has pushed forward the release date for its 160GB PS3 from September 21st to this coming Friday is baffling, to say the least. About a month ago at E3, it announced its 80GB HDD PS3 and while every one was asking what the hell to do with all that space, now this. Does bigger necessarily equal better in Europe?

Of course, Sony has had its share of flak at Leipzig with its announcement of no price cuts for the PS3. Stay tuned for more details as the show progresses, including details about Savage Moon, The Agency and the new PSP 3000.