NA PSN Store Update - Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light, Swords & Soldiers And Plenty Of Deals

Two quality releases this week -- though a little behind other platforms, but still -- damn good quality.

Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light is now available for $14.99, sitting at a whopping 2.23GB in size. Do note that the suggested patch for the online play is not in this version -- it has only got local cooperative play.

The other title is the largely upgraded Swords & Soldiers, released on WiiWare last year, this new version includes HD graphics, 3D visuals and online multiplayer. Both games have demos too!

On the DLC side we have an Underwater Glamour Set for My Aquarium Blue Oasis for a buck. No Minis released this week.

Some quick sales this week as well -- see if anything tickles your fancy:

Street Fighter Alpha ? Sale (PS3/PSP) (now $2.99, original price $5.99)
Brain Challenge Expansion Pack (PS3) ( ? Sale (now $0.99, original price $1.99)
Brain Challenge ? Sale (PS3) (now $0.99, original price $1.99)
Madden NFL Arcade ? Permanent Price Drop (PS3) (now $9.99, original price $14.99)
Ace Armstrong Vs. The Alien Scumbage ? Permanent Price Change (PS3/PSP) (now $5.99, original price $6.99)

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Unreal Engine 3 Wins Third Develop Industry Excellence Award

Epic Games is thrilled to receive its third consecutive Develop Industry Excellence Award for Unreal Engine 3. Vice President Mark Rein was on hand at last night?s Develop Industry Excellence Awards at the Develop Conference in Brighton, UK to accept the prestigious plaque on behalf of Epic.

Rein today said to trade magazine MCV, ?We couldn?t be more excited about Unreal Engine 3?s third consecutive Develop Industry Excellence Award and what it means to Epic and to the rest of the industry. Developers have seen what our technology can do for PC and console games, and now we are ready to usher in a new era of mobile games.

?Unreal Engine 3 is nothing like any other engine you?ve seen on mobile platforms. It?s going to raise the visual bar and define the standard for the mobile games of tomorrow. Wait until you see what we?re rolling out to customers now, next year and beyond. With all the new features we?re packing into Unreal Engine 3, and with over 285,000 UDK users, look out world ? we?re just getting started!?

In 2008, Unreal Engine 3 won the Develop award for Best Tools before the Best Engine category was formed. Unreal Engine 3 has maintained its position as Best Engine for the past two years running.

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Interview: Renown Entertainment Founders Go From Megapublisher To Startup

James Lau's advice for starting a new independent studio? "Just do it. You just have to start it and you just have to finish it." Lau, a former Need for Speed art director at Vancouver-based EA Black Box, revealed this week that he and former EA Sports software engineer Bill Li had formed Renown Entertainment, a small Vancouver studio with eight full-time workers that Lau said aims to put a more distinct, human touch back ...

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Indie Game Links: The Cover Story

Today's collection of independent game links includes more indie game previews, a couple of development updates, and the usual interviews with developers from around the 'net. (image source)

metablog: N Arcade: Special Edition
"These past two weeks were spent testing out all of our hard work by applying it to the very first exciting incarnation of the new 'N v2' codebase: N Arcade."

Infinite Ammo: Podcast 2, Edmund McMillen
"Edmund is on the verge of releasing Super Meat Boy, a larger game project that he?s been working on for some time now. In this episode we talk about motivation, depression, jealousy and maybe even some happy things as well."

TotalActionAdventure.com: The One With All The Meat
"This week we are joined by Edmund Mcmillen and Tommy Refenes of Team Meat, the guys behind the upcoming XBLA release Super Meat Boy. Even if your wife goes into labour, your house gets set on fire and a robber breaks in all at the same time, these are still not valid reasons not to listen. Trust us on this."

Gamasutra: New York Indie Arcade Babycastles Gets Fundraiser Support
"New York City indie video game arcade Babycastles is getting financial support from consumer gaming network IGN, which will match donations to the non-profit establishment dollar for dollar."

Gamasutra: Unity 3 Launches With '100-Plus' New Features
"The increasingly popular Unity 3D development platform makes its third version today. The five year-old Unity engine has benefited enormously in recent years from the explosive growth in browser, social, mobile and online game development."

Easy Money: Fantastic Arcade
"Every game I played at Fantastic Arcade was really good. The common thread among all the games, whether presented in art style, gameplay or sound, was that they made you wonder why the games were made they way they were."

8 Bit Horse: Xbox Live Indie Games Week
"Each day this week we will be playing a recently-released Xbox Live Indie Game and writing up a full overview. These will all be games that are well worth experiencing for yourselves."

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Gamasutra's Best Of The Week: September 26th

Every weekend, we'll be rounding up the top full-length features, news and blogs of the past week on 'art and business of gaming' site Gamasutra, plus the new pieces from sister site GameCareerGuide that debuted last week. This time, some of the highlights include interviews with Crytek, Valve, and Atari, plus analysis on cloud gaming, the heritage of older game titles, a neat IGF-winning student game postmortem, narrative analysis on Persona 4, and lots more. ...

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GDC Vault Debuts Invitation-Only Beta For Individual Subscribers

The GDC Vault, which holds hundreds of streaming video, audio and slides-based presentations to the multiple Game Developers Conference yearly events, has opened Beta invitations to individuals for a yearly subscription. Though it was available to All-Access GDC Pass holders and to group subscribers over the past few months — and entire studio and school [...]

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Gamasutra's Best Of The Week: September 26th

Every weekend, we'll be rounding up the top full-length features, news and blogs of the past week on 'art and business of gaming' site Gamasutra, plus the new pieces from sister site GameCareerGuide that debuted last week. This time, some of the highlights include interviews with Crytek, Valve, and Atari, plus analysis on cloud gaming, the heritage of older game titles, a neat IGF-winning student game postmortem, narrative analysis on Persona 4, and lots more. ...

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