Following up on this earlier post here are more details on the Playstation Move launch in Hong Kong.

We loved playing archery on Sports Champions but without a doubt the best game was Kung Fu Rider – where you play an insane office worker riding an office chair around the streets of Hong Kong kung-fu kicking people as you ride by them.

Its definitely going to be a fun add-on to your PS3, but we’ll hold judgement on buying a P3S for it until we see the Kinect. Definitely better graphics than the Nintendo Wii and you can watch your Blu-ray movies when you get tired.

Video, photos and prices are below:

Starter Pack price:

• PlayStation Move x 1
• PlayStation Eye x 1
• PlayStation Move Starter Disc x 1
• All for HK$499

Basic Pack price:

• PlayStation Move x 1
• PlayStation Eye x 1
• PlayStation Move Starter Disc x 1
• PlayStation 3 Game x 1 * Choice of: Sports Champions, Kung Fu Rider or Start the Party!

PlayStation Move Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition Bundle:

• PlayStation Move x 1
• PlayStation Eye x 1
• PlayStation Move Starter Disc  x 1
• PlayStation Move Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition x 1
• Resident Evil 5 USB x 1
• All for HK$699

Here is the initial launch dates of Playstation Move in Hong Kong:

Ape Escape (Working Title), PAIN, Planet Minigolf, Soaked!, Ignite, Killzone 3, Sorcery and Heroes on the Move have dates to be confirmed.

Video from the event:

More photos from the Playstation Move event:

I like to move it, move it, I like to…move it!

At a press event at The Mira Hotel today, Sony Computer Home Entertainment Hong Kong announced that the Playstation Move motion-controller for the Playstation 3 will be available on September 15, 2010 in Hong Kong.

There are a bunch of different options to getting the Move motion controller but the basic price is going to be HK$339 and another HK$229 for then navigation controller. So its like the 2-parts of the Nintendo Wii controller but sold seperately.

The main bundle that Sony will be selling is:

• 1 x motion controller
• 1 Playstation Eye
• 1Playstation Move Starter disc

This should get you up and moving with the neon ice cream cone and allow you to play most of the games. This is being priced at HK$499.

The navigation controller will only be needed if you are going to be playing games like Resident Evil and SOCOM – which you can buy separately.

Here’s some video from the event today:

Lots of bundle promotions and the full list of launch games we’ll post tomorrow with video of some of the games and interviews with the Time Crisis producer.

Got an iMac? Then you should definitely consider buying this Mini DisplayPort Converter for 27”iMac from Belkin. This adapter takes an HDMI input at up to 1080p and squeezes it into a Mini DisplayPort connector at 720p for display, letting you enjoy graphics from your Sony PS3 or Xbox 360 on your lovely iMac. Audio signal is also split for stereo-out and it’s HDCP-compliant.

This device will require you to fork out US$150/HK$1170, which is an awful lot for a converter box with a single input. But in Hong Kong apartments it makes a world of sense if you want to keep all your toys together in your study and for you alone to play with! Bwa-hahahaha!

Ahem, yes well, there you have it. More info here.

We were supposed to cover E3 2010 live this year but somehow our plane took off without us so we’ve had to live it viacriously through blogs and websites and instead of enjoying the beautiful Los Angeles weather, had to sweat it out here in Hong Kong.

But its been a busy week – so here are a bunch of things that we liked/loved/loathed from the show floor at E3 2010:

XBox 360 Slim

Nintendo 3DS

• Game gallery images

Playstation Wave and Plus

Gears of War 3:

• Beast mode preview
• Horde mode to return
• Ice-T in GoW3

Previews of cool upcoming games:

• Twisted Metal
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• NeverDead
• Spec Ops: The Line (A wasted Dubai is the setting!)
• Portal 2
• Vanquish
• Final Fantasy XIV
• and of course: Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Gran Tourismo 5 using real cars as models

Silent Hill 8, yes EIGHT, coming to Xbox and PS3 in 2011

And all the E3 2010 Booth Babe photos you can handle!

This 3-day event is video game heaven and we’re still wandering around different sites looking at all the cool new stuff. Sometimes you wonder why bother going – you only have 2 eyes, but at the Neonpunch offices we have 4 monitors hooked up to each computer so we can catch the action from multiple viewpoints. The only thing we’re missing is the hands-on with the games.

For more news hit up our 2 favorite gamer blogs Kotaku and Joystiq.

If you saw things that we missed please post them below.

Nintendo’s got one, Microsoft just debuted theirs so Sony decides that they need to get your fat ass off the sofa too. And yes we have 100 jokes about the design of this device but we’ll save them…for now.

Making it even more exciting is the motion-sensing Move wand controller that will be selling for $49.99 (HK$390), a low mass-market price that could kickstart the company’s attempt to take games to the next level.

During a demonstration, the Move wand can become a tennis racket, a golf club, a paintbrush or even a portable hand-fan, depending on the game you’re playing. Another accessory is the Move shooting attachment that allows the Move controller to be locked into the gun, while still having access to the necessary buttons via a cut-out at the top of the controller. It looks like a 1950’s ray gun with a light-up ball on the end. The Move shooting accessory looks lovable and shoot-tastic, perfect for games like Time Crisis on the PlayStation 3.

And it looks like it’ll be the cheapest motion-controlled platform out there. Amazon, Best Buy and Wal Mart have all just outed the Microsoft Kinect at the price of US$149 (HK$1160)

Sony has also announced to offer a premium for-pay version of the PlayStation Network called PlayStation Plus. Available later this month, PlayStation Plus will cost $49 (HK$390) per year or $18 (HK$140) for three months. Subscribers will receive Wipeout HD, a demo for inFamous, Fieldrunners, Age of Zombies, Rallycross and a handful of themes and avatars for free throughout July.

Online play will still be available for all PSN members, free and paying. And to sweeten the deal, PlayStation Plus offers a number of added perks: your first three months are free, tons of premium content, including “hundreds of dollars of products” throughout the year, early access to demos and betas.

Fans of the video game Final Fantasy XIII crowded the basement atrium of the Miramar Shopping Centre Wednesday night for a special launch event of the Chinese/English version of FFXIII. To help celebrate the event the game’s producers and director flew into Hong Kong for a special signing event.

Project Producer  Shinji Hashimoto, FFXIII Producer  Yoshinori Kitase and FFXIII Director Motomu Toriyama dressed in Chinese period jackets (or is that the latest from Shanghai Tang?) and signed two hundred autographs for fans who had brought box covers of the game to the special edition FFXIII PS3 slim console to be signed by the trio.

To be a part of the selected 200, fans had to pre-register at Sony Playstation HK’s Facebook page, while the remaining fifty were the first non-registered FFXIII fans to show up to the event. The fans that attended the event all received a commemorative FFXIII poster, fan, file and mobile phone neck strap.

Those that attended the event were automatically entered into a lucky draw for some cool FFXIII merchandise, over a dozen fans won things from stylish phone straps and name card holders to highly detailed FFXIII figures. The grand prize was a special FFXIII (Chi+Eng Version) Deluxe Pack, valued at HK$799 (SRP) that includes a Dualshock 3 Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Edition controller with FFXIII Original Soundtrack.

The localised version of the FFXIII contains the original Japanese game with menus and text information in either Chinese or English with audio dialogue in Japanese only.

Final Fantasy XIII can be found at any store that sells video games and has a suggested retail price of HK$358.

With the big Disney Summer blockbuster version Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opening in Hong Kong today we thought we’d take a stroll down memory lane to have a look back at this classic video game to remember its roots as one of the classic games of the late 80′s.

For those of you who don’t know, Prince of Persia is a video game franchise created by Jordan Mechner. The first ever PoP game was released by Broderbund in 1989 that signified a great step forward in animation quality seen in computer games.

At first, it didn’t seem so complex. It revolved around a nameless traveler that climbs the palace walls of Persia merely to glimpse the Sultan’s daughter, more beautiful than a sunset. Mixing carnal lust with political ambition, the evil Vizier Jaffar imprisoned a beautiful Princess in a high tower and gives her an hour to marry him or die. Rather than go for an annulment, the Princess leaned towards Option B. Her only hope was her commoner-lover, the fearless Prince, who Jaffar left to rot in the lowest dungeon. One swift escape later, the Prince was running up the tower to beat the deadline, for the path to save his Princess is treacherous, and there is no time to waste.

And running was the only way to do it. Players had just sixty minutes to reach the top and defeat Jaffar, and a ton of pressure-plates to hit on the way. Guards were actually dueled in a patient series of retreats, advances, strikes and parries. If spike traps skewered you, or a skeleton warrior chopped you, or a section of floor collapsed under you, the game whisked you back to the start of the level while the clock kept ticking. Lost time compounded issues like loosing your soul, which cut the Prince’s health to almost nothing. Worse, that “Shadow Prince” played for the other team, harassing you at every turn. A real sense of danger permeated every moment, helped by seamless animations and rudimentary physics that gave the Prince real weight. It just felt like he was always about to be killed. Often enough, he was. That made his escapes all the more thrilling.

Prince of Persia started with players under the gun, and let the pressure build from there. Then Mechner added twists nobody expected; killing the Shadow in a duel killed the Prince, but simply walking into it merged them back together. Reaching Jaffar required a “leap of faith” over a bottomless chasm. Gamers were challenged to think about what they were doing in ways few other games did, but taking the time to simply stop and think ate into the precious few minutes you had left. This was how the first PoP game played out. It was wonderfully tense.

In 1994, Broderbund released Prince of Persia: The Shadow and The Flame which was similar to the first but had far more complex graphics. It was only in 1999 that the game was incorporated with 3D graphics with the release of Prince of Persia 3D under the wings of Red Orb Entertainment. Four years later, Ubisoft would take over and continued the series with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In this 2003 game, the Vizier of the Maharajah tricks the Prince into releasing the Sands of Time contained inside the Hourglass of Time, using the Dagger of Time. The Sands wash over the kingdom, turning all living beings into monsters. On a journey to repair the damage he has caused, the Prince teams with Farah to return the Sands of Time to the hourglass, using the Dagger of Time. The game was developed for the PC, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, and later a 2D-version for the Game Boy Advance and mobile phones.

The success of The Sands of Time led to two sequels, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within picks up where The Sands of Time left off, adding new features, specifically, options in combat. Following Warrior Within, The Two Thrones is the closing chapter in The Sands of Time saga.

In mid 2007, Prince of Persia was remade and ported by Gameloft. The remake featured the same level design and general premise but contained 3D-rendered graphics, more fluid movements, and Sands of Time aesthetics.

Now fast-forward to 2010. Last May 18, Ubisoft released Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands as the latest installment in the PoP series. The game is an interquel, taking place in the seven year gap between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within. The Prince character is supposed to be a cross between the character models in these two games. According to a press release from Ubisoft, it’s available on all major gaming platforms and is to “feature many of the fan-favorite elements from the original series as well as new gameplay innovations. This latest offering from Ubisoft should definitely mark as one of the most exciting games to play.

Prince of Persia has taken the art of visuals and storytelling in video games higher and higher. Centered on a fearless hero who’s challenged and excited all comers. Different men may take up the mantel, but there will always be a Prince fighting the odds and the clock to save his lady-love. And we’ll always be there to enjoy the ride.

Take a look through the history of the Prince of Persia franchise from the original game in 1989 through its various incarnations on PC and Ubi’s versions of the game and let us know what you thought of the movie version that open today in Hong Kong.

One definite advantage that the movie has over the classic game: Gemma Arterton!

Tomorrow sees the launch of one this summer’s most anticipated games: Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption.

The game can best be described as Grand Theft Auto 4 set in the last years of the cowboy era. Neonpunch was able to play one of the missions from the game and we have to say right now that we can hardly wait for May 20th to arrive and start shooting some sheriffs (but not any deputies)  on either the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Set approximately fifty years after the original game, Red Dead Redemption kicks-off at the turn of the 20th Century – a pivotal time in American history. The old west was dying, slowly being crushed by the rise of industrialisation and the growing presence of federal government, which was starting to assert its power and bring the lawless ‘Wild West’ into line.

Gamers take on the role of John Marston a partially reformed outlaw who, after years as a career criminal in a notoriously brutal gang, has hung up his six-shooters for a more peaceful life and started a family. Three years later John’s life is completely turned upside down when agents from The Bureau (the precursor to the FBI) arrive and threaten his new way of life. Forced to work for them, The Bureau were proving just as ruthless, lawless and evil as the gangs they were paid to hunt down.

After being told the back story, Rockstar handed over the controller to us and we began our mission to tame the “Wild West.” The mission objectives are simple we must find a drunk called Irish who will give us info on the where a bouts of a Gatling gun that we need. Unfortunately the weapon is being kept in a very secure location deep within a nearby mine guarded by dozens of well armed men.

We follow Irish to the Mine’s location and this is where the action starts, we shoot our way through the miner’s camp and enter the mine to be confronted with some more stiff opposition. As we wind our way through the labyrinth of tunnels killing miners with our shotgun or blowing them up thanks to conveniently place boxes of TNT we finally get the Gatling gun which we then have to load onto a mining cart and ride it out of the mine shooting anything that gets in our way.

Now that was an overly brief simplification of what we had to do, those who have played either Red Dead or GTA4 will know there’s a little more to it than that. All we can say is “It was freaking AWESOME!” it was like being in our Spaghetti western with a character that looks somewhat like a cross between John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

Shooting the bad guys was fun, especially when you use the Dead-Eye function that lets you do some super human shooting, however this time you can use it in three different ways. The first is available with any weapon you’ll come across and it enables you to slow down time, giving you precious extra seconds to pan around an area picking off multiple assailants, or maybe just to hammer the one. The second form of Dead Eye automatically paints shot markers on target; while the most advanced way allows players to paint their own shot markers – perfect for shooting a bounty in the leg to take him alive or to scare off troublemakers by shooting their hats off.

As with the original, you’ll earn Dead Eye in a cumulative way by taking out enemies.

The guns that you can use in the game are based on real weaponry from the time, there are loads of weapons to choose from like rifles to shotguns, sawn-offs, snipers , pistols and different melee weapons such as axes, knives and lassos.

One of the most impressive things graphically was the 3D modeling of the horses, from realistic movements to the incredibly detailed musculature; gamers can even see the horse’s muscles undulating underneath its coat. There is a complete in-game ecology system, bigger animals hunt smaller ones, and the bigger ones have no problems coming after people either. There is a huge variety of wildlife in the game; bears, cougars, wolves, snakes, armadillos, rabbits, vultures to name a few.

Red Dead Redemption is running on a customised hybrid of both Euphoria Physics and the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine, which was developed by Rockstar San Diego specifically for this title. It has been used in Midnight Club Los Angeles and Grand Theft Auto IV. Euphoria enables the characters to take on much more realistic properties, their movement and the way they interact with each other, as well as the player. It doesn’t end with humans either and extends to the whole wildlife system.

The game is bigger than any of Rockstar’s previous titles with three distinct massive separate, but linked, areas forming a playing arena larger than GTA IV, including 2 states of the newly formed USA and an area in the north of Mexico. These boast dramatically diverse landscapes and varying degrees of civilisation in these places at the time – from remote ramshackle outposts to organised urban hubs.

If you’re a fan of westerns or GTA then Red Dead Redemption is a game that you should definitely get. It’s available on all console platforms tomorrow in Hong Kong – just in time for the long weekend! Yee-Haw!

Here is IGN’s review:

A hot and humid Mother’s Day in Hong Kong couldn’t stop thousands of gamers from leaving Mom at home for a few hours while they welcomed gaming-legend Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa on the Hong Kong leg of their Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker World Tour 2010 – at Olympian City in Kowloon.

Ditching the PS3 for Sony’s portable PSP this time round, the duo were in town again (last time was in 2008 promoting Metal Gear Solid 4) to promote the game everyone is already playing: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Kojima-san created the Metal Gear franchise way back in 1987 on the MSX2/NES and has sold over 26 million copies worldwide – this new one that was released in Japan on April 29th (and in English on June 8th) is the first PSP game that Kojima has worked on and is already scoring huge praise from reviewers all over Japan.

We were able to spend a little time with Kojima and Shinkawa in a press conference event where we discussed the beginnings of the Metal Gear series, why he chose to work on the PSP now and what its like to tour the world in support of the new game.

What wasn’t touched on was what we really wanted to know, things like: What is the status of the Metal Gear Solid live-action movie? What is the next game Kojima Productions is working on now? And is David Hayter really as cool a guy as we’ve heard?

The press-con came to a quick end and after a bout of photos, the two superstar game designers were whisked away to the main event – a huge meet-and-greet with thousands of Metal Gear fans who lined up for hours to try and be one of the lucky 200 that would actually get an autograph and a chance at winning some limited edition Metal Gear prizes.

A group of Metal Gear dancers kicked off the festivities which were followed by an endless array of lucky draw prizes from t-shirts to art books to collectible figures and of course: games!

An amazing thing was how appreciative Kojima is of his fans. Even though he doesn’t speak much English and probably less Cantonese, he is amazingly warm to the young fans that showed up (one of them in a box – inside joke from the game!) while handing out the prizes and even saluting those who did so first!

So while we wait for Metal Gear Solid: Rising or if this is really Snake’s last mission, enjoy our overdrive of photos and videos and see more on our Facebook fan page too!

The Metal Gear Godfather is on a world tour for Peace Walker!

Get your cardboard boxes ready: Hideo Kojima is coming back to Hong Kong!

His last visit in 2007 hot on the heels of the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots on the PS3 was a huge event at the Dragon Centre in Sham Shui Po. The turnout was so massive that Kojima-san and Metal Gear designer Yoji Shinkawa are returning to promote the upcoming PSP game Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker which comes out tomorrow in Hong Kong.

This is part of the Peace Walker World Tour as the legendary game creators travel the globe for the release of their first PSP game.

The World Tour @ Hong Kong will be on May 9th at Olympian City 2 in the Atrium (next to the Food Court). Registration and sales booth opens at 11:30am with the main event starting at 2pm. Neonpunch will be able to get up close and personal with the Metal Gear team – so if there are any questions you want us to ask them please leave them in the comments.

By the time you’ve thought over your questions and played the new PSP game we’ll have the details of where you can see Kojima and Shinkawa in Hong Kong!