I love echochrome. This franchise has single-handedly killed many weekends (and it’s not going to stop any time soon). Recently they’ve been honored in a way which is somewhat unusual – though not unheard of – in the gaming community: They have won a world record for having the longest song in a video game – more than 75 minutes in length.

The team has given us some insight into how they did the music:

“With the previous echochrome, we employed a string quartet for the soundtrack, a rare genre for video games,” said echochrome producer Tatsuya Suzuki from Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEJ). “The music did not change depending on the in-game situation, instead taking its own random path as it played along. We wanted to make echochrome’s music as unique and innovative as the game itself in hopes of making the play experience even more memorable for gamers. The quest to outdo ourselves for the sequel was what led us to create the world’s longest piece of game music. It’s 75 minutes long because we wanted it to take up an entire CD by itself. We were lucky to have a title with gameplay like echochrome’s to serve as the proving ground for this effort. If this was an RPG or some other genre, I imagine it would’ve been a lot tougher. It just goes to show how tight the relationship is between gameplay and game music.”

We congratulate the echochrome ii team on this remarkable achievement, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Check out 1UP.com‘s interview with David Jaffe, co-founder of Eat Sleep Play, and the creator of Twisted Metal and God of War.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the SOCOM franchise. I’ve never been a fan of shooters on hand-held systems either. This game breaks both molds in two ways: first, the missions are compelling, intuitive, and exciting. Second, the controls make sense and work well for the PSP. Finally, the online play really adds an unexpected element to this game that makes it more re-playable for me.

I really got hooked on this game with the PSN demo download for PSP, and I kinda never looked back.  I found that the missions of fireteam bravo were increasingly exciting, and they told me why each objective was where it was.  My favorite part of playing this game is still the first mission where you learn to snipe for the first time.  I remember scaring the pants off my wife shouting for joy when I got to put a slug in someone’s head for the first time.

As with all things, there are down-sides.  The first down-side is an unforgivable one as far as I’m concerned: it is too easy to go out of bounds, and if you do it too much you lose the mission.  I think this was a consistent problem throughout the game for me, whenever you’re in a field that looks open, it’s easy to get lost and getting lost often times means you lose and have to retry the mission.  There are also some serious stability problems with this game, as online play regularly locks up my PSP resulting in much shouting and cursing.

Pros:

• Online play for a PSP game is rarely done, and even more rarely done well.
• The story is beautiful, and from what my ex-marine buddies tell me it is a believable military story.
• The game keeps you up to speed on what your objectives are and why your objectives are what they are, it also shows you how your actions benefit or harm the overall story.
• The controls are well done and seem to be well thought out.

Cons:

• There are serious online multiplayer stability issues resulting in lockups.
• The graphics aren’t that great, even for a hand-held.
• There are no in-mission checkpoints, so if you fail a mission you have to start over.
• Even with controls that make sense, it’s difficult to always maneuver well in the game.

The bottom line is that this game is a great play for those who like shooters, but don’t normally consider them on the hand-held.  I think many have counted this game out because it’s an in-depth shooter on a hand-held, but it really does earn its place in the SOCOM franchise it seems.