PS3 owners may want to check out Amazon.com today for some GoldBox deals. The deal of the day is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for PS3 for $28.98, and today’s first GoldBox deal is X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Uncaged Edition) for $39.98.

Four more deals will be coming up over the course of the day.

Final Fantasy XIII is still months from release (in Japan… we’re still closer to a year from release here in the U.S.) and god only knows when FF Versus XIII will be out, but Square Enix has decided to tempt us with the next installment in the series.

Yesterday’s E3 attendees saw the first footage of Final Fantasy XIV. The game will be coming to PS3, though not even a tentative timeframe was given for the release. MMO fans rejoice… XIV will be another online title, a la Final Fantasy XI.

I may finally have to break my rule about not getting involved in MMOs. I missed out on XI due to not having broadband (or… you know… money, really, for that matter) back when it first came out, and never got around to trying it after becoming a member of the gainfully employed elite. And until about a month ago, my PC would have choked and died had I attempted to put WoW on it. With my two top choices out of the picture, it didn’t seem worth the effort to risk having my life taken over by some other MMO. But I’m a sucker for just about anything Square Enix is willing to throw at me, so it looks like I’m sold.

According to Game Informer, who heard it from Neil Schneider, who heard it from Blitz Games Studio… Sony’s PS3 may be getting a BIOS update sometime in 2009 that will allow the console to support stereoscopic 3D for both movies and, potentially, games.

Am I the only person that thinks this is just a really dumb idea? Or at least a really pointless one…

Maybe I’m jaded because I’m old enough that I was able to suffer through the headache-inducing 3D nightmare that was Nintendo’s VirtualBoy (and I still own one…), but the thought of console gaming in 3D makes me cringe.

Even when 3D doesn’t leave me queasy and needing to lie down for a few hours, I don’t really find it all that interesting. The idea behind it is to make you feel more immersed in the experience by making things “pop out” and look more real. For me, it’s always had the exact opposite effect. The 3D effects always look hokey and staged, they interrupt the cinematic flow instead of complimenting it, and usually it’s just some random object flying out of the screen at the audience, intended to get a shock reaction from those watching. It’s like a cheap boob shot in a slasher movie… cliche and there just because it can be.

Which begs the question… will this even catch on with game developers (beyond a handful of early titles attempting to capitalize on it before the inevitable hype let-down kills the whole thing)? For that matter, will it catch on with gamers this time around?

And perhaps most importantly… are we still going to have to wear those stupid cardboard glasses?

Sony finally announced this morning that the open beta of Playstation Home will be available worldwide on December 11. And that’s even December 11 of 2008. Yes, that would, indeed, be tomorrow. So it looks like PS3 gamers long wait is finally over, and those who weren’t fortunate enough to dive headlong into the closed beta will finally have their chance.

Not yet owning a PS3, it’s sort of anti-climactic from my end, as it’s not really something I’ve been able to look forward to. But for those who have been looking forward to it, the service will be available as a free download, and basic access will also be free of charge.

If you’re interested, Kotaku has Sony’s press release from this morning.

Proving that PS2 isn’t quite ready to roll over just yet, there’s a must-have title for just about any fan of the Kingdom Hearts series is now available for pre-order. Scheduled for a December 2 release, Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories is the PS2 remake of the original GameBoy Advance title. The game is an interlude between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, and covers the events leading up to Sora’s time spent in the pod , and Riku’s own departure, and is also the first introduction of Namine and Organization XIII.

Completely redone in full 3D, Re: Chain of Memories features the voice cast from the other two games, a revamped battle system, new bosses, and full cinematics. This game was previously released only in Japan as a companion piece to Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+.

Yay! More Bioshock!

Apparently, one of the unlockables in Bioshock for PS3 (which comes out next week) is a short teaser trailer for Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams. The minute and a half video shows what looks to be a Little Sister standing at the shore on the Atlantic Coast, gazing out at the sea and holding a Big Daddy doll as stone obelisks rise out of the ground behind her.

The developer hasn’t commented on the early leak of the trailer, but rumor has it 2K Marin is aiming for a late 2009 release date for the game.

Now… Would you kindly watch the video?

It’s PS3 day over in the Amazon GoldBox…. Deals on PS3 games all day long.

The Deal of the Day is Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for $22.99. Additionally, there are six more lightning deals that will be coming up over the course of the day. The first is Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII for $23.99. Later deals look to include Logitech Driving Force GT Racing Wheel, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Devil May Cry 4, and Haze… prices to be announced.

Happy shopping!

Sony’s E3 press conference ended not so long ago, and I am very disappointed with them. Their big announcement (courtesy of Venturebeat) is something I’ve been wanting to hear for a while now… Sony has decided to drop the price of the 80GB PS3 to $399.99 (a $100 drop!) starting in September. They’re also dumping the 40GB version.

But unfortunately, it comes at, in my opinion, a very steep cost. When the price drops, the 80GB will lose all backward compatibility with PS2 games. In a way, I understand. They’re still manufacturing (and doing pretty well selling) the PS2… but if this is a sign of their future attitude toward backwards compatibility, I have to say I’m a little pissed off.

The PS2 has arguably the best library of any system on the market, and Sony seems to think no one cares. They won’t be manufacturing the PS2 forever. They’re keeping PS1 compatibility (for the time being, anyway)… why not PS2? It’s bad enough they cut hardware emulation out of the original 80GB model and lost compatibility with a number of PS2 games in doing so… now we get nothing?

Personally, I’d sooner have less storage space than see backward compatibility tossed to the curb. Bring back the 60GB PS3, dammit! Or just sell us the PS3 without an HDD and let us add one on our own. Unlike Microsoft, Sony decided to make theirs non-proprietary.

Sure, Bad Company comes out next week, but if you’re interested in the Gold Edition of the game, you might want to head on over to Amazon before the release and pre-order it. For doing so, you get a free $10 Amazon.com gift card.

Promising non-traditional gameplay for the genre, environments where you can destroy nearly everything, and online multiplayer for up to 24 people, this should be a good one.

PS3 Gold Edition | 360 Gold Edition | PS3 Regular Edition | 360 Regular Edition

Today’s Hidden Gem: Fatal Frame
Released 2002 by Tecmo for PS2 (and later for XBOX)

To be honest, Fatal Frame isn’t exactly “hidden”… just about anyone who’s a fan of the survival horror genre has at least heard of it… but it’s definitely a gem, and deserves a spotlight. And these days it’s hard enough to find that if you didn’t play it back when it was new, odds are you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet.

Fatal Frame takes place over the course of several days inside the Himuro Mansion in the Japanese countryside - a place where, rumor has it, spirits and ghosts congregate and those who enter may never return. You play as Miku Hinasaki, a young woman who, like her brother, Mafuyu, is sensitive to the spirit world. When Mafuyu and his mentor, along with two other researchers, go missing while investigating the grisly past of Himuro Mansion, Miku sets out on her own to find him.

Upon her arrival at the mansion, she finds evidence of the group as she explores, including the game’s one and only weapon, the Camera Obscura, which had been passed down to the siblings by their mother, and which Miku had last seen in Mafuyu’s possession.

The camera is said to have been the legacy of Kunihiko Aso, an occultist who worked to develop inventions to make contact with the spirit world. Functioning to capture the souls of vengeful spirits, the Camera Obscura is Miku’s only protection from the murderous ghosts of the Mansion.

There is so very much I could say about the story of this game, but that would really just ruin it for those of you who haven’t played it yet, so I’ll stop there.

The game is played primarily in third person view, but switches to first person mode when using the camera. Miku’s actions are very limited (in fact the only things she can really do are run, and raise the camera to attack), which raises the difficultly level of the game pretty significantly.

The object of battles is to photograph the ghosts until all of their spirit energy is captured on film. The better the shot, and the closer you are to the subject, and the higher the quality of the film loaded in your camera, the more damage is inflicted… and when your supply of film is running low, you definitely need to make every shot count.

But perhaps the greatest thing about Fatal Frame is that it is actually… well… scary. The game’s imagery, music, and story all combine to keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s a great game to play alone, in the dark. Preferably on a stormy night. It’s something you have to experience for yourself, because words just don’t do it justice.

Fatal Frame has already spawned two sequels: Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, and Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. The stories of both subsequent games are complete and stand-alone in and of themselves, but all three are ultimately related, most noticeably seen in the third installment which serves to tie all three plots together.

A fourth game is currently in development. Tentatively titled Fatal Frame IV: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, the game is being developed by Tecmo and Grasshopper Manufacture, and will be published by Nintendo. It is rumored to be exclusive to the Wii and is due out in Japan at the end of July. A release date for North America has not yet been set, but you better believe I’ll be keeping an eye out for one.