Gran Turismo 6 Gameplay: It’s Not Next-Gen, But It’s Still Spectacular

Posted on October 21, 2013 by geelw

Yeah, that “old” PS3 still has it going on strong and in fact, Gran Turismo 6 and a few other recent titles are showing that it’s less the age of the hardware than what a talented developer who KNOWS what it can do with it is doing. Gameplay doesn’t kick off until about 11-plus minutes in so feel free to zip forward ’til that point. I’m gathering this one will be huge for Sony this holiday season, but surprisingly enough, I’m not seeing a huge amount of industry buzz on the game. This is probably due to the amount of ink spilled about “next-gen” racers from Sony and Microsoft, plus the fact that it’s a given that every GT game will be excellent on the visuals front (unless you’re a PC elitist who goes ga-ga for graphics and think what’s here isn’t as grand as what your four-card rig can run maxed out). That said, I’m not complaining at ALL, that’s for sure…

TGS 2013: Ah, So… THAT’S What a Lily Bergamo Is… Maybe.

Posted on September 23, 2013 by geelw

Well, OK… I still don’t know what this is other than the first PlayStation 4 game coming from Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda 51 for GungHo Online Entertainment. That one-two punch, by the way, means you’ll be getting a truly wild experience that has to be played to be believed. I think this is only the third game they’ve done with a sole female lead (if you count Sine Mora), so there’s another interesting thing to consider (at least if you’re like me). According to Gematsu, Lily Bergamo is an online action game meant to be played with smartphones and the PS4, but if that is indeed the case, I need to get someone over at GungHo and grasshopper to realize that the VITA needs to be in that mix somewhere, as it’s quite silly to skip something so obvious that even someone as dumb as me has figured out from early on (that the Vita needs MORE cool games like this!). And oh yeah, that gal in the teaser isn’t named Lily or Bergamo. She’s called Tae Ioroi, meaning now I’m all confused again about just what the heck this game is all about (and why it’s not coming to the obvious Vita or slightly less obvious upcoming Vita TV “console”). Eh, it’s still quite early in development and yep, things will change for better or worse (or somewhere in between as a happy middle ground)…

Pre-TGS News: SCEJ Drops Plenty of Vita Bombshells Plus a Late PS4 Release In Japan…

Posted on September 9, 2013 by geelw

Weird, wild stuff going on overseas, as Sony is surprisingly bringing out a redesigned, less expensive Vita in different colors with 1GB of on board memory, an even more inexpensive Vita TV device that will let users play Vita and other PlayStation titles, watch movies and more plus a whole load of so far Japanese-only info including the release date of the PlayStation 4 in the territory. The big surprise on that end is the PS4 is shipping out AFTER the North American and European launch, which is something of a first for a Sony gaming console if I’m not mistaken.

Back to the Vita for a second – Sony has also announced a new 64MB Memory Card as well as price drops on its other proprietary memory cards for the handheld. The 64GB card will retail in Japan for 9,980 yen (about $100) and the new pricing on the currently available cards is as follows: the 4GB card drops to to 1,480 yen (about $15), the 8GB card to 1,980 yen (about $20), the 16GB card to 3,780 yen (about $38) and the 32GB model to 6,480 yen (about $65). Meanwhile, as noted above, North American and European gamers will get their PlayStation 4’s a few months earlier than Japan, as a February 2014 launch window was revealed. According to a few news sites, the reason seems to be Sony having issues meeting high demand for the console worldwide and probably targeting more units for the US and Europe first thanks to greater demand in those countries.

Finally, the launch title lineup for Japan was revealed as well, but we’ll take a peek at some of those titles in another post shortly. My fingers are of course, crossed that these price drops and new products pop up here in the US, but as always… we shall see…