Gran Turismo 5 (Prologue) - First Impressions

Polyphony Digital gave us a taste of things to come recently with their sneak peak at a very early build of the venerable of the next instalment of their smash hit series, Gran Turismo.

Like a fly to a windscreen I searched that magical wonderland we refer to only as the internet, found out how to set up a Japanese account, then shivered with excitement as it downloaded from the Playstation Store.



I immediately got on the Batphone to Boomtown who said I should send my impressions over to them top secret and they'll gladly publish them for me.

As ever, they kept their word and you can read the proof of that, here.

Voilà!

Eternal Sonata - First Impressions

Way back in September I was rather sneaky and crept behind Microsoft's back and used my top secret US Account on their XBL Marketplace to download the Eternal Sonata demo. Naughty, naughty.

Well, those extremely charitable people behind the totally insane Boomtown agreed back then to publish it for me.

Now as it's just been released last Friday here in Europe, and as you're all dying to know what I think of it, I thought I'd re-post my demo impressions from that time. You can read them here.



Also, in case you missed it. I also interviewed Hiroya Hatsushiba, Head Honcho over at tri-Ace for the utterly stupendous site, Strategy Informer. You can read, or re-read that interview right here.

If all that Eternal Sonata goodness wasn't enough, a copy is winging its way to me as we speak and hopefully the review will be up sometime next week.

Sleep easy people, I'm on the case.

Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction - Preview

If any game is likely to save the PS3 this year, then Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction looks to be it. The demo has been available to download from the Playstation Store for quite a while now and my friends over at Boomtown kindly offered to publish my first impressions of Insomniacs latest title.

You can read the full article here.


Hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think. Do you agree? Or did you find it disappointing?

Look out for my full review of the game when it's released next month in Europe.

LocoRoco Cocoreccho Review!

I loved this game. It had been sitting there staring me in the face for quite a while but the other day I took the plunge and my gaming life was all the better for it.

If you, like me a few days ago, still haven't bothered to spend £2 on probably the best use of motion control ever, yes EVER!! then hope fully this will help persuade you otherwise.

Lookout soon for my Ratchet and Clank preview which will hopefully be posted in a couple of days.

EDIT: Blogspot's having a few issues atm., so no picture provided. Sorry.

Assassins Creed Can't fit on a DVD9

According to Patrice Desilets, the creative lead on Ubi-Soft's up and coming title, Assassins Creed the team are working tooth and nail to try and squeeze the content onto a DVD9 disk.

Of course its rival, Blu Ray doesn't have this problem. However, speaking in an interview with Pro-G he remained upbeat that his team could fit all on in time for the projected 11th November release date.

Conversely, he says that the team are really struggling right now due to memory issues. Though he is at pains to ease the minds of both camps:

"He added that the developer, Ubisoft Montreal, had drafted in help from both Microsoft and Sony to make sure the game has "the same quality on both systems".

"The PS3 version is as good as the 360 version. We've been showing the PS3 version at E3 this year, but we've done a lot of events and it's just easier for us and for people from the press to have a 360. But the versions are the same, basically," he said.

He added: "Both have their own challenges. Right now we have a big challenge on the 360 to make it fit on a DVD, to put five languages, to put all the data on eight gigs. On the Blu-ray side we're really good, but then the memory is quite different. How we handle memory is really different between the two machines and we're struggling right now on the PS3. But we have people who are really dedicated and we're having help from Microsoft on one side and Sony on the other side to have the same quality on both systems. It really depends on the week basically as to who's best."

Source: Pro-g.co.uk

Ubisoft Arse in Cred

Bit of a downer this week. This doesn't really count as news, well it's news if you're interested in me, which you know, you probably aren't but it is gaming related and it's a Sunday so here you go.

The lovely, kind, caring Editor of Eurogamer, Kristan Reed, sent me a rather enticing PM. It read:

Hi Mike,
|
| I've just had Ubisoft alert me to this one-off trip. Interested?
|
|
| "I’ve got the chance to send a single community member from the Eurogamer
| forums to Montreal to see and play Assassin’s Creed next week, meet Jade
| Raymond, and generally have a hell of a trip. Can you think of someone on
| your forum who has got a high post count, is well respected/liked, and is
| likely to really enjoy playing AC that I can bring along? We’ll cover all
| costs and stuff. The visit is going to be next week so we need to move asap
| on this."

Wow. Meet JADE RAYMOND and play Assassins Creed early, write my first impressions for Eurogamer and MEET JADE RAYMOND!!

I informed Kristan Reed that I live in Denmark but I would fly to London, meet with Ubi and go and see JADE RAYMOND!!! (and maybe play a bit of Assassins Creed).

However, Ubisoft then withdrew their offer as I didn't live in the UK. Although I'm a British citizen with a British Passport and was willing to fork out for a flight to London, I couldn't go.

However, Ubi will make amends by sending me a 'goody bag' (not Jade I hope) so I'll let you know what swank I receive and as when it turns up.

That's it really.

:(

Eternal Sonata Developer Interview

During my time with Strategy Informer they asked me to do an interview with development team tri-Ace, those responsible for the JRPG Ethernal Sonata or Trusty Bell - Chopin's Dream if you prefer the original Japanese title, as I do.

Anyway, I wasn't able to meet him in person but I did write down a few choice questions and those crazy chaps at Strategy Informer sent them off to Hiroya Hatsushiba and you can read the very interesting results here.

I'll hopefully be doing more of these and as ever I'll link you to them from here.

The game has already been released in both the US and Japan but Europe can look forward to this title Friday 19th October on the XBox 360 and a PS3 version is not too far off! Hopefully I'll be able to grab a review copy and as soon as it's published I'll give you the heads up.

Here, have some box art:

Can wait to get my greasy mitts around this one!

NHL 08 Review - PS3

Again, a little bit late with this one but I got the chance to review EA's latest instalment of their long running ice hockey game, NHL 2008 on the PS3 a few weeks ago and as I now write reviews for other sites I thought I'd link them to you from here instead of breaking all manner of NDA's and losing my house and family to the site managers.

I wrote it for Strategy Informer on the 4th October and I gave it a total score of 8.2 out of 10 which isn't bad at all. In fact, I really enjoyed it.

If you want read the review in its entirety then you can find it here.

Any comments you have you're of course welcome to create an account over at SI or simply slag me off for not knowing what I'm talking about here in the blog.

Wiil Done!

What a start for Nintendo. You lot just love their shiny little white thing and can't get enough of it. You like to grab it and wave it around and show your friends and then they want to do it too! In fact, the Brits want to do it so much that it's been named the fastest selling console in UK history.

Chart Track have revealed from under their number covering boxers that the Nintendo Wii has sold over 1m units in just 38 weeks. Sony am cry as this edges their reigning champion the PS2 off its perch. This managed only 1 million sales in 50 weeks. Hah!

With profit made on every console sold, they're making lots of it!

It doesn't stop there however. Earlier this month that highly unreliable but much quoted number cruncher, VG Chartz (the 'z' makes it cool) has reported that the Wii is the bestest selling next-gen gaming console, media hub, internet friendly whatever back in August. So this is really just another medal on the military uniform for Nintendo as they do battle in these rather boring, bitchy console wars.

With news also in that the Wii yet again topes the US console chart Nintendo can afford to loosen their slacks, lean back in their chairs look under their their desks, smile and think of Monica.

Souce: RegHardware

Guess who's back?

Yep. I am.

Been rather busy and not had a great deal of time to bring you all up to date on the very latest and most exciting game stories of the day! Also, working now independently for two different websites reviewing games and bound and gagged by all kinds of disclosure agreements that if broken would result in the torturous castration of my mute peregrine, Dave, I won't be able to write too many reviews now either. Which is sad for you all.

However, any review I do write, I will link you to the site so all those thousands of fans that I've neglected over the last few weeks will still get to read my musings over the latest developments from our game developing overlords.

That's about it really.