Kevin Butler hints to Gran Turismo 5

In a new commercial dedicated to Mod Nation Racers released today, the hilarious Playstation face Kevin Butler, after trash talking and eventually getting owned by a gloating Jack Tretton, drops the following line: "That is if I'm not too busy with my next project: let's just say it's a little racing game that rhymes with Man Furismo Jive".

The hint to Gran Turismo 5 is completely obvious, and seems to indicate that an announcement of the release date of the massively awaited and massively delayed racing simulator by Polyphony Digital may really be imminent (my prediction is that it'll be one of the biggest Sony cards at E3).
The line is actually open to interpretation. Did he mean his next project as a fictional VP, or his next commercial? If he meant his next commercial, then it's very possible that the fabled release date could be quite a lot nearer that many expect, since you don't normally make a commercial for a game that's still several months away.
Are we going to see Kevin Butler owned by Kazunori Yamauchi anytime soon?
One thing is for sure, Sony would do better to have Kevin Butler host their presser at E3, it would definitely make for a much more enjoyable presentation.

As usual, we'll have to wait and see. It's not that we aren't used to it by now :P

See the full commercial after the jump:

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Kazunori Yamauchi 4th in the Nürburgring 24h race after overtaking 114 cars

Kazunori Yamauchi, CEO of Polyphony Digital raced across yesterday, last night and today in the prestigious and incredibly heated Nurgburgring 24 hours endurance race as part of Team World Car Awards, driving the #72 Lexus IS-F (SP8 class) alongside Peter Lyon, Hideshi Matsuda and Owen Mildenhall. .

After round 1 of qualifying with a wet track that obviously produced mediocre lap times for everyone, things started to look dire, as Yamauchi's Lexus suffered from problems to the fuel pump requiring it to be changed, forcing the team to skip qualifying round 2 when the track had dried up. This potentially disastrous occurrence forced the team to start the race in 174th overall position.

Yamauchi and his fellow drivers, though, didn't give up and prepared for a difficult uphill battle. The team immediately looked fast at the start of the race, and started to climb up the rankings. Slowly but surely, during the best part of two days and a night, they overtook a total of 114 cars.
They staged and won many heated duels, like the one around the half of the race against the only Audi R8 in the same class: #49 Alexander Krebs' R8 (quite appropriately, Forza Motorsport 3's cover car is an Audi R8).
In the end they finished this epic race in 60th position overall, managing to grab a 4th position between the twelve teams in their class (In this kind of competition cars of different classes race all together, but have separate rankings due to the obvious differences in power) and brought home a shining performance in conditions that seemed desperate.

It was truly an epic race, for Yamauchi's team and overall. I can't wait to relive it in Gran Turismo 5 (the Nurburgring has been confirmed to be included in Gran Turismo 5 in all it's three incarnations: Nordschleife road track, F1 circuit and the 24 hours track that is an extremely challenging combination of the other two). Also, Congratulations to the other Lexus from Japan, #50 Gazoo Racing LFA, that managed to win the class after an equally epic climb through the rankings. As both Yamauchi's #72 and Gazoo Racing's #50 passed the finish line, the commentator of the race appropriately talked about an historic result for Toyota and Lexus, and Yamauchi-sensei was part of that history.

Again Kazunori Yamauchi demonstrated that he's not just one of the best racing game developers in the world, but also a top class driver in the real world. Let's hope to see him at E3 to finally announce the official release date of Gran Turismo 5!

You can see a couple more pictures of Yamauchi's #72 here and here.

Kazunori Yamauchi is racing right now in Nurburgring 24 Hours

Right now the creator of the Gran Turismo series, Kazunori Yamauchi, is undertaking the titanic endurance challenge of the Nurburgring 24 Hours race, as part of Team World Car Awards, driving the #72 Lexus IS-F (sp8 class).

The race didn't begin well, as the team missed the dry qualifying round and started 174th in the rankings. At the moment, after nine hours on the winding Nurgburgring track (that by the way will appear in Gran Turismo 5 in all it's three incarnations, road track, F1 circuit and the 24 hours track that's a combination of the other two), Yamauchi's car is now 88th (and 6th in it's class. In this kind of competition cars of different classes and power race all together, but have different ranking boards) after working it's way up through the rankings almost costantly in what seems to be an almost heroic ride to get back towards the front.

If you want to cheer for Yamauchi-sensei or simply follow the race you can load this url: http://24h-rennen.de/livecast/live_01.asx in media player to see a live stream (in german), follow an english radio coverage on radiolemans.com, a live rankings stream for the sp8 class here (and a more up to date but less flashy one showing the general rankings here), and Lexus Europe twitter page for further news. I will update this post myself if anything significant happens.

Go Yamauchi-Sensei! Show em that there's a game developer that can drive something else than a console :D

Update 1: almost 10 hours in. #72 has dropped slightly, in position 90, still 6th in sp8 class. The 5th ranked in the same class is now #71 Audi RS4 (Ironically Forza 3's cover car is an Audi), of KIWI Team Nurburgring, now ranked 78th. Will Yamauchi's team manage to overtake it?

Update 2: 1:10 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 is climbing the rankings again, now in position 86 while the #71 Audi has dropped in 79th. There are only six cars between them, and an overtaking in 5th class position seems possible!

Update 3: 1:37 AM local time. It's pitch dark and #71 Audi slowed down considerably, completing lap 55 three and a half minutes slower than Yamauchi's #72 Lexus. Now #71 is 80th. Yamauchi's Lexus is 82nd, gunning in for the kill! Only one car in between, Go Yamauchi-sensei! :D

Update 4: 2:03 AM local time. Something must have happened, as Yamauchi's #72 completed lap 56 in 22 minutes, taking 12 minutes longer than it's usual pace, and now dropped in 94th position. Trying to find out what the problem is.

Update 5: 2:21 AM local time. Whatever happened (I couldn't find out for sure, but it's probably just a long pit stop and driver change) yamauchi's #72 is back running, completing lap 57 in 10:48 and back up in 91st position. Unfortunately now it'll be a climbing battle to catch up to #71.

Update 6: 3:00 AM local time. We're past the 12 hours points. Yamauchi's #72 is climbing ranks steadily as it's now in 81st position again. #71 is almost one lap ahead though, in 71st position. Will Yamauchi's team manage to catch up again to their closest opponent?

Update 7: 3:42 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 seems to be struggling gaining positions at the moment, hovering around 83rd with average lap times around 10:40. However, it suddenly just posted a very fast 65th lap, with a great lap time of 10 minutes and 9 seconds. Did the new driver finally start to push it?

Update 8: 3:58 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 finally managed to ovrtake #71 and is now in 75th (5th position in it's class)! The car is being very fast right now. The driver seems to have gotten used to the track and is posting regular laptimes under 10 minutes and 15 seconds.

Update 9: 4:42 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 is now in 72nd position (still 5th position in it's class). The team managed to overtake more than one hundred cars in little less than 14 hours! This almost feels heroic, and honestly I can't wait to recreate this epic race on Gran Turismo 5. Let's hope they'll announce a close release date at E3.
In the meanwhile the pace has slowed a little bit because of an incident on the circuit.

Update 10: 5:18 AM local time. 10 hours to go. It's finally dawning and some blue is now visible in the sky, It's also extremely windy. The pace is going to go up soon as soon as visibility increases. Yamauchi's #72 is still climbing the ranking, now 69th. There are now only six cars between it and it's most direct competitor in 4th position in the sp8 class: #49 Alexander Krebs' Audi R8. Yep, Yamauchi's car is now pursuing relentlessly Forza Motorsport 3's cover car.
But as a further spin, give a look to it's picture at the top of the windshield. Notice anything? Yamauchi's #72 is pursuing Forza 3's cover car, sponsorized by GT5 :D
I'm sleepy as hell and this funny details keep me awake.

Update 11: 5:40 AM local time. The sky is much brighter now. Yamauchi's #72 went for a pit stop, and momentarily fell back into 88th position overall, also overtaken by #74 Gentle Swiss Racing Aston Martin N24 (mind you, I just noticed that basically all the cars have the GT5 sponsor on the windshield, pretty cool), that's in the same class. But as many other cars entered the pits the following lap, #72 went back to 68th position, overtaking #74 again and with the #49 R8 still leading it in 60th position. Will #72 manage to grab 4th position for it's class?
This is my final update for the night. I need some sleep, but I will come back as soon as I slept some to cover the finale of the race. Gambare Yamauchi-sensei!

Update 12: 1:30 PM local time. I'm back reporting. Yamauchi's #72 and just overtook #74 Aston Martin during a pit stop for both cars, and is now in 4th position for ir class and 62nd overall, with #74 following suit in 63rd. one hour and an half to the end of the race. It seems it'll be a duel for class 4th place!

Update 13: 2:00 PM local time. Only one hour left! Yamauchi's #72 is solidly in 4th position in it's class and 60th overall, with #74 fallen down to 81st position, class 4th place seems secure, but everything can happen in this kind of race!

Update 14: 2:30 PM local time. Yamauchi's #72 is still 4th in it's class and 60th overall. Only half an hour to go!

Update 15: 3:00 PM local time. This 24 hours-long drama comes to an end! Yamauchi's #72 grabs 4th place in it's class and 60th overall, after starting in a very difficult situation and overtaking 112 cars! Glorious!

White Knight Chronicles 2 might be between Sony's cards at E3

White Knight Chronicles 2
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Every May people speculate wildly on what each first party developer will bring to E3. Everyone knows that Natal, Move and the 3DS will probably have most of the spotlight (unfortunately) this year, but can those new shiny pieces of hardware support by themselves the whole event?
I personally doubt it. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will probably try to bring as many additional cards as possible to enrich their hand.

Lately we've seen quite a slew of news and rumors on White Knight Chornicles 2, including a potentially groundbreaking one about the second chapter including a reworked and updated version of the first, to provide a sort of reboot of the series and to ease the approach of new fans to the franchise.
This is almost unprecedented, and would demonstrate a strong will from Sony to give the saga a second chance to success.

Thinking about it, it isn't really surprising. The first White Knight Chronicles received a quite mild critical reception (not from me, you can read my review here) despite how innovative it was compared to the usual JRPG, and sales weren't exactly top notch, even due to an extremely late western release that came when the hype was already almost dead.
Despite that Sony provided a lot of support to the ones that bought it, updating the game regularly and even providing free new quests in the latest few months. It's quite obvious that they still think that the franchise can be successful, and aim to capitalize on it.

Following the latest news it's actually pretty evident that Level Five and Japan Studio are striving to revolution every single element of the first game that wasn't received well. A completely revamped combat system, more focust on the battles between knights, a storyline with a more epic feel and a solid conclusion.

That's why I wouldn't be surprised if Sony brought White Knight Chronicles 2 as one of the cards between their hand at E3. The effort they're making in revamping the franchise seem to be definitely worthy of an AAA game.
The worst problem of the first game was timing, and this time around timing would be perfect. With an anouncement of a western release coming at E3 (more or less a month before the July 8 release in Japan), possibly slated for the holiday season or even earlier, with the confirmation of the inclusion of the first game in the bundle, some spectacular Knight combat footage (and maybe a confirmation of the possibility of customizing your own knight, that seems to be probable at the moment), might hit big in a market that definitely needs a new solid JRPG.

Obviously this is just speculation, but there are a lot of elements that seem to fall into place extremely well. In the meanwhile, you can enjoy the latest trailer released two days ago, that shows the first brief glimpse of the new Moon Princess knight in action (towards the end). It's after the cut.

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Yakuza PSP new five minutes trailer released

Black Leopard Yakuza logo
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Sega released a new five minutes trailer for the upcoming PSP yakuza ba game named Kurohyou: Ryu Ga Gotoku Shinshou (Black Panther: Like a Dragon New Chapter), slated for release in Japan on September the 22nd.

The trailer, voiced by Takaya Kuroda (voice actor of Kazuma Kiryu), shows a long sequence of the game's cutscenes, drawn with an art style very similar to that featured in Metal Gear Portable Ops.

It outlines the backstory of the main character, Tatsuya Ukyou, grown in the wild street of Kamurocho knowing nothing but violence. His life is changed forever when he kills an high ranking member of one of the families of the Tojo clan. From then on his only way to continue living is as a fighter in the underground arena that appeared in all the previous Yakuza games.

At the end of the trailer there are quite a few in-game combat sequences, that display the usual brutal moves that the series got us used to, exploration sequences showing areas of Kamurocho that will look very familiar to the ones that played the previous games.
It also shows some of the "Hostess" gameplay (the part that was partially cut from the western version of Yakuza 3), that will retain a strong presence in the PSP chapter. A quite peculiar detail is that Mika Tsuchiya, one of the hostesses of the Flawless club in Okinawa during Yakuza 3, apparently moved to Kamurocho, and will make an star in this new game.
Also, the club in which Tatsuya goes to have fun seems to be Marietta, which is the one that the player gets to run during a quest in Yakuza 2 (unless Sega just recycled the graphics assets, that are obviously quite compatible between a PS2 game and a PSP one).

You can see the new trailer below. I have to say I am pretty excited about this new chapter of the series, even if I still have mixed feelings about the main character, that as of now doesn't seem to have the brooding charisma of Kazuma Kiryu. Let us hope to see it released in the west before the next geological era, and most definitely let's hope it'll be uncut this time around.

Yakuza 2 RetroReview: two Dragons for an epic game

Ryu Ga Gotoku 2
Picture uploaded by Abriael

About one week ago I reviewed the first chapter of the Ryu Ga Gotoku series, A.K.A. Yakuza. The second chapter, Yakuza 2, was released in the west without any promotion and so late after it's it's original release in Japan (a whole two years later), that it was almost completely ignored.
I actually remember walking into the local Gamestop about a year and a half ago, well into the current generation, and randomly giving a look to the shrinking PS2 area (that I didn't visit regularly anymore) of the shop, completely oblivious of the fact that Yakuza 2 was to be released, and just finding it there, unannounced and unexpected. Even at that time, I used to follow the gaming news regularly. This blog was already well underway by then, but the release of Yakuza 2 was advertised so little that even I didn't know anything about it.

I wouldn't be surprised, then, if the vast majority of the ones that will read this review completely missed the game. Hopefully this will serve as a little guide for you to decide if it's worth it to go back a generation and try Yakuza 2 out.

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At long last Mechwarrior 4 is back, and it's FREE!

Mechwarrior 4
Picture uploaded by Abriael

After a wait that lasted more than one year due to legal complications, the long awaited day has finally come. Studio MekTek finally managed to re-release one of the best Mech Combat simulators ever seen on any platform, Mechwarrior 4.
Not only the game (originally released in 2002) is a true gem that no similar title released after it could ever equal, but it's now completely free for everyone to enjoy.

All you have to do is to go to the MekTek website, download and install their proprietary client, go on Available games and select MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. The client will download and install it for you and will also keep it updated (since MekTek plans on supporting it further).

In the years the game has received several improvements and additions, that are all included in this shiny package: Several new mechs and weapons have been added, the online gameplay has been revamped and rebalanced, and support for higher resolutions has been enabled.

Initially the download will probably be a bit slow, given that it's torrent-based, but don't give up, it'll speed up after a few minutes. If you missed the game back in 2002, but even if you already played it, this is your chance to relive one of the most glorious science-fiction franchises of the gaming industry (and that includes video games, board war-games and RPGs).

EDIT: at the moment the MekTek site is being hammered by thousands of download requests, so if it appears down, just retry later :D