Today’s a pretty big day in gaming, ladies and gents. You’ve got DJ Hero, Tekken 6, and Forza Motorsport 3 all coming out today. (Incidentally, I’ll have like a mini FM3 “review” tomorrow, and we may have some fun Tekken news this week to share—stay tuned!) So I decided to go around some of the big gaming sites, and take select quotes, completely out of context, and share them with y’all here. Let’s go~!

Let’s start with FM3, since it’s the game I’ve actually played.

From Edge:

How often can you reinvent the wheel? It’s a question videogame developers are more qualified than most to answer. Year after year, driving titles strive to overtake each other for the lead in a continually evolving genre. It’s an interminable race, although one that in recent times has felt like it’s approaching its closing stages… Where does the genre go from here? With no one looking particularly threatening in its slipstream, Turn 10 [the game's developer] has time to decide.

From IGN:

Sony’s Gran Turismo may still sit in the pole position among racing sims for many, but Microsoft is making a hard charge with Forza Motorsport 3… Simply put, Forza 3 is one of the best racers ever made… I felt Forza 2 was lifeless and without spirit. That is not an issue with Forza 3. This is a game that showcases speed and beauty. The cars are sexy, the tracks look great, and the game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second. The lighting isn’t always perfect — you can often see shadows dancing around the car in some odd ways — and a few times textures didn’t load on the track. Despite these issues, Forza 3 is one hot looking game.

From 1UP:

Forza 3 upholds the franchise’s tradition of excellence, but also plays it a little too safe; it irons out the previous game’s clunky interface and sports a minor visual upgrade, but the gameplay feels strikingly similar to its predecessor. Still, Forza 3 is a very good racing sim in a handsome package that can proudly proclaim itself as the best and most polished currently available, but it’s the excellent integration and extent of its online features that make it a stand out game. Driving, tuning and creating within a living community breathes essential life to a game genre that can occasionally be a bit too stuffy for its own good.

So, surprise, it looks like FM3 is good. Again, I’ll have my take on the game here tomorrow. Not that you care

Next, Tekken 6. Remember: we may have some exciting Tekken-related news here later this week, so keep your eyes peeled!

From IGN:

Following in a long line of arcade fighters, Tekken 6 continues the one-on-one, 3D tradition with the franchise’s biggest roster yet, and some nice gameplay refinements… The real problem comes from the game’s load times, which are poor all around. Not only is there a frustrating amount of loading before an online match (while the two players sync up) but there’s some unusual loading peppered throughout the entire Tekken 6 experience. Even selecting a fighter off the character select screen takes a fair amount of time, as the character models pop into existence after a hefty delay. This issue is present on both the PS3 and 360 versions, even after the PS3 version’s optional install of more than four GB. These awkward load times, while disappointing, are still tolerable and won’t spoil Tekken 6. I just wish we could have seen the game perform a little better… Tekken 6 has a lot to offer, including a massive roster, refined gameplay, plenty of modes, online multiplayer and an absurd amount of character customization options…With that said, Tekken fans will certainly gobble it up and I think gamers unfamiliar with the franchise should give it a shot. The unique mix of an easy-to-use interface with intensely deep strategies is definitely worth checking out.

That’s the only “big” review I could find. If you guys find more, I’ll add ‘em later, such is the POWER of the Internet.

And lastly, DJ Hero.

From IGN:

Because this is a new type of music game, there’s a lot to explain, but let’s get this out of the way first: DJ Hero is fantastic. It’s one of the best games I’ve played this year and one of the best music games I’ve ever played… In an overcrowded genre of music games, DJ Hero resides at the very top with the best of ‘em… But DJ Hero is already the most exciting music game around and is guaranteed to get the party started. To paraphrase Run DMC: gosh darn that DJ made my day.

Again, I couldn’t find any more DJ Hero reviews. Is today a holiday or something? Because if it is I’m out of here!

So, yeah, just some random comments.

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(Credit:
Microsoft

2009 is suddenly a holiday of racers. If you don’t believe that, consider the trifecta that dropped–or will drop–shortly: Need For Speed: Shift, Dirt 2, and Microsoft’s holiday tentpole Forza Motorsport 3. All of them promise realistic physics, blazing speeds, and tons of customization, but NFS: Shift and Dirt 2 are multiplatform, while Forza Motorsport 3 is an Xbox 360 first-party exclusive. For my money, though, I’ll take Forza 3. After playing all three, the newest Forza has, surprisingly, won me over–not with realism, but with fun.

I say surprisingly because “simulation racers” generally lie in a calcified place among the hearts of the mainstream gamers: the hundreds of factory-immaculate car models and pitch-perfect world racing circuits, along with the endless class licenses and intricate engine tune-ups, can turn most gamers off completely. Right here in the CNET offices, I told a colleague I was playing Forza 3, and that I actually enjoyed it. “Really?” he asked, somewhat disbelieving. It’s assumed that Gran Turismo and Forza will be inaccessible to those who don’t appreciate racers, just like Madden often erects a wall between NFL fans and gamers and the rest of the world.

I am a casual racer, and Forza 3 sucked me in.

Its first success was employing a calm British man to talk to me. Much like LittleBigPlanet, a gentle voice of authority (although in this case, not Stephen Fry) welcomed me, showed me the basic ropes, and told me everything was going to be all right. Rather than worry about detailed car controls and under-the-hood tinkering, a simple press of a few A and B buttons got me right into a season-long circuit of races. The voice tutorials gently tailed off naturally, until I had the ropes completely. Suddenly I realized that I had been playing for several hours, and was itching to complete just one more race challenge to unlock more credits. That’s when I realized that, fundamentally, Forza 3 is a success.
…

Oh, dear. The first sales reports of the PSP Go started trickling out yesterday, and they were sorta so-so, let’s say. (It’s no PS3 Slim, that’s for sure!) More details have emerged today, and, again, the PSP Go isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire.

An online retailer, ShopTo (I guess it’s big in the UK), has characterized the PSP Go’s start as “slow.” You can’t get any more dire than that, I don’t think.

What could be holding the PSP Go back? Well, for one, the reviews weren’t great, so perhaps people got scared off. Two, $250, really? (It’s even more in Europe.) Three, maybe people just aren’t prepared to drop their physical media yet? (The 802.11b connection doesn’t exactly help when you’re trying to download 1.00GB+ games.)

Sony did ostensibly bundle the biggest PSP game ever, Gran Turismo, with the system in Europe, so it can’t be that.

Or, maybe, the PSP, from Day One, back in 2004 or 2005, was never meant to be?

So the PS3 Slim was an absolute monster at retail (look at us, using superlative adjectives on a Monday!), selling one million systems since its release. (Keep in mind that’s an old number by now.) How’s the PSP Go doing? It’s doing well, yes, but I don’t think we can call it a monster yet. Sales in the UK were up 120 percent in the week following its launch. We don’t have U.S. numbers yet. Sorry.

Are those numbers good? Yeah, they’re good, but, much like the PSP Go itself, they’re not out of this world or anything.

Sony Europe put out an OFFICIAL STATEMENT~! (yes, I’m ripping off Figure 4 Weekly) that reads:

PSPgo has performed in line with our expectations, driving 100 per cent incremental volume for the category and has benefited the broad PSP portfolio with PSP-3000 also enjoying a big lift. PSP software sales also having been a standout with both new releases GT PSP and FIFA 10 performing well.

Note that Sony said it’s performed “within” expectations; expectations weren’t exceeded. So I don’t know if we can attribute sales directly to the PSP Go, or to the pretty big releases in Gran Turismo and FIFA. Unlike the Europeans, I paid full price for my copy of Gran Turismo!

And now we play the waiting game vis-à-vis U.S. numbers.

Surely I’m not the only one who remembers Homer and the Sorny television?

(Credit: SCEA)

Making a game exclusively for a single console is a tricky proposition: it’s hard to justify the multimillion-dollar budget required for a truly A-list product while limiting your potential audience to owners of only one of the three major living room consoles. Nevertheless, Microsoft has its well-regarded Halo and Gears of War games, Nintendo has a stable of famous franchises, and Sony has Uncharted (while still holding back on God of War and Gran Turismo for PlayStation 3).

Sony’s Saturday matinee-style adventure was an early hit for the PS3, and its sequel has built tremendous buzz over the past year, based on carefully constructed sneak peeks and trailers. We’ve spent this past weekend playing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (out October 13) in order to determine if it lives up to the hype.

The game is tremendous fun and the interactive equivalent of a big, over-the-top summer movie. It’s an unashamed mix of influences from Indiana Jones to Tomb Raider, with anti-hero Nathan Drake playing a mix of treasure hunter and art thief. Drake is rakish and good-natured, so you don’t really mind that he’s essentially a hardened criminal.

This time around, Drake’s pursuing ancient treasures plundered by Marco Polo, which should eventually lead to the mythical city of Shambala. Don’t expect much more depth than that from the “Da Vinci Code”-like premise; the story and characters run the gamut from cliched to nonsensical, and no one ever seems to have a particularly well-thought-out reason for anything he does. At least the banter between characters and the voice acting is on par with a decent made-for-cable action movie, which may sound like faint praise, but is still a pretty high bar for most video games.

(Credit: SCEA)

It’s to Uncharted 2′s credit that the game is such an excellent overall entertainment product despite the lackadaisical storytelling. While it may not break any new ground (unlike, say, Scribblenauts), it’s still the purest distillation of globe-trotting action/adventure we’ve seen in a long time. The incredibly high level of polish on everything from the scenery to the animation to the soundtrack draws the player in, creating a seamless experience that flows easily from set piece to set piece. Put simply: if you’re looking for a reason to show off that PlayStation 3 console and massive HDTV, this is it. We’d be hard-pressed to think of a game that simply looks better.

Still, after several hours, a few minor flaws become obvious. …

Goodbye, old storage media!

Rumored for God knows how long, and teased for months, the Sony PSP Go is finally available at your friendly neighborhood retailer. We have one—well, I have one—and have been playing with it for a couple of days now. As such, consider this a review. Spoiler: It’s not bad, but not great either.

What is the PSP Go? Nearest I can tell, it’s Sony’s attempt to usher in the Download Era. No more visiting the local shop to buy Game 3: Yes, It’s a Sequel to the Sequel, or waiting for the UPS man to bring your Amazon or Newegg order. Nope, all you’ll have to do is fire up your device, which, in this case, is the PSP Go, connect to a virtual store, then download the latest game directly to the device’s storage. Congratulations, you’re now the proud owner of Game 3, all without having to leave the comfort of your home. The concept itself, I think, is fantastic, and has been used by the likes of Steam for some time now. Who needs a pile of discs, and their plastic shells, when all you want is the game itself? That’s my attitude, though I can totally understand when people say, “I want the disc!” Your business is your business, and who am I to judge how you want to play your games?

Even Sony recognizes that there’s bound to be more than a few people who aren’t quite ready to give up their discs, which is why the PSP-3000 isn’t going anywhere for a while. (In fact, there’s gonna be a wicked Gran Turismo bundle coming out later this month, which, if I didn’t already have an old PSP (and now the Go), I’d be all over.) Expect the PSP Go and PSP-3000 to co-exist for some time, just like how the Nintendo DS and GameBoy Advance co-existed for some time. Should the PSP Go prove to be any sort of success, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sony axe the PSP-3000 in the future.

So that’s the philosophy of the PSP Go: a neat little device that’s able to download PSP (and PS One classic) games from the Internet.

While the philosophy is fine, and is one I subscribe to, the actual execution isn’t all there. If the PSP Go were a pro wrestling match, and I were using the Wrestling Observer five-star rating system (which I’ll be doing from now on with my reviews, thank you very much), I’d give the PSP Go a solid three point five (3.5) out of five stars. It’s not a perfect device, and it’s just shy of being very good; it’s good. (For comparison’s sake, I’d give the Zune HD a four point five (4.5) out of five: if only the screen were a little more legible in direct sunlight it would the best piece of hardware I’ve ever owned. It really is that good.)

So what’s wrong with the PSP Go? Let’s talk about what’s right first, then get into its shortcomings.

Eu gosto de…

• See you in Hell, UMDs. The UMD could be the worst disc format I’ve ever used. It’s clunky and brittle all at the same time (doesn’t it feel like a slight wind could shatter a UMD?), dreadfully slow, and, in 2009, entirely unnecessary. With flash storage being so cheap these, not to mention so fast, I’m very happy to see Sony kill of the UMD in the PSP Go. That’s right: If you didn’t already know, there’s no UMD drive in the PSP Go. At the moment, that means that your collection of UMD-based PSP games are 100 percent obsolete, provided you don’t plan on keeping a PSP-3000 (or older) handy. Sony has said that it’s planning some sort of trade-in program for the future, but it’s currently being held back by legal reasons. Or, if you’re a cynic, perhaps Sony wants us to buy Vice City Stories or Soulcalibur all over again, this time from the PlayStation Network?

• The general size and shape of the device. The PSP-3000 isn’t exactly huge, but unless you’re wearing Rocawear jeans you’re gonna have a hard time fitting it in your pocket. The PSP Go’s display has the same resolution as previous models (480×272), but on a smaller screen, so images “look sharper,” in layman’s terms. It slides open and shut sorta like the T-Mobile G1 (or pick your slider phone), but never feels like it’s going to break on you. The PSP Go also just looks neat, maybe not as neat as the Zune HD, but neat nonetheless; you tell it was recently designed, whereas the PSP-3000 looks so 2005 by this point.

• The screen. The screen, she is not bad. I played Gran Turismo, Rock Band, and Silent Hill (the PS One game), and all the games looked pretty good to me. I understand “pretty good” is more or less a worthless phrase, but at no point did I think, “Well this screen is rubbish.” Once again, playing the thing in direct sunlight just isn’t going to happen, but you probably assumed as much by now. Besides, I imagine playing this while on-the-go, as it were: on the train, at the airport, etc. If you’re on the Copacabana in Rio playing a portable video game system you may have to check yourself.

Eu não gosto de…

• The download speed. This, I feel, is the single worst part about the PSP G0: it only has 802.11b Wi-Fi! I’m sorry, is this 2003? For a system that’s supposed to usher in the dawn of a new era, this is the absolute dumbest thing Sony could have done. What’s the price difference between an 802.11b and 802.11g chipset? (The Rock: It doesn’t matter that the price difference is!) How much money did Sony lose already with the PS3, $400 zillion? Man up and go with 802.11g. Let me illustrate how slow this is, and keep in mind that I have the fastest residential Internet connection in the United States of America: Gran Turismo for the PSP weighs in at 937MB. It took 21 minutes to download the game, and a further 20 to actually install it. This is not good enough! At that point, I may as well have driven to the store, bought a physical copy of the game, stopped at Taco Bell, then watched a good chunk of The Ultimate Fighter all in the time it took to download and install.

• Game prices. Downloaded from PSN, Gran Turismo cost the same price as it does at retail stores: $39.99 (plus tax! bite me, New York state!) Couldn’t Sony throw us, say, a $5 discount because we’re not buying a physical item that costs money to produce, then ship, then sit on Wal-Mart’s shelves? Isn’t that one of the allures of downloading content, that it cuts out the middleman (the retail stores like Best Buy), and has zero costs associated with production? It’s not like there’s a truck that deliver the ISO from Sony’s servers to my PSP Go, a truck that needs gas, has a driver who’s on a salary, etc. These prices need to be lowered because, otherwise, what’s the point? I already said how it’s not terribly fast to download the game, and now it’s not any less expensive? Lame.

• The nub. If it’s at all possible, I will never use that thing. The physical location of the nub is fine, I have no problems there, but it just feels useless. (Needless to say, I’ve been using the D-Pad to play Gran Turismo, like I did in 1998 when the first game came out.) Would it be impossible to include an actual analog stick? (The D-Pad, for the record, feels more “clicky” than “pushy,” if that makes any sense.)

Conclusão

Again, using the Wrestling Observer five-star rating system, I’d give the PSP Go a fair three point five (3.5) out of five. It’s not going to light the world on fire like the iPhone or anything, but it’s not a huge bucket of fail either. The Wi-Fi is murderously slow, and for something that’s supposed to be all about downloads, well, I think that’s an oversight on Sony’s part. Once your games have downloaded, though, then you’ve got as much space on there as you want. The PSP Go comes with 16GB of built-in storage, which is expandable up to 32GB with the addition of a Memory Stick Micro card. (Are there even 32GB of PSP games worth playing out there? So that’s plenty of space, unless you want to watch movies and whatnot, which I patently have zero interest in.)

So, not bad, but could have been a little bit better, absolutely.