The Sony PS3 Conference Unveiled

Gran Turismo HD Unveiled

Changing the guard, Phil Harrison (President of SCE Worldwide Studios) came onto the set, and it was time to party. SCE is the new Playstation umbrella corporation for the control of a lot of gaming property, and we all knew that once his face showed on the set, that things were gonna get big. Putting aside the actual system, Phil Harrison launched right into games, calling up on the stage (The creator of Gran Turismo, AKA God incarnate) Kazunori Yamauchi. Cool as ever, Yamauchi proceeded in Japanese (Isn't it good that I know some?) to basically say one thing that made me jump: Gran Turismo Prototype. A new Gran Turismo for the Playstation 3, entitled “Gran Turismo HD”.

And this is the part of the show where I wet my pants. Gran Turismo HD, much akin to Gran Turismo 4, is generated with the utmost of quality in mind- but, as Yamauchi proceeded to explain, in HD (Technically, 1920 x 1080p HD, basically the top of the line for the PS3). Everything in Gran Turismo HD is from Gran Turismo 4 (Which was wonderful, but had problems with load times and antialiasing), but will be upgraded and refined to the Playstation 3 standards.

Everything about Gran Turismo HD was wonderful, and I will attempt to the best of my ability to get a video of it for download in the near future. Racing on the Tokyo R846 Raceway in a Nissan MOTUL PITWORK Z ('04), he showed how everything, from the trees to the road, was optimized for the PS3, and absolutely beautiful in every respect. Even the small stickers on the Nissan glimmered in realistic beauty, and the light effects gleamed off the shiny paint of the new car like it had just been born in a factory. Having played this exact raceway in this car in Gran Turismo 4 for the Playstation 2, I can not only honestly say that this is a major upgrade, but I can say that this may be one of Yamauchi's finest, combining the realism and handling from GT4 (Including the obsessive use of brakes over the turns) and the beauty of the PS3 in one wonderful package.

Getting HD on your TV? Turn it on. See all the beautiful quality? Gran Turismo HD on the PS3 not only is that good, but better- in fact, technically speaking, three times more information is transferred than what you are watching. Compared to Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2? Twelve times as much information. Needless to say, this is a phenomenal upgrade and had me floored. But that wasn't all.

Not only was it in 1080p, but it loaded instantly. Yes, gamers, instantly. In Gran Turismo 4, the average loading time was about 15 seconds, but I sometimes encountered times going up to about 20 seconds of wait before I got to race my beautiful car. In Gran Turismo HD, the combination of the speedy processor/RAM combination, as well as caching techniques using the PS3 HDD, it was two seconds. I checked them- I counted. Two seconds. That's about as much time as it takes for me to type two words, lick my lips, sneeze- that's fast. And all of this was running on a real PS3. That's all I can say without going nuts.

The Eye of Judgment

You know Yu-Gi-Oh? That really odd card game that has all those little 12 year olds salivating over paper cards like I salivate over Playboy? Apparently, Sony likes it too- and this time around, Sony wants to show you how the Playstation 3 and the EyeToy work. See, the EyeToy is kind of like a gimmick to Playstation- something you use in some miscellaneous games, but never truly involve yourself in “real” games. This is no longer.

The Eye of Judgment is a card battle game that utilizes a small white pad. By placing a card on the pad, the small camera picks it up- and creates a monster right on top of that card, on your screen. Not only can you move the card/monster combination around, but even your hand appears on screen, creating a fake reality where your hand interacts with monsters all around the screen. By manipulating the monsters, the person showing the game (The developer of EyeToy, incidentally) had the monsters on the screen fight. With millions of possible combinatio

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