Hardware

Big Day in Gaming, October 27th edition: Forza Motorsport 3, Tekken 6 & DJ Hero

Comment

oct27

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.

From Nerdworld, Peter Ha’s new gig at Time:

What’s unique to DJH is the soundtrack that you won’t be able to find anywhere else. You’re not fingering your way through another ho-hum track from yesteryear. Each track was exclusively mixed for DJH. Where else would you hear the Gorillaz x Blondie, Daft Punk x Queen or The Jackson 5 x Third Eye Blind? For the record: I hate Third Eye Blind, but the music is broad and appeals to just about anyone… As far as peripherals go, the turntable appears to be of high quality. The case and telescoping legs that come with the Renegade Edition surpassed my high expectations. There’s the off chance that you might inadvertently break or knock off the effects dial or cross fader, but it never crossed my mind while playing.

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.

Update Added Time.com’s review of the game.

More TechCrunch

The problem is not the media, but the message.

Apple’s ‘Crush’ ad is disgusting

Ever wonder why conversational AI like ChatGPT says “Sorry, I can’t do that” or some other polite refusal? OpenAI is offering a limited look at the reasoning behind its own…

OpenAI offers a peek behind the curtain of its AI’s secret instructions

The federal government agency responsible for granting patents and trademarks is alerting thousands of filers whose private addresses were exposed following a second data spill in as many years. The…

US Patent and Trademark Office confirms another leak of filers’ address data

As part of an investigation into people involved in the pro-independence movement in Catalonia, the Spanish police obtained information from the encrypted services Wire and Proton, which helped the authorities…

Encrypted services Apple, Proton and Wire helped Spanish police identify activist

Match Group, the company that owns several dating apps, including Tinder and Hinge, released its first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, which shows that Tinder’s paying user base has decreased for…

Match looks to Hinge as Tinder fails

Private social networking is making a comeback. Gratitude Plus, a startup that aims to shift social media in a more positive direction, is expanding its wellness-focused, personal reflections journal to…

Gratitude Plus makes social networking positive, private and personal

With venture totals slipping year-over-year in key markets like the United States, and concern that venture firms themselves are struggling to raise more capital, founders might be worried. After all,…

Can AI help founders fundraise more quickly and easily?

Google has found a way to bring a variation of its clever “Circle to Search” gesture to iPhone users. The new interaction, launched in January, allows Android users to search…

Google brings a variation on ‘Circle to Search’ to iPhone users

A new sculpture going live on Wednesday in the Flatiron South Public Plaza in New York is not your typical artwork. It combines technology, sociology, anthropology and art to let…

Always-on video portal lets people in NYC and Dublin interact in real time

Apple’s iPad event had a lot to like. New iPads with new chips and new sizes, a new Apple Pencil, and even some software updates. If you are a big…

TechCrunch Minute: When did iPads get as expensive as MacBooks?

Autonomous, AI-based players are coming to a gaming experience near you, and a new startup, Altera, is joining the fray to build this new guard of AI agents. The company announced…

Bye-bye bots: Altera’s game-playing AI agents get backing from Eric Schmidt

Google DeepMind has taken the wraps off a new version AlphaFold, their transformative machine learning model that predicts the shape and behavior of proteins. AlphaFold 3 is not only more…

Google DeepMind debuts huge AlphaFold update and free proteomics-as-a-service web app

Uber plans to deliver more perks to Uber One members, like member-exclusive events, in a bid to gain more revenue through subscriptions.  “You will see more member-exclusives coming up where…

Uber promises member exclusives as Uber One passes $1B run-rate

We’ve all seen them. The inspector with a clipboard, walking around a building, ticking off the last time the fire extinguishers were checked, or if all the lights are working.…

Checkfirst raises $1.5M pre-seed to apply AI to remote inspections and audits

Close to a decade ago, brothers Aviv and Matteo Shapira co-founded a company, Replay, that created a video format for 360-degree replays — the sorts of replays that have become…

Controversial drone company Xtend leans into defense with new $40 million round

Usually, when something starts to rot, it gets pitched in the trash. But Joanne Rodriguez wants to turn the concept of rot on its head by growing fungus on trash…

Mycocycle uses mushrooms to upcycle old tires and construction waste

Monzo has raised another £150 million ($190 million), as the challenger bank looks to expand its presence internationally — particularly in the U.S. The new round comes just two months…

UK challenger bank Monzo nabs another $190M as US expansion beckons

iRobot has announced the successor to longtime CEO, Colin Angle. Gary Cohen, who previous held chief executive role at Timex and Qualitor Automotive, will be heading up the company, marking a major…

iRobot names former Timex head Gary Cohen as CEO

Reddit — now a publicly-traded company with more scrutiny on revenue growth — is putting a big focus on boosting its international audience, starting with francophones. In their first-ever earnings…

Reddit tests automatic, whole-site translation into French using LLM-based AI

Mushrooms continue to be a big area for alternative proteins. Canada-based Maia Farms recently raised $1.7 million to develop a blend of mushroom and plant-based protein using biomass fermentation. There’s…

Meati Foods bites into another $100M amid growth to 7,000 retail locations

Cleaning the outside of buildings is a dirty job, and it’s also dangerous. Lucid Bots came on the scene in 2018 with its Sherpa line of drones to clean windows…

Lucid Bots secures $9M for drones to clean more than your windows

High interest rates and financial pressures make it more important than ever for finance teams to have a better handle on their cash flow, and several startups are hoping to…

Israeli startup Panax raises a $10M Series A for its AI-driven cash flow management platform

The European Union has deepened the investigation of Elon Musk-owned social network, X, that it opened back in December under the bloc’s online governance and content moderation rulebook, the Digital Services Act…

EU grills Elon Musk’s X about content moderation and deepfake risks

For the founders of Atlan, a data governance startup, data has always been at the heart of what they do, even before they launched the company. In fact, co-founders Prukalpa…

Atlan scores $105M for its data control plane, as LLMs boost importance of data

It is estimated that about 2 billion people, especially those in lower and middle-income countries, lack access to quality and affordable essential medicines. The situation is exacerbated by low-quality or even killer…

Axmed raises $2M from Founderful to streamline drug supply chains in underserved markets

For decades, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has maintained a de facto monopoly on positioning, navigation and timing, because it’s cheap and already integrated into billions of devices around the…

Xona Space Systems closes $19M Series A to build out ultra-accurate GPS alternative

Bankruptcy lawyers representing customers impacted by the dramatic crash of cryptocurrency exchange FTX 17 months ago say that the vast majority of victims will receive their money back — plus interest. The…

FTX crypto fraud victims to get their money back — plus interest

On Wednesday, Google launched its digital wallet in India with local integrations, nearly two years after the app was relaunched as a digital wallet platform in the U.S. As TechCrunch exclusively reported last month,…

Google Wallet is now available in India

Bluesky has launched a new product roadmap for the coming months. The decentralized social network said on Tuesday that it is planning to introduce direct messages, support for videos, improved…

Bluesky to add DMs, video support and in-app custom feed curation

Samsung Medison, a medical device unit of Samsung Electronics that specializes in developing diagnostic imaging devices, said on Wednesday it plans to acquire Sonio, a Paris-based startup that makes AI-powered software…

Samsung Medison to acquire French AI ultrasound startup Sonio for $92.7M