Yamauchi is of course no stranger to racing cars, but still. That's quite an achievement. I get antsy driving for 25 minutes. He of course didn't drive the entire 25 hours all by himself; he was a member of the "Spoon Sports" team, and shared duties with a car journo and two other Japanese race drivers.

"Not having a lot of experience in circuit driving, and not knowing what to expect in a 25-hour race, I was very relieved to find that I was able to reduce the 20-second gap between my laptimes and my teammates' at the beginning of the practice to almost zero at the start of the final race", he said. "It was a great feeling to confirm first hand that "Gran Turismo" has a positive effect in not just learning specific tracks, but also in raising the level of driving technique in the drivers themselves."

Always working, that Yamauchi. Always on the marketing trail. That's his car up top, with some footage of him driving round and round and round below.

Between now and January 10th, European PSPgo owners both new and old can download a special free PSPgo Promotion Theme to their handheld, which will trigger an email voucher good for full versions of one of three popular PSP titles - Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, Gran Turismo, or MotorStorm Arctic Edge. The offer is good only for the PSPgo, and the theme must be downloaded directly to the handheld via wireless internet in order to trigger the voucher.

This promotion is on top of the free copy of Gran Turismo handed out to European PSPgo buyers in early October and the three free titles offered to folks that upgraded from the original PSP.

I picked up a PSPgo this weekend on a whim, and received a lovely five-song demo of Rock Band Unplugged. Hooray.

PSPgo game offer (selected titles only) [PlayStation UK via Videogamer]

The PSPgo launched on Oct. 1, kicking off an impressive glut of download-only games on the Playstation Store. It also marked Sony's promised push for new, triple-A games for the Playstation Portable including MotorStorm, LittleBigPlanet and Assassin's Creed titles.

Take a gander at some of the big games that hit the PSP this year. What titles would you recommend as a gift?

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
Price: $39.99
Genre: Action Adventure
Subject Matter: Assassin's Creed vaults onto the PSP.
Value: Players curious about what happened between Assassin's Creed I and II might want to check out this title.
Buy it for fans of AC.

Read the Full Review.

Fieldrunners

Price: $6.99
Genre: Tower Defense
Subject Matter: The popular iPhone Tower Defense game brought to the Playstation Portable.
Value: This was one of my favorite downloadable minis when the PSPgo launched. It's a great port of the original.
Buy it for fans of tower defense titles.
Read the Full Review

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Price: $29.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action
Subject Matter: A arcade-style shooter loosely based on the live-action G.I. Joe movie.
Value: G.I. Joe is a movie tie-in strangely reminiscent of Konami's Contra series. One or two players take control of their favorite Joes from the movie and take on Cobra across multiple levels of run-and-gun action. There are a few unlockables catering to fans of the old cartoon series, but other than that this is strictly a movie-lover's affair.
Buy it for: Really, really big fans of the G.I. Joe live-action movie.
Read the Full Review

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars

Price: $39.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Open world action-adventure
Subject Matter: Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is a 3D, top-down adventure, putting players in the shoes of Huang Lee, a spoiled son of a Chinese gangster. The typical Grand Theft Auto rise to power through sex, drugs, violence and bad driving flows over the course of the game.
Value: There's a lengthy story to be told, with Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars throwing in plenty of side missions and mini-games to keep the player interested.
Buy it for: PSP owners looking for a chunky, fun-to-pay adventure.
Read the Full Preview

Gran Turismo

Price: $39.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Driving Simulation
Subject Matter: Gran Turismo offers players over 800 cars to purchase, customize and race on more than 35 tracks in a realistic setting, testing their driving skills with real-world physics.
Value: Gran Turismo offers nearly limitless replayability, thanks to the numerous cars, tracks and Driving Challenges stuffed in to the game. Long time Gran Turismo fans may be turned of by the lack of a Career Mode and Leaderboards, but this is a solid pick up and play racer.
Buy it for: The car-obsessed portable gamer who prefers a passenger seat in the real-world.
Read the Full Review

Half-Minute Hero

Price: $29.95
Rating: E10+
Genre: Across four mode: Hyper-speed role-playing game / hyper-speed scrolling shoot-em-up / hyper-speed real-time strategy game / hyper-speed top-down dungeon-crawler
Subject Matter: A winning send-up to the genres and technology of 16-bit Japanese-made games, there's actually a lengthy adventure here that spans eras and tells the comedic/dramatic tale of heroes who repeatedly face the challenge of saving the world in 30 seconds.
Value: High, as the game offers short-session bites of play that combine into a lengthy adventure that has none of the brevity suggested by the game's title.
Buy it for: RPG fans, fans of the Super Nintendo era, and fans who are looking for something original and smart on the PSP.
Read the Full Review

LocoRoco Midnight Carnival

Price: $14.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Platformer
Subject Matter: The LocoRocos are up past their bedtime and rolling and bouncing their way through a Halloween carnival-style levels.
Value: The stages might be short, but they are hard. A more satisfying (and less stressful) gaming experience was found in some of the mini-games.
Buy it for: Gamers looking for a challenge who get music stuck in their heads easily.
Read the Full Review

MotorStorm: Arctic Edge

Price: $39.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Racing
Subject Matter: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge is an over-the-top, semi-open world off-road racer.
Buy it for: fans of arcade race games who spend a bit of time commuting or can't afford a Playstation 3.
Value: With 12 maps, two directions to race them on, multiple courses and vehicle types, MotorStorm Arctic Edge is packed with content. Online play rounds out the experience giving you a chance to test your skills against five other players at a time.
Read the Full Review

PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe

Price: $19.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Tower defense
Subject Matter: Classic tower defense mechanics and gameplay mixed with delicious PixelJunk aesthetics.
Buy it for: fans of the original Playstation 3 title, tower defense games or developer Q Games.
Value: Featuring new maps, enemies and towers, this is worth the cash.
Read the Full preview

PSPgo
Price: $249
Rating: NA
Genre: Hardware
Subject Matter: Sony's latest portable platform ditches the need for a UMD drive and instead gives you a 16GB harddrive and the ability to download all of the games directly to the system.
Value: At $249, the portable platform is quite pricey, coming in at the cost of several home consoles.
Buy it for: anyone interested in being able to load up their portable with movies, TV shows, pictures, music and games without having to carry a single disc around with them.
Read the Full Review

PSPgo Traveler Case
Price: $19.99
Rating: NA
Genre: NA
Subject Matter: This fauxe leather case protects and beautifies your PSPgo.
Value: For just under $20, this is a heck of a deal.
Buy it for: PSPgo owners looking to protect or upgrade the look of their portable.
Read the Full Review

Rock Band Unplugged>/strong>

Price: $19.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Rhythm game
Subject Matter: Harmonix' insanely popular Rock Band on the go.
Value: For just under $20 you get a full-fledged World Tour and about 40 tracks. You also get the ability to download new tracks to your PSP.
Buy it for: fans of rhythm games, Rock Band and good music.
Read the Full Review

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

Price: $39.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: RPG
Subject Matter: A remake of the original Persona for the PlayStation.
Value: A more faithful translation of the original Japanese Persona has never been seen in North America, making Persona PSP the definitive first entry in a series that's been enjoying increased popularity these past few years.
Buy it for: Any Japanese RPG fan.
Read the Full Review

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron

Price: $29.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Adventure
Subject Matter: You are X-2, a Jedi clone out to help the Rebels take down the Empire and stop your brother X-1 before it's too late.
Value: Elite Squadron mixes gameplay, story and clips from the Star Wars films as it tells the story of X-2. The real replay value comes with the game's online multiplayer.
Buy it for: Star Wars fans or those looking for a PSP multiplayer experience.
Read the Full Review

The PSP has two modes of internet play: Ad Hoc and Infrastructure. Infrastructure mode lets players connect through the internet, but Ad Hoc mode is local only, or at least it was. The PSP adhocParty, launched last year in Japan, allows select games that normally allow for only face-to-face multiplayer connect via the PlayStation Network, using the PlayStation 3 as a bridge.

"The PlayStation brand is synonymous with creating exciting new gameplay experiences that connect and challenge people in ways they never thought possible," said Scott A. Steinberg, vice president, product marketing, SCEA. "AdhocParty for the PSP system creates an avenue for gamers to connect, strategize, and compete with each other – Gran Turismo is a great example of this. Polyphony Digital developed robust Ad Hoc features within the game, which are now even more accessible through adhocParty. We saw this as a tremendous opportunity to enhance the PSP system's online gaming experience and bring the service to our North American consumers."

While it would be nice if the PSP could perform this sort of function on its own instead of requiring a PlayStation 3, the service will definitely be a godsend, especially to those poor, lonely Monster Hunter Freedom Unite players. Look for the feature to go live later this month.

In an interview with IGN, the Polyphony Digital boss was asked about the possibility of bikes making their way into the game, to which he responded "If that's what users really want in the game, I think that's a possibility. Or we could consider making a Tourist Trophy 2 as well."

Might be best sticking to TT2. GT5 is late enough as it is.

Q&A With Gran Turismo's Kazunori Yamauchi [IGN]

That's according to series creator and Polyphony Digital head man Kazunori Yamauchi who, speaking with Autoweek, said "We will release [GT5] in March in Japan but for other regions, it has not been decided yet". Asked by the motoring mag what was holding up the Western release of the game, Yamauchi responded "That's more depending on SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) marketing decisions".

SEMA show: More news on the much-anticipated Gran Turismo 5 video game [Autoweek, via CVG]

You are reading Kotaku's once-weekly (sort of) journey back to yesteryear.

Here's the Toronto Star in December of 2001, covering the release of Gran Turismo 3:

Gran Turismo 3 is the grandchild of the original, and seminal, Gran Turismo of 1998, the game that made the PlayStation the market leader that it is.

That's just one of dozens of expressions of Gran Turismo's dominance that I was able to find in a search of news clippings. GT used to be unstoppable and untouchable. Maybe it still is, but 2009 shows how competitive things can be. Between the release of GT4 and the eventual launch of GT5, Microsoft will have launched three Forza games, closing the gap, at least critically, on what the team at Polyphony Digital built for the PlayStation brand.

There was a time when reports of a Gran Turismo were coupled with references to the competitors' inability to compete. Is that time over? A new Gran Turismo might mean as much to Sony as the old ones did. So, will the old lines from 2001 and other years be written again once GT5 shows up?

CockPitStorage@2chGTForce(&Pro)Thread [FTフォース via はちま起稿]

With some 800 licensed cars and over 35 tracks on which to race them, Gran Turismo for the PSP offers a broad driving simulation experience that focuses more on car collecting and driving technique than high speed thrills. It also offers local multiplayer, wireless car trading and an undeniably slick package.

The PSP game's spec sheet mostly matches the raw numbers of its PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 counterparts, minus a few concessions, but does it offer the same deep feature set of the games that have come before it?

Loved
Easy In, Easy Out: Gran Turismo for PSP feels more forgiving, more inviting than ever for new players. As someone who dabbled in the first three games and Gran Turismo HD, I typically consider myself a GT noob every time I dive in. The PSP version is generous with credits, initially friendly with its competitive AI drivers, ensuring that getting back into the swing of things is a breeze. It's ideal for a pick up and play session, more so than I'd expected.

Driving Challenges: Also kinder to the casual Gran Turismo fan (who might've had horrifying flashbacks to cruel license tests in previous games) are the PSP game's Driving Challenges. Most can be cleared at bronze level on the first go for easy in-game income, but others offer a serious and addictive challenge for the driving sim disinclined. The demonstration videos of each challenge, narrated by Jay Leno, are generally pretty helpful.

It Gets The Numbers Right: Gran Turismo PSP nails the numbers, with a rock solid frame rate and hundreds of cars to collect, giving the game a Pokemon-like that will have completionists returning for more. There may not be much variety in the gameplay modes, but you can't fault the game for a lack of incredibly diverse cars and trucks to drive.

Technically, It's Gran Turismo: It may not look as sharp as its forebears and some of the early screen shots released for Gran Turismo PSP, but the game's physics model, tracks, car models and general technical prowess impress. The number of cars that can compete in a race have been whittled down to just four, but the game still runs well enough to merit mention.

Hated
Directionless Grinding: After completing the game's Driving Challenge mode and tackling a handful of random time trials, single-player races, drift trials, you may start to wonder where the rest of the game is. There's no campaign mode, no career mode, no structure to the game that would give one much of a sense of accomplishment. This lack of things to do beyond finding things to do with your time gives Gran Turismo a barebones feeling, in spite of the wealth of vehicles to drive.

Limited Time Offers: Gran Turismo PSP curiously randomizes what cars will be available to the player when they're in the mood to do a little shopping. Only four car manufacturers are available at any given time—per day in the Gran Turismo calendar, which admittedly passes quicker than real-time—and up to ten cars per manufacturer are up for purchase. That makes car shopping somewhat of a crap shoot, sometimes limiting the appeal when ultra-expensive Audis or the meek Land Rover offerings pop up.

Personally (and curiously), I found the Driving Challenge aspects of the game—the deep list of driving technique tutorials—to offer the most appeal, helping to make me a better virtual driver. Perfecting some of those techniques was made a little more challenging by my distaste for the PSP's awkward analog nub, a control hang up that might be a turn off to GT fans downgrading to the portable version. But after burning through that portion of the game, buying a few overpriced rides and taking them out in the snow, I felt like I'd exhausted Gran Turismo PSP.

After all this waiting, it's somewhat surprising to see the limitations that Gran Turismo for the PSP comes with. The core essence of the driving game is intact, offering an enjoyable simulation on the go. And that may be all you require of the PlayStation Portable entry, a largely capable if not impressively feature rich driving sim, a portable copy of the Nürburgring on which to study its turns, chicanes and corners.

Gran Turismo was developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PSP on September 29. Retails for $39.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played 50 single player races, completed Driving Challenge mode and tested Ad Hoc multiplayer.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Since the very first Gran Turismo title, Sony's racing series has been lauded for three things: realism, graphics, and its massive stable of drivable vehicles. Now the game finally makes it to the PSP after being first teased around the time of the handheld's launch in 2005. After years in development, has Polyphony managed to successfully transfer those three features onto the portable device?

Assembled video game critics, start your engines!

Computer And Video Games (CVG)
If Gran Turismo PSP was a race car, it'd have go-faster stripes, a fat exhaust and an engine that roars like it wants to take off. But it'd spring an oil leak off the start line, bellow smoke all over the place and fart its way over the finish line. This is Gran Turismo. The big boy. The game that should define PSP. It's been in development for absolutely yonks. Now we've played it extensively we find ourselves wondering what Polyphony has been doing with it since 2004 because this is not at all the game we expected.

Eurogamer
...the handling model may be cut straight from Gran Turismo 4 - something Polyphony actually claimed to have achieved on PSP as long ago as September 2006 - but that handling model was and remains a cut above the majority of comparable handheld titles. There's real subtlety across the more than 800 vehicles available for purchase, allowing you to appreciate the difference not only between cars with different drivetrains, tyres and performance settings, but between different cars with the same drivetrains, tyres and performance settings.

PSX Extreme
When you boot up the game, you'll have four dealers to access and 100,000 credits to spend on a car, which is a gracious sum. Once you buy a car, you can participate in a few events. As the days roll on in the game, a new set of four dealerships will be made available to you. But, just because you can access a Nissan dealer, doesn't mean you can have the ability to buy any of their cars. No, no. If you don't see a GT-R or a 300ZX TT, you have to wait until the next time Nissan becomes one of the four dealers you can shop at and see if the assortment of cars features the ones you want. Yes, it's that complicated, confusing, and stupid.

TheSixthAxis
The game manages to throw around the exact same courses that we enjoyed in Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2 with remarkably few cut-backs – yes, the texture detail is lower, there's obvious seams in the tracks, the polygon count is a little less on the roadside objects and the lighting rather passive, but given the framerate and the four nicely detailed cars on screen (throughout all the modes, including the drift races) any slight feelings of last-gen can be forgiven. Polyphony have wrung more out of the PSP than anyone else has, with the possible exception of Ready at Dawn, and managed to represent that clean, sharp Gran Turismo aesthetic almost perfectly. The sound's exactly what you'd expect, too – multi-note engines, skidding on every corner and music seemingly pulled from Vidzone's current top twenty with the likes of The Prodigy headlining the licensing.

VideoGamer
Make no mistake, this is Gran Turismo as you remember it but on a handheld, and done in a way that betters what I imagined was possible. It looks great, plays superbly and has an absolute ton of content to work through. It's impossible not to feel more than a little let down by what's missing, though. A more structured career mode would have been great, online leaderboards and ghosts simply should have been included, and the lack of online play is bitterly disappointing. Who knows what will be added to the game post release, but as it stands we've got the ultimate handheld driving game with a fairly bare bones feature list. Buy it, spend hours earning credits and buying cars, and try to overlook the glaring omissions without shedding a small tear.

"The last thirty minutes of the race," Yamauchi told Kotaku at a recent visit to his Polyphony studios, "I didn't even know what I was doing. It was as if my brain was directly connected to my hands. I wasn't thinking."

During the tail end of the four hour race, Yamauchi started experiencing a driving high. While Gran Turismo is renowned for its realistic physics, Yamauchi had never had the first hand experience of the sensation that race car drivers get during extended races. "During that last thirty minutes, I forgot I was driving. It's difficult to put that feeling into words — the way I was handling the vehicle."

The experience was eye-opening for the designer, who hopes to somehow convey that experience in future games. When asked he would go about that, Yamauchi simply replied, "Through a higher level of game making."

As talented as Yamauchi appears to be, the game designer is humble about his future racing prospects. Humble as ever, he calls his first place win an "unexpected result." According to Yamauchi, "What's interesting is that I am a game designer who occasionally races. I don't plan on racing full time or anything."

While at Nurburgring, Yamauchi said he was approached by countless GT fans, who asked him why he was adding damage to the series. "For many fans I spoke with," Yamauchi explained, "one reason they seemed to like Gran Turismo is that you cannot damage cars." The decision to include damage apparently was based on looking at what was missing from the franchise. Currently the development of car damage is at about 50 percent — work on it was begun two months ago.

The increasing number of driving simulators is not a bad thing. "I think it's great that the racing game market is getting bigger," said Yamauchi. "It's like if you are a rock fan, you'd like there to be more rock groups. Same idea. That being said, we don't view Gran Turismo as competing with those other titles. We are competing with ourselves."

[Pic]

This wasn't Kotaku's first visit to the studio, but in case you missed our coverage from a few years back, here's a glimpse inside the place where they toil away on Gran Turismo.

And as you can see, film grain or not, when you see it in motion this looks fantastic for a PSP game.

Gran Turismo PSP shines in 60FPS video [Digital Foundry @ Eurogamer]

Pictured above, the Gran Turismo PSP: Collectors Edition is a European deal which includes a "special rainbow silver foil effect Collector's Edition" box, five art cards and, probably most enticing for car lovers, exclusive in-game access to the 2009 Bugatti Veyron.

It'll be out on October 1, alongside a PSP-3000 bundle that again trumps the American offering, as unlike the standard silver PSP the US receives, Europe is getting the GT-branded console offered to the Japanese market.

What gives, GT? North America piss in your morning coffee?

After all, it's not like the set is being released out of the blue. There's a new God of War game coming, and what better way to drum up (or dredge up) interest than to get people playing, and talking about, the first two games again?

So it got us thinking: since this is as much a marketing move as it is a service to fans, what other upcoming PS3 games are there to market that have PS2 prequels you can repackage on Blu-Ray?

These (for GT5, FFXIII and The Last Guardian) are the obvious ones. But moving beyond the marketing side of things, are there any other series you'd like to see thrown together on a single disc, cleaned up to 720p and given a second chance on the shelf?

I say "images" instead of screenshots because they're of the game's...main menu screen, which will be using the same system found in GT5 Prologue; a shiny car, in a shiny place, with an XMB-style bar across the bottom.

Anyway...to the details!

Tracks: Around 80
Cars: 1000 (830 "regular" ones, 170 with a little more modelling, with their interiors responding to damage, etc)
Damage: Yup, there'll be damage
GTTV: GT's in-game TV show, GTTV, is back (it has Top Gear!), and this time can be ported over to your PSP

Sadly, no, there was no release date. Though come on, it's Gran Turismo we're talking about here. It'll be ready not when it's ready, but 2-3 years after it's ready.

Fansite GTPlanet has noticed that a recent batch of rendered art for the PSP version of the game matches almost perfectly with the actual press kit photos of the real car they're depicting (the Corvette ZR1). Giving us all the perfect chance to see just how the two cars shape up!

Real Life vs. Gran Turismo: Corvette ZR1 [GTPlanet]

The five preorder vehicles might already be in the game, but preordering means that you don't have to pay to unlock them, and you also score them in preorder-exclusive colors. The fact that you can only pick one is cruel and unusual punishment, but I suppose the really big Gran Turismo fans can always pre-order five copies.

Gran Turismo PSP Pre-Order Bonus Items Revealed [PlayStation Blog]

The exclusive 2009 Nissan GT-R Spec V in metallic blue.

The 1974 Lamborghini Countach LP400 is the first Lamborghini ever to appear in Gran Turismo.

The 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 sports over 1000 horsepower. That is a lot of horses.

The 2008 GTbyCitroen is a gorgeous concept car that should transform into a robot but doesn't, dammit.

The 2002 Enzo Ferrari. Yum.