Grave Gamer News & Views — rumor

The Rumor Mill Points to Early September Reveal for “PS4 Neo”

Sony has already gone on the record the week before E3, confirming the existence of a higher-end PlayStation 4 unit decked out with 4K support and more powerful specs. But the buck stopped there when it came to official details on the impending console called “Neo.”

According to reports from both Vice Gaming and Gameblog, however, we’re less than a month away from an unveiling. Rather than getting an information lowdown at next month’s Tokyo Game Show as some have expected – Sony’s domestic home of Japan, if you needed reminding, dad – the company is said to be hosting an announcement event in New York City on September 7th.

The upgraded PS4′s potential specs have been some of the very first rumors tossed about the internet. Purportedly equipped with an improved GPU, higher clock speed, and boosted memory bandwidth, this PS4K is Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor’s dream rendition of the console (”MORE POWER!”). With PlayStation VR ready to drop onto consumers’ heads this Fall, the required framerate and stability needed to foster a non-projectile vomiting environment would call for a hardware improvement exactly like the Neo – makes one wonder if we’ll see a Neo/PSVR bundle announced at the event.

How it stacks up against Microsoft’s own souped up version of their Xbox One, Project Scorpio, is to be determined. With Sony seemingly hitting the market first, many have speculated the Scorpio will be more powerful than the Neo. If the date holds true, we’ve only a month to keep slinging speculation into the ether.

Rock Band Could Take the Stage for an Encore

But are we ready to rock?

You know, we’re not so far removed from an era in gaming dominated by plastic baby guitars and drunken crooning to old Pearl Jam jems. We want to act like we didn’t buy into the hype. We want to pretend we didn’t spend a godfucking fortune on DLC that cost a sight more than simply buying the tracks on iTunes.

Like some of the long dead rockstars it cashed in on, music gaming crashed and burned hard, but while they were on top, it was a friggin’ blast.

That’s probably why Harmonix, the pioneers behind last generation’s music game boom, wants to get the band back together. Bloomberg Business reports a source in on the matter says Harmonix is concocting a new Rock Band – the first rhythm game to allow a guitarist, bassist, singer, and drummer play simultaneously (I wonder how many months it took ‘em to peg down a name for that one) – for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

IGN tapped the developer to see what all this noise was about and, surprisingly, didn’t get an immediate “no comment.” Harmonix is still jived people haven’t written off their franchise, happy to see people actually download the new DLC songs recently released for Rock Band 3 (yeah, they’re still dropping content).

“This passion our fans have shown for Rock Band over the years suggests that rock truly hasn’t died, and we’ve always been clear that we’d love to return to the franchise when the time is right,” said the Massachusetts based house of rock.

As an avid enthusiast of both Guitar Hero and Rock Band who climbed from the lowly annals of Medium all the way to Expert guitar infamy, I’m damned curious to see how Harmonix could bring back a genre nearly snuffed out from over-saturation. (How heavy of a whiskey fog do you have to be in before you realize a Lego Rock Band is rock bottom?)

Say that you are able to dupe the masses into purchasing plastic baby instruments once more. Does the pay-per-song format really make sense in the modern streaming world? I know the tracks are closer to chunks of gameplay than simple mp3’s, that’s understandable, but would it be such a bad notion to offer a subscription service so players can experience new songs, free of the concern that their wallets will starve and harddrives become too bloated?

Lots of variables here; not least of which is whether or not hardcore and casual gamers buy into the music game scene again. Personally… I miss slapping $50 bucks worth of guitar-shaped plastic, man. Those were the days.

Entire Mass Effect Trilogy Charting for Next-Gen?

I know I’m late on this one, I beg forgiveness. When airplanes don’t have Wi-Fi, my only two choices are to play Pokemon X or sleep with my neck at a perfect right angle.

Anywho, if a Chilean retailer’s online listing isn’t a cruel, cruel mistake, it would appear Bioware is following the trend Injustice, Tomb Raider, and, soon, The Last of Us have set by porting their choice-driven, ass-kicking, alien Frenching sci-fi magnum opus to next-gen consoles.

For the millionth and sixth time this year, a sharp-eyed NeoGAF user caught this potential caveat while browsing Zmart (Shop smart, shop Zmart…?):

That’s the already collected Mass Effect Trilogy, ayuh. But hold the Turian, that’s PS4 box art! Our NeoGAFite says there was also an Xbox One listing to be had.

Clicking on the listing revealed next to squat – no release date, no pricing, no info. Bioware’s been mum on the subject, too. However, that doesn’t mean they haven’t at least thought about bringing the space opera to new systems.

Bioware Edmonton/Montreal GM, Aaryn Flynn, teased to fans on the internet’s megaphone, Twitter, that a next-gen port of the series has been discussed internally.

I truly hope this is legit. Now that we’re well past Mass Effect 3’s ending debacle and ensuing cry-babying, we can clearly view this trilogy for what it is: a groundbreaking piece of art that organically wove storytelling and setting into one immersive epic. Toss in upped visuals and three games worth of DLC and I’d revisit my Shepard faster than you can say “I’ve got some calibrations to do.”

I’ll keep you posted if this rumor hits orbit.

The Last of Us is Bound for PS4

I’ll get through the bad news first: The Last of Us 2 ain’t happening anytime soon. Hey, come on. Don’t make that face. We pretty much knew that already.

Here be the good slice of news: A Sony higher-up has stated that the original Last of Us, including its sublime piece of DLC, Left Behind, is heading for the PlayStation 4 in all of its post-apocalyptic, giraffe-petting glory.

The news comes way of an attentive NeoGAF user (but doesn’t all juicy news, though?) who spotted a Mr. Sercan Sulun, PlayStation Eurasia’s Software Market Manager, giving an interview to CNN Turk. Thirty-six minutes in, Sulun fielded a question asking whether or not we’d see The Last of Us 2 (aka The Next to Last of Us) anytime in the near future.

“There is no information about a new The Last of Us game,” said Sulun, “But I can share this knowledge; as of this summer, The Last of Us will be on the PS4. Both on PSN and physically.”

Naughty Dog’s instant classic and the freshly released single-player DLC will be graphically enhanced for the PlayStation 4. It’s currently unknown if the port will take advantage of any PS4 specific features such as the touchpad. Honestly, I could give a shit if they program horse farts through the controller’s speaker; I’m just beyond stoked to see this brilliant masterpiece brought to the next-gen.

Stay tuned for more official news (or the Shakespearean tragedy of an official debunking).

Will Capcom Announce a Dino Crisis Reboot This Year?

This old rumor kicks up every so often. Historically, it’s amounted to nothing. In fact, Capcom smacked down one such rumor just last year, stating that they’re focusing their attention on creating new IP’s (this statement was presumably made in front of a gigantic Street Fighter IV AE Turbo Ultimate Mix poster).

Here’s 2014’s obligatory rumor: According to the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine UK, Capcom is headlong into production on a Dino Crisis reboot – a series thought extinct since 2003. What’s more is we’ll supposedly see a world debut at this year’s E3. Those slim details are all we have to go on, but Europe’s journalists have been running with it.

Given past disappointments, I’d keep your hopes grounded. There’s really not much to go on here. Why report it, you ask? Because I, and the rest of the free world that grew up in Spielberg’s CG dinosaur populated ‘90’s, really frickin’ want a new Dino Crisis game.

Again, tether those hopes, but I do happen to recall Capcom mentioning they would be reviving a classic IP this year… Dammit, my hopes got off the ground. Excuse me; I have to go shoot them down.