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Gran Turismo 7’s Next Update is Coming This Week, With Four New Cars

​ Gran Turismo series founder Kazunori Yamauchi has taken to Twitter to announce and tease the next update to  Gran Turismo 7 , which will arrive on consoles this coming week. It’s coming a little sooner than anticipated, landing around three weeks after the previous content update on September 29. That’s the shortest interval between content updates yet, with most coming four or five weeks apart — and, with the exception of 1.15 and 1.17, on the last Thursday of each month. Another unusual facet is that the update, which we’re temporarily dubbing 1.25, will bring four new cars instead of the three we’ve seen teased for every update thus far: This set of cars looks relatively easy to identify, although with some qualifiers. Probably the most straightforward is the one in the bottom-left, which looks to be a 1973 Nissan Skyline GT-R. Often dubbed “Kenmeri”, due to a promotional campaign featuring a couple named Ken and Mary, Nissan only produced 19...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Will Also Require a Linked Phone Number In Order to Play

In what looks to be an annoying new trend, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will require players to register a mobile phone number in order to play. This is a measure supposedly taken to increase security, something that Blizzard tried with Overwatch 2 before swiftly removing it following player backlash. This is all according to an updated article on Blizzard's website (thanks, VGC), which outlines the requirements quite starkly: "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, newly created Overwatch 2 accounts, and newly created Call of Duty: Modern Warfare accounts require a phone number." Under the eligibility and limitations subheading, the hits keep coming, stating, "Mobile phones with prepaid plans may not work with the phone notification service." On one hand, we get it, you need to do something about cheaters, and we give up our contact information to other companies and services like Google without much thought. That being said, with the abys...

In sudden reversal, Valve will let a cult classic visual novel onto Steam

Last week, publisher Spike Chunsoft regretfully informed customers that Valve-mandated game changes meant the first official English translation of  Chaos;Head Noah  would not be launching on Steam as planned. Now, the company says the visual novel  will  be coming to Steam later today, thanks to a change of heart from Valve's content review team. In a statement, the publisher said it was told that Steam's content review team had "re-examined" the game and will now allow it to launch on Steam "as is." That's a major reversal from last week, when Spike Chunsoft cited "Steam's guideline-required changes to the game's content" that "would not allow the game to be released to [the publisher's] standards." It also brings Valve more in line with Nintendo, which was already allowing the ESRB M-rated game to launch on the Switch without any apparent issues. We believe this decision is the result of the unwavering support from fans...

Pokémon Go players on Android will end up paying for Apple's price hikes

Pokémon Go developer Niantic won fans over during the pandemic by lessoning the requirement to catch from home. The developer has since faced backlash from loyal fans of the game as it restored mechanics to pre-pandemic levels. Now, Niantic finds itself in the thick of more backlash for tying an in-app price hike across Android and iOS in response to the recent change in Apple’s  App Store pricing tiers . Late in September, Apple announced plans to raise pricing tiers in multiple regions reliant on the Euro currency, including Chile, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, and Vietnam. This change meant App Store items priced at €0.99 would set consumers back by €1.19, and purchases worth €9.99 would jump to €11.99. Eurogamer reports Niantic is now citing Apple’s changes as the reason for increased in-app purchase (IAP) prices. The price changes will go into effect on October 5 and will impact Pokémon Go players on iPhone and Android in the sam...

Police Confirm GTA 6 Hacker Violated Bail, Previously Hacked Microsoft

The City of London Police has confirmed that  GTA 6 hacker , an unnamed 17-year old, was previously arrested and violated his bail conditions. Law enforcement agencies have not publicly gone into specifics but journalist Matthew Keys confirmed via his sources that teen was indeed responsible for hacking Microsoft and Nvidia, for which he was arrested earlier this year. The hacker is part of Lapsus$ group, and additional arrests are expected. GTA 6 hacker is being charged with computer crimes alongside bail violation A statement from FBI, which was also pursuing the hacker, did not come through yesterday as originally expected. According to Keys, additional arrests are expected, suggesting that the teenager (identified only as A.K.) had assistance. Nevertheless, FBI’s statement is likely to follow the additional arrests. Keys further says that A.K. was the mastermind behind the recent Uber hack. The company confirmed as much last week, when it released a statement ann...

Super Sonic Shines In New Sonic Frontiers Trailer

Sonic Frontiers is due to release on Switch on November 8th. While that is just a few short months from now, we are still being provided with more and more footage at an alarmingly fast rate (could we really resist a speed reference?) Today's 'TGS Trailer' continues this trend with a fresh look at the game's Titan Battles, as well as a sneak preview of the yellow hedgehog, Super Sonic, in action. We know the drill of these trailers by now. Running up walls?  Check . Bounce combat?  Check . Reluctance to show gameplay footage?  Check . The new trailer (found above) once again consists mainly of cinematic visuals, with Sonic doing his thing in the game's 'open world' landscape, taking on huge titans by running through a series of loops to gain speed boosts -  who would have thought it? There is also a dynamite blast from the past in the trailer's soundtrack. Accompanied by the track 'Vandalize' by ONE OK ROCK — which is the game's ending theme ...

Soul Hackers 2: Atlus' new Persona-lite has major tech problems

What's the longest you've ever waited for a video game sequel? Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers was released all the way back in 1997 on the Sega Saturn, a first-person dungeon crawler JRPG made by developer Atlus. Four console generations later we finally have a sequel - Soul Hackers 2 - though it's really a standalone game with mostly thematic connections to the original. 25 years is a long time in computer graphics, and Soul Hackers 2 has a wide variety of tech it could potentially use - but early footage didn't exactly impress. There's little here to suggest that the current wave of consoles are being taxed by this Persona-lite release - and the knock-on effect of that seems to be that the last-gen machines get some shocking ports, especially the vanilla Xbox One. Soul Hackers 2 borrows its gameplay elements from other recent Atlus titles, so at a basic level, it's a turn-based RPG oriented around exploiting weaknesses, which is an enjoyable enough system but no...