Gran Turismo is 25 years old. Over a quarter of a century, and more than 80 million copies sold, longtime producer Kazunori Yamauchi has strived to create a virtual driving experience as close to the real thing as possible. A month before the seventh numbered entry in the series drops, Yamauchi has revealed how he and his team are attempting to bring realism to Gran Turismo 7 and how he intends to bring car culture to the masses.

After Gran Turismo Sport had a somewhat bumpy beginning, GT7 will launch with a number of ways to enjoy single-player racing. Starting from a new world map (cross your fingers for a return of GT’s signature smooth jazz menu music to go with it), players can leap to Licence Tests, Missions, World Circuits (34 to choose from, and over 90 layouts–including the legendary Trial Mountain), a tuning shop, custom modes, multiplayer, a used car lot, Brand Central (to buy and read about most cars), a Legendary Cars store for the iconic stuff, Sport, Scapes, Showcase (for sharing and downloading content), your garage, and, most interestingly the Café.

…players can, just like the old days, leap to the game’s core features from there.

License tests – to hone your driving skillsMissions – Events and situations beyond the usual racing, for example drag racing.World Circuits – 34 to choose from with over 90 layouts, some real-life, some GT originals (including the legendary Trial Mountain)Tuning ShopCustom – for your own race setupsMultiplayerSport – Gran Turismo’s competitive online modeShowcase – for sharing and downloading UGCScapes – a place to position cars in specific spots and create beautiful pictures (or terrible ones, talent depending)Your GarageThe Café – Perhaps the most interesting new addition to the game

Plenty of features are carried over from previous games, and the basic premise remains the same: buy a car, do your license tests, race, buy better cars, race more, win more, keep driving until GT8 is a thing. But Yamauchi seems to be thinking more about the wider world than simply of racing. He said in a pre-recorded video: “Today you won’t find as many people talking about car culture anymore. Less people are talking about the beauty of cars, or focused on the fun of driving.”

It’s here that the Café comes in to play. Players are invited to sample 30 ‘menus,’ each featuring a different type of car (Porsche 911s in one, BMC Minis in another, etc), and features their own driving missions. Once you complete a menu, you end up with a few new cars for your collection and will have learned something about the car and its history. The Café will also play host to various guest speakers of sorts–designers will ‘drop by’ to talk about the cars they worked on. Hearing, hypothetically, someone like Ian Callum, the designer of the original Aston Martin Vanquish, wax lyrical about his greatest hits would be something special, wouldn’t it?

During a roundtable interview, Yamauchi revealed that while it’s something of a roadmap to GT7’s systems, the Café’s there to help players form a deeper connection with the culture he holds dear: “The cafe’s a place where you may meet some of the designers or the engineers that were actually involved, or actually created these cars that you’ve collected. So, what that is, it’s a part of the car, or the culture revolving around the cars. And of course, we had the museum first appearing in Gran Turismo Sport. But this takes one step further, where you get to know the people that are involved in creating these cars.” Much like real cars and coffee meets, or events like Monterey Car Week and the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Yamauchi wants to get as many people as close to the thing he loves as possible, to keep car culture alive for the next 25 years of Gran Turismo.

Sharing car culture goes a little further than the Café. There will be ‘meeting places’ and lobbies to congregate with friends, two-player local split-screen for settling sibling rivalries, and the Showcase to share liveries. By the sounds of things, Yamauchi is making it very hard to avoid getting wrapped up in his world.

While the focus of the game remains racing, Yamauchi seems keen to add modes that take the pressure off the player to post ever-decreasing lap times, and just enjoy their cars. In the new Music Rally mode, players are tasked with having a pleasant drive around a track of their choice while listening to one of GT7’s myriad tunes. You start with a number of ‘beats’ on screen that decrease as you drive. Top your beats up by hitting various gates on circuit, and, hopefully, you’ll finish the song. Fail to collect enough beats and it’s game over. You’re still against the clock, but one that gives you room to play and explore.

“The biggest objective of the music rally is that we really wanted people to enjoy the music,” Yamauchi explained. And the other important point is that, we wanted to make it [for] people who are playing this for the first time, who’ve never played a car game before, new kids playing a car game for the first time, we wanted it to be something that they can enjoy.”

It wouldn’t be a Gran Turismo game without tuning options to delight the deeply nerdy and terrify everyone else. In GT7, the list of things to tweak, fettle, and adjust appears to be just as massive and unnerving as ever. Thankfully, the game measures a car’s Performance Points in real time using almost certainly incomprehensible maths. Once you’ve adjusted a setting, hit the big red MEASURE button on the stats screen and you’ll see whether your tweaking has made the right kind of difference. Yamauchi said, “This is like having a minigame inside the settings screen and is one of my favorite screens out of the various features in GT7.” You won’t be able to share your settings via the Showcase though, as, Yamauchi said the different parts on cars might not sit well with another player’s tinkering. The settings screen has been designed to be screengrabbed and shared, though.

Different parts on cars? Tuning is back, of course. With about 60 tuning parts per car, everything from a new air filter to suspension setups are available to turn a tiny hatchback into a surface-to-air missile–or, y’know, make your McLaren even more potent. Performance upgrades are all well and good, but if you’re going to go fast you need to look the part. You can make sure your car’s clean, sure, but you can also paint it in your preferred hue, or go wild in the livery editor. You’re able to do more in the latter now, adding stickers in places you previously couldn’t. What may appeal to the aesthetically minded are the 650 aerodynamic parts and 130 wheel types. You can give your old Beemer box arches now. If you’re in to that kind of thing, that’s unbelievably cool.

On PS5, GT7 will include a few technical tricks that’ll make the most of the system compared to the PS4 version. Loading times will be much quicker, for one. There are two resolution modes to pick from: Frame Rate Mode that’ll run as high as possible from a 60fps baseline in race and replays, and Ray Tracing Mode, which is best deployed when you want to focus on visuals instead of performance, such as while playing with the endlessly adjustable photo mode and the Scapes function, showing GT7’s detailed models off in full 4K HDR ray-traced splendor.

The DualSense’s adaptive triggers will offer greater feedback as well. Vibrations under 100 hertz will be run through your hands. In real-world terms, you’ll feel the brake trigger lock up with your front wheels, and the controller is said to make you feel under and oversteer. Quite how GT7 does that remains to be seen–can a DualSense do a better job than a ‘wheel? We’ll see.

Sony’s 3D audio tech, meanwhile, will work to put your ears in the game as well–boasting tech that’ll make you feel as though the road is below, while competitors buzz by in real time.

All of that sounds very impressive, but what’s most exciting for the GT hardcore may well be the used car lot. Just like the good ol’ days, you start off buying a jalopy and working your way up the ranks. The lot will change day by day, and occasionally exciting cars will crop up–sadly, a 90’s Impreza WRX and the like are likely to be more spendy than a Mazda Demio. Yamauchi did mention that the Performance Points system might match unlikely cars though: “You can have a car that’s really fast to begin with. But then you can take this really modest car and tune it to be just as fast as that car so that they can appear together in a race. Having an actual PP system that is well balanced will allow us to do that.”

GT7’s multiplayer aspects will be ‘equivalent to GT Sport,’ with various difficulty modes available for players of all abilities, too, so you needn’t be overwhelmed by an overly aggressive AI.

When it comes to multiplayer, Yamauchi said “Gran Turismo 7 is equivalent to GT Sport in terms of what it offers.” For players tackling single-player, whether you’re new to the game or a seasoned pro, there’s an appropriate leaping off point: “When you first begin the game, the game asks you whether you want to start at the beginner, intermediate or on expert level. But those who have already played this series in the past would probably find it not challenging enough if you start on intermediate.”

There’s lots to be excited about in GT7, from returning features to new twists on old ideas, but the overarching theme seems to be that Yamauchi wants you to care about cars as much as he does: “I really think it’s important to really convey this culture and history to the next generation of people. I almost feel a responsibility to do that.” We’ll find out in March whether, with GT7, he and the Polyphony Digital team have managed it.

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Sometimes success in Call of Duty’s multiplayer can depend on the weapons and perks equipped to your custom Create-a-Class. Call of Duty: Vanguard‘s perks provide classic options like Ghost or Ninja, but developer Sledgehammer Games recently made a few major changes to less popular perks that might provide you with more benefits now. Here we recommend some of the best perks in Call of Duty: Vanguard after the January updates.

Perk 1

First perk tier

The first perk slot is a bit tricky this year, as Vanguard places some of Call of Duty’s most popular options all in one perk tier. In past years, Ghost and Ninja wouldn’t be competing with each other in the same perk tier, plus there are some other strong perk contenders to consider in this category. Here we break down your best options for the perk one slot based on your playstyle and preferences.

Ninja

If you’re a player that really likes to move around the map, the Ninja perk is going to be a solid pick. It offers silent movement and reduced damage when falling. These are great benefits if you’re the teammate who likes to aggressively flank opponents. And it’s great for making stealthy plays in modes like Search and Destroy.

Ghost

The Ghost perk is a popular choice because it makes you undetectable by Spy Planes, enemy intel, and Field Mics. However, you won’t be kept off the enemy radar if you’re sitting still. The Ghost perk only works while you’re moving.

Dauntless

The Dauntless perk didn’t seem particularly important when Vanguard launched, as it only made you immune to movement-reducing effects, but Sledgehammer Games modified the perk with Season 1’s mid-season update to include some fire protection. The Dauntless perk now also gives immunity to fire and burning effects, which include incendiary rounds, flamenaut killstreak, and any lingering fire on the ground. This can be a crucial perk if you prefer Vanguard’s small map playlists for Shipment and Das Haus, where use of fire-based equipment has become a popular and overpowered tactic.

Cold Blooded

The Cold Blooded perk protects you from being targeted by AI-controlled killstreaks and makes it so player-controlled killstreaks won’t highlight you. It also reduces the range at which awareness markers appear for enemies, and you do not trigger the High Alert perk for your enemies. In Vanguard’s January 27 update, Sledgehammer Games further buffed this perk by including protection from dogs. The Cold Blooded perk is a great option if you play a lot of objective modes or prefer the larger player count of the Blitz combat pacing, as these can be prone to producing matches with a plethora of killstreaks.

Perk 2

Second perk tier

The second perk slot isn’t quite as competitive as the first tier, and this choice will mostly depend on what kind of intel benefits you prefer to receive.

Forward Intel

Forward Intel is hands down the most powerful perk in the second perk slot. Despite the Radar perk allowing you to see any unsuppressed gunfire on the minimap, Forward Intel provides even better map information. Red squares will appear on the minimap to mark where the opposition is spawning. This intel allows you to better judge their movements and warns you if enemies are spawning behind you. The minimap also shows a larger area with this perk. This will increase your map awareness and serves as a useful perk for all playstyles and preferences.

Radar

Radar is a perk that gives you a more traditional minimap, as the benefit here is that it reveals enemies on your minimap when they fire an unsilenced weapon. This was a staple minimap feature in Call of Duty’s past games, but you need to equip the Radar perk to get that map intel in Vanguard. Forward Intel provides more information and is the stronger of the two perks, but this is another solid option if you just want a classic minimap.

Perk 3

Third perk tier

Just like the second tier, the third perk slot choices aren’t as competitive as the first tier. However, there are two really great perks that you can benefit from.

Overkill

Overkill is a perk that lets you carry two primary weapons. This is a great third perk choice if you are an aggressive player, riot shield user, or even those looking to do some sniping. This lets you pair a sniper with a faster weapon like a submachine gun to better tackle those close-quarters encounters.

Lightweight

Lightweight is a strong choice if you like to rush around the map, as this perk grants increased movement speed. This is great to use for modes like Hardpoint or Kill Confirmed, where you often need to get to the objectives with haste.

Now that you have some perk recommendations, you’ll want to make sure you’re equipping the best weapons and attachments. Here are our recommended weapons loadouts to dominate in your next match of multiplayer. We also have tips for scoring wins in Vanguard’s Champion Hill tournament mode.

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If you’ve never played League of Legends before but wanted to give it a shot, the mobile version League of Legends: Wild Rift is a perfect way to jump in. The core experience has been ported beautifully to mobile devices, with a healthy roster of champions spanning six different classes. This guide focuses on Wild Rift’s mage class, a great class for those who like to jump into a skirmish headfirst.

League Of Legends: Wild Rift mage guide

Mages are the magic wielders of League of Legends, the champions that prefer to fight from a distance with spells and other tricks. There are three different archetypes in the Mage class: those who prefer the longest range possible (Artillery), those that can hold their own in a standard skirmish (Battle), and powerful glass cannons that can kill and be killed easily (Burst). Mages are best used against Fighters and Marksmen, but will have trouble taking down a Tank.

Here are some of the best mages in League of Legends: Wild Rift and their ability sets.

Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil

Veigar

Role: Mage

Veigar is what’s called a “scaling” champion, as his power mounts depending on how many stacks of “Phenomenal Evil” he can earn. These stacks greatly affect his damage output, cooldown on certain attacks, and more, so keeping an eye on how many stacks are earned is an important part of Veigar’s strategy.

Passive: Phenomenal Evil Power

Veigar gains a stack of Phenomenal Evil (increase in ability power) with every successful attack on an enemy champion.

Ability 1: Baleful Strike

A bolt of energy deals damage to two enemy champions. If this attack scores a kill, Veigar gains a stack of Phenomenal Evil.

Ability 2: Dark Matter

A mass of dark matter drops from the sky to a designated location, dealing magic damage when it lands. Dark Matter’s cooldown is reduced depending on how many Phenomenal Evil stacks have accrued.

Ability 3: Event Horizon

An astral cage appears, stunning any enemies that pass through it.

Ultimate: Primordial Burst

A magic blast damages an enemy champion with magic damage. This attack’s damaged increases based on the target’s missing health.Twisted Fate, the Card Master

Twisted Fate

Role: Mage/Marksman

Twisted Fate is a gambling man, and considering his use of dice and cards in his ability list we’d say he’s dang good at it. His ability to deal damage to multiple foes at a time is invaluable, though the element of chance in Pick a Card and even Stacked Deck makes him less than predictable.

Passive: Loaded Dice

Whenever Twisted Fate scores a kill, he rolls a dice and receives bonus gold.

Ability 1: Wild Cards

Twisted Fate throws three cards, each one dealing damage to every enemy unit they pass through.

Ability 2: Pick A Card

Twisted Fate chooses a card from his deck, which determines the bonus for his next attack: Red Cards deal area-of-effect damage and slow affected enemiesBlue Cards deal damage and restore manaGold Cards deal damage and stun affected enemies

Ability 3: Stacked Deck

When activated, Twisted Fate deals extra damage on every fourth attack. His attack speed is also increased, and every attack on an enemy champion triggers the Loaded Dice passive ability.

Ultimate: Destiny

Reveals all enemy champion locations and allows Twisted Fate to teleport to any single spot on the map.Morgana, the Fallen (left)

Morgana

Role: Mage/Support

Are you getting a vampiress vibe from Morgana? You should, because that’s exactly what she’s going for. Her Soul Siphon ability makes her a very dangerous attacker both in lane and in the jungle, as every successful attack on all but the smaller minions and monsters heals her. Furthermore, moves like Dark Binding and Soul Shackles slow the enemies down, making them sitting ducks for some easy damage.

Passive: Soul Siphon

Every successful attack from Morgana to champions, large minions, and medium/large jungle monsters heals Morgana for a percentage of the damage dealt.

Ability 1: Dark Binding

Morgana shoots dark energy at an enemy, rooting them in place for a short period of time.

Ability 2: Tormented Shadow

Morgana casts a shadow on the ground that deals magic damage over time to all enemies within. Damage dealt increases based on how low the enemy’s health is when damaged.

Ability 3: Black Shield

Morgana gives an ally a shield that protects from magic damage and stun attacks for a brief period.

Ultimate: Soul Shackles

Morgana chains herself to nearby champions, increasing her movement speed when she approaches them. The chains deal damage and slow the enemies they connect with, and if those enemies can’t break the chains in a few seconds, they will be stunned.Ahri, the Nine-Tailed Fox

Ahri

Role: Mage/Assassin

Ali might have said “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” but Ahri is LoL’s embodiment of that famous quote. Her Ultimate allows her to rush in and out of skirmishes at will, dealing damage along the way. Couple that with Charm, which can pull an enemy out of a skirmish and single them out for massive damage, and you have a strategy for victory that’s hard to beat.

Passive: Essence Theft

Every successful attack from Ahri earns her a stack of “Essence Theft”. At maximum stacks, her next attack will also heal her.

Ability 1: Orb of Deception

Ahri throws her orb at an enemy then pulls it back, dealing magic damage first and true damage second.

Ability 2: Fox-Fire

Ahri shoots three foxes made of fire at enemies, dealing magic damage. Ahri’s movement speed increases for a short time.

Ability 3: Charm

Ahri blows a kiss at an enemy, dealing damage and causing the enemy to walk toward her without attacking for a brief time. While the enemy walks toward Ahri, they take increased damage from her.

Ultimate: Spirit Rush

Ahri dashes forward while firing magic bolts, damaging all enemies nearby. This attack can be cast three times before cooldown begins.Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork

Orianna

Role: Mage/Support

Orianna is a unique champion, utilizing a small ball for the majority of her abilities. She can send the ball out, have it remain on the field, and unleash attacks from the ball while attacking the same enemy herself. Utilizing this two-way attack is key to Orianna’s success, particularly when Command: Dissonance and Command: Shockwave are eventually unlocked.

Passive: Clockwork Windup

All of Orianna’s attacks deal additional magic damage that increases with every consecutive attack on a single target.

Ability 1: Command: Attack

Orianna fires her ball toward a designated location, dealing magic damage to any targets it hits along the way. The ball will remain where she commanded it to go when the attack is complete.

Ability 2: Command: Dissonance

Orianna triggers an energy pulse from the ball, dealing area-of-effect magic damage to enemies and slowing them down while increasing movement speed for allies.

Ability 3: Command: Protect

Orianna attaches her ball to an ally, dealing magic damage to any enemy it hits between Orianna and the ally. The ball generates a shield on the ally while also giving them additional armor and magic resistance.

Ultimate: Command: Shockwave

Orianna summons a massive shockwave from her ball, dealing magic damage and launching enemies at the ball after a short time.Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Reggie Fils-Aime, the former Nintendo of America president, is releasing a book later this year, and it now has a new release date and a final cover. The book is called Disrupting the Game, with a tagline, “From the Bronx to the top of Nintendo.” The book arrives May 3, 2022.

The cover shows Fils-Aime’s face prominently, with one side of the image looking pixelated to seemingly reference the “disruption” element of it all, and also potentially how Fils-Aime started in an era of more pixelated graphics and saw the company through the HD era. This cover was designed by the publisher, HarperCollins, and commercial photographer Brandon Hill.

In Disrupting the Game, Fils-Aime shares leadership lessons and stories from his life and career.

“Learn from Reggie how to leverage disruptive thinking to pinpoint the life choices that will make you truly happy, conquer negative perceptions from those who underestimate or outright dismiss you, and master the grit, perseverance, and resilience it takes to dominate in the business world and to reach your professional dreams,” reads a line from the book’s description.

After leaving Nintendo in 2019, Fils-Aime joined the board of directors at GameStop, though he has since left that position amid the upheaval related to the short squeeze/meme stock situation of 2021. He is currently the chairman of the UTA Acquisition Corp., while he also sits on the board of Brunswick Corp., a company that makes very nice boats.

Fils-Aime isn’t the only big name in gaming with a book coming out. Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski is writing a book as well, and it’s called Control Freak: My Epic Adventure Making Video Games. This book arrives in July 2022, not long after Fils-Aime’s book debuts.

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