Kugatsu Juuyokka is a special day to me, which also means September 14th, which is today and also my birthday ( 誕生日). Will be meeting up with Jimmy (gupster) and the rest of the gang later today in the evening for a dinner gathering and celebration, gonna give them a small dinner treat. Actually it was a rather spontaneous thing, cos actually Jimmy msged me late yesterday night while asking me if I wanna meet up for dinner today. I figured that he wanted to help co-organise something for my birthday, so since he was so kind I can’t reject him can I? Probably will bring them to Marche for dinner or something, will decide again when I meet up with them later in the day. And earlier on last weekend, I actually advance celebrated my birthday with Kaiwei and Jerm at Ichibantei, cos Kaiwei wanted to meet and pass me my birthday prezzie, which was a very nice jade bracelet, though it seems rather unusual to me, since I seldom wear anything like that (I prefer metallic bracelets actually) but still, I really appreciate it, thanks bro. (^ ^)

So after a scrumptious meal of delicious ramen and stuffs at Ichibantei, Kaiwei drove and sent his gf home, before we headed off to Geylang Lorong 9 at the famous You Tiao Da Wang for more delicacy goodness of dao huey (beancurd) and yew char kuey (dough fritters). Haven’t ate them for quite awhile so I was actually quite elated to go back there to eat their yew char kuey. Pure heavenly food bliss, heh that’s all I have to say.

So aside from these happy stuffs, I haven’t been posting some game-related stuffs for sometime, so today I will post a few, that has caught my eye. Let’s start with some upcoming new PSP releases.

To be released on the Sept 15th, this FPS action-oriented PSP title is produced by SCE and Production I.G, with Bandai as the co-license publisher for it. Expect the original cast of V.A. for the Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. TV series to resume their roles in this game title. Game and art direction is been aided and co-produced with the staffs and crew from Production I.G studio, so expect the kind of depth and quality you would expect from them, as always. Multi-player wise, it will feature wireless multiplayer action for up to four-players, including cooperative and competitive modes. Players can play as any Section-9 character (player choices include Motoko, Batou, Togusa, and Saito) over seven different level stages. The story for this PSP chapter is original; it was written exclusively for the PSP, and set along the timeline of the Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 1st Gig TV series. And good news for non-japanese literacy people, Bandai USA will be picking up and publishing this for a North American release, sometime in late Sept. I will definitely be playing the JPN version, already preordered my online from jp.playstation.com. (^ ^) Here is an interview link with the staff and crew at Production I.G studio behind the game in japanese for those who are interested.

And here’s another piece of PSP game-related news that’s really noteworthy of mention, I mean how can a Initial D fan like me not be excited over this? Sega has finally announced Initial D: Street Stage which is a port of the popular arcade racing game Initial D Arcade Stage Ver.3 for the PSP with some extras included in this version, like finally. Afterall, I had been wondering all these while, when will Sega gonna start doing a new sequel for the Initial D Special Stage for PS2, since it’s such a popular franchise and it’s already been more than 2 years since the PS2 release, before they finally made this new announcement. I’m really happy and elated about this piece of news, first gotten news abt this from Brandon, when he told me about it over dinner that day, when we met up for Jimmy’s birthday celebration. The progress of the game production is currently at 30%, as reported by the latest Weekly Famitsu issue. Little else is known about this game port, except that it will feature a Card Element along-side the gameplay, and of course wireless multi-player through ad-hoc mode. Below is an extract from IGN.com.

Just in time for the Japanese release of the Initial D movie, Sega has announced a PSP version of its hit arcade racer Initial D Arcade Stage. Unveiled in the latest issue of Famitsu, Initial D Street Stage will be based off Version 3 of the arcade game, giving it some gameplay bonuses over Sega’s successful PS2 version from a couple of years back.

Street Stage promises all the characters, cars and tracks from Version 3 of the arcade game, and then some. The game will feature more than the eight tracks of the arcade version. There have even been some hints that we can look forward to more than the 35 cars featured in the arcade.

The PSP version adds a few bonus gameplay features on top of these. In addition to wireless ad-hoc play, the game will include a new card element. Following each battle, you earn a card. Cards come in three flavors: rival, battle and tuning. The rival and battle cards are just for show, giving details, respectively, on the characters and classic battles from the series. The tuning cards, however, contribute to gameplay, as you can combine these to customize your car. In all, Street Stage will feature over 200 cards to collect.

Sega is planning a PSP release for Street Stage this Winter. We hope to get a closer look next week at TGS.

Let’s hope there won’t be any delays to this. Hopefully more news will be unveiled for this title at the upcoming TGS by Sega.

And lastly but not least, there’s also an upcoming AppleSeed PS2 game developed by Sega too, to be released in 2006. Little else is known about this title currently, except that there’s some fantastic Flash trailer preview over at the official site here. My opinions? Been quite an Appleseed fan (I had watched the movie only, didn’t read the original works before), I do certainly hope that Sega will do a good job for it. But honestly speaking, I’m quite confident in them, I mean Sega usually has a certain quality in their games, so I’m not really worried about it. Let’s hope there will be some nice CG-footage in the game done by the same crew/studio that did the movie of the same title for it. (^ ^) Probably more news will be released at the upcoming TGS too?

Ok monsieur aaron signing out, off to watch the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children DVDrip that I downloaded yesterday. It’s also a safe bet cause I don’t wanna get spoiled by the peeps tomorrow when I meet them for dinner, since most of them had already watched Jimmy’s copy of the DVD already at Gamescore that day. Good night everyone, and thanks for the birthday wishes my friends, really appreciate it! (^_^)ノ”