Late Night Consoling

December 13, 2002 8:30 PM

Earlier this evening I watched a special on MTV devoted to the making of EA's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers PS2 (and soon Xbox) game. While it didn't have any more insight to the development process than those cheesy "featurettes" that are on some DVDs, it was interesting to see, and it certainly says something that MTV was the one to air it. I discovered this program through my TiVo, which flagged it as a special, but since it was called "Making the Game: The Two Towers" that would seem to indicate that there will be more of these in the future. I would love to see something that actually shed some real light on the development process, but on something other than a licensed property, where their biggest challenge was living up to the license itself. An in-depth look at something like Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance would be interesting, wouldn't it? Anyway, if you're curious, MTV will be airing it again this weekend...check your local listings for info.

	Metal Gear Solid on GameCube? Crediting "a quality source," Games Are Fun is reporting that Konami will announce this week that they are remaking the original Metal Gear Solid for GameCube. As they rightly point out, it's unknown if this game will be an exclusive to the system, or if it will appear elsewhere, or even if this is similar to Capcom's announcement that Resident Evil will be a GameCube exclusive (except RE Online, of course). For the record, I highly doubt that last one.
	PS2 Rumors Another edition of IGN's Off the Record column is online tonight. This week they offer some speculation as to what companies are considering merging or buying out each other, as well as the suggestion that Syphon Filter 4 and an add-on pack for SOCOM are in the works.
	Xbox vs. GameCube Sales Hey look! Good financial information about the Xbox! According to one analyst, sales of Xbox software will have a positive effect on Microsoft's current quarterly results. In other positive Xbox news, THQ president Brian Farrell has gone on record saying that he believes the Xbox is "gaining traction" while he believes next year we'll see the GameCube still struggling. Adding to that negative view on the GameCube's performance is a report from a Japanese analyst, who said "If Zelda fails, GameCube fails."
	GameCube Successor in the Works Current sales aside, it was recently confirmed that Nintendo is working on a successor to the GameCube. Well there's another wrinkle there: that unnamed system will be made in colaboration with NEC, who also worked on the GameCube hardware. Whether or not ATI/ArtX will be involved remains to be seen.
	Zelda Previews GameSpot has posted hands-on previews of both The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time/Ura Zelda and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker tonight. Not only do both articles have the author's impressions, but there's also a crapload of new media from each, most of which is surprisingly available to non-subscribers.
	Animal Crossing Sequel Confirmed According to a Japanese magazine, Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed the development of a sequel to Animal Crossing, Nintendo's very strange and unclassifiable game.
	Xenosaga Preview A hands-on look at the English-language version of Xenosaga is up at PS2.IGN tonight. If you're a fan of Xenogears, I highly recommend this article, as it's an honest look at the game, and is both complementary and critical at times.
	NiGHTs PSO Quest Revealed Sega has finally released details on their NiGHTs quest for Phantasy Star Online. The quest will be released next week, and upon completion of it you receive an item which can be used to unlock the NiGHTs Into Dreams GBA mini-game.
	Y's for PS2? According to some import retailers, Y's Eternal Story will be released in Japan this March for PS2. While it's unknown what exactly this is (the publisher hasn't announced it yet, which is sort of puzzling) it's assumed to be an update or collection of the two Y's Eternal games released for Japanese PCs, which were themselves ports of the first two games in the series.
	New FFX-2 Character GameForms has posted a scanned image which shows off a previously unseen character from Final Fantasy X-2.
	Metroid Completion Guide If you've already finished Metroid Prime once and are trying to find every last item, PlanetGameCube has posted a guide which should help you along.

Console Game of the Evening: Freeway for the Atari 2600. This game was a shameless copy of Frogger, but it's the one I grew up with. I have no idea why my family had that and not the non-generic version. Of course, putting logic into that era can be a bit difficult...I mean we're talking about a system that had actual wood paneling (or at least, mine did, anyway).

jason bergman

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benson

 reply
December 13, 2002 8:30 PM

Everyone should be out watching Star Trek: Nemesis!!!
- Sideways Bob
  
   reply
  December 13, 2002 8:35 PM
  
  I already got back from that.