Late Night Consoling

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As I inch closer to my move this weekend, I'm discovering all kinds of things buried underneath the rubble in my apartment. Aside from the really strange stuff (like driver CDs for video cards I haven't owned in five or more years, from companies that don't exist anymore) I'm finding some real gems I totally forgot I had, such as three still-shrink wrapped 2600 games, and promotional pamphlets for old console systems. There's nothing like reading through old promo items to make me laugh. Just glancing at the old Jaguar catalog is hilarious...anyone remember the actual Jaguar illustration they put on shirts and stuff? This thing has to be the weakest looking predator I've ever seen...I mean, it wouldn't last five minutes in The Lion King for god's sake! But I'm amazed at how much stuff I've kept. I've got old issues of Nintendo Power (including one with a 20 page preview of the Virtual Boy that makes me shake my head in disbelief), instruction manuals for everything from Sonic the Hedgehog to Baldies, and games. Lots and lots of games. I'm throwing a lot of this stuff out, of course...which is hard to do, but when I see the number of huge garbage bags I'm filling with old junk (I lost count somewhere around seven or eight), I'm amazed I've managed to hang on to some of this for so long.

GameCube Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Revealed Fresh from the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Gamers.com has posted the first screenshots and details from Factor 5's Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. This game adds a great deal to the series, including two-player co-op gameplay and the ability to exit your vehicle for certain missions. New vehicles include speederbikes (woah!), AT-STs, and TIE Bombers.
GameBoy Advance Aladdin Returns Yet another SNES classic is getting remade for the Game Boy Advance...this time it's Aladdin, the excellent side-scroller from the team that would eventually become known as Shiny. The game is coming by way of Capcom, and will be released in August in Japan. Details and shots are up at The Magic Box. (Correction: this is the significantly less cool SNES one -- only the Genesis game was by Shiny)
PS2 Vectorman, Headhunter: Redemption Confirmed Sega has confirmed that they will be announcing and showing two new games at E3 next month: a new Vectorman and Headhunter: Redemption. Both are for PS2, and feature substantial changes from their predecessors. Follow the links to read more.
PS2 Ghosthunter Announced Sony Europe has announced Ghosthunter, a new third person action/adventure game for PS2. The game is being developed by their Cambridge studio, best known for the MediEvil titles and the just-released Primal.
Xbox Green Xbox for Europe Microsoft has announced plans to release a limited-edition translucent green Xbox for Europe. The system will be available as part of a 230 euro set that includes two matching green controllers (which look to be of the S variety).
GameCube Treasure Confirmed for Wario World Despite the fact that the game's been in development for a long time, and this has pretty much been known by much of the world already, Nintendo has only just confirmed that Treasure, the company behind Ikaruga (among other things) is indeed the developer of the 3D platform title Wario World.
GameCube Xbox Auto Modellista for GC, Xbox? Rumors have hit the web that Auto Modellista, the cel-shaded online racing game from Capcom, will be released for both GameCube and Xbox later this year. While the source is kind of shaky (EBGames) rumors about this have been floating around for some time now.
GameBoy Advance Pocket Pix for GBA Yes, those of you who have always wanted to watch movies on your GBA can rest easy...the PocketPix Cartridge is on the way. While it plays MP3s, it only plays movies in a proprietary format however, so you'll need to buy anything you want to see from Pocket PC Films or convert your own using the included codec.
PS2 Savage Correction Last night I mentioned a preview for Savage: The Battle for Newerth, which I labeled as being a PS2 game. Jason Morales dropped me a line to point out that this is a PC exclusive, and not planned for consoles.
GameCube PS2 Xenosaga for GameCube? Gamers.com is reporting that Namco subsidiary Monolith Soft has posted an "emergency job opening" for designers with experience in RPG development for PS2 and GameCube. Some of you may recall that Monolith Soft is the developer of the ambitious Xenosaga series, so it's possible they're working on a second project concurrently with the next game in the series, or a port of Xenosaga to Nintendo's system. Update: a second RPG known as Baten Kaitos was confirmed some time ago as a GameCube exclusive from the studio, although very little is known about it at this time.
GameCube More Fallout at Capcom At one point the company's golden boy, Shinji Mikami has stepped down from his position as head of Capcom's Production Studio 4. Speculation is that this is because of the less-than-stellar sales of the GameCube-exclusive titles Resident Evil 0 and P.N.03.
GameCube PS2 Xbox Misc. Media GameSpot's new preview of Bloody Roar Extreme for Xbox has new shots and a new gameplay movie. Meanwhile Capcom of Japan has opened their official Resident Evil: Code Veronica site, which naturally has screenshots from this GameCube port, and IGN has posted new shots from Driver 3 for PS2.
Console Game of the Evening: Night Trap for the SegaCD. "I never understood why more people didn't love this game. At the time, I was fascinated by its full motion video graphics. I just couldn't believe I was controlling a movie!" (submitted by special k).

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