Yesterday I finished Ys Book I & II for the Turbo CD. It was really an excellent game...unfortunately we don't go back to the 16-bit days in our ShackReviews, so I can't publish a review of the game in there, but I might write one up somewhere else and link to it here. It has some problems, particularly when it comes to two extremely annoying dungeons, but on the whole it was a delight to play, with one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. With that behind me, I decided to keep indulging my retro side, and I started playing Hideo Kojima's Snatcher for the Sega CD last night. It's basically a first-generation FMV game, but the level of detail in the storyline is remarkable. This is a game that wears its influences on its forehead in giant florescent letters, and it seems to be quite liberally lifting concepts from movies like Blade Runner and The Terminator, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. I just hope the story doesn't devolve into Metal Gear Solid 2-style lunacy, as thus far the plot has been remarkably coherent.

	Kingdom Hearts Movies It's almost an insult to the term to refer to these as shaky cam movies, as the guy actually manages to drop the camera at one point, but nonetheless, Games Are Fun has posted links to the footage from the Tokyo Game Show of Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. On a related note, some high quality (read: not scanned) images from the games have been posted over at GamerFeed.
	The Best Movie You Can't See IGN has posted a shaky-cam capture of the Ninja Gaiden trailer from TGS. This is awesome stuff, showing three minutes of in-game and pre-rendered CGI that's absolutely stunning and needs to be seen. Unfortunately, their trailer is only available for IGN Insiders, and I have been unable to find it anywhere else. If anyone does find it anywhere, ideally in a direct-feed format from Tecmo Japan, we will happily mirror it here at FileShack. Even if you can't see the whole trailer, you can read IGN's impressions of the game, and there's some other media to check out (it's just not as cool).
	Nintendo's Freaky Ad Campaign As we creep ever closer to the all-important holiday season, advertising is going to ramp up big time from all three console makers, and first out of the gate is Nintendo, who revealed today their new $50 million campaign. The campaign is called "Who are you?" and features real-life photographs with snippits from various Nintendo properties pasted on top of them. Some details can be found in IGN's piece on the campaign (along with two of the print ads) and here's Nintendo's official site which has more ads, along with a "make your own" thingie (Flash required).
	The Twin Snakes Delayed I could have sworn this was already confirmed, but just to be on the safe side, here it is again...Computer and Video Games has confirmed that Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes has been pushed into 2004.
	Half-Life 2 Xbox Exclusive Speaking of re-confirmations, CvG also tracked down Valve's Doug Lombardi, who confirmed that the Xbox is the only console that will be receiving a port of Half-Life 2. He says they're interested in Sony and Nintendo's next platforms, but my guess is that given that time frame (2005 - 2006) a port of HL2 would probably be dated by then (so hold out for HL3 instead).
	Front Missions Everywhere Over the weekend, GameSpot posted a look at a big new Front Mission project from Square Enix. While Front Mission 1st had already been announced prior to the show, it looks like that's not the only retro-project planned for the series. Also announced was Front Mission History, a limited-edition collection that includes the new PSOne remake of the first game, a new port of Front Mission 2 and the original Front Mission 3 for PSone. Details on the whole lot are in their writeup.
	Sakura Taisen V Episode 0 Announced It's got an incredibly stupid name, but this is going to be the first official Sakura Taisen released in this country, so you'd better like it...Sega has announced Sakura Taisen V Episode 0, a sort of introductory game in this long-running (at least in Japan, anyway) series of dating sims/RPGs. Details can be found at Video-Fenky, where Red Entertainment's Teruhisa Hiroi is quoted as saying that this game will be action-based, and will make for a nice introduction to the series for American gamers, who will then have the chance to play a more traditional game in Episode 1. A couple of images are up at The Magic Box.
	No More Memory Card 59? A quick note on The Magic Box says that Nintendo of Japan has announced that they have stopped producing the Memory Card 59 for GameCube. I did a quick search online, and it's pretty scarce here, so Nintendo may have quietly stopped producing this card worldwide. The Memory Card 59 was a stupid move on Nintendo's part from day one, as it doesn't even contain half the amount of storage space as a single 3.5" floppy disk. It's been effectively replaced by the much larger (if still miniscule compared to the PS2's 8MB and the Xbox's gargantuan hard drive) Memory Card 251.
	Rise of the Machines Q&A CVG has conducted a Q&A with Peter Wyse, the senior producer on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a PS2 and Xbox shooter that will be out in November to coincide with the film's DVD release.
	The Hobbit Interview HomeLAN's The Hobbit interview talks with Troy Skinner, the producer at Vivendi Universal Games on their upcoming action/adventure game based on Tolkien's famous pre-LOTR novel.
	TGS Wrap-ups TGS ended over the weekend, and naturally there are lots of wrap-ups to be found...here are links to the wrap-ups at GameSpot, IGN, GameSpy and The Magic Box, Video Fenky has two write-ups, while GameInformer has separate cosplay and booth babe round-ups. On the media front, Sega's got a great page linking to all their TGS trailers (be sure to see the Sega Ages one) and we've got local copies of the MGS3, MGS: The Twin Snakes and Jade Empires trailers here at FileShack.
	Misc. Media/Previews GameSpot has a new preview of Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu (GC, PS2, Xbox), a first look at Asterix & Obelisk XXL (PS2) and new media from Magic: The Gathering Battlegrounds (Xbox) and Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (PS2). IGN has a new look at Rockstar's Manhunt (PS2), new impressions of Tony Hawk's Underground (GBA), impressions of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (GC, PS2, Xbox) and new shots from StarCraft: Ghost (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Crash Nitro Kart (GC, PS2, Xbox). Elsewhere online, GamePro has new shots from Nightshade, which will be the North American name for Sega's Kunoichi (PS2), The Magic Box has a trio of images from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (DVD) and the next batch of Sega 3D Ages (PS2), CVG has a new look at Grabbed by the Ghoulies (Xbox) and new shots from Onimusha 3 (Xbox), GameInformer has hands-on looks at Drakengard (PS2) and Amped 2 (Xbox) and HomeLAN goes hands-on with Blowout (Xbox).