As I promised last night (or at least suggested), I've posted a full review of Ys Book I & II on my personal site, as we don't go back that far in our own ShackReviews database. Should we ever go that far back (and personally I'd love to see it go back to the 2600 days), I'll copy it over here, but for now, this will do just fine. On a totally different note, I'm going to get a chance to check out a few interesting things this week. Tomorrow evening I'll be going hands-on with the N-Gage, which should be interesting given my extremely negative first impression with the thing back at E3. And then on Friday, I'll be paying a trip to Rockstar's NYC office, where I'll be taking a look at Max Payne 2. It's safe to assume that I'll probably come nowhere even remotely near Manhunt, but I promise to at least try to get a peak at the game, as it's pretty high on the list of games I'm looking forward to this year. Look for writeups on each soon.

	PS2 Ain't no Console That's pretty much the gist of a decision by a European appeals court that came out today, as Sony has successfully repealed a different classification. While it sounds trivial, this is actually a big deal: by being declared a computer and not a games console, Sony will receive millions in refunds from customs fees. The court based their decision on the processors inside the system, saying that the classification should be made, "on the basis of the components of the item, and not its purpose." Bring on the PS2 word processor!
	Soul Calibur II Still Selling Well Namco released a statement today letting the world know that they have sold through more than half of Soul calibur II's initial 1.6 million units in a single month. No platform breakdown was released, but it's safe to assume we'll see that in their next press release, which will no doubt let us know when they've broken the million copy point. On a related note, the game is selling well overseas, as it's the number one title on the all-format chart in the UK.
	THX Certifying Games This is kind of cool for those with high-end surround sound systems...THX, which recently was spun off from LucasFilm, has announced that they have started a certification process for games, much like their certifications for home video, DVD and theaters. The first company to take advantage of this is Electronic Arts, whose titles SSX 3, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Medal of Honor: Rising Sun will all carry the THX logo on the box.
	CNN/Money on the Console Industry It's a bit more business-oriented than most installments, but the latest edition of their Game Over column is up at CNN/Money, and it deals with the outlook for this year's holiday season for the console industry.
	MVP Baseball Interview IGN Sports' MVP Baseball interview talks with Duane Kuiper, the former professional ball player who provides the voice of one of the commentators in EA Sports' baseball series.
	Emulation Interview(s) I keep forgetting to mention this...an interesting three part interview with Jeff Vavasour of Digital Eclipse at Curmudgeon Gamer. Jeff is the primary coder behind several commercial emulation projects (including Midway Arcade Treasures for all three consoles) and this is highly recommended reading for those intested in the subject. It's in three parts: part one deals with the technical side of things, part two the business end and part three deals with Jeff's personal life and the future of the industry.
	New Releases This Week This week is pretty slow, but next week sees the release of Viewtiful Joe, so it's not all bad. Anyway, this week sees the release of Auto Modellista for GameCube and Group S Challenge, Ultimate Beach Soccer and U.S. Open 2003 for Xbox. On the cross-platform front, there's Freedom Fighters (GC, PS2 ,Xbox) and Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown (PS2, Xbox).
	Misc. Media/Previews GameSpot has a new preview of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (Xbox), a new trailer from Daredevil (PS2, Xbox) and a new trailer from The Sims Bustin' Out (GC, PS2, Xbox). IGN has a hands-on look at Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (Xbox), an article looking at the "uber" moves in SSX 3 (GC, PS2, Xbox), a trailer from Secret Weapons Over Normandy (PS2, Xbox), another edition of their weekly look at Tak and the Power of Juju (GC, PS2) and new movies showing off 1080: Avalanche (GC). Elsewhere online, Games Are Fun has some new shots from King of Fighters 2001 (PS2), The Magic Box has a round-up of shots from the two new Kingdom Hearts games for PS2 and GBA (maybe one or two of which are actually new), as well as new shots from Gungrave O.D. (PS2), Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution (GC) and Astro Boy: Tetsu Wan Atom (GBA) and GameInformer has hands-on impressions of Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space (PS2). And finally, here at FileShack we have two movies from StarCraft: Ghost (GC, PS2, Xbox) showing off the Arclite attack and scanning system in the game.