I polished off Snatcher the other night, and I did with Ys Book I & II, I've posted my review over at my personal site. If you're too lazy to read the whole review, I'll sum it up here: Snatcher is easily the best Sega CD game I've ever played, and it ranks as one of the best written games I've seen for any platform. This game is so well plotted, so well thought out and reasoned, that I find myself looking back on Metal Gear Solid 2 and wondering what the heck happened. Maybe Kojima went insane from the intense pressure he was under for MGS2 and that resulted in the game having one of the silliest plots ever put to paper, but whatever the reason, I've suddenly gained a great deal more respect for the man, and am actually somewhat looking forward to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I'm still not willing to forgive the guy for MGS2, but the gameplay in that really was excellent, and if he can direct a game as tightly plotted as Snatcher, maybe there's hope for the guy yet. Of course my amazement with Snatcher is somewhat bittersweet, as the game's prequel Policenauts has never been released in this country, despite being released for no less than three different platforms in Japan. Policenauts was just released yet-again for the PSOne over there, so this seems as good a time as any to plug the ongoing e-mail campaign to convince Konami to get around to localizing it for release over here. I can't say I'm too optimistic, but hey, it can't hurt.

	Nintendo Does Boffo Business Nintendo announced today that during the week of October 4th, the GameCube, at its new price of $99 outsold the PS2 by 20%. That's not half bad, but even better is the news that it outsold the Xbox by an incredible 145% for the same week. Real sales numbers aren't available yet, so we're just taking their word on this, but it also deserves pointing out that as the holiday season hasn't technically begun yet (that's not for another month) this is hardly indicative of any long-term sales. But it may push the other two manufacturers towards a price drop of their own, which would just be well...boffo (sorry, but I've waited a really long time to use that word).
	Sony Readying 90nm PS2 Chip (Again) This is probably the tenth story I've done here about Sony's plans to merge the two PS2 processors into a single chip, but they announced today that they're finally going to throw the switch on that this month, and they released some new details on the process, which will be a scant 90 nano-meters. As part of the same announcement Sony also mentioned that they're in the process of installing equipment in a new plant to enable full-scale production of their "cell" processor, which they expect to get underway in mid-2005.
	Mario Kart Demo Disc Details I forgot to mention this one yesterday...Nintendo has released details on the demo disc that's being sent out as a bonus for pre-ordering Mario Kart: Double Dash. The disc has some real gems on it, including playable demos of F-Zero GX, Sonic Heroes and Mario Party 5 (plus Mario Kart: DD of course), movies from a slew of other titles (including Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles) and even the ability to unlock extra features in the GBA game Fire Emblem.
	Viewtiful Interview GameSpy has conducted an interview with Atsushi Inaba, the producer at Capcom Japan on Viewtiful Joe, otherwise known as the GameCube title everyone's talking about this week.
	Argonaut Announces Dismal Financials Argonaut Games, the developer of the troubled platform title Malice and the upcoming Xbox shooter SWAT: Global Strike Team among others, announced a pre-tax loss of £10.9 million today. This is due to the aforementioned difficulties with Malice, as well as the canceled Xbox title Orchid, but the developer still plans on releasing some 11 titles this year, and expects to turn things around next year (Malice may even see the light of day eventually).
	A History of Portable Gaming A three-part article at Boomtown looks at the always entertaining subject of portable gaming. The first part deals with the early days, the second with some of the many Game Boy competitors over the years, and the last discusses the present and future of handheld gaming.
	Hands-on with the PSX GameSpot's Japanese correspondent managed to get his hands on Sony's PSX ubersystem, and so they have posted his report today. The article contains lots of details about the OS, along with three high-res photos of the unit (get a load of all those logos on the front!). And yes, I know how weird it is to see a story with "PSX" in the headline but a PS2 logo. I'm having just as hard a time wrapping my head around it.
	The Ultimate Street Fighter Set? GameSpot also has a report out of Japan today about a new limited-edition version of Capcom's Hyper Street Fighter II that will be released over there. The set will retail for roughly $80, and contain the game, a mouse pad, a book called "All About Street Fighter" and a cell-phone strap with miniature Chun-Li wrist bands.
	A Look Back at The Konami Code It's brief, but 1UP has posted a look back at the "Konami code", which is easily the most famous cheat code ever made. The best part of the article is the list of games that supported it, and there are quite a few I didn't know about (like WarioWare!). Okay, all together now: up, up, down, down...
	Misc. Media/Previews GameSpot has new previews of Breakdown (Xbox) and Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space (PS2), along with new media from Monster Rancher 4 (PS2), Super Duper Sumos (GBA), Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (PS2, Xbox) and Battlestar: Galactica (PS2, Xbox). Over at IGN there's a new hands-on look at Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (GC, PS2, Xbox) and new media from Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone, I-Ninja, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, Spawn: Armageddon and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (all GC, PS2, Xbox), 007: All or Nothing (GBA), Mega Man X7 (PS2), NHL Rivals 2004 (Xbox), kill.switch (PS2, Xbox) and Sudeki (Xbox). Elsewhere online, GameSpy looks at Whiplash (PS2, Xbox), The Magic Box has new shots from Gran Turismo 4, Dororo and Mobile Suit Gundam Z: AEUG vs Titan (all PS2), Planet GameCube has multiplayer impressions of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (GC), GameInformer goes hands-on with Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike (GC) and HomeLAN has hands-on previews of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Magic: The Gathering Battlegrounds (Xbox). And finally, we've got a pretty cool trailer from Front Mission 4 (PS2) up at FileShack.