Late Night Consoling
So last night's feedback on my Misc. Section tests was good...keep it coming! It sounds like the only one that is universally hated is Kain, which I pretty much was expecting. That one was based on a suggestion someone gave me a long time ago, so I figured I'd throw that one in there to see if that was the direction you all wanted me to go in. I guess not. So in the true spirit of the design's character, I've decided to be horribly evil and implement it anyway. Muahahahahahah. Okay, not really. I have, however added one new test to the list, which you'll find all the way at the bottom. This one is based on a suggestion I got last night (actually I got a similar one over the weekend as well). Personally, I would like to avoid listing individual games on their own lines, as it seriously increases the size of LNC. While I don't particularly care about LNC taking over the site, I don't want to make it twice as large unless it's absolutely necessary. But I put it on there nonetheless, just to gauge your reactions to it. Tomorrow I'll start narrowing the list down, and hopefully by Friday we'll have picked a single one to go with.
| GTA3 Still Selling Well in Japan Proving once and for all that a great game developed in the western world really can sell in Japan (if marketed correctly), Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III is still selling well over there, as according to IGN's latest Gaming Life in Japan column (subscription required to read) the game has racked up 192,000 copies in its first three weeks, and has managed to stay in top 5 for that entire period. |
| Ninja Gaiden Movie #2 on FileShack Again, thanks to the tireless work of Maarten, we've got the second Ninja Gaiden movie posted by Ruliweb on FileShack. This one is three minutes long, and contains pure, live gameplay. If you missed it, we've still got the first one up, which is the full TGS trailer. Both come highly recommended. |
| Nintendo Bought Bandai Shares from Mattel According to the Nikkei Journal (by way of GameSpot), some of the shares of Bandai that Nintendo picked up at the end of last month were in fact purchased from toy maker Mattel. Mattel owned those shares as part of a global distribution deal. This doesn't really have any implications, but it's kind of interesting nonetheless. |
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| Xbox Goes Live in South Korea Microsoft announced today that they have launched Xbox Live in South Korea, and are proudly letting everyone know that they sold out of their initial shipment of starter kits in under ten minutes. Of course, despite the fact that South Korea is the most broadband-enabled place on Earth, Microsoft shipped a measly 500 - 1000 units for the launch. They plan to ship another 1,000 in the next few days, which will most likely sell out as well. |
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| Dead to Rights II Announced In case you missed the cover of this month's issue of GameInformer, Namco announced today Dead to Rights II: Hell to Pay for PS2 and Xbox. The first and details and a teaser image can be found at GameSpot. |
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| Hands-on Zodiac Reports IGN and GameInformer have both posted their hands-on impressions of Tapwave's Zodiac handheld PDA/game system. I have one here as well (literally -- it's right next to me as I type this) and will be posting a full review next week. My initial impressions? it's nice, but has a couple of serious issues that need to be worked out. Oh, and it has no Mac support...grr! But it's still ten times the gaming platform the N-Gage will ever be. |
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| THUG Everywhere Activision's getting behind Tony Hawk's Underground in a big way this holiday season...the company has announced that they will be delivering their biggest promotional push ever for the game, with ads running in some 5,000 movie theaters, commercials on MTV's sports programming, and CBS' football and NBC's Gravity Games coverage. |
| Trip Hawkins Resurfaces Trip Hawkins, fresh from the sad 3DO auction, has resurfaced with a new company. Called Digital Chocolate (yikes), the company will be developing games for cell phones. |
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| Rogue Ops Interview GameInformer has conducted an interview with Dylan Beale of Bits Studios and John Friederich of Kemco, talking with the duo about their soon-to-be-released title Rogue Ops. |
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| iQue Exclusive to China I didn't think there was any question about this, but someone must have thought so, because Nintendo has issued a statement letting people know that their recently-announced iQue system will be exclusive to China, the country it was created for. I give it a week before it's available on Lik-Sang. |
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| Gladiator Q&A A new Q&A with Nick Dixon, one of the designers on Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance, is up at HomeLAN this evening. Among other things, Nick talks about the various influences on the game's design. |
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| New Releases This Week We've got some pretty big releases this week...for GameCube there's Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, PS2 has the GTA Double Pack, Backyard Basketball, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and Time Crisis 3, Xbox has Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Grabbed by the Ghoulies and for GBA there's Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu, Super Duper Sumos, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Top Gear Rally. For multiple platforms are Bionicle (GC, PS2, Xbox), ESPN NBA Basketball (PS2, Xbox), Ford Racing 2 (PS2, Xbox), SSX 3 (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (GC, PS2, Xbox, GBA). Look for many of the bigger ones to appear in our ShackReviews database this weekend. |
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| Misc. Media/Previews |
Console Game of the Evening: Wizards & Warriors for the NES. "Despite technical flaws and some absurdly frustrating game mechanics, the interesting music and highly addictive ''give-it-one-more-try'' platform feel certainly made for a memorable (and did I mention frustrating?) experience." (submitted by int86).
