Late Night Consoling
During my weekly trip to the comic store today, I made a point to pick up the latest issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine (that's #75 for anyone who's going to go hunting for it), and sure enough, it does indeed have the Final Fantasy X: Eternal Calm movie on the included demo CD. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the other goodies that are on the disc, which include playable demos of Final Fantasy X-2, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Need for Speed: Underground, Secret Weapons Over Normandy and I-Ninja. That's not bad at all. At $9, the magazine is still a bit pricey, but I would have happily paid that much for Eternal Calm by itself, so anything else is just icing on the cake. One thing I was very pleased to discover was how securely the magazine packages up its demo disc, which makes it much, much harder for people to swipe it off the newsstand (or out of my mailbox, as happened to me last month with my Official Xbox Magazine). Oh, and from what I understand, there's some kind of magazine included with the disc, although I haven't look at it yet.
| Next GTA in 2004 There's no details available as of yet, but at the 20th Annual Technology Conference here in NYC, Cindi Buckwalter, executive vice president of Take Two mentioned that the currently nameless new Grand Theft Auto game would be released late next year. Again, there are no details available about the game, including what platform(s) it will appear on and whether or not the rumors about it taking place in Las Vegas are true. (Once again, I must point out that the Sin City announcement really was an April Fool's gag. You'd be amazed at the legs that one's had). |
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| More Dragon Quest V Details Following up on last night's story about the upcoming PS2 remake of Dragon Quest V, some minor new details are up at IGN tonight, while The Magic Box has better scans of the shots that appeared in the Japanese manga Shonen Jump. And yes, Dragon Quest/Warrior fans, there is a shot of the Slime in 3D (I swear, I'll never understand the appeal of that thing). |
| Eidos Signs Guerrilla Proof that Eidos isn't alienating every developer on the planet came today, as the company announced that they have signed an agreement with Guerrilla, the development studio formerly known as Lost Boys Games, which is working on the recently announced PS2 FPS Killzone. No specifics are known about the game that they are working on beyond that it's a third person action title, and will be released for "three major platforms" next summer. |
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| DDR Ultramix Song List Released Konami today released the preliminary song list for DDR Ultramix, the Xbox debut of the series, which will support Xbox Live. The list has some 45 songs, and does not include hidden extras or songs that will be released over Xbox Live. |
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| Mario Kart Track Listing Cube.IGN has posted the full track list for Mario Kart: Double Dash which was released by Nintendo of Europe today. Unlike the story above, this is the racetrack listing, not the soundtrack listing. It's safe to assume that this new Mario Kart will have the same bouncy tunes as every other game in the series before it. |
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| Japanese Xbox Price Drop Imminent? According to gamesindustry.biz, reports out of Japan suggest that Microsoft is about to announce an Xbox price drop over there. If the rumors are true, the core system will drop to 16,800 yen (roughly $155) and a new bundle containing Halo, Project Gotham Racing 2, the DVD playback kit and two months of Xbox Live for 19,800 yen (about $182). |
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| Return of the King Q&A HomeLAN has conducted a Q&A with Glen Schofield, the executive producer at EA on their upcoming title The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which is of course based on the upcoming movie of the same name. |
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| Beyond Good & Evil GC Delayed IGN is reporting that Ubi Soft has announced a slight delay for the GameCube version of Beyond Good & Evil. The PS2 version will ship on November 11th, the following week the Xbox and PC versions will be available, and the GameCube version will arrive on December 2nd. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| GameSpot has some new shots from Rise to Honor, CVG has a first look at The Nightmare Before Christmas and GameInformer has a trailer from SOCOM II, |
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| IGN has new shots from Fable and Full Spectrum Warrior (although the date's off on the FSW page). |
| New shots from James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing and The Sims: Bustin' Out are up at GameSpot, while IGN has a new preview of Shantae Advance, footage from Medal of Honor: Infiltrator and shots from Ultimate Winter Games. |
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| GameSpot has PS2-specific impressions of Midway Arcade Treasures (GC, PS2, Xbox) and a new preview of Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma (GC, PS2, Xbox) as well as new shots from I-Ninja (GC, PS2, Xbox), GameSpy is the latest site to post a preview of True Crime: Streets of L.A. and they also have a look at Spawn: Armageddon (both GC, PS2, Xbox), CVG has new footage from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GC, PS2, Xbox) and GameInformer has impressions and media from LOTR: The Return of the King (GC, PS2, Xbox), |
