Late Night Consoling
So thankfully, it looks like Time Warner finally managed to get the gerbil back up on his wheel and my Internet connection is nice and stable again. Phew. As much as I'm proud of my MacGuyver-esque method for posting last night's LNC, it was a bit on the cumbersome side, to say the least. I received a call from them today, and was cheerfully informed that they were in fact working in my area yesterday, and I was told that I should be happy, as some people still haven't gotten their cable service back. Somehow I didn't find that particularly reassuring. But who cares about them...I'm back online, and free to update away. Muahahahahah.
| No More Mario for GameCube? The latest edition of the Game Over column over at CNN/Money went up today, and in it George Harrison, senior VP of marketing at Nintendo of America goes on record as saying that a new Mario game for GameCube is "definitely not certain." Harrison says that the game that has been previously referred to as Mario 128is still in production, but it may not be released this console generation. I would be very surprised if that were the case. Miyamoto's already gone on record as saying that he was disappointed with how Super Mario Sunshine turned out, and Mario 128 should be the game that sets the franchise back on track. If it's not announced at next year's E3, I'll believe this. Until then, I'm going to chalk this up to Nintendo of America being out of the loop when it comes to the direction of their Japanese counterpart. On a related note, some hints have been dropped in a Japanese magazine that ideas for new 2D Mario games are being tossed about. |
| Manhunt Supports USB Headset Rockstar announced today that Manhunt, their imminent urban horror game, will support the PS2's USB headset. The game doesn't support multiplayer, and there's no vocal commands, so you may be wondering how they're doing this...the answer's kinda cool: if you wear the headset, you'll get an extra touch of realism, as instructions from the "Director," the guy who plucked your character off of death row and threw him into the crazy city in the game, will come through the headset, while everything else will come through your speakers. Is it necessary? Nope, but it is a cool little addition. |
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| Nintendo Restarts GameCube Production In preparation for an increased demand for GameCube consoles this holiday season, Nintendo has started manufacturing new consoles. You may recall that they stopped production after accumulating a rather large stock of unsold consoles, so this is certainly good news for Nintendo. |
| Sonic CD Lives! (Sorta) GameCube gamers were (understandably) a bit let down when it was left out of the Sonic Mega Collection, but I stumbled across something while surfing around EB Games this afternoon that may make sore fans feel a bit better. EB is taking orders for a new PC release from Sega called the Sega Mega Pack, which contains a total of eight classic games. Among the games here are Sonic & Knuckles, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Fighter 2 and would you believe, Sonic CD? You get these eight games for just $20. |
| The Legacy of Kain Diaries I usually skip developer diaries unless they're particularly interesting, because most of the time they just tend to be low-level people rambling about their new game, but after reading these, I felt they deserved a mention...GameSpot has run three installments so far in their Legacy of Kain: Defiance designer diary, and they're quite interesting. None of the installments thus far have talked much about the new game in the series, but rather they've done a great job at chronicling the creation of the Legacy of Kain series, with whole installments devoted to the creation of Kain and Raziel, the two protagonists from the Blood Omen and Soul Reaver games respectively (both of which appear in Defiance). |
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| Medal of Honor: Rising Sun Interview IGN has posted another in their continuing series of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun articles. This time around they've got an interview with Thom Ang, the art director of the game, who talks about their quest for historical accuracy among other things. |
| Prince of Persia Platform Exclusives Just last night I was wondering about this, and here's my answer: there will indeed be platform exclusives in each version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The PS2 version will have an unlockable version of the original Prince of Persia, the Xbox version has PoP 2 as an extra (as well as "Xbox Live awareness" whatever that means), and as mentioned last night, the GameCube version can connect to the GBA game for extra features. |
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| Tony Hawk Q&A It's definitely a bit on the fluffy side, but GameSpy has posted a Q&A with Tony Hawk, the man whose death-defying stunts have spawned an annual gaming franchise. |
| Nokia "Pleased" With N-Gage Sales I almost didn't bother running this, because let's face it, I've already run like ten stories about Nokia's delusions, but it's kind of a slow night, so here you go...according to Computer and Video Games, Nokia is "pleased with the demand" for their N-Gage system, and they're sticking with that 400,000 unit figure (which again, is the number shipped, not the number actually sold). CVG also points out that one mobile phone carrier is offering the N-Gage for free with service activation. But to be honest, I still wouldn't take it. |
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| Project Gotham 2 Interview Team Xbox has conducted an interview with Brian Woodhouse, the executive producer on Project Gotham Racing 2. Among other things, Brian discusses how this is an improvement over the original. |
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| Broken Sword 3 Rejected by Sony According to CVG, Sony of America has rejected Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon for release on the PS2 in this country. No reason is given, but intrepid gamers can still get their hands-on an English language version by importing the European release (or buying the PC version). |
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| Gundam on GameCube Bandai announced today that they will be bringing a new Mobile Suit Gundam title to the GameCube. The Japanese title is Mobile Suit Gundam: Senshitachi no Kiseki, which IGN says translates roughly into "Path of the soldiers". No other details are available at this time, aside from that it's 50% complete, and will be out in Japan next year. |
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| Xbox Counter-Strike Gold I usually don't mention when console games go gold, as they usually go gold on time (unlike PC games, where going gold could happen at any time), but this one seems important enough: Microsoft has announced that the Xbox version of Counter-Strike has gone gold, and will be out on November 18th. In other CS news, GameSpot has posted a hands-on look at a final beta of the game. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| GameSpot has new shots from Bomberman Jetters, while GameSpy has posted details from 1080 Avalanche that were taken from a conference call today (for the full thing, GameInformer has posted the audio as an MP3). |
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| CVG has a hands-on look at Manhunt, new shots from Crimson Tears are up at The Magic Box and 1UP has posted import reviews of the first batch of Sega 3D Ages (which includes Phantasy Star Generation 1, Golden Axe and Space Harrier among others). |
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| GameSpy has posted a new preview of Wrath Unleashed. |
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| GameSpot has a new trailer from Star Trek: Shattered Universe (PS2, Xbox) and new shots from The Sims: Bustin' Out (GC, PS2, Xbox). |
