Late Night Consoling
The other night I made an offhand mention that as of right now, I'm not planning on renewing my Xbox Live subscription. That sadly is still the case. Just about a year after its release, I haven't played a single game to convince me that renewing it is worth my money. Now when I say this, keep in mind that I haven't bought any of the latest crop of Xbox games, many of which I'm told are just awesome over Xbox Live. I'm not into sports games, so chances are that I won't be swayed by Amped 2, Top Spin or Links 2004, but Crimson Skies does look awesome, and after the holidays are long behind me I may go back and pick it up. Of the other titles, I'm not too interested in Rainbow Six 3, since I've never been able to get into a Rainbow Six game (too complicated), and while I'm sure that Counter-Strike will be awesome over Xbox Live, I already have the PC version (and still play it occasionally). The downloadable content definitely is kinda cool, but I found I really wasn't all that interested in playing any extra missions in Splinter Cell. So what else is there? I'm willing to listen to any suggestions, although since I'm not going to buy any games until next year I obviously won't be taking advantage of any of them any time soon.
| Halo Deluxe on Xbox Live? The rumor mill was absolutely jumping today after the discovery that Prima is preparing a "Halo Deluxe Edition" strategy guide for release next month. Could this be the long-rumored Xbox Live re-release of Halo? Could this be a new version of the game that will come bundled with new systems? Could the entire development of Halo 2 actually turn out to be an elaborate practical joke? Alas, none of these is true (especially not that last one). Both Computer and Video Games and 1UP confirmed with Prima that the new "Deluxe Edition" strategy guide is merely a new version of their guide that includes new pages covering the PC release of the game. Well, phooey. |
| Zelda Collector's Edition Details GameInformer has already managed to get their hands on Nintendo's new Legend of Zelda bonus disc that will be available in several different ways starting on Friday, and they have posted a slew of details about the various goodies it contains. Among the tidbits here is a confirmation that Majora's Mask runs in high-resolution (just like The Ocarina of Time did on the first Zelda bonus disc) and that there are some slowdowns in the classic games (grr). |
| Final Fantasy XII Details Next Week In case you've forgotten, next week we'll see the first details from Final Fantasy XII. According to IGN, the Japanese weekly magazines are having fun teasing their readers, as apparently they've already gotten assets from the game to use on their covers. Keep an eye on FF12.com next Wednesday if you want to see it as soon as it goes up. |
| Sega Profits Leap Now there's a phrase I never expected to write again...Sega, the only company I'm willing to admit I'm a shameless fanboi over, announced net profits for the first fiscal half-year of 5.9 billion yen ($54 million), up from 1 billion yen ($9.2 million) last year. Sure, that's nothing to a company like Microsoft or Sony, but neither of those two has a financial blight like the Dreamcast to recover from. |
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| Capital Entertainment Group Goes Bust Ouch. After a remarkably short period of time, Capital Entertainment Group, the game production house started by Xbox co-creators Seamus Blackley and Kevin Bachus, has closed their doors (thanks Slashdot Games). Lots of reasons could be raised for why their plan to act as a broker between developers and publishers didn't fly (as this interview with one of the founders shows) but ultimately it came down to that same thing that has killed so many startups before them: they couldn't close their next round of funding. Seamus Blackley was always the most vocal of the lot, and he has taken a job at the Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency, where he will help them move into games (because that's just what this industry needs). |
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| Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II Bumped to '04 Well it looks like settling the bad blood between Interplay and VU Games wasn't really necessary after all...Interplay announced today that Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II will miss the all-important holiday season anyway. Look for it to come out in January. |
| iQue Revealed Import shop Lik-Sang has posted a detailed look at Nintendo's iQue game system, complete with shots of both the system and games. The iQue was designed specifically for the Chinese market, but Lik-Sang reports that it outputs in NTSC format, which is contrary to the standard PAL format used in China. They point to this as proof that it may be released outside of China, but I find that hard to believe given the restricting nature of the system. |
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| Free GBA Link Cable with FF: CC Although it's not going to be included with every copy (as it was in Japan), Nintendo announced today that they will be giving away free GameCube-to-GBA link cables as a pre-order bonus with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. The game uses the GBA quite extensively (for better or worse), so this is a nice deal. |
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| Sony Welcomes Chinese Piracy In a surprising move, Sony has announced that their upcoming PS2 launch in China will feature no new hardware security to combat the rampant piracy in that part of Asia. Considering the extreme lengths Nintendo went through this really is surprising, but GameSpot speculates that Sony just wants the quick cash they'll get from a Chinese launch. |
| Nokia to Crush N-Gage Hackers In response to yesterday's news that hackers had broken the security lockouts on the N-Gage, Nokia issued a statement today saying in effect that they will hunt down those responsible and crush them like puny grapes. Muahahahahahahaha. |
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| Dinosaur Hunting Q&A A brief Q&A with Masanao Kita of Microsoft Japan is up at HomeLAN tonight, talking with him about this action game that's already out overseas, and will be released here early next year by Metro3D. |
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| Sony Japan Yoinks Siren Ad After receiving complaints from concerned mothers, Sony of Japan has pulled a commercial for their upcoming horror game Siren (known over there as Forbidden Siren) off the airwaves. Curious to see what the rubarb's about? GameSpot has posted the commercial for your downloading pleasure (although you'll need to use their free registration service to see it). |
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| GBA Videophone Revealed Over in Japan, mobile technology company Emblaze announced today that they are providing the core technology for the Campho Advance, a peripheral for the GBA that lets you use it as a videophone. Because, you know. All the kids are using the videophones over analog lines. (Actually they are in Japan, but only with cell phones). What's the probability that this will be released outside of Japan, you ask? Well let's see...is there anything less than 'nil'? |
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| Viewtiful Joe Re-Released in Japan Here's a surprising bit of news...Capcom announced today that they will be re-releasing Viewtiful Joe over in Japan. This new version will be called Viewtiful Joe Popular Edition, and will contain a new "sweet" easier difficulty setting. It will be released on December 18th. |
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| 1080 Interview Computer and Video Games has posted an interview with Shigeki Yamashiro and Vivek Melwan, the producer and lead designer/director respectively on Nintendo's 1080 Avalanche. The interview is actually the first part of a transcript of a recent European conference call. |
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| Ratchet & Clank Interview A rather lengthy interview with Ted Price of Insomniac Games can be found at GameSpy tonight, talking about Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando. The interview is actually the complete transcript of a face-to-face interview, and it's also available as a video interview from FilePlanet. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| IGN has posted a teaser image from an unannounced RPG from Chun Soft, the developers of the early Dragon Quest/Warrior games. |
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| IGN has new shots from Gran Turismo 4 and Kamen Rider 555, while GameSpy has a new preview of EverQuest Online Adventures: Frontiers. |
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| New shots from Dead or Alive Online are up at GameSpot. |
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| GameSpot has some new shots from James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing and The Magic Box has shots from F-Zero: Falcon Legend. |
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| GameSpot has a new preview of Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (PS2, Xbox), along with new shots from Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma (GC, PS2, Xbox) and new shots from Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (GC, PS2, Xbox). Also, GamerFeed has new impressions of Metal Arms, IGN has new shots from Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (PS2, Xbox) and we've got the final trailer from Legacy of Kain: Defiance (PS2, Xbox) up at FileShack. |
