Late Night Consoling
As you'll see below, it looks like the post-holiday slowdown might be starting a bit early this year. Oh, well. That gives us all more time to play games, I suppose. Speaking of which, I gave both XIII and Metal Arms a good hour each last night, and my impressions of both have been somewhat mixed. XIII is certainly the lesser of the two so far. It's got a surprising lack of polish, with a clunky, overly complex interface (a side-effect of being ported from the PC, I suppose), and what feels like very imprecise aim. And the voice acting, despite having some relatively big names, is really quite bad. Go fig. I'll keep going, and eventually review it, but I do hope it gets better, because I had high hopes for this one. As for Metal Arms, it's a really nicely polished game, with great controls and a nice interface. However even just one hour into the game I'm surprised at how hard it is, and that's never a good sign. Like XIII I intend to keep going, but I have a tendency to get frustrated easily, so hopefully it won't get to be impossibly difficult. But hey...I made it through some of those really hard areas in Manhunt, so with perseverance I should be fine in this one as well.
| Pandora Tomorrow Online Even on GameCube? It looks like there might be one more GameCube game with online capabilities, even if Nintendo never makes one themselves...Computer and Video Games has a news item up, quoting a representative for Ubisoft Europe, who says flat out when asked about the online functionality of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, "every version of the game will feature an online mode, including the GameCube." |
| Fight Club Details Apparently GameSpy and IGN have forgotten the first rule of Fight Club, because they've each posted the first details from the game, which sounds like it has very little to do with the film (and book before it). The game will formally be announced tomorrow, but in the meantime head over to either GameSpy or IGN to get the skinny and first in-game screenshots. |
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| New Maps Available for Counter-Strike Microsoft announced today that they have released two more maps for the Xbox version of Counter-Strike. The maps are conversions of the popular PC levels "Inferno" and yes, even "Office" (w00p) and like all Xbox Live downloads, you'll need to have an active subscription in order to get them. Interestingly enough, these are specifically marked "free". Do all content downloads say this, or is this hinting that future levels will be for pay-only? (I don't recall seeing this before, but then it's been a while since I downloaded any extra content). |
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| Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX to Get Quick U.S. Release In a nice contrast to the year (or more) North American gamers have had to wait for each new Romance of the Three Kingdoms title, Koei has announced that the latest game in the series will come out this February, a mere two months after its Japanese release. |
| New Releases This Week With the holiday shopping season already in full effect, almost every big name title is already out. As a result, there ain't much this week. For GameCube there's Goblin Commander: Unleash the Horde and Midway Arcade Treasures (both of which are already available for PS2 and Xbox), for PS2 is Karaoke Revolution (without the headset -- the bundle's already available), for GBA is Max Payne, Need for Speed Underground and R-Type III: The Third Lightning and for multiple platforms is The Sims Bustin' Out (GC, PS2, Xbox). |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| IGN has new media from Baten Kaitos, Donkey Konga and Resident Evil Code: Veronica X and e-tailer Lik-Sang has a look at the custom Donkey Konga drums. |
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| GameSpot has new shots from Future Tactics: The Uprising, The Magic Box has new shots from Front Mission 4 and both Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Bose and the Xenosaga Freaks bonus disc, CVG has new shots from Way of the Samurai 2, GameInformer goes hands-on with the recently-delayed Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, and GameInformer has new shots and IGN has a direct-feed trailer from Samurai Warriors. |
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| GameSpy has some new shots from Sudeki, CVG has new shots from Rallisport Challenge 2 and a look at Carve, and The Magic Box has shots from Race Driver 2. |
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| New shots from EA Sports Fight Night 2004 (PS2, Xbox) are up at GameSpot tonight, and IGN has a hands-on look at NFL Street (GC, PS2, Xbox). |
