Late Night Consoling
As I mentioned before, I'm surprisingly not qualified to vote in most of the categories for our Game of the Year poll this year, so instead of doing what we did last year, where the Shack staff mentioned their picks alongside your choices, I'm thinking instead we should each post our own top ten lists of our combined winners across all platforms. I don't know about Maarten and Steve, but that's a much better option for me (so even if they opt out, I'll still post 'em here). Actually, even that's going to be a bit of a challenge, since I'm not sure I really know what my favorite game this year has been. I mean, there were so many games from last year that I didn't play until this year, that I might have to cheat. And do Ys Book I & II or Stalker count? Okay, they're a bit old, but I only played them this year! Okay, I'll leave those out. But that just makes this all much harder for me.
| KB Toys Cuts Games from 400 Stores Due to apparently less than spectacular sales this holiday season, KB Toys has confirmed plans to stop selling games in over 400 of their stores. While they've never been a particularly great place to buy games (let's face it, even Toys R' Us is better), this may be bad news for anyone that depends on KB as their local game retailer. |
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| "Aeris!?" Calm down there kids...apparently that's the translation of a caption from a scanned page from the Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu that can be found at Games Are Fun tonight, and shows a few new images from Square's upcoming Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Even if she's not a major part of the storyline (although the fanboi in me certainly hopes she is), there's little doubt in my mind that Aeris will appear in one form or another (even if it's a flashback). |
| I Q No More Panasonic announced today that they have halted production of their combination DVD player/GameCube console system known in Japan as Q (and known here as really freaking expensive). Considering the fact that despite major GameCube price drops (not to mention the plummeting prices of standalone DVD players), this system was still retailing for over $300, it's amazing they kept it up for as long as they did. Still, if you want the coolest looking GameCube on the planet, this is the one you want, so get it while you still can from your local import shop. |
| New FFXII Character Details There's not a whole lot of info here, but nonetheless, 1UP has posted summaries of some interviews from the latest issue of the Japanese magazine Famitsu. In those interviews, character designer Akihiko Yoshida and director Yasumi Matsuno and others talk about Final Fantasy XII, and there's some new details here about the two most recently revealed characters. |
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| Sony, Nintendo Report Big Sales KB might be having a bad season, but according to two of the big publishers, things are just hunky dory. Both Nintendo and Sony released their expected "strong sales" releases today, plus Nintendo announced that 1.3 million GBAs were sold in November (look closely for a very funny typo in IGN's writeup). Also, despite a lukewarm response from reviewers, the PSX has nearly sold out in Japan, and Sony Europe is celebrating the shipment of over 2 million EyeToy units, proving once and for all that a lot of people like to make fools out of themselves. |
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| StarCraft: Ghost Interview IGN's StarCraft: Ghost Interview talks with John Lagrave, the producer at Blizzard on their upcoming console expansion of their RTS classic. Among other things, he confirms the various features of each version of the game, and Xbox owners will be pleased to know that they will likely support 720p in the Xbox version. |
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| Dead or Alive Ultimate Collection? As noted at some online retailers, apparently Tecmo has renamed Dead or Alive Online the Dead or Alive Ultimate Collection v.1, suggesting that we'll see a v.2 eventually. IGN is reporting that an official announcement of the name change (and possibilities of a second volume including Dead or Alive 3) will be coming tomorrow. |
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| Content, Content Everywhere Gosh, there's a lot of new downloadable content this week...a new multiplayer map is available for Crimson Skies, a wacky carnival-themed level is available for Rainbow Six 3 and two new quests are available for Phantasy Star Online, one of which is said to feature another Sonic Team character (quite possibly NiGHTS). As always, you'll need an active Xbox Live account to download these, although I was informed last night that the Official Xbox Magazine apparently includes some of these on their cover discs. |
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| The Getaway 2 Confirmed Computer and Video Games is reporting that they have confirmed that The Getaway 2 is in production at the UK-based Team Soho. They're saying that the game is planned for a late-2004 release, although I'll believe that when I see it (I still haven't gotten over the fact that the first game came out). |
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| New Ape Escape Announced Sony Japan has announced a new game featuring characters from Ape Escape. The game is known in Japan as "Piposaru Olympia: Gekitou! Gacha Mecha Athlete" which translates into the nonsensical name "Madcap Monkey Olympia: Fierce Fight Gadget Athlete." I don't know about you, but I really want to play a game called Madcap Monkey Olympia: Fierce Fight Gadget Athlete. I could just say that all night long. Madcap Monkey Olympia: Fierce Fight Gadget Athlete. Madcap Monkey Olympia: Fierce Fight Gadget Athlete. Madcap Monkey Olympia: Fierce Fight Gadget Athlete. Oh the fun. Who needs the game? |
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| Prisoner of Azkaban Q&A A new Q&A with Kevin Shrapnell, the producer at EA on their upcoming game Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban. Fans of the books will recall that Azkaban is a much darker tale than the first two, and among other things Kevin talks about how that will be represented in the game. |
| Donkey Kong Country 2 Confirmed As they've apparently run out of Super Mario games to port over quickly, Nintendo has confirmed that Donkey Kong Country 2 will be the next to be re-released for the Game Boy Advance. Like the Super Mario Advance games, this will recycle the extra features from its predecessor. It will be out in the second quarter of 2004 in Europe, and likely here around that time as well. |
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| Max Payne Q&A A brief (very brief, actually) Q&A with David Box of Mobius Entertainment is up at Pocket.IGN tonight, talking with him about their just-shipped remake of Max Payne for GBA. |
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| Kore Gang Interview CVG has conducted an interview with Oskar Burman, the senior producer at UDS on The Kore Gang, the only Xbox game where you'll get to control three characters, all of whom are sitting inside a robot suit. Yeah, it's a bit wacky. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| New impressions from Baten Kaitos are up at GameSpot tonight, |
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| They're a little late to the party, but nonetheless, GameSpot has posted their hands-on look at Gran Turismo 4: Prologue. Also, Games Are Fun has a hands-on look at the first half of Growlanser: Generations and GameInformer goes hands-on with Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest. |
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| IGN has some new images from Magatama. |
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| Although their copy doesn't save properly, that didn't stop Planet GameCube from posting their (otherwise positive) impressions of the GBA version of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. |
| GameSpot goes hands-on with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (PS2, Xbox) and CVG has new media from Puyo Pop Fever (GC, PS2, Xbox, DC). |
