Late Night Consoling
This afternoon I swung by a press event held by EA here in NYC. Most of the games on display were from the EA Sports lineup (which as I've said many times here, I am not even remotely qualified to comment on) so I skipped those, but I was there primarily to check out Battlefield: Vietnam, which I did do (look for that preview soon). While I was there I also spent some time with 007: Everything or Nothing, and I walked away surprisingly impressed by what I saw. For one thing, this game has by far the biggest production values of any Bond game to date (hey, I love Goldeneye too, but it was a pretty bare-bones affair). Aside from the complete Bond movie cast, there's Willam Defoe, Shannon Elizabeth and singer Mya in here, but all of that's moot if the gameplay sucks. Fortunately it looks really fun, with some nice stealth-based action, decent driving sequences and even a well-thought out multiplayer component (including an unlockable mode that was compared to Bomberman of all things). Everything or Nothing will be out really soon (early next month) so keep an eye out for those initial reviews...I think we'll all be pleasantly surprised by the final product.
| Famicom Mini GBA Lineup Announced Nintendo of Japan today announced a whole new lineup of GBA-related products that will be released under the Famicom Mini brand. On the hardware side is a GBA SP in classic Japanese Famicom colors (just like the limited edition one from a while back), while 10 new GBA carts were announced, all of which are straight ports of old Famicom/NES titles. These will retail for about $20, and include titles like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda from Nintendo, with third party releases that include Bomberman and Xevious. No US release for any of these has been confirmed at this point. |
| Dead or Alive Ultimate Confirmed, LE Xboxen Announced Tecmo today confirmed that Dead or Alive Online has undergone a name change and will now be released under the name Dead or Alive Ultimate. Despite the name change it looks like the game still only includes the first two games in the series, and not the third, although obviously with the addition of Xbox Live support. Along with this news in Japan, Microsoft announced two limited edition Xbox systems: a " Kasumi-chan Blue" one to coincide with the release of DoA Ultimate, and a " Pure White Limited" version which can only be ordered online, and is to commemorate the second anniversary of the Xbox release in Japan. |
| New PSP Spec: 32 MB of RAM? gamesindustry.biz is reporting that the latest rumors making their way through the development community suggest that Sony will soon announce a spec change in the PSP, bringing it up to 32 MB of on-board RAM. The RAM increase has been rumored for some time, but this is the first time there's been any agreement on the specific size. |
| Champions of Norrath to Support Voice Chat Good news for those too lazy to type...Sony Online Entertainment announced today that Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest will support voice chat (provided you have a USB headset). |
| Nintendo Interviews Cube.IGN has conducted an interview with Perrin Kaplan, the VP of corporate affairs for Nintendo of America. Kaplan (who is just back from maternity leave) dodges pretty much every non-softball question, but it's worth a read just to see IGN actually ask about the eternally-in-development Too Human ("You know, I have not checked on that one since I got back to work."). Also, 1UP has posted a write up on yet another interview Nintendo of Japan's Satoru Iwata gave to a Japanese news outlet, and it contains the usual non-hints at their future products and complaints that "games are stuck now". |
| Rainbow Six 3 on GameCube They haven't announced any features yet, but Ubisoft has confirmed that Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 will be released later this year. It's unknown if the game will feature online support, which is certainly a possibility, since Ubisoft recently confirmed that the GameCube release of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow will contain the same online support as the other versions of the game. |
| SNK Playmore Focusing on Pachinko The company hasn't abandoned their video game business, but nonetheless, SNK Playmore announced today that they are going to be focusing on making Pachinko machines. Interestingly enough for Neo Geo fans is the news that the first such machine will actually have a Metal Slug theme, and future games will tie into other SNK properties as well (I can just picture someone scoring and having the screen display "VICTOLLY!!!!"). |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| New shots from Firefighter F.D.18 are up at GameSpot tonight, CVG goes hands-on with the PS2 port of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, GameSpy previews Nanobreaker and "tons of new screens" and an update on Drakengard can be found over at PS2.IGN. |
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| IGN goes hands-on with Otogi 2 (and heavily praises its visuals) and CVG has new footage from Full Spectrum Warrior. |
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| Both GameSpot and IGN have new hands-on previews of DRIV3R (PS2, Xbox), while new hands-on previews of 007: Everything or Nothing (GC, PS2, Xbox) can be found at both IGN and GameInformer. Also, IGN has more from Darkwatch: Curse of the West (PS2, Xbox), GameSpot has new shots from ESPN Major League Baseball (PS2, Xbox) and I also missed their new trailer from The Suffering (PS2, Xbox) which was posted last week. |
