Late Night Consoling
Since I finished up Metal Arms: Glitch in the System the other day (reviewed here), I quickly moved on to the next game on my stack. After an impromptu quick poll, I decided on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which I started in earnest yesterday. So far, I like it, but the camera's starting to get on my nerves. Unlike Legacy of Kain: Defiance, I'm willing to sympathize with the developers here. PoP is a game in which you're zipping around with acrobatic grace, and managing to create a dynamic camera that can keep up with all of that is the sort of task that gives hardcore programmers nightmares. I'm only just getting started (even though I'm apparently already 15% complete) but it seems like they did the best they could, but it still comes up short. Oh well. At least the game's fun enough to compensate, and I haven't really had any serious situations where I'm completely unable to see where I have to go (unlike Defiance, where such things were commonplace).
| Battlefield 1942 to be EA's First Game on Xbox Live? Xbox.IGN claims to have recieved reports from "an unnamed Microsoft representative in New Zealand" telling them that the upcoming Xbox port of Battlefield 1942 will actually support Xbox Live, something no EA game has done to date. Keep in mind that they also received a pretty firm denial from an EA representative, who said, "EA does not have any titles in development that include Xbox Live capability. This includes the Battlefield franchise." |
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| Microsoft Addressing Friends List Issues A brief statement from Microsoft posted at Team Xbox lets the community know that they are working to fix any problems some users have encountered with their Xbox Live friends list. Apparently some (but not all) accounts are showing up as being terminally offline. |
| OutRun 2 This Summer? After the whole GTA IV: Sin City thing, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in anything you see at Amazon.co.uk, but nonetheless, Gamers.com is reporting that the site is taking pre-orders for PS2 and Xbox ports of OutRun 2, which they say will be out on August 13th. The site hardly has a good reputation for news like this, so take this with two tablespoons of salt. |
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| Ninja Gaiden Rated "M" Just in case there was any doubt, the ESRB has bestowed Ninja Gaiden with an "M" rating. Considering that the released trailers show decapitations, dismemberment and lots and lots of blood, this should come as no surprise to anyone. Yes, it's a slow night. Is it obvious? |
| GameCube Linux Port Announced It seems like a whole lot of unnecessary effort to me, but regardless, several determined programmers have launched a project to port Linux to the GameCube (thanks Slashdot Games). Since the GameCube has no hard drive and super-small memory cards, any and all storage will have to be hosted externally and accessed using the GameCube Network Adapter. Which raises the question of why anyone would want to use a GameCube as a Linux terminal, but hey, I admire the effort! |
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| First Serious Sam: Next Encounter Details GameSpot has posted a first look at Serious Sam: Next Encounter, the PS2 and GameCube-exclusive shooter that's in development at Climax, the same studio behind the MotoGP series and the upcoming Xbox title Sudeki (among others). The game will offer 4 player split-screen multiplayer on GameCube, or two player split screen and eight players online for PS2, and will retail for $20 on both platforms. |
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| Rainbow Six 3 Q&A A new Q&A with Yun Pei Sheng, the producer at Ubisoft on their upcoming PS2 port of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 is up at Computer and Video Games tonight. Among other, more general questions, the interview touches on the differences between this and the PC and Xbox versions of the game. |
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| Online Play Mandatory in Outbreak It's unknown if this will be the case in the North American version of the game (the beta's online-only, so there's no way to tell), but Capcom of Japan confirmed today that it is impossible to 100% complete Resident Evil Outbreak without playing online. Apparently the best you can get is 96% complete. |
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| Wacky FFX Controller Being Re-Released In honor of the release of Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission (oh how I love typing that!), Hori has announced plans to re-release their "Tiny Bee" Controller. You may recall this is the insane controller that uses twin guns styled after Yuna's that somehow manages to work in place of a Dual Shock 2. If you want it, pre-order now from your favorite import shop...they'll go quickly. |
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| New Releases This Week There's not much again this week...for PS2 is Maximo vs. The Army of Zin, for Xbox is Auto Modellista and for both PS2 and Xbox is Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| Cube.IGN has posted a playtest of Sega's Island of the Kaiju, GameInformer goes hands-on with Tales of Symphonia and Nintendo has launched an official site for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. |
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| GameSpot has new media from Seven Samurai 20XX, Resident Evil Outbreak and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3,The Magic Box has new shots from Bomberman Kart DX and Air Force Delta: Blue Wing Knights and CVG has excruciatingly blurry and small shots from the game code-named "Michigan" (or so they say, anyway...we'll have to take their word on it). |
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| A new trailer from Breakdown is up at Team Xbox tonight, and IGN has a new preview of The Movies. |
| More shots from the upcoming Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon are up at Pocket.IGN tonight. |
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| GameSpot has posted impressions of Mafia (PS2, Xbox) and IGN goes hands-on with MVP Baseball 2004 (GC, PS2, Xbox). |
