Late Night Consoling
We've finally got those trailers from Resident Evil 4 and Killer 7 up at FileShack (in DiVX format no less), so I downloaded both and while I remain pleased with what I've seen from RE4, I remain just as baffled about Killer 7 as I was before. If you haven't seen it yet, download the trailer and judge for yourself. I don't even know where to start with this thing. I mean, it really could turn out to be an amazing, avant garde game, but at the same time, I just don't know what to make of what I've seen so far, and certainly don't know what I think of everything I've read about the game. Still, at the end of the day, I guess I would like to see some far-out, experimental game come from a major publisher (and even better, get released here). Ever since Kenji Eno retired, wildly inventive games haven't been seen as much as they used to. Eno, for those unaware, was the totally far-out designer of D (a game that was played in real time, and ended after two hours regardless of how far you got) and Enemy Zero (which had first person shooter elements where you fought against invisible enemies, and relied exclusively on audio cues). Eno was a bit too crazy for his own good (he even released a series of games with no visuals whatsoever, called Real Sound), and after D2 he effectively retired. So has Capcom found a new Eno with the bizarrely named "Suda 51"? You got me. But considering Capcom's not-exactly-spectacular financial situation (see below) can the company afford to nurture such a renegade artist? FYI: There will be an LNC tomorrow night. Not an EX, just a regular LNC at the usual time.
| Paper Mario 2 Confirmed IGN is reporting that the latest issue of the Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu confirms that Paper Mario 2 is in development for GameCube, and will be released this year. The game is said to continue the visual style of the first game (which had 2D characters on 3D backgrounds and environments) and is being developed by Intelligent Systems, the developers of Metroid Fusion and Advance Wars among other games. For those who missed it, the original Paper Mario (which was itself the spiritual sequel to Mario RPG) was a real gem, coming out late in the N64's lifecycle but still very much worth tracking down. Hopefully the original will be released as a pre-order bonus. |
| Metal Gear Solid 3 Close Quarter Combat Details PS2.IGN has conducted a Q&A with Motosada Mori, a former SWAT instructor who is acting as the military advisor on Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The Q&A doesn't really reveal much in terms of how the game will utilize close quarter combat techniques in actual gameplay, but it does have some information on how Konami is planning on keeping things accurate. For actual details on the CQC in MGS3, head over to 1UP or GameSpot, and 1UP also has some storyboard images from the game. |
| Capcom's $90 Million Loss Yikes...in a financial announcement that rivals some of Sega's bleaker quarters, Capcom announced today announced revised estimates for the quarter ending today from their original projection of a $40 million profit to a loss of $90 million. The biggest culprits are big changes in their strategies in Europe and North America, although they also cite a projected 19% slide of sales worldwide. |
|
| Pandora Tomorrow Patched Good news for Splinter Cell fans...Ubisoft announced today that they have patched Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, fixing that nasty bug that would cause the game to hang if you left it on the server select screen for more than ten seconds. Apparently there are still some other lingering bugs, and Ubisoft says those will be addressed in the near future. In the meantime, just log in to Xbox Live with the game to get the latest update. |
|
| No Xbox Price Drop in UK (Yet) We may have gotten that sweet Xbox price drop here in America, and our friends in Australia got a much-needed one as well, but apparently UK gamers aren't so lucky. Eurogamer is reporting that Microsoft UK intends to "wait and see" how the price drop affects sales here in the US before deciding on what to do over there. Considering that lower price almost always equals higher sales, it's not at all unreasonable to expect a price drop between now and E3 for that territory. |
| IBM Shows off New Power Processor At a press event here in NYC, IBM today showed off the Power5, their new high-end processor. IBM announced an initiative to open up the architecture and share previously strictly guarded portions of their technology with developers, and made clear their intention to break into the embedded systems market. What on earth does all of this have to do with console games? IBM is providing CPU technology for all three next-generation systems, and while there are still quite a few unanswered questions about what CPU core will be used and in what capacity, we do know that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all planning their strategy around some form of Power PC architecture. |
|
| NBA Ballers on MTV For those of you who liked the previous editions of MTV's "Making the Game" series, you'll want to check out the latest edition, which covers Midway's NBA Ballers, and is airing on MTV, MTV2 and MTVU over the next few days. Check local listings (or MTV.com) for air times. |
| Sega Publishing Sammy Titles in Japan This shouldn't be too much of a surprise as Sammy is now the majority shareholder in Sega, but nonetheless, the companies announced today that all future PS2 titles from Sammy will be published in Japan by Sega. |
|
| Digital Anvil Gearing Up for Xbox 2 Like many developers of late, Digital Anvil has posted job listings for people to work on next-generation hardware. Considering how long it took to get their last few games out, if they start now they might just make the twilight days of the Xbox 2 (kidding, kidding). I usually don't post stories this thin, but it's really unexpectedly slow tonight. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
|
| New impressions of Siren and La Pucelle Tactics can be found at IGN tonight. |
|
| GameSpy previews IndyCar Series 2005, GameInformer is the latest site to post a preview of Sudeki and both Team Xbox and GamerFeed have new previews of Fable. |
|
| IGN has new media from Shrek 2 and Kirby: The Mirror Labyrinth, the latter of which is apparently now scheduled for release in Japan next month (after being postponed due to a last-minute showstopping bug). |
|
| GameSpot has new media from X-Men Legends (GC, PS2, Xbox), Serious Sam: Next Encounter (GC, PS2) and NBA Ballers (PS2, Xbox). |
