After finishing both Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 within the past week and a half, I've been really bummed out the last couple of days. These were the two games I was looking forward to most and I just zoomed right through both. I just couldn't control myself. Still yearning for singleplayer adventures heavy with story, I look forward to Knights of the Old Republic II on December 6. If you missed it last night, check out IGN's playthrough of the first planet. The author, who adored the original, sees the sequel shaping up to be an even better adventure. That's good to hear because for a while there, I was getting worried it'd be more of the same without the stellar plot, but it seems Obsidian is doing well with this one.

	Viewtiful Joe 2 Demo Wrecking Memory Card Saves An absolutely awful bug is doing major damage to gamers' memory cards. When playing the Viewtiful Joe 2 demo on the PlayStation Underground winter disc, the demo erases all save files on the memory card in slot one. Sony issued a warning and apology to its users and offered the only solution of removing the memory card before playing the demo.
	Tecmo President Blasts Sony, Praises Microsoft Tecmo has been, without a doubt, the strongest supporter of the Xbox in Japan. They reinforced their position when Tecmo's president, Junji Nakamura, made some comments about both Sony's and Microsoft's plans for the next generation. For instance, he doesn't appear to be confident with Sony's design decisions. "The CPU was developed for a next-generation game machine, but the hardware is conceived by an appliance manufacturer," he said. "I feel that they're probably trying to use games as a way to increase their power in the home appliance industry." He was very optimistic about Microsoft's future. "I expect that they'll be able to use their experience of the current machine's failure to succeed, even in this country."
	Final Fantasy XII Slow to Get Out the Gate It appears Final Fantasy XII is being delayed yet again in Japan. Originally planned for summer 2004 and then pushed to the end of winter, Square Enix is now saying it won't be released this fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2005. With April 2005 now being its earliest release possibility, who knows how long after the Japanese release before it reaches North America.
	Silicon Knights Still Developing for GameCube? The break-up between Silicon Knights and Nintendo didn't appear to be completely mutual and it seemed Silicon Knights was going to take its business elsewhere. However, European gaming magazine Cube ran an article saying that the developer of Eternal Darkness is working on an unannounced title exclusive to the GameCube. We may learn more at next year's E3.
	Misc. Q&As/Features GameSpot talks with Hiroshi Tanaka of Namco about Tekken 5.
	Misc. Media/Previews
	IGN plays with the demo for Nano Breaker and reports in. They also post videos for Shadow of Rome and Final Fantasy XII as well as offer impressions of Arc the Lad Generation. GameSpot reports in with impressions of Tekken 5. They also post shots of Legend of Kay. A few screens of Devil May Cry 3 are at GamesAreFun.
	Twenty new shots of MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf at GameSpot. At the Xbox site, gamers can download the Fan Site Kit for MechAssault 2, which is 35MB of media goodies. TeamXbox details the spirits and demons of Jade Empire. IGN tells us the ten best things about Conker: Live and Reloaded.
	GameSpot goes DS-crazy with a tech demo video and footage of The Urbz: Sims in the City, Spider-Man 2, and Asphalt Urban GT. 1up shares new details on Ridge Racers (PSP). GamesAreFun talks about the unlockable content for Feel the Magic: XY/XX (NDS). GameSpy contributes plenty of screens for Pokemon Dash! (NDS).
	GameSpot fools around with the singleplayer of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (PS2, Xbox, GCN). IGN throws us images of Viewtiful Joe 2 (PS2, GCN), Virtua Quest (PS2, GCN), and NFL Street 2 (PS2, Xbox, GCN).