Late Night Consoling

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As I'm finally nearing the end of my non-stop post-E3 work, I'm looking forward to picking up .hack again. Before I left I was just starting to get into it, but the one thing that was starting to be pretty clear is that I'm not very good at it. I think I need to figure out the particulars of the combat system, because my few attempts at the first solo mission resulted in almost instant death. And even when I leveled up and went back I got my ass kicked. Am I the only one with this problem?

GameCube PS2 Xbox Ghost Delayed 'till 2004 Well, I guess that comment about Blizzard's quality holding back the game if necessary was serious...Blizzard announced today that "In order to meet our goals and deliver the outstanding gameplay experience our customers have come to expect from Blizzard products," they have pushed StarCraft: Ghost back into 2004. One has to wonder if this decision was made before, after or during E3.
GameCube PS2 Xbox GameBoy Advance IGN's Best of E3 Roundup IGN has posted separate "best of E3" round-ups on each of their sites: Cube.IGN (best game: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), PS2.IGN (ditto), Xbox.IGN (best game: Halo 2) and Pocket.IGN (best game: Boktai...?).
PSOne PSP Dev. Tools this Fall I guess we won't have to wait long to get hardcore info on Sony's PSP handheld system...according to IGN, developer's kits for the system will be released this Fall.
PS2 More Xenosaga Episode Info The other night I mentioned some non-news about Xenosaga Episode II. Well, it turns out that was only part of the information released, as IGN has a little more. Besides the general information we already knew, there's a confirmation that Episodes 3 and 4 are in production as well, and that Xenosaga Episode 1: Reloaded will be released in Japan, and will contain the improvements made for the North American release of the game. More information will be released at a June 21st press event, suggesting that Episode II may be released this year in Japan.
PS2 Final Fantasy XII Next Year Everyone sort of assumed this would be the case, but SquareEnix has confirmed that Final Fantasy XII will be released in their next fiscal year. One thing that won't be out during that time is Dragon Quest VIII, but this probably won't upset the extremely patient DQ fans, who watched Final Fantasy fans get three games in the time it took to get DQ7 out the door.
GameCube PS2 Xbox GameBoy Advance PSOne Capcom's Street Fighter Anniversary Site It's all in Japanese, but regardless, Capcom has launched their Street Fighter 15th Anniversary Site, which contains all kinds of Street Fighter goodness, including a contest to have your remix of a classic tune included on an upcoming soundtrack CD.
GameCube Holy Crap! Another Online GameCube Title! As noted at Games Are Fun, Konami's Power Pro Baseball 10 will feature online gameplay for both the PS2 and Gamecube. Could it be that developers besides Sega are starting to notice the GameCube's online connectivity? Is this the start of a new trend? Probably not, and chances are that this game won't even be released in North America. But hey, it's news.
GameCube Twin Snakes Interview While at E3, three representatives from PlanetGameCube cornered Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack, who fielded a barrage of questions about Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. The transcript of the interview is peppered with off-topic stuff (including a bit about a canceled screening of The Matrix Reloaded), but it does have some info on the game in there as well.
GameCube Wind Waker Interview A new interview with Eiji Aonuma, the director of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is up at Computer and Video Games tonight. Among other things, he says he's hoping to have a playable version of the sequel to the game at next year's E3.
PS2 Xbox GameBoy Advance Misc. Media/Previews GameSpot has a slew of new shots from BC (Xbox), as well as a preview of Boktai for GBA, and a Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King designer's diary. Also, CvG has a Silent Hill 3 "media fest," which also confirms that the next game in the series will have an entirely new engine, and IGN has 30 high-res shots from Gran Turismo 4 and ten new shots from SSX 3 (both PS2), as well as new shots from Sudeki for Xbox.
Console Game of the Evening: ICO for the PlayStation 2. "Quite simply, ICO is the most beautiful game ever created. A pure joy to play, from the opening cinematic, to the final fade out. I've never cared more for two imaginary characters. I've never seen more breathtaking environments. ICO has no equal." (submitted by pupismyname).

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