Late Night Consoling

August 25, 2003 8:00 PM

One of the things that I've been attempting to do lately is to modernize my console collection. Basically this means moving as many systems as I can away from the archaic technology that was RF (which significantly degrades in quality when daisy-chained) over to the much nicer and more reliable composite or s-video. This has been remarkably easy for the most part, as stores like Lik-Sang carry inexpensive cables for hooking up older systems like the SNES and Genesis via composite video, and while I've been at it, I've also been picking up extension cables as well, since in the old days us console gamers liked to sit much closer to our televisions when playing these things (or something). Like I said, it's been fairly easy for the most part, but today I ran into a brick wall when attempting to modernize my TurboGrafx 16. The TG16 was not a particularly pretty piece of console technology. It has a single gamepad port, and its controllers have what has got to be the most pathetically short cable I've ever seen. But the worst thing has to be the fact that NEC made it so the only way to get A/V outputs from the system was with the Turbo Booster, a cumbersome bit of hardware that also contains the ability to save games to the hardware (something that is sorely lacking from most TG games). Now the Turbo Booster isn't particularly difficult to come by -- it's on eBay all the time -- but it would be so much easier (not to mention cheaper) if all it needed was a simple cable. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this thing yet. I may just put it aside completely for the time being and wait until I feel like plunking down the cash for a TurboDuo, which was an infinitely better designed system (and is easier to find than the TurboCD add-on that I also don't have).

	Team Ninja Interview Over the weekend, GameSpy posted a new interview with Tomonobu Itagaki, the head of Tecmo's Team Ninja and one of my favorite industry personalities. As always, Itagaki-san makes for an excellent interview subject, and here he comments on his favorite game (Wizardry), why he'll never make an RPG ("for business reasons"), his thoughts on Soul Calibur II ("I personally feel sympathy toward the people who made the game") and what he thinks of those people who hacked nude skins into Dead or Alive 3 ("I think that those hackers should spend their time on something more productive") among many other topics.
	Paper Mario Confirmed, Mario 64 on the Way? According to IGN, Nintendo of Europe has confirmed the rumor that popped up last Friday, and it looks like Paper Mario will indeed be coming out for GameCube next year in the first half of 2004. In other GameCube/N64 news, a new rumor started making the rounds today (care of the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly) that says a bonus disc that will ship with Mario Kart: Double Dash will contain a port of Mario Kart 64. Note that this is still very much a rumor at this point.
	Sega Q&A Video Fenky has translated a Q&A with Hisao Oguchi, the newly promoted president of Sega. Oguchi comes to the corporate side as a former game producer, so this is a much more interesting interview than most you'll find with the heads of major companies.
	LAN Play in Star Fox 2, GameSpy Support Committed A post on Nintendojo confirms that both 1080: Avalanche and Star Fox 2 will support LAN play when used with the GameCube's broadband adapter. A second post confirms that Mario Kart: Double Dash will support up to 16 players over a LAN, and reminds us that GameSpy has already committed to supporting GameCube games via their tunneling software. Thanks Slashdot Games for the tip.
	Battlestar Galactica Q&A A new Q&A with well-known british comic writer Grant Morrison is up at GameSpot tonight, talking with him about his work on the upcoming Battlestar Galactica game.
	Activision Anthology Games List IGN has posted a list of confirmed games for Aspyr's upcoming Activision Anthology for GBA. Included are some 50 classic (and not-so-classic) 2600 games, as well as a handful of community developed titles that were created after the system was designated an open platform.
	GBA Unlockables in Billy Hatcher Sega has announced that Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg will contain several unlockable games that can be downloaded to a connected GBA. Three games that have been announced so far as NiGHTS: Into Dreams, Puyo Pop and Chu Chu Rocket, with at least one more still to be revealed.
	Kingdom Hearts 2 at TGS? Hudson's Mystery Game? Rumors have started circulating over the last few days that SquareSoft will unveil Kingdom Hearts 2 at the Tokyo Game Show next month in Japan. The original source for this news seems to be a presentation by the president of Disney Consumer Products, who mentioned this in a presentation at the GC2003 event in Germany, along with the news that an animated series based on the game(s) is also in the works. Also making the rounds is word that Hudson Soft (who hasn't really had a whole lot to be excited about lately) will be announcing a new "big" title at the show.
	Rainbow Six 3 Q&A HomeLAN has conducted a Q&A with Mike McCoy, the producer at Ubi Soft on their upcoming Xbox title Rainbow Six 3, which is no simple port, but rather what is basically an entirely new game for the Xbox.
	Soul Calibur II Stick Q&A Also at HomeLAN is a Q&A with an unnamed representative for Nuby, talking about their universal Soul Calibur II stick, which is the official SC2 controller for North America.
	Cube/GBA Connection List Updated IGN has updated their master list of games that utilize the connection between the GameCube and GBA. As always, they make note of whether or not the game takes advantage of the e-Reader device, and mention whether it's a miniscule, minor or major feature.
	Misc. Media/Previews Thanks to the GC2003 event and Atari's press event, this is extra-specially big tonight...starting over at GameSpot, where they have new shots from Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (GC, PS2, Xbox), Hunter: The Reckoning Wayward (PS2), Dungeons & Dragons Heroes (Xbox), and The Simpsons: Hit and Run (GC, PS2, Xbox), a new section devoted to the N-Gage, and impressions of Kya: Dark Lineage (PS2), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (GC, PS2, Xbox), Dead Man's Hand (Xbox), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 (PS2), Transformers Armada: Prelude to Energon (PS2), Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu (GBA) and Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma (PS2, Xbox). IGN has a progress report on Pikmin 2 (GC), and GC2003 booth reports on Acclaim, Activision, Codemasters, Konami, Nintendo, Microsoft, Eidos, THQ and Ubi Soft, along with impressions of Mario Kart: Double Dash (GC), Tony Hawk's Underground (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Ghosthunter (PS2), new shots and info from Driver 3 (GC, PS2, Xbox), new shots from Legacy of Kain: Defiance (PS2, Xbox), Sonic Heroes (GC, PS2, Xbox), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Medal of Honor: Infiltration (GBA) and new movies from Jak II (PS2). Elsewhere online, GamePro has a list of Ferarris that will be featured in OutRun 2 (Arcade/Xbox), Games Are Fun has some nice images of the Final Fantasy X-2 figures, GameSpy thankfully has a full list of their Atari Editor's Day content (so I don't have to make my own), The Magic Box has new shots from Fatal Frame 2 (PS2) and Otogi: Hyakki Toubatsu Emaki (Xbox) and Gamers.com has new details and shots from Resident Evil: Outbreak (PS2) and links to a newly-localized song from the Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2) soundtrack.

Console Game of the Evening: Strider for the Turbo Grafx-16. "(For SuperGrafx) I drooled heavily over the first screenshots I saw of this in EGM back in the day. Never was released, unfortunately: apparently the programmer had to be hospitalized!" (submitted by funkatron).

jason bergman

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