Late Night Consoling

It happened. At 21.4356 years of age, I had my first "Kids these days!" moment. It occurred earlier today when I stopped in at a local EBgames to check out the Nintendo DS. There were two, side-by-side, and noticed the person stationed on the right was fooling around with PictoChat. I joined the chatroom and drew a smiley face. He replied with a drawing of his own, one too crude to describe here for fear of FCC repercussions. It didn't take long for me to realize PictoChat is an amazingly cool app and I felt jealous that I wasn't in the 6th grade anymore. "Oh man, kids these days are so lucky!" I thought. I would've killed to have a wireless chat device when I was in junior high. Then when we got bored of drawing boobies, we'd fire up Metroid Prime: Hunters. I was very surprised at how comfortable it was to use the stylus to aim; very smooth and accurate. I expect the DS to soon be making headlines across the nation as school after school bans them from the classroom.

	Gran Turismo 4 Delayed Until 2005... The perpetually delayed Gran Turismo 4 just received another setback. Currently planned for a December 14 release this year, Sony announced that the game will now slip into the first quarter of 2005. Ron Eagle, PR manager of SCEA, commented, "Natural challenges with finalizing all the key features and localization issues across worldwide territories have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date in order to ensure that Gran Turismo 4 lives up to the exacting standards of the 36 million-plus fans worldwide that have purchased previous versions of our best-selling franchise."
	...Along with The King of Fighters 2002/2003 GT4 wasn't the only delay of the day. SNK NeoGeo USA revealed that their online brawler The King of Fighters 2002/2003 has been kicked back to January or February of 2005. No official reason for the delay was mentioned.
	Ignition Unveils "Mercury" Not only are they bringing over quirky Japanese games to the US, but Ignition is also developing some of their own. The publisher has tapped Awesome Studios to develop Mercury, a puzzle game that, at first glance, appears to be much more sophisticated version of Marble Madness. Players control a gloop of mercury and they tilt the world board around (think Super Monkey Ball) as they navigate the mercury ball through traps, obstacles, and hazards.
	Free Xbox Game with Live Referral Microsoft revealed a new promotion for the European market that could have gamers scoring up to ten new games...free! For each friend a person gets to sign up for a year of Xbox Live, Microsoft will send out a game of their choice (from a limited selection). These aren't your bargain basement titles either; there are ten choices, with such big-names as Fable, Rallisport Challenge 2, Project Gotham Racing 2, and Ninja Gaiden. There's no limit on how many games a person can accrue, so if you're anxious, go to the site here and refer a pal.
	Misc. Q&As/Features Game Informer chats with Nintendo's marketing VP, Perrin Kaplan, about all-things Nintendo. GameRadio.de has a video interview with the senior producer of Getaway 2: Black Monday. Another interview of Mike Capps about Unreal Championship 2, this time at GameSpot.
	Misc. Media/Previews
	GameSpot previews The King of Fighters 2002 & 2003. GamerFeed posts impressions of Tenchu: Fatal Shadows.
	IGN plays through the first planet of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and tells us how the sequel fares. they also bust out a handful of new screens for Unreal Championship 2; GameSpot has a preview of it here.
	At GameSpy, we can find new pictures of Mario Party 6.
	GameSpot previews the sports titles of the Nintendo DS. Game Informer has a video that showcases the three new Nintendo DS commercials. GameGossip posts the first screens of Mercury (PSP). IGN has some new media for Hot Shots Golf! (PSP) and a hands-on of WarioWare Touched! (NDS).
	Game Informer has a new trailer for Darkwatch (PS2, Xbox). GameSpy tosses us new screens of NFL Street 2 (PS2, Xbox, GCN).