Late Night Consoling

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While some sites are trying to catch up and are still posting impressions, it appears GameSpot is the second site to go live with a review of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. They're not as generous as IGN, giving it an 8.5 out of 10, and are a bit more vocal about the negatives of the game. If you're one of the few lucky gamers to have picked this up a day early, please spoiler tag story elements no matter where you discuss the game; LNC or the latest chatty, but do please share your impressions.

PS2 Erased Memory Card? Here's a Free Game! A couple weeks ago, gamers who tried to play the Viewtiful Joe 2 demo on the Playstation Underground demo disc were subjected to a nasty glitch that erased all the data on their memory card. In an attempt to make it up to those victims, Sony is allowing gamers to trade-in the defective disc for a free copy of a game on a select list of titles. The list isn't that impressive, but it does include Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Hot Shots Golf Fore! View the link for the full list.
SEGA Yuji Naka Has a Little Sonic in Him It appears the father of Sonic The Hedgehog has a little of 'Sonic' inside himself. The gaming legend not only creates games based around fast and twisting gameplay, he also enjoys hitting the race track from time to time. Back in mid-November, Naka was a guest racer in the Kumho Tyres Lotus Trophy in Tasmania. Although he was nowhere near the leader of the pack, he did turn in some laps that were only a second behind the top three racers. Check the link for a couple photos.
PS2 Xbox Prices on Sega's 2K Sports Games On the Rise? Reuters is reporting that the $20 sports games from Sega and Take-Two may not last forever. Executive Vice President Cindi Buckwalter said, "We continue to evaluate pricing. When the next-generation hardware comes out, we do expect to introduce the sports products at premium prices." Does that mean next year's line-up will still sell at a reduced price? We'll just have to wait and see.
Xbox Mega Man Anniversary Collection Coming to Xbox Due to its excellent sales on the PS2 and GameCube, Capcom has decided to port over the Mega Man Anniversary Collection to the Xbox. Since its release, it has sold over 500,000 copies. Todd Thorson, marketing director of Capcom Entertainment, said, "We are positively overwhelmed by the strong demand for the collection and anticipate its continued success at retail."
NDS Strides Made in Quest to Take the DS Online Gamers are an impatient group of people. Instead of waiting for Nintendo to take their DS platform online, they started doing it themselves. The major player in this underground movement is TeamXlink, who already have some stuff in the alpha stages, getting the Metroid Prime: Hunters to work over the 'net. There's also a student who has been able to find a way for the DS to download from his PC, yet has nothing to send it.
PS2 Xbox Big Mutha Truckers Gets a Sequel Here's a surprising stat; Big Mutha Truckers sold over a million copies. Because of that popularity, THQ has gone ahead and signed off on development of a sequel for the PS2 and Xbox. Still being developed by Eutechnyx, Big Mutha Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder! is set for a summer 2005 release, where players will race for money to afford an attorney for their tax-evading mother in jail and to bribe jury members. I think I'm going to go lay down now...
  Misc. Media/Previews
PS2 GamesAreFun hosts some high-quality images of Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerebus.
Xbox Last time I'm linking to impressions of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Game Informer)! Get 'em while you can! TeamXbox has a breakdown on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. They also have some assets for Jade Empire and footage of Chicago Enforcer.
GCN IGN does a whole hands-on dealie with Resident Evil 4. Game Informer does as well. GamesAreFun posts some images of Donkey Konga: Jungle Beat.
PSP N-Gage Both IGN and GameSpot has some hands-on time with the PSP. GameSpot has a hands-on impression of WWE Aftershock (NG) and media for both SSX Out of Bounds (NG) and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (NG).
PS2 Xbox GCN IGN has a progress report on Mercenaries (PS2, Xbox) and some hands-on impressions of The Punisher (PS2, Xbox). They also slap up more images for TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (PS2, Xbox, GCN).
Console Game of the Evening: Way of the Warrior for the 3DO. "A White Zombie soundtrack and tongue-in-cheek fatalities made WotW a fun fighter to hold over new 3DO owners." (submitted by sinistarfith).

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