Late Night Consoling

I played through a couple demos this weekend; Resident Evil 4 and Star Wars Republic Commando. My impression of Republic Commando was one of disappointment. It comes on the KOTOR II disc and is rather short and offered absolutely nothing exciting that made me think, "Wow, this could be something special." The selling point of the game, bossing around a squad, seemed to be as scripted as it could get. I figured I could aim at any object and be able to tell a squadmate to cover me from that position, but it doesn't appear possible. Resident Evil 4, however, showed so much promise that it's jumped up exponentially on my "most anticipated" list. This was a demo that showcased the strong points of a title; the easy aiming system, the ability to heavily interact with the environments, and smart enemies; no lumbering zombies here. My only grievance is the lack of a strafe button.

	Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas Save November Sales Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said, "Without contribution from Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, [revenues] would have been down 21 percent over last year." Instead, sales rose 11% from November last year, bringing in over $849 million. Electronic Arts had a sales decline of 23% due to Take-Two's price cuts for its 2K series of sports titles. If you were curious, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has sold about 3.6 million copies.
	PSP Launch Woes With only 200,000 units available for purchase on launch day, Sony already had a problem meeting consumer demand. The company hoped to be able to ship 100,000 units per week thereafter, but the company is now mum on whether or not it can keep that promise. Supposedly, according to Mainichi Interactive, Sony is having trouble securing components to produce that many PSPs.
	SCEE Talks Early Release Schedule for PSP Both Americans and Europeans are currently slated to get their hands on the PSP sometime before the end of March and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has gone ahead and listed some titles that will be available at or around launch. Nothing stands out as a "must-have," but Hot Shots Golf and WipEout Pure are sure to please some people. Other games are Ridge Racers, MediEvil, Formula One, and Ape Academy.
	New Harvest Moon Titles Marvelous Interactive announced another chapter in the Harvest Moon series, Harvest Moon: Song of Happiness. Under development for the GameCube, some of the new features to series will be the ability to sell off property, be attacked by wild dogs, and the loss of cattle if you don't properly lock 'em up. It's about 65% complete and will release in Japan sometime next year.
	Lionhead Cancels Unity Jeff Minter's latest project, Unity, has been officially canceled by Lionhead Studios. In development for over two years for the Nintendo GameCube, Unity was to be an innovative light and sound game, a shooter that zoomed through swirling, psychedelic environments. Jeff Minter posted on his own forum, "It's been a horrible decision for us to have to make, but in the end we've had to make it ... and realistically it was becoming unlikely that it'd be finished in time for anyone to want to publish it on GameCube. The alternative would be a rush job and we simply didn't want to do that. Best to call it a day."
	Misc. Q&As/Features GameSpot has a video interview with a developer on 25 to Life. They also have an article chronicling the PSP's rough start.
	Misc. Media/Previews
	Game Informer does their daily media blowout on The Getaway: Black Monday. A few more shots of Capcom Fighting Evolution can be found here at the Shack.
	GameSpot gives us more movies of Oddworld Stranger's Wrath and some VR screenshots of Unreal Championship 2.
	GameSpot has a PSP blowout with images of MediEvil, Ridge Racers, and Ape Academy. They also throw in a movie of Ace Combat Advance (GBA). Game Informer goes hands-on with Dynasty Warriors (PSP). Planet GameCube contributes with more images of Zoo Keeper (NDS). GameSpy has screens of Ys VI - The Ark of Napishtim (PSP). IGN tells all in this look at WipEout Pure.
	A video tour of Mercenaries (PS2, Xbox) can be found at GameSpot. IGN has a bunch of new videos for NFL Street 2 (PS2, Xbox, GCN). WorthPlaying posts a preview of Darkwatch (PS2, Xbox).