So I went back to that retailer I spoke with earlier in the week yesterday to fund out how many Xbox consoles they received, and guess how many they got? Three. Three! The person I spoke with said they're expecting to get an okay-sized GameCube shipment, but he tried to downplay it as much as possible, pointing out their ample PS2 stock. I suspect this is commonplace at most game stores these days, independent or not.

• Let's kick things off tonight with some reviews, shall we? PSX.IGN has posted reviews of Enix' decidedly-retro (and superfreakylong) Dragon Warrior VII (8.7) and Syphon Filter 3 (7.5), a review of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for the GameCube (9.0) can be found at GameSpot, PS2.IGN's got a review of Half-Life for the PS2 (9.1) and The GIA has reviewed Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 (3 out of 5).
• For those lucky enough to have an Xbox and Halo, IGN has posted their full guide to the game (free registration required).
• More fun for those enjoying their brand new Xbox: Xbox.IGN has posted a round-up of all of their non-game-related articles, which cover everything from the Japanese controller to easter eggs and the system's MP3 player.
• Still more Xbox news: the first details are now available on the system's Australian launch, which is scheduled for March 14, 2002, and it has been confirmed that Microsoft will be releasing an SCART connector in Europe.
• New shots and a gameplay moviefrom the GameCube Resident Evil can be found at Cube.IGN tonight.
• According to GameSpot, the PS2 version of Virtua Fighter 4 will be released in North America in March.
• Pocket.IGN has some new shots from Super Mario Advance 2, which is of course a handheld version of Super Mario World.
• You've read ours, but if you're looking for a second opinion, GameSpot has posted their holiday guide.
• GameSpot has a news item that suggests all may not be rosy with the upcoming Matrix games from Interplay and Shiny. Their reasoning is based on a contract loophole, but they don't seem to have any real evidence that the game is in jeopardy. If anything, the game is benefitting from the delays the movie(s) have encountered, since their contract with Microsoft requires the game to ship alongside the sequel.

Console Game of the Evening (concluding Launch Week): Actraiser for the SNES. A very strange, but fun game. Some people point to Dark Cloud as having similar building elements, although they are two very different games.