Warning: potential minor Metal Gear Solid 2 spoiler ahead. Nothing too serious, but I wanted to get that out of the way so nobody claims I didn't warn them. I finished the game this evening, and while I think it's a great game, the fact is that the plot is laughably complex. It's basically the equivalent of either buying a cup of coffee, or training an elite team of CIA agents to slowly infiltrate the Colombian government, stage a coup, institute a countrywide coffee factory, genetically engineering a specific new strain of coffee bean, carefully creating a single cup of coffee and then creating a clone of Juan Valdez to personally deliver it to you. That's a problem I have with a lot of action movies, so I guess it's only fitting that it be a problem here. But anyone who thinks the Final Fantasy games have silly plots with hokey new age philosophy (let's face it - they do) is going to have a field day with this one.

• As expected, while Nintendo and Microsoft fight over who sold the most consoles, Sony's raking it in. On a similar note, MGS2 is doing very well in Japan. Which is a little surprising, since the series has traditionally done far better here in the US than overseas.
• Here are some great new shots from Soul Calibur 2.
• Here's a pleasant surprise: Nintendo of America is going to be releasing Super Mario Advance 2 under its real name, Super Mario World (with SMA2 as a subtitle). Look for it in February.
• Delta Force is coming to the PS2 in Europe. No word on an American release yet.
• Yes! Another train simulator for the PS2! This genre, along with equestrian RPGs and roommate/girlfriend simulators thankfully will never leave the shores of Japan.
  
• It's not entirely clear when exactly, but Silent Hill 2 for the Xbox will be out a lot sooner than I thought. Z.O.E. for GBA, too.
• Good lord, could Microsoft really be considering a buyout of Take Two?
• GameSpot has a Final Fantasy X Q&A online tonight. Also, they are reporting that the game may ship before Christmas after all.

Console Game of the Evening (concluding Good Licensed Games Week): Super Star Wars for the SNES. Okay, so it's no Rogue Leader or nearly as good as the old vector-graphics arcade game, but this was still a really fun side scroller at a time when licensed side scrollers were horrible beyond belief (thanks mainly to Acclaim's piles of shovelware).