Well we havent looked at game sales figures in a while, but I thought the debut of The Daikatana on the sales charts would be of interest. Ion Storm's baby shows up at the #5 spot, quite respectable. Average retail price: $32. While on the topic I actually had this list of ratings for the game sent to me which is pretty interesting.

Word from the FrontLine via John Romero is that a patch for The Daikatana will be available within about 10 days which is going to feature ports of maps like Doom2 Map01/Map07 among other things. (Including misc fixes for the game)

They'll be up on the net in about 10 days -- right around when we issue the patch.

If the PC version of Daikatana isnt enough for you, check out the GameBoy color version that is in development. (Thanks to an Anon) Eidos isnt just having the Daikatana property ported over either, here are some snapshots of TombRaider for GameBoy.

GameFan has a review of Daikatana which features a bit of Q&A with John Romero on page5.

GameSpot has an entirely lengthy article for your weekend entitled Knee Deep in a Dream- The Story of Daikatana. It's about as in depth as you can get looking at the lengthy development process that went behind getting Daikatana on the shelves. (As well as some bio on The Romero before his forming Ion Storm) Unlike most Daikatana articles this one appears to give a good honest look at the company so you can make your own judgements.

Romero thought his dream would be realized when he founded Ion Storm. But sometimes the path to realizing a fantasy can be long and winding, filled with friends, foes, and fallacies.

Something Awful has the scoop, John Romero's next game will be John Romero presents John Romero's John Romero! Future comments from Shack included already, Lowtax has some amazing technology there.

Well, after a few years of development it looks like even The Daikatana is not perfect. Noel Stephens from Ion has word in his. plan update that they are working on a patch for the game. Working on the AI and the Sidekicks among other things.

Daikatana has hit the shelves!  Along with this comes the inevitable... the dreaded patch.  However, never fear too much regarding this.  ChalreZ, Shawn, and of course myself have been working on fixes for things that we have come to discover since the demo release on the code side, and I know the mappers have been adding some fixes and a few extra goodies to make the patch that much more welcome when it is released. As far as Shawn and Charles are concerned, I know they have both been working in their 'areas' as I have been working on AI, World, and of course Sidekick related issues.  Some of the windows 2000 issues that have been solved are relating to level transitions and I know Shawn is working on one particular load game issue under Win2k.

The Daikatana has been showing up on store shelves in a few places amazingly enough and although I dont plan on linking the reviews, I figure the first one out the door is probably worth some attention. Get this:

Thankfully, the game does get much better the more you progress. The more I played, the more I didn’t notice some of the garish colors. As I took less notice of how much the game's Quake 2 technology lagged UT and Quake 3, I began to better appreciate Daikatana's strengths. And of these there are many: a well-developed and well-executed story; four distinct game episodes (Athens is very cool!), all with different textures, music, weapons, and monsters; and two "sidekicks" you can boss around (or make your bitches, I guess), Mikiko and Superfly.

Blue and loony are reporting that Daikatana is popping up all over the place as of today. Stores seem to be filling out their pre-order requests a good three days before the official release date. So if you need your Daikatana now, you can try go to go out a huntin' for non pre-ordered copies.

DaikataNews has a whole bunch of Daikatana screenshots if you're interested.

The Daikatana should be showing up in stores any day now. To celebrate Incite has a new video with in-game footage from The Daikatana. Also in celebration I would like to point you guys to the origins of "The Romero" and "The Carmack". Pointless Shack. You can also check out screenshots from every level & episode as well as shots from the DTag and CTF levels.

A new Ion Storm Daily Informant is up and has word from John Romero on his next game. As many of you probably recall a story ran a story a little while ago (and followup) with some quotes from John. Here is his reply:

"I definitely did not confirm in any way what my next game will be like. Every game I've developed over the last couple decades has been based in some way on the previous game I developed because I always use my last game as a baseline for design features on the next one. The fact that I enjoy playing through a game with sidekicks could mean that I will have sidekicks, in some form, in my next game... possibly. At this point, the design of my next title is not solid enough to give out *any* information on, nor will I be divulging information about it until it's time.

For all the Mac gamers, there's a petition on Utterer for those who wouldn't like to see Daikatana coming to this platform. Unless Killcreek nudies are included. update by Steve: In case nobody noticed, this is a joke. Leave poor Maarten alone. :)

With the completion and pending release of Daikatana, everyone is already looking towards what is next for John Romero. FGNOnline squeezed a few quotes out of The Romero Thanks EricZeeBee

"Daikatana used principles from Quake as a baseline," [snip]  "and so my next title will use elements from Daikatana as a baseline for its content. It's an evolutionary process, as each game takes elements from its predecessors but adds to and improves upon them." [snip] "My next game will have side-kicks, and the characters will have statistics and abilities... "

GamesDomain has an interview up with John Romero, which they conducted during E3. Thanks loony.

The date you've all been waiting for: According to the AVault, Daikatana is coming to stores May 22.

Daikatananews has a brief Q&A with TheRomero asking if he feels good about the completed game. John responds with 'the whole game feels right to me'.

Gamer's Voice is reporting that while Daikatana won't be in stores until after E3, they won't be promoting the game at the show except that Romero will be there.

Daikatana Headquarters now has a complete walkthrough of the demo levels.

Old Man Murray has a form letter from The Romero, sent as a reply to someone who emailed him. He talks about the backlash against Daikatana (too much early PR) and the Daily Radar demo review, which is harsh like most others.