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Sega Sues Over Simpsons Game
Sega of America filed
a lawsuit yesterday against Fox Interactive,
Electronic Arts and Radical Entertainment, on the grounds
that The Simpsons: Road Rage is a carbon-copy
of Crazy Taxi. Although most of these lawsuits
are groundless, I really do know several people who said
that Road
Rage is so much like Crazy Taxi that
until I told them otherwise, they assumed it was licensed
from Sega. Fortunately Rockstar has nothing to worry about
with Hit & Run, as that game only took
the worst parts from Grand Theft Auto. Thanks
Slashdot Games for the tip. |
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VF: Cyber Generation on Four
Console Systems
Some new details from Virtua Fighter: Cyber Generation can
be found at Polygon Magazine, which were taken from a
recent Japanese language interview with Makoto Osaki of Sega-AM2.
Osaki talks about why they're targeting a younger audience
with the game, and also confirms that it will be released
for four platforms: GameCube and PS2, as previously reported,
but also Xbox and incredibly, Dreamcast. Thanks roushimsx
for the tip. |
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Fight Club: The Game?
From the "what the heck are they thinking" department comes word
from the Official US PlayStation Magazine that Vivendi Universal is working on a 3D fighting
game based on Fight Club. No word on whether or not there's
a multiplayer mode where you pummel on yourself until you win. |
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Four Swords Details
1UP
is reporting that The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords will
contain much more than just the multiplayer experience shown at E3 in May. Aside
from that game, there are two single player modes (a survival-type game and a
single player story-driven adventure) and Tetra's Trackers,
which was another simplistic title shown by Nintendo at E3. |
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Fable Chat Log
An edited chat log from the Fable developer chat the other night
is now available (thanks
Carnivac). There are a pretty wide range of topics covered, including how much
your
character ages in the game (from 12 to "55ish"), their use of day/night cycles
and weather effects, and even polygamy, which is actually possible in the game
(if you're clever). |
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R-Type Final Coming to America
Great news for shmup fans...Eidos
Interactive has announced that they will be
bringing R-Type Final to North America via their Fresh Games
label. A specific release date isn't available yet, but their press release
says to expect it "this winter." |
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Xbox Brings Troops, Families
Together
A follow-up on the story from earlier this year about the Army's use of Xbox
Live for recreation, this
Reuters article reports that thanks
to Xbox Live's voice chat features, soldiers can now chat with friends and family.
This is a pretty big expansion on the original rollout, as it's now being featured
at USO centers around the world, whereas previously it was only being used by
the
Air
Force
in
Europe. Naturally games will also be playable, including Shack-favorite Project
Gotham Racing 2. Thanks Slashdot
Games for the tip. |
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Tomonobu Itagaki Interview
Team Xbox has conducted a
new interview with Tomonobu Itagaki,
the head of Tecmo's Team Ninja, and the outspoken creator
of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive.
Itagaki-san is a little calmer than usual in this interview,
but he still manages to comment on all of his major products
in development, while dodging some important questions. He
also mentions briefly the Xbox Live features of Ninja
Gaiden, but you can find the same information a
bit more coherentlyhere
at SpyGN. |
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Rainbow Six 3 Stats Live
Ubisoft has launched their live
stats for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3. The simple web page shows the top players,
and you can search for yourself if you're not in the top 100. |
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Bandai Drops Hardware
This has been a long time coming, but nonetheless, Bandai
announced yesterday that they are officially exiting
the hardware business. While the Wonderswan never made
it out of Japan (although it came really close),
it was a moderate success over there, thanks largely
to the support of SquareSoft, who released the first
three Final Fantasy games for the platform
(among other games). |
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PSX Incompatibility List
As the system's going to be released in Japan next week, Sony has released a
list of accessories that are incompatible with their PSX ubersystem. These
include the obvious (PS2 BB unit and HDD, which are superfluous anyway) as
well as the questionable, like the lack of support for the PS2 multitap and
PocketStation. For more PSX fun, Sony Japan has posted a
bunch of commercials. |
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Seamus Blackley Interview
The first half of a two-part interview with Seamus Blackley is
up at GameSpot this evening. Blackley was one of the creators of the Xbox, but after his post-Microsoft
project went under he relocated to Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists
Agency, where he's their in-house games rep, and he talks about his new digs. |
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Pokemon Buggy
Nintendo
of Japan has announced that there are bugs in Pokemon
Ruby and Sapphire. Apparently
the bugs, which affect the growth and harvest of certain
berries and lottery tickets, show up after the game has
been in use for a full year. As the games haven't been
out that long in this country, it's unknown if the same
problem will surface in the localized versions of the games. |
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New SWON Content Available
LucasArts, who has already put out more extra content than
most companies, has released a
second round of downloadable content for Secret Weapons Over Normandy.
This time around you can grab a new plane and new single
player mission. |
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R: Racing Evolution Interview
The first part of Computer and Video Games' R: Racing Evolution interview
is
online tonight. The interview is with several members of the development team
at Namco, and they explain how this game differs from Ridge
Racer. |
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Samurai Shodown Zero, Others
Confirmed
SNK
has confirmed that a PS2 port of Samurai Shodown Zero is
in the works. No date has been announced yet, but they did announce that King
of Fighters 2003 and Metal Slug 5 will be released
for
the
NeoGeo
home system on
March
11th and February 19th respectively, and KoF 2001 will be released
for the Dreamcast on January 22nd. Note that these are all Japanese release dates. |
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Misc. Media/Previews |
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GameSpot has new
movies from Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D.
Revolution, SpyGN has new media from Custom
Robo 2 and Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, |
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SpyGN goes
hands-on with Nightshade, GameInformer
has new hands-on looks at Nightshade and Gran
Turismo 4 Prologue, 1UP has a
look at Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament and
Sony Japan has posted a
streaming movie with footage from Final
Fantasy XII and Samurai Warriors (the
official English-language name for the Dynasty Warriors-in-Japan
game). |
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New previews of Full Spectrum Warrior are
up at GameSpot and Xbox.SpyGN tonight. |
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Pocket.SpyGN has a
new preview of Sonic Battle. |
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GameSpot has new shots from The
Suffering (PS2,
XBox) and DRIV3R (GC,
PS2, Xbox), SpyGN has a
new profile from Sonic Heroes (GC,
PS2, Xbox), shots
from Star Trek: Shattered Universe (PS2,
Xbox), and a
first look at The Punisher (PS2,
Xbox), while
GameSpyGN has a
new preview of The Suffering. |
