Late Night Consoling

June 18, 2003 8:00 PM

A couple of quick things here tonight...first up, if you haven't already seen Portax's excellent Shackers' Gamertags List of Death, check it out, and more importantly, sign up. It's a great listing of Xbox Live gamertags from your fellow Shacknews readers, and the more the merrier. Thanks wunderbred for pointing that out. On a totally unrelated note, I'm still trying to get a handle on my weekly release list here, and while I've managed to kludge together a passable list from various online retailers, I'm still looking for a better solution. If you know one, don't hesitate to let me know. As evidence of that, I guess I should point out that I neglected to mention last night that Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut shipped this week for GameCube. Consider that issue rectified.

	First Glimpse at Oddworld 4 PS2.IGN has posted a movie (available in Windows Media format only) that offers the first look at Steef, the protagonist of the next Oddworld game, which will have its first glimpse this Friday in a show airing on the Discovery Channel. Also, GameSpot has two images of their own, and a really quick snippit from the game can be found if you watch the commercial for the show that's available online. While it's geared for a mainstream audience, I do have somewhat high hopes for this show, as it looks like they talked to all the right people (whether you like their games or not, Oddworld's Lorne Lanning is a smart, smart guy, and really fascinating to listen to).
	Crimson Skies Clip Another notable story from that same Discovery Channel show airing on Friday is up at IGN tonight...they have posted a clip (likewise in Windows Media format) that offers a look behind the scenes at Microsoft, showing the Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge team preparing to unveil the early version of the game that was not received well at all by the press and public alike.
	Xbox 2 in 2006? GamePro reports that at a conference about IT investing, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that while the company is "having trouble" in the Japanese market, they expect to have that situation turned around by the time they launch their Xbox follow-up system in 2006. Whether that date is strictly for the Japanese market or global remains to be seen. He also dismissed the rumors that Microsoft is contemplating a buy-out of Sega.
	Shadow Hearts 2 Announced Developer Aruze has announced Shadow Hearts 2, a sequel to their RPG from a few years back that was released in this country by Midway. Details and some fuzzy (scanned) screenshots can be found at GameSpot tonight.
	2k Officially Gone At an event at the ESPNZone center here in New York City, Sega officially announced today that they have dropped the 2k moniker from their entire sports lineup, and will instead be using the ESPN brand. The one talked about today was ESPN NFL Football, and it was also confirmed that player Warren Sapp will serve as this year's cover model.
	Unreal II for Xbox Confirmed Gavin from the Official Xbox Magazine UK dropped me a line to let me know that they have confirmed that Unreal II is indeed in development for Xbox, and was only pulled from Atari's E3 lineup at the last minute because it wasn't ready to show yet.
	No Xboy Anytime Soon While attending the ELSPA Games Summit in London, Microsoft's Peter Moore addressed the question of whether or not we'll see a Microsoft handheld system to compete with Sony and Nintendo. He dismisses the question outright, asserting that Microsoft believes, "that the future is the social element of gaming, and that's going to be done through a console, not through a handheld gaming device." So that's that.
	Star Ocean 3 Interview Over at Computer and Video Games tonight is an interview with Yoshinori Yamagishi, the producer at SquareEnix on their upcoming RPG Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time.
	WarioWare in Wario World According to Computer and Video Games, owners of a Game Boy Advance can unlock playable demos from WarioWare, Inc. in Wario World. In other Wario World news, CvG also has hands-on impressions of the game, and new screenshots are up at GameSpot.
	Yet Another Guilty Gear X in Japan GamePro is reporting that Sammy has announced a home version of Guilty Gear XX #RELOAD that will be released in Japan in late July. This is a minor update of the game released here as Guilty Gear X2, and will be released overseas as a budget-priced title.
	Misc. Media/Previews GameSpot has new shots from Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (GBA) as well as their hands-on impressions of Pirates of the Caribbean (Xbox). IGN has some new shots from Ghost Hunter (PS2), while Games Are Fun has some screenshots from Mario Golf (GC), The Magic Box has shots from F-Zero GX (GC) and GamerFeed links to a Japanese trailer for Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2).

Console Game of the Evening: Einhander for the PSOne. "The greatest shooter no one played (less than 50,000 units sold in the US). The first rail shooter to break into the 3D arena, Einhander had full 3D graphics, intense gameplay, huge bosses, and one of the greatest soundtracks to ever grace a video game." (submitted by XerXes).