Late Night Consoling
Adventure Gamers linked today to the GBAGI project, a nifty little GBA interpreter for old-school Sierra games. The interesting thing about this project is that the author was actually flown out to Vivendi Universal to discuss the possibility of commercially releasing old Sierra games like Kings's Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry, but was told that they wouldn't be willing to do it after the poor sales of Blizzard's The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne ports (which, let's face it are completely different animals entirely). That's a shame, because I love those games...especially the early Space Quest and King's Quest games and the two Manhunter titles. You can of course still run the software on your own, but you'll need to purchase one of those GBA Linker kits to do it and those are pretty pricey (not to mention the fact that they fall into that gray area legally). Still, I think it's pretty depressing that there's no market on the GBA for classic games that are a little more off the beaten path than the SNES, NES and Atari games we keep seeing. I am definitely surprised that Blizzard's Classic Arcade line hasn't been very successful. I would have thought the Blizzard name would have helped there. I guess I should stop holding out for GBA-exclusive WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo games then...
| Halo 2 Delayed We all knew this was coming, but it still sucks...Bungie confirmed today that Halo 2 won't be out this spring, but instead they are "confident" that the game will ship in the fall (of this year). To make that go down a bit smoother, they've posted a rather large (1.2 MB) multiplayer image from the game, which you can find in that post at Bungie.net, or in the latest Halo update, which at least they're no longer labeling "weekly" as we've seen quite a few of these lately. |
| Capcom! Capcom! Capcom! Capcom held their big press event yesterday, and so there's lots of coverage online of the various games on display. GameSpot has a nice index of their coverage, as does 1UP, but you'll have to wade through the links at Cube and PS2.IGN for IGN's coverage and check GameSpy's main page for their coverage (which includes a Q&A with Keji Inafune, the creator of Onimusha). |
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| Killer 7 PS2 Confirmed One announcement from the Capcom press event that deserves a mention on its own is the news that Killer 7, the cel-shaded game of schizophrenic assassination, is no longer a GameCube exclusive, and instead will be released for the PS2. There's no date set for the PS2 port, but GameCube version is set for release in Japan and North America by the end of the year. |
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| THUG2 Confirmed Along with a 34% increase in revenues, Activision announced that this year will see a sequel to Tony Hawk's Underground. While we've all been accustomed to having a new Tony Hawk every year, the radical departure that was THUG lead many to wonder if the next game would be a direct sequel, a return to the old style gameplay or something else entirely. |
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| Nintendo Cuts Profit Estimates Despite the recent press releases about how Nintendo sold systems like hotcakes this past holiday season, the company announced today that they will be cutting their full year profit by 10%. The reasons cited include that finicky Yen valuation, but they also confirmed that they may not reach their previous sales estimates for GameCube system sales. |
| N-Gage Yoinked from GameStop Stores, New Model at E3? As noted in this story at GameSpot, retail chain GameStop has pulled the N-Gage from some 450 of their stores. This is said to be a reallocation of sorts, with the units pulled from some stores being moved to ones where sales have been greater. GameSpot has confirmed that EB Games has no intentions of doing anything similar, and the N-Gage will be carried at all stores for the foreseeable future. In other N-Gage news, MCV is reporting that new N-Gage handsets might be unveiled at E3 in May (thanks 1UP). |
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| Xbox Will Never Be Profitable According to The Register, in a speech to analysts in Boston, Microsoft CFO John "come with me if you want to live" Connors said that "there's no way to make money" off the Xbox. He was of course talking about how this current generation will lead into a (hopefully) more profitable second round for the system, but that's a great headline, ain't it? |
| New DS Details The latest issue of the Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu contains some new details on Nintendo's upcoming DS system. According to the magazine (as relayed through 1UP), the game uses memory cards instead of full GBA-style cartridges, backwards compatibility with the GBA is "undecided as yet", wireless connectivity "will remain secret until E3", it will have a rechargeable battery like the GBA SP, and that Miyamoto is "involved" with game development for the system (although he's "involved" with so many games at this point you have to wonder how much he's actually doing). |
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| Bejeweled, Bookworm Announced for GBA Majesco has announced plans to release the web-games Bejeweled and Bookworm for GBA later this year. It seems like the games will be released separately, which is a bit disappointing when you consider that you can get PopCap 5-packs for Palm and Pocket PC for $30 (not to mention play them for free online). |
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| Metroid: Zero Mission Interview Pocket.IGN has posted a complete transcript of a roundtable discussion with Yoshio Sakamoto, the director of the upcoming Metroid: Zero Mission, who has actually been with the franchise since the very beginning. If you're too lazy to read all that, GameInformer has posted the entire thing in MP3 format. |
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| Ninja Gaiden Delayed Don't worry it's not by much, but according to IGN, the eagerly-anticipated Ninja Gaiden has been pushed back again. Although its latest release date was February 13th, it is now expected to arrive on either the 19th or 23rd. As a consolation (hey, that's what we're here for), IGN has posted new movies from the game. |
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| PS2 Colin McRae 04 Canceled Codemasters announced today that they have canceled the planned North American release of Colin McRae Rally 04 for PS2. While the series is nowhere near as popular here as it is in Europe, Codemasters' reasoning seems to be a bit suspect: they cite Xbox Live support as the reason for keeping the Xbox version alive, but that version won't actually have online gaming support, just the ability to download stats, which hardly makes it competition for games like Project Gotham Racing 2 and Rallisport Challenge 2. |
| NiGHTS Sequel Someday? GamerFeed has posted a really poorly translated quote from a representative from Sonic Team (that was apparently lifted from the current issue of EGM) who says, "If the voice of many fans is heard, NiGHTS will become one of my next projects in the future." Uh, okay. And the Jade Monkey flies at midnight. Beware the purple giraffe. |
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| Virtual Super Bowl Predictions Spoiler warning! This Sunday is some sort of big football event (or so I'm told, anyway), and so as they do every year, Sony has released their virtual predictions of the outcome (thanks Slashdot Games for the tip). Also note that EA Sports has all sorts of Super Bowl-related stuff over at their website, and 1UP has posted predictions of their own. |
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| Breakdown Interview, Previews Team Xbox has conducted an interview with Hirofumi Kami, the producer at Namco on their unusual FPS Breakdown. In other Breakdown-related news, IGN and GameSpy both have new previews of the game. And yes, I realize all three of those sites are owned by the same company. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| New media from Pokemon Colosseum is up at IGN tonight, The Magic Box has new shots from Homeland and GameInformer goes hands-on with Bomberman Jetters. |
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| PS2.IGN has posted a 3-in-1 preview of Konami's Cy Girls, Firefighter FD18 and LifeLine and new media from Nightshade and AirForce Delta Strike, GameSpy has another entry in their R-Type Final Developer's Diary and GameSpot has new shots from Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX. |
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| The first shots from the Xbox port of Guilty Gear XX #Reload are up at The Magic Box, CVG has a hands-on look at Rallisport Challenge 2, HomeLAN has a new preview of Dead Man's Hand, IGN goes hands-on with Colin McRae Rally 04 and has new media from Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and Tenchu: Return from Darkness, |
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| IGN has posted the first shots and details from Tork and GamerFeed is the latest site to go hands-on with Metroid: Zero Mission. |
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| Fappin has a new preview of DRIV3R (PS2, Xbox), GameSpot has new media from NBA Ballers (GC, PS2, Xbox), 007: Everything or Nothing (GC, PS2, Xbox), MVP Baseball 2004 (GC, PS2, Xbox) and The Suffering (PS2, Xbox), GameSpy has new media of their own from the Suffering and Team Xbox has new character renders from 007: Everything or Nothing. |
