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But, they did re-release those games, playable on your Playstation or Playstation 2. Look for Final Fantasy Origins, Final Fantasy Chronicles and Final Fantasy Anthology. With those 3 collections, you get Final Fantasy 1-6 (except 3), all in english plus Chrono Trigger! And better yet, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 have received much needed graphical overhauls.

Links : Origins, Chronicles, Anthology

But, they did re-release those games, playable on your Playstation or Playstation 2. Look for Final Fantasy Origins, Final Fantasy Chronicles and Final Fantasy Anthology. With those 3 collections, you get Final Fantasy 1-6 (except 3), all in english plus Chrono Trigger! And better yet, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 have received much needed graphical overhauls.

Links : Origins, Chronicles, Anthology

But, they did re-release those games, playable on your Playstation or Playstation 2. Look for Final Fantasy Origins, Final Fantasy Chronicles and Final Fantasy Anthology. With those 3 collections, you get Final Fantasy 1-6 (except 3), all in english plus Chrono Trigger! And better yet, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 have received much needed graphical overhauls.

Links : Origins, Chronicles, Anthology

Nintendo's page on the GCN's connectivity
IGN's page on the modem
IGN's page on the ethernet adaptor

Nintendo's page on the GCN's connectivity
IGN's page on the modem
IGN's page on the ethernet adaptor

Sorry, I forgot that <a href=""> business. So sue me.

HTML is allowed:
http://pocket.ign.com/articles/430/430939p1.html

That's quite some time for Nintendo to get serious with its Gameboy.

Check out the IGN article on the specs as well.

The device looks great, but how in the world will you power it all? Plus by including all the original buttons (although only one analog stick) this isn't going to be small by any means. This seems to be sized more like a micro laptop than anything else. However, using all the original controls lets them make it PSOne port friendly. In an ideal world you'd be able to rip PSOne cd's to this new format disc and just play them directly, but no way Sony would give up that much money in licensing.

Serious audio though, which hopefully will spur Nintendo to finally add dedicated audio hardware to future GBA's.

Impressive stats, we'll have to see how much they can deliver. But, hey, if they build a great portable with the same sort of size as my GBA SP, with a 10 hour battery, backlit screen, etc., I'd be glad to get one.

Specs in english here

And No, no one actually asked that question. It's just something that's been burning on me reguarding the remake.

Some of it might be due to the apparent higher gamma in the gc version, but it's more of an issue with the actual texture and modelists style, rather than the pixelation, jaggies and resolution.

If I'm going to play mgs (I haven't as of yet)I'd rather play it with the original 'actors' and 'sets' then settle for something sufficiently updated and flashy but with some of the artists/producer's meaning and intent muted or perverted.

So yeah, I should probably stop whining and just go buy the pc port of MGS and be a willfull abstainer from the gamecube version. But I really hope that the GC version is really good, so I don't have to do that.

*sigh*, maybe I'm just a troll.

And No, no one actually asked that question. It's just something that's been burning on me reguarding the remake.

Some of it might be due to the apparent higher gamma in the gc version, but it's more of an issue with the actual texture and modelists style, rather than the pixelation, jaggies and resolution.

If I'm going to play mgs (I haven't as of yet)I'd rather play it with the original 'actors' and 'sets' then settle for something sufficiently updated and flashy but with some of the artists/producer's meaning and intent muted or perverted.

So yeah, I should probably stop whining and just go buy the pc port of MGS and be a willfull abstainer from the gamecube version. But I really hope that the GC version is really good, so I don't have to do that.

*sigh*, maybe I'm just a troll.

Rockstar is on the job.
The had a huge poster at E3 this year announcing the game.

Check out this old article.

Given their flaws, both Nintendo and Square have both given great contributions to video games. I mean, one could go on forever about the number of games Nintendo has developed (originally) that have gone on to become some of the most memorable games of our time. Just a couple months ago, IGN ranked Super Mario Brothers at the top of the 100 greatest games of all time. I won't even go into how many other Nintendo and *gasp* Square games are on that list. Even though there have been indications of the Gamecube performing poorly on a financial level, that certainly shouldn't be considered an embarassment. Nintendo continues to develop some of the best, most original games to date. One needs look no further than games like Metroid Prime, and Zelda: The Wind Waker. Not everyone likes these games but that doesn't mean that they aren't good, high-quality games.

Using the word "embarassing" to describe Nintendo or Square seems quite out of place, imho. One of the things that has kept me playing video games is the Final Fantasy series. The title, as the article's author points out, is interestingly confusing but, really, is that a valid complaint anymore? I mean does it really, really matter? I certainly didn't play Final Fantasy VII, and X all the way through thinking to myself "gee, these games would be great if they'd just fix the title." Also saying that Square focuses on video and presentation over gameplay should be proved wrong by what I consider to be a great battle engine in Final Fantasy X. They showed a great effort to make the menus easier to navigate, and the players easier to swap out during each battle.

I can't agree with the author's take on Kingdom Hearts either. I actually thought that game to be very original in its approach and was amazed at just the thought of mixing Disney characters with Final Fantasy characters. Not to mention the chance to see Sephiroth and Cloud in action again. And let's not forget about Parasite Eve, which is another Square game I highly enjoyed. I did have a problem with the Bouncer series and there are certainly games that both Nintendo and Square have released that could be considered embarassing. However, I don't think that makes the companies themselves an embarassment. This is true especially in comparison to everything else they have accomplished. Square released a full-fledged, widely circulated movie for crying out loud. Not saying it was great, or that it wasn't great, but that certainly is an accomplishment to take note of. And (based on my experience only) I think Square's FMVs are second only to Blizzard's in the Warcraft series.

The author also mentions that they have a problem with religious conotations in some of the Square video games. That, I think, is something that the video game creator has complete freedom to do. If I were to form a complaint about a game, simply because there were undertones in the plot that I didn't like, I would be branded an enemy of free speech and unconstitutional by some. I'm not going to cast the author of this article in either of those lights. I just do not see the religious conotations of a developer's game to be a valid point of argument.

I understand how the author obviously feels about both companies and do not wish to force him to see any particular point of view. I just felt I would indicate my feelings on the subject.

This would be pretty cool, if only they hadn't already released these same five or so games on every system imaginable.

There were at least a half-dozen projects that did various kinds of "swarming" or cooperative downloading of files before BitTorrent.

I happen to know quite a bit about how R.S works internally and I can say that it is far more sophisticated than BitTorrent. Unfortunately, Red Swoosh isn't Open Source (something that makes BT more useful in the long-run), and I can't really justify that claim without violating a confidence.

Xbox appears to be doing the one thing that has kept me going back to Playstation systems. I bought a Playstation for Final Fantasy VII, and I bought a PS2 for Final Fantasy X (and Timesplitters 2). I like in-depth RPG's and now with KOTOR, along with the up-and-coming Fable, it appears the Xbox is starting to release games that are designed with nice RPG gameplay, along with some new features as well. This game, and IGN's review only give me another good reason to purchase an Xbox somewhere down the road. Not to mention Halo, and Halo 2. IGN reviewed Galaxies in a somewhat negative fashion and did not beat around the bush when revealing that Galaxies has been somewhat disappointing after expectations. I've trusted most of their reviews up to this point so I definitely take notice when they give a game a 10 in any category and a 9.5 overall.

Xbox appears to be doing the one thing that has kept me going back to Playstation systems. I bought a Playstation for Final Fantasy VII, and I bought a PS2 for Final Fantasy X (and Timesplitters 2). I like in-depth RPG's and now with KOTOR, along with the up-and-coming Fable, it appears the Xbox is starting to release games that are designed with nice RPG gameplay, along with some new features as well. This game, and IGN's review only give me another good reason to purchase an Xbox somewhere down the road. Not to mention Halo, and Halo 2. IGN reviewed Galaxies in a somewhat negative fashion and did not beat around the bush when revealing that Galaxies has been somewhat disappointing after expectations. I've trusted most of their reviews up to this point so I definitely take notice when they give a game a 10 in any category and a 9.5 overall.

I make hiring decisions for programmers at Troika Games, a PC RPG developer. We get a lot of resumes, most of which don't ever get an interview. What's going to make you stand out to me isn't your college degree or your years of work in web development while you wished you were doing games. The thing that will most likely get your hired is a piece of runnable code that shows both your abilities, and your passion and motivation. A little shareware project, a graphics demo, work on an Unreal mod...you get the idea. The fact is that the people who will truly excel working on games already ARE working on games because it's so much a part of them that they can't do otherwise; they just need a salaried position on a well-funded team. :)

Speaking of which, there's an entry-level programmer/scripting position that we're looking to fill on the team for Vampire: The Masquerade. Impress me.

The Mod commuinity is what really makes NWN a treat. I agree that the basic campaign that came with it was not all that great. CLiche and boring at the beggining and the end, though there were some good bits in the middle.

If your looking for some great, user created mods, check out the Penultimate and Penultimate re-rolled series.
They are definately worth a download.

While we're at it, everyone should check out The Holimion Trailer, for a NWN module. This stuff was certainly epic, something that isn't often seen in rest of the NWN but that is possible. Yippee - flying dragons, real war, stuff from the front lines, special effects that bring the NWN engine to knees... and the Koreans weird idea of English =) And most of the bits and pieces in this are available as custom content for the game, too.

(If you try to find that one from P2P... SHA1: 536844f26e6779961585858d7cdf472c23139429, MD5: 11072fef23deb5dfc27025bba0a518fc.)

larry

I've posted this link before, but just to second the comment. In May, 44,300 units of the PS2 were sold. At $179 a pop, that would mean a cool $7.9 million in revenue for May alone. Granted, the revamped PS2 has sparked a new interest in the machine but still, if that's poor sales numbers, I can't imagine what good numbers would be. If you ask me I think Sony has milked everything they could and more out of a technically inferior console. The Asian video-game market may be many things, but it certainly isn't in its early stages.

I'll have to agree. It just doesn't seem like FPS games are going to cut it in Japan. Sales numbers seem to indicate they love in-depth plots and customizable features that come along with the RPG genre. One game that may garner popularity is Fable. This game is supposed to be very RPG user friendly and may provide a needed boost to a weak genre in the Xbox game lineup. It may also benefit Microsoft to attempt to get games like Soul Calibur 2, and Virtua Fighter 4, which are both again plot driven, and highly customizable fighting games.

Regardless it remains true that lowering the console price will likely not increase Xbox sales. They can't make Japan accept the Microsoft way, they're going to have to adapt to the Japanese way. Fortunately for Microsoft, they're the only console that could afford the type of trial and error phases that the Xbox is going through. The only question is, how much longer can they do it?

The Greyhawk Inn - Unofficial Offical Board

Atari ToEE forums - Official Board

Troika are doing their absolute best to stay true to the module. Notable changes include the elemental nodes being somewhat smaller and more densely populated (anyone knowing the module will know just how large those elemental nodes were).

Other deviations include expansions of many minor characters in the module - for example one of the NPCs (a trader IIRC) is mentioned as not having being eligible for the militia because he's too short. This has been expanded such that there are quests revolving around this point.

One interesting - and to my mind much needed- feature is the concept of "party alignment". This is basically the "there's no way a paladin would work with a bunch of evil bastards" bit. Members of the party must be near the party alignment - for example, if your party is "Neutral Good" then all members must be Lawful Good, Neutral Good or Chaotic Good. This allows for a much more coherent game as characters you meet, etc respond accordingly. Previous Troika-member games (Fallout 1&2, Arcanum) have had the concept of developing your alignment/karma as the game progressed, but that doesn't carry over well to a party-based game.

There's a lot of stuff on Imerator here.

Woops missed the link

My only disappointment is the unlikeliness of a Mary Kate and Ashley Gamecube game. :(

Oh, if only that were true...

But unfortunately, it's already here.

--Jeremy

...can be seen at IGN's monthly article "Gaming Life In Japan". Every month they release hardware and software sales for what are considered the major gaming consoles in Japan. Take a look at what was presented in June's article. The numbers are quite disturbing for Microsoft, though I'm sure that disappoints all the Open Source fans out there. ;)

Hardware Sales in Japan:
PS2: 44,300 (1,397,700)
Game Boy Advance SP: 31,800 (1,116,900 this year)
Game Boy Advance: 6,900 (890,800)
GameCube: 1,900 (284,800)
PSOne: 910 (42,800)
Xbox: 770 (58,00)
Swan Crystal: 320 (23,200)

I don't know which is funnier:
The fact that the PSOne outsold the Xbox during May, or the fact that this isn't the first time it has happened.

Here's a link to the actual article, but to give a fair warning, you have to be an IGN Insider to read it.

...can be seen at IGN's monthly article "Gaming Life In Japan". Every month they release hardware and software sales for what are considered the major gaming consoles in Japan. Take a look at what was presented in June's article. The numbers are quite disturbing for Microsoft, though I'm sure that disappoints all the Open Source fans out there. ;)

Hardware Sales in Japan:
PS2: 44,300 (1,397,700)
Game Boy Advance SP: 31,800 (1,116,900 this year)
Game Boy Advance: 6,900 (890,800)
GameCube: 1,900 (284,800)
PSOne: 910 (42,800)
Xbox: 770 (58,00)
Swan Crystal: 320 (23,200)

I don't know which is funnier:
The fact that the PSOne outsold the Xbox during May, or the fact that this isn't the first time it has happened.

Here's a link to the actual article, but to give a fair warning, you have to be an IGN Insider to read it.

Don't defend IGN. They reviewed a basketball game without using the word "multiplayer." That's incompentence by both the writer and the editor letting this be published. This is the type of journalism they consistently pass off as professional.

Reference: You can't spell ignorant without IGN.

..aren't immediately obvious, and there may be more hidden away, but here are the tree catwalk ones Cowboyneal referenced.

According to this, Mother 3 is planned to be released on the Game Boy Advance. I think that would indicate that it would be a direct sequel to Earthbound, rather than an entirely new Mother game, due to the graphics of GBA.

Mother 3, when it was being developed for N64, was to be a 3D title. You can see screenshots of it here. It was to be a new entry in the Mother series, quite different from Earthbound (Mother 2).

However, due to the fact that GBA can't do true 3D (yet) but rather tends to imitate the graphical style of SNES-era games, I think Mother 3 might be a more direct sequel to Earthbound, as was hinted in Earthbound itself.

...Yeah, kind of off-topic, but I thought I'd supply some information.

You'd be wise to look out for this one. In co-op mode, two characters can share one kart. Apparently one player drives, while the the second player shoots at the other racers, attempting to slow them down. Looks like a lot of fun, IGN have a preview here. You might also like to keep an eye out for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube. The previews i've read compare it to Gauntlet in 3D and with more depth, and of course it's Final Fantasy ;).

If anyone wants a one stop place to go and read various reviews and comments about the beta test. Head over to IGN's Star Wars Vault. This place is loaded with reviews, screenshots...and so forth.

Also, the upcoming Mario Kart for GameCube will allow a co-op mode, where one player will control the kart and the other will aim and shoot the powerups. Check out the preview over at IGN. The previews make it seem like it should be pretty cool!

Chu-Chu Rocket is a blast, if you can find a Dreamcast at a decent price. And my buddies and I had way too much fun with Super Monkey Ball last year at school.

Also, Agetec has a game called The Adventures of Cookie and Cream out for PS2 that's basically a 2-player puzzle adventure. It might be just what you're looking for.

Besides the slight image problem and clunky-looking hardware, Xbox has trouble in Japan for one reason: Japanese developers. Microsoft seems to be having trouble understanding that the Japanese people want to play Japanese games. Buying Rare or Bungie or whoever is not going to help their Japanese marketshare.

I read Gaming Life In Japan every week on IGN and they post the last week's sales charts. There have been 2 titles that debuted in the top 10: Dead Or Alive Xtreme Volleyball and Capcom vs. SNK 2. Also, most weeks the PSOne outsells the Xbox in Japan.

What can Microsoft do to improve this situation? They need to spend even more money. They need a epic RPG, maybe get some anime creators to help like Akira Toriyama did with Chrono Trigger.

Another thing that goes for all 3 companies, where is the innovation? I want something different, I don't want another FPS or platformer. If anyone has played Wario Ware on GBA, you know what I'm talking about. Everyone I've let play that game absolutely loves it. And that's because nothing like it has come out before now. New genres already exist, it's up to designers to find them.

As interested as I am in Rogue Squadron III, I am more looking forward to the Gamecube incarnation of Pilotwings. Rumor has it that Factor 5 will be the developer this time around.

I've also read, but cannot find the link, that Rogue Squadron III actually started out as a technology demo to show Nintendo what they were capable of.

Anyway, there's two great games to look forward to for us Gamecube owners.

As interested as I am in Rogue Squadron III, I am more looking forward to the Gamecube incarnation of Pilotwings. Rumor has it that Factor 5 will be the developer this time around.

I've also read, but cannot find the link, that Rogue Squadron III actually started out as a technology demo to show Nintendo what they were capable of.

Anyway, there's two great games to look forward to for us Gamecube owners.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/423/423736p1.html

The multiplayer component requires 1 GameCube, and 1 GameBoy for multiplayer play. The cable may even be packaged with the game like it was in Japan.

hm, this one seems one of the better ones i found

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/134/134009p1.html

I'd take it over Half-Life 2 any day of the week!

Yeah, you're totally right! No gamer one would ever want to hop around on a pad and get exercise!

One thing in particular must be cleared up: players are not required to use a GBA system to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles in its current form. In the private hands-on playtest that we experienced, only three GBA SP systems were available, thus a Nintendo representative was forced to plug in a standard GCN controller to join the party. The previously mentioned Japanese interview had caused quite a stir among Nintendo fans during the past week in regards to whether four GBA systems were required for multiplayer action, but we can confirm that this is not the case in the version we played. Whether or not this will change for its final release remains to be determined, but we consider it unlikely.

Here's a high-resolution picture of the two new colors. Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy one until September.

Here's a high-resolution picture of the two new colors. Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy one until September.