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Thanks to NTSC-UK for its review of PlayStation 2 sim Curry House CoCo Ichibanya, explained as "essentially a simulator of how to work in a curry house." The Japanese-only title, in a similar vein to the previously mentioned Yoshinoya Beef Bowl videogame, makes a game of meal construction: "An order for a person can consist of as little as rice and curry, or can be as complex as rice, curry, chilli sauce, topping and a side order. Each component of the meal requires a certain task to be completed." The reviewer enjoys the title, but notes that there may be "not quite enough to keep you playing", quipping: "In real life, if you get bored you can play 'Which customer will notice the fingernail in their meal', but this virtual simulation obviously doesn't let you do it."

Thanks to NTSC-UK for its interview with scriptwriter Paul Rose regarding Zed Two's tactical RPG Future Tactics, as he discusses some of the issues with current game scriptwriting ("You may think there's nothing wrong with them, but to someone like myself who makes a living out of writing scripts and stories, they set my teeth on edge. Especially when you get developers, or publishers, going on about their Hollywood-style scripts"), as well as the sad demise of Zed Two (then a part of Warthog) just before the game's release ("A big, big shame, given that Zed Two's ethos was to produce genuinely innovative and interesting games.") Elsewhere, Gamecritics.com has a thoughtful review of the PS2/Xbox/GC game, "saddled with poor cover art and positioned as a budget release", but considered "a breath of fresh air" by the reviewer, though NTSC-UK's review is a little more ambivalent, arguing: "It can only be hoped that [the developers'] inventiveness is met with the time and budget to do their creativity justice [in the future]."

Thanks to NTSC-UK for its interview with scriptwriter Paul Rose regarding Zed Two's tactical RPG Future Tactics, as he discusses some of the issues with current game scriptwriting ("You may think there's nothing wrong with them, but to someone like myself who makes a living out of writing scripts and stories, they set my teeth on edge. Especially when you get developers, or publishers, going on about their Hollywood-style scripts"), as well as the sad demise of Zed Two (then a part of Warthog) just before the game's release ("A big, big shame, given that Zed Two's ethos was to produce genuinely innovative and interesting games.") Elsewhere, Gamecritics.com has a thoughtful review of the PS2/Xbox/GC game, "saddled with poor cover art and positioned as a budget release", but considered "a breath of fresh air" by the reviewer, though NTSC-UK's review is a little more ambivalent, arguing: "It can only be hoped that [the developers'] inventiveness is met with the time and budget to do their creativity justice [in the future]."

Thanks to NTSC-uk for its feature discussing what the new pixel and vertex shaders mean to this generation of videogames. The piece laments: "Looking back at the past few years, games have looked incredibly similar. And this is the main reason why: they all used the same tools", before going on to explain: "The hardware previously contained logic circuits to simply perform the operations needed by Gouraud and Flat shading, but now the fully Programmable Pipeline has introduced a whole new world of graphical effects for us all, limited only by the programmers' time and creativity", referencing "the water effects used in Super Mario Sunshine, cel shading effects used in Zelda, or the rippling water effects on Dead or Alive 3."

Buster Chan writes "NTSC-uk has begun their two-week long tribute to the almighty Sega Dreamcast, including an editorial recounting favorite memories of Sega's final (so far) hardware, as writers 'give their views of one of the most prolific consoles of recent times', the first 128-bit console. They also run new reviews revisiting Cosmic Smash, checking out Get Bass, and analyzing the very Japanese Tokyo Bus Guide." Although it was so long ago we can barely remember, what were your favorite Dreamcast titles?

Buster Chan writes "NTSC-uk has begun their two-week long tribute to the almighty Sega Dreamcast, including an editorial recounting favorite memories of Sega's final (so far) hardware, as writers 'give their views of one of the most prolific consoles of recent times', the first 128-bit console. They also run new reviews revisiting Cosmic Smash, checking out Get Bass, and analyzing the very Japanese Tokyo Bus Guide." Although it was so long ago we can barely remember, what were your favorite Dreamcast titles?

Buster Chan writes "NTSC-uk has begun their two-week long tribute to the almighty Sega Dreamcast, including an editorial recounting favorite memories of Sega's final (so far) hardware, as writers 'give their views of one of the most prolific consoles of recent times', the first 128-bit console. They also run new reviews revisiting Cosmic Smash, checking out Get Bass, and analyzing the very Japanese Tokyo Bus Guide." Although it was so long ago we can barely remember, what were your favorite Dreamcast titles?

Buster Chan writes "NTSC-uk has begun their two-week long tribute to the almighty Sega Dreamcast, including an editorial recounting favorite memories of Sega's final (so far) hardware, as writers 'give their views of one of the most prolific consoles of recent times', the first 128-bit console. They also run new reviews revisiting Cosmic Smash, checking out Get Bass, and analyzing the very Japanese Tokyo Bus Guide." Although it was so long ago we can barely remember, what were your favorite Dreamcast titles?

Thanks to NTSC-uk for its editorial discussing the possible confusion in using numbered rating schemes for videogame reviews. The author rhapsodizes: "No number can possibly capture the striking vision of the sun setting over Hyrule Field or the ingenious brilliance of Metal Gear Solid's interactive references to reality", before going on to conclude: "Treated as numbers with a defined value, they will always be looked down upon as having deficiencies. Yet when you read them as you would a word and open it up to your own interpretation, they begin to fully deliver the explanatory potential that is locked within." Do you think numbered ratings have an important place at the end of game reviews?

Thanks to NTSC-UK for their editorial discussing why more simple gameplay does not necessarily make a videogame worthless. The piece argues: "So why are there so many howls of derision when a game like Dead or Alive tries to make the concept of fighting entertaining with a button bashing, quick and easy style? [...] Just because an artificial intelligence can come back at you and outplay you on your own terms, is the game inherently more enjoyable?" The piece concludes by praising simple titles such as Super Monkey Ball and Wario Ware Inc., and suggesting: "The important thing, though, is that a game's worth cannot and should not be judged purely on its perceived 'depth' or complexity... there can be no argument that one game is better than another solely because it will take months to learn all there is to learn of it."

Thanks to Reuters for their story revealing Sega's profits jumped 485 percent for the first half of the fiscal year, to 5.93 billion yen ($54.53 million), largely due "to strong sales of its [Japanese] arcade game machines such as [popular crane game] 'UFO Catcher 7' and [intriguing arcade-based CCG] 'The Key of Avalon'." Elsewhere, Sega's consumer division "...posted an operating loss of 1.8 billion yen, but it was less than it expected because of solid sales of its soccer simulation and car racing games." However, the company "...trimmed its projection of key U.S. sports games to 1.73 million from 2.6 million units", still dogged by Electronic Arts' domination of the genre, as the president said: "We need to carefully plan how to compete with EA in terms of marketing, but we believe our games can win more market share because of their high quality."

Thanks to NTSC-uk for their editorial arguing that overly nostalgic gamers are failing to appreciate the videogames of today. The writer suggests that "...this breed of 'l337' gamers refuse to look at today's games", and complains about their unjust criticism of titles such as Final Fantasy X, saying of these retro-focused gamers: "It seems, to them at least, as time passes, all the faults and niggles of yesteryear's games mysteriously vanish, as age irons out the flaws. Rose-tinted glasses donned, we can forget the 'far too flawed' modern games, because the 'golden era' of gaming did it better."

Thanks to IGN for their announcement of the Japanese CESA videogame award winners for 2002-2003. The videogame trade body "awarded its grand prize to both Final Fantasy XI (Square-Enix, PS2/PC) and Taiko no Tatsujin (Namco, PS2). The latter title, while still not available in America, has proven to be a sensation in Japan, with non-stop arcade play and two PS2 versions combining for sales of over a million units." Of Western titles, Bungie's Halo was given an "award for excellence" alongside several Japanese-authored games, and Grand Theft Auto III, which has already sold over 200,000 in Japan, got the 'Global Award' for overseas-developed games.

Thanks to NTSC-uk for their opinion piece discussing the perceived lack of 'quality assurance' in the videogame industry. Amid oft-repeated claims that "many games fall short of the mark" on overall quality, there are some more interesting arguments that QA testing "rarely promotes the criticism and fine-tuning of the most important aspect of design - gameplay." The author even goes on to suggest that hardware manufacturers should again get more involved in the quality of games on their machine: "Nintendo demonstrated during the 80s and early 90s how the power of the manufacturer can be used... to ensure that the design of new games, and particularly good gameplay, was top of the agenda - hence Nintendo's 'Seal of Quality'."

Thanks to IGN Cube for their interview with Viewtiful Joe's creator, Atsushi Inaba, as the GameCube 2D platform-action title ships to U.S. stores. He discusses the choice of platform ("we figured for Japan, as well as America, that GameCube had the kind of hardcore action gamers that would want to play the game"), and comments on the influence of Joe's 'interesting' fashion sense ("honestly, I don't think American men or Japanese men are interested in dressing in more pink!") Reviews from GameSpot and from IGN are effusive, backing up earlier glowing import reviews, with GameSpot commenting that Viewtiful Joe "...manages to simultaneously recall the simpler times of 2D platforming action games while modernizing the genre in several major ways." Update: 10/07 15:01 GMT by S : There's also a set of reviews on the brand-new Ziff Davis site, 1UP.com.

Thanks to Nintendojo for revealing new details regarding the previously rumored, Namco/Nintendo co-produced GameCube-exclusive rhythm game, Donkey Konga. The site has pictures of the "new Congo Drum peripheral dubbed as 'Barrel Konga Drums'" which will be shipping with the game, and the 4-player, 32 music-track title may include the Super Mario Bros theme alongside "Latin beats, pop music, dance, classical, Anime and children's tunes." Adding to the fun, "the drums will include a microphone that's designed to pick up the sound of claps thus making the game require you to clap as well as bang on the drums", but Nintendojo reckon a U.S. release to be "highly unlikely" since "it caters too perfectly towards the Japanese audience" weaned on games like Taiko No Tatsujin.

Thanks to NTSC-UK for their article discussing how games punish players for dying. The article starts: "Repetition has always been considered to be a pretty basic form of punishment and is still quite commonly used form even today. Fail a task, go back to the start of the level. Fail too many times and you go right back to the start of the game." It goes on to highlight save/restart points as changing this dynamic, saying that "...the most controversial aspect of the save point's growing role in videogames was the confusion between its two roles: acting as a marker which players are taken to when punished, and as a point where players could stop in order to resume play later on." Is there such a thing as being able to save too often?

Thanks to Video-Fenky for their translation of an interview with Hisao Oguchi, the new boss of Sega. In it, Oguchi argues that less "grandiose games" are the way to rejuvenate the games market, referencing titles such as The Sims, Animal Crossing and Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin as good models for doing this, and saying: "Developers can't force their game worlds and huge stories on users. We can't have people balk at sitting in front of the TV and playing games because it's too tiring. All games are made to be fun for the people playing them, so in the next generation especially, making content that doesn't feel tiring to gamers will be very important."

Thanks to IGN Cube for their rumor report claiming that Nintendo's new Donkey Kong title for GameCube, recently announced as being developed by Namco, is a conga drum-based rhythm title called Donkey Konga. Although unconfirmed, IGN claim: "On March 10, 2003, Nintendo registered the trademark for Donkey Konga. This, say sources, is the tentative name for the new title, which dumps its platformer roots in favor of exploring the music genre." Another point in this rumor's favor is that Namco has created the very popular Taiko no Tatsujin drumming title for PlayStation 2, complete with custom drum controller, and it's sold over 900,000 copies so far in Japan, but there's no official word from Nintendo or Namco yet.

Alan writes "FiringSquad just posted an import review of one-on-one Japanese street racing game, Sega's Initial D: Special Stage for the PlayStation 2, as based on the popular anime/manga series. They seemed to like it, with reservations." The arcade version of Initial D is a break-out title in terms of popularity, even with the limited amount of machines that have made it to the U.S., and especially with the magnetic card which "..allows players to build a totally unique custom tuned car that is personal to them". The PS2 version (here's another, more positive review from NTSC-UK) definitely looks intriguing, but is so far very unannounced outside Japan.