AndrewTS

No difference.

Oh, and yet another example of how Nintendo likes Japan more: Safe bet: the Streets of Rage games will be available, but only in Japan, because Sega hates us.

EB/Gamestop is still evil. http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?...t&p=2353158 At my local EB, I was there one time when some people traded in what literally must have been a couple hundred DVDs. Yeah, I'm so sure they owned them... Plus the entire chain has jacked prices on some titles in high demand that have already gone GH. $19.99 for a used Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy X? Zone of the Enders 2 has gone up to 40 bucks. Super Smash Bros Melee (which has gone Player's Choice, BTW) is above MSRP at $26.99, bumped up from the $24.99 they had before. NES Classics Super Mario Bros is $19.99, the same price for a cartridge by itself as it was brand new. Silent Hill 1 is/was $17.99 if you're lucky enough to find it. Ikaruga went up to $40. They bought a hella lot of Gamequest Direct games (reprints of rare titles) and put them into stores for inflated prices. I could go on and on. The prices on their websites for used titles are actually higher in many cases than the in-store prices, like 5-10 bucks higher. That's not even counting the shipping costs. Did I mention indoctrinating employees to pester customers to preorder? Or how they try to hock those PIECE OF SHIT Madcatz/Gamestop controllers because they actually get a higher profit margin off them, even if they'll crap out in 1/5 the time? "Hey, buy this--it's cheaper!"

Ubi Montreal is the same studio, yeah. However, we don't know who is directing, which staff members are going to be working on it, etc. It must be very early in development, though. PoP Wii is supposed to be out Spring 07, but this title is only expected to ship "2007" as of now. It's a North America release only, currently. It's only been announced for 360, but don't count a PS3 release out (it's Ubi, after all). The 3rd and 4th Naruto games are pretty much assured since it's free money. Clash of Ninja went Player's Choice already and Clash of Ninja 2 is selling well from what I understand. They could slap a "Wii or Gamecube" sticker on them to assure people know of backwards compatibility.

Have no such animal, and never really did (EB doesn't count). Although when I'm out of town I patronize such places, such as The Exchange and a local chain that carries old and new stuff called Cash-In Culture. When I couldn't get Scurge, I thought "I should have preordered." However, there was a lady also trying to get the game I met the other day who reserved at EB like 2 years ago for the game and they didn't get any in.

Licensed games tend to run usually between "meh" and "ech," with the best of them usually getting credited as "good, for a license." I mean, you have publications out there actually giving Godfather, Scarface, and Spiderman 2 great scores! Anime/mangas really fare no better--Dragon Ball games' reps are somewhere between Superman and the Matrix games, for instance. Despite the vast numbers of Narutards out there ready to buy up anything with the license attached, games featuring the manga/show's characters have been surprisingly good. The Gamecube games are extremely playable and competent, even though the publishers wish to milk the crappier earlier games first. There's also the infamous DS import Jump Superstars. Well, the Xbox 360 title is actually going to be developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Rather strange, but then again the whole project seems strange: 360 owners don't seem like Naruto demo to me. This is Ubi "concept art" for the game: http://www.txmafia.com/bbs/3810/naruto-360-concept-art

PS3 only accepts wireless controllers, right? Does that mean if you get a PS3 you can't play Guitar Hero 1/2? Score another for 360.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Okay, Wiis shouldn't be that hard to fine, really, but I could see folks doing this for PS3. I'm fairly sure Anya plunked down over $1000 for the honor to be reamed by Wal-Mart with their 360 bundle. Wal-Mart was literally the only place I could get Scurge: Hive, though.

Which is really weird because if she used her regular voice she'd have been okay, and I'd think the voice direction should have noticed how bad it was.

Isn't that about the same timeframe since they reviewed games, ever? Pretty good review, although a game with such average/barely average gameplay seems to have a relatively high final score. And "appeal factor?" WTF?

I'd say they're only a Dracula X Rondo of Blood away from doing that. I doubt the currently piddly amount of internal storage is going to come close to cutting it, though.

Translation: spread 'em, Chunners.

You can go to Walmart and buy it for the GBA and play it on your DS Lite....its only $20 for a real copy of the game. It ticked me off a bit that, because of the GBA version, they left LttP off of the Collector's Edition disc.

1up posted the VC titles set to be available at launch: .

A friend has a Compaq Presario S4010CL, and his brother was fucking around with it using a thumb drive, and the gist of it is now it won't properly boot up. It'll turn on, but then gives a single beep followed by a prolonged beep, and it's stuck at the Compaq logo. He got a replacement that his brother paid for, but essentially handed it over to me. Well, no changes even after trying different cords/cables/monitor, and even removing/trying different keyboard and mouse. Checking out compaq's site, it's either memory or the processor, which is a pretty big "either/or." I don't have a replacement stick of the same type, but I pulled out memory and tested it. No video comes up, and the computer beeps in a regular pattern, pretty much just telling me--"put in new RAM." The only thing I'm worried about, is that if it is only testing memory first, and hasn't got around to testing the processor during the POST, I'd be blowing money on the memory for nothing. Anyone have the same situation happen, or can reassure me it's just the memory?

I liked the movie, but it's getting major King Kong backlash--good movie that had ridiculous advance hype, and that along with the long running time resulting in people calling it shit. Yet, I'm pretty sure some of these same people will defend The Hulk to the death.

It would appear not: http://wii.ign.com/articles/738/738362p1.html It's also noticable that it appears both the component cables and the A/V cable appear to connect to the same port, instead of having separate digital/analog outputs like the Gamecube. It's well known the Gamecube component cables don't work on the Wii, either.

"Play itself" or no, I hated the demo's battle system and I hated KOTOR, so I guess it's me.

http://www.konami.com/Konami/ctl3810/cp201..._the_2nd_runner Konami's doing a reprint, apparently only available from their website. Even if you hate shooters, mech games, and Hideo Kojima's typical pretentious crap--seriously, go buy it. It's approximately 100x times better than that thing that came with the MGS2 demo, and it's a fantastic, fun, beautifully-controlling action game.

While Nintendo giving me something at launch I wouldn't otherwise get is nice and all, it isn't that "big" really. Something "big" would be a game that completely obliterates my low expectations of what the system can actually do, powerwise, and Nintendo has already said that probably ain't going to happen. Even they are downplaying its power.

Yeah, there's only going to be, like, 10 million copies made I bet. Has anyone who has gotten an, um, "advance" copy vouch whether the combat and gameplay is improved over the terminally uninteresting demo that was bundled with DQ8? Penny Arcade's spirited jab at it would indicate no.

Thank you, although it was peppered with my unpopular opinions about GoW. What part "shocked" you, though? That I didn't just rip into it? I purposely attempted to avoid breaking down the game by graphics, sound, etc. in favor of the most important aspect, gameplay. However, since production values/cinemas were such a strength for the game, I couldn't let it go unmentioned. The sound is, incidentally, rather decent. However, there aren't any incredibly intense scores or overly memorable tracks I can think of off hand. So I'd say solid, gets the job done. Some overblown, "epic" sounding music in places. The cinemas have a lot of ambient stuff, and the in-game music (which mostly crops up during battles and) is okay but drowned out by the fighting. Most of the non-battle, point-a-to-b areas of the game are almost completely silent except for sound effects. I decided to write one up after I read a pathetic Game Informer review (virtually the only one out) that told me virtually nothing about the game. I'd say that even though I'd only rank it average or slightly above, I really did enjoy the game despite its faults. However, I'd be disappointed if I purchased it.

I rented the game, and beat it already. The game isn't just another Spyro title, but a claimed "New Beginning"--a reinvention of the story/series, much like the recent Tomb Raider Legend. The unappealing, rather hideous box art seems to scream a huge angst-fest to boot. While there's a bit of that, it's more well done than I expected. The game is from Krome Studios, best known for the Ty the Tasmasian Tiger games, which are known for not being well known or played by anyone. It's a game with Spyro in it, and most of the basic play mechanics are carried over, but it's a totally different game than the PS1 classics, or the PS2 titles. It's also relatively limited. Except for the High Plains, you're looking at narrow, constrained levels. It's like if Mario 64 was followed up with Wario World. It's combat, combat, combat, and the occasional bit of platforming thrown in between more combat. However, there isn't that much actual thriling gameplay to be found. The fights are just packing peanuts for the game's already brief running time. The game is totally linear, too, unfortunately. No central hub world is to be found. You beat a level, usually getting a chance to master the element you just discovered, head to the next level, repeat. Combat does get better/more fun later on, but the game is flawed and problematic on many basic levels. For example: the zillions of cannon fodder baddies....can block. You'd think, with Spyro routinely getting surrounded, he'd have some sort of block move, because so much of the enemies' retialation have invincibility windows. Nope, no such thing. No energy barrier, no ability to cover yourself with your wings. So you have to rely on evading. Sadly, the evading is a bit too slow. With all of the enemies you'd think there would a simple and efficent lock on/target switching ability. No such thing. It doesn't work that way. It "locks on" to one enemy, apparently the closest one, but you float off the ground and move way too slowly. It doesn't allow a quick and simple sidestep/strafe/backstep. Also, the camera has major problems--early on you'll end up getting attacked from behind easily. With the extra firepower you get later on, it isn't such a problem, but so much of the game seems to have annoying quirks designed to overcome the games shortcomings--such as the infinite lives to make up for all the cheap deaths you'll suffer from. The game is average at best, with great production values, but falls way too short in the very basics where it counts. However, where the game is at its very best are the cutscenes. Seriously, this is a game where I, typically one ot complain at having an overload of cutscenes in my games, like to see more. Elijah Wood is Spyro himself, doing a top notch excellent job (the game has an interview available when you beat it). His major co-stars are Resident Annoying Sidekick Sparx, voiced by David Spade (and surprisingly, I still find an E-10 David Spade amusing, and sometimes really funny. The major standout is Gary Oldman as Ignitus (a guardian dragon who serves as Spyro's mentor throughout the game). The voice cast also features a number of experienced voice actors/actresses, including Cree Summer, Corey Burton, Jeff Bennett, Kevin Michael Richardson, Phil LaMarr, and Vanessa Marshall. The cutscenes are so good most of the time, you get to the point where you think, "oh crap, I have to play the game now." Well, you don't necessarily feel that way all the time. However, when I got to Dante's Freezer, the game got *really, really* bad. That level is a neverending stretch of the same looking sections, same looking enemies (that never improves very much, either), that just keep coming and coming with no end in sight. The level was such a ridiculous slog fest, it reminded me of how much I absolutely hated God of War. (The way the upgrade system works, the Fury Attacks, the way the melee attacks feel, the combos--a lot of it gave me a major GoW vibe). That game at least had a workable block feature, though. Most of the rest of the game is still a major slog, but the level design gets better, and there's more to keep you amused. The lighting skill is extremely useful--using the telekinetic properties to repeatedly toss enemies off ledges sure as heck beats fighting each one. New Game + is available once you complete the game, allowing you to use all your acquired powers from the start. The game has a lot of charm, wit, humor, and relative freshness going for it. However, if/when there's a sequel, they really need to tighten up the basics big time. Yet, the large blocky shadow of Insomniac's Spyro games loom large over this, just like with the past two Vivendi Universal titles.

Kotaku is reporting that Sony has dropped its PS3 Japanese launch estimates from 100,000 units to 80,000 units. No cuts announced for the US, but with less than 3 weeks to go--don't be surprised if a similar announcement crops up.

You could wait the 2 weeks and buy the US English version (assuming you're in the States)...