AndrewTS

Maybe, but it doesn't have to be. Come for the EBA, stay for the tons of excellent platformers, puzzlers, RPGs, and quirky-games-that-don't-really-fit-in-any-genre.

Nintendo is recalling the original wrist straps--you can set up an order for replacement here: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/strapreplace.jsp

Only for PS3 games. PS2/PS1 games and regular DVDs are still locked out if they're different regions.

I wish I had a digital camcorder...and could dance... http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/tag/the-elite...test-221937.php

1 year factory warranty out of the box. MS's "90 days" bullshit is ghey. Of course, Playstation products tend to die just outside of warranty anyway...at least 360s had the decency to fail right out of the box all of the time.

I'm holding back on most of the launch titles until I actually get to play/rent them. Thoth told me through the Wii messages that Red Steel has a really lame thing where if you die in the final battle, the game is over. COMPLETELY over. As in, you have to start from the beginning. So basically you have to make a duplicate save and throw it on an SD card before fighting said battle. If you screw up, at least you can copy it back to the internal memory. BTW, do any games yet support saving directly to the SD card? I was surprised that option wasn't available, even with the software update done.

Many of the recent Castlevania games have the feature as well.

Gamecube Zelda is out now and is apparently easy to find. Oh, Wii-related Sony comment:

How would it sell even bajillion +1 on PS3 though? It's not really possible at this stage. Oh, there's going to be an enhanced remake of Final Fantasy Tactics for PSP: http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/final-fantasy...ance-221460.php Hopefully there is a re-done translation for the English version.

OT but Im surprised RARE hasn't done a Killer Instict game for the 360. There's interest in it but Rare reps have stated before in the past that they have *no ideas* for it, gameplay or storyline-wise.

Cop out. Try naming some. Xenogears - The Beginning: I actually wasn't expecting much. The beginning was kind of confusing with the giant robots and all, something I was not used to. But oh, was I in for a ride. To be continued... What a compelling account that is.

DK and all of the Rare DKC characters are owned by Nintendo. Banjo and crew (including Conker), Killer Instinct, Jet Force Gemini, etc are owned by Rare. I assume that all of the Dinosaur Planet characters are Nintendo's, since they've been using Krystal since the split.

Pelican has a metal stylus/screen protector set I've still found in some Circuit Cities. The Lite stylus of course still works but it just won't fit in the DS. I prefer the full sized retractable pen stylus over either of them, though. You could just put one of them in your pocket. Screen protectors for Lite work with a simple trim. The original DS charger is identical to the GBA SP charger, while I'm fairly sure the Lite and the GBA Micro use the same charger.

Strange, I also got started on watching wrestling (again) the same way--it was WWF Raw SNES that prompted it. Rage was good even tho it didn't have a lot of the great Raw features (there were only 2 slightly different movesets in Rage/Royal Rumble save for the finishes).

US doesn't seem to have gotten the S-video cables, but they do exist: http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-10u-49-en-70-1mwg.html And yes, Wii-specific.

Squeenix is going to milk that FF3 DS engine for a while, it seems. Considering how long it will be before the game comes out, I guess they felt PS2 was going to be a dead system by then. Yeah, the visuals are going to take a hit on DS, but remember that DQVIII was the only main DQ game that didn't look completely like ass. EDIT: DQ9 gameplay footage- http://www.gamebrink.com/news/735-Dragon_Q...ay_Footage.html

Special for the Wii, and they're different from the GC component cables. VC releases were just those 4; thankfully they were all much better choices than last week's. BTW, after skimming through the ESRB page, you folks should be interested to know that Kirby's Adventure, Kid Icarus, Pro Wrestling and Punch-Out! all have been rated, thus probably are coming soon. Probably next week will include, at the least, Dungeon Explorer, which was hinted at by Hudson on their page as coming soon.

I got Gunstar and Alien Crush. Gunstar is of course terrific (and seems to have cleaner sound here than the original game). Alien Crush is pretty good but do you actually get to progress to other tables? I'm not quite clear on how it works exactly.

So you are so bad at the game you're actually hearing that often? That isn't the game's fault. Suck it up and get better at it. I haven't ever seen that to be a valid reason to dislike the game. If anything it increases the sense of urgency.

Silent Bomber: this is actually out in the Japanese Playstation store. An excellent 3D action game where the basic play mechanics are based on laying bombs and blowing them up. Very good graphics for the PS1, great music and some huge bosses. Just a ridiculously fun, if not altogether hard game.

Or you could see it at matinee price for $5ish too...

It's absolutely terrific, amazing, a classic, and one of the best platformers ever. Extremely creative play mechanics, A++ level designs, spot on control, a very funky and unique graphic style, and oddball graphical effects. The only problems are that the bosses are easy and there's far too little variety in the music (a handful of tunes are rehashed throughout the entire game).

Mega Man ZX is great stuff. It's from the Zero team, who had carved out a niche for themselves for high-quality but brutally-hard games that hardcore skilled players love. Fortunately, ZX is more accessible and fun. I disagree with Mario, but Mario Party has definitely worn out it's welcome. New Super Mario Bros. tho---that thing is still a huge seller and it's been out since May. Tomb Raider Legend was a great game, but all the previous TR games were definitely milks. Hopefully it wasn't a fluke. The Sonic games all suck now but they make tons of money, sadly. The MK games are 100% definites. Just look at MK Armageddon.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155765 It appears this Monday's VC update will include Alien Crush. Shame it's not Devil's Crush--but I assume they're somewhat related.

OBJECTION! Except for when they attacked Galoob over the Game Genie, claiming it allowed for the creation of "derivative works". Suing Camerica for making an NES Advantage clone, violating that patent (imagine a company suing today over a 3rd party controller). And suits against the makers of those "unlicensed" cartridges (even if they did suck), including the Tengen lawsuit And the usual anti-piracy stuff. One of the most awesome moves Sega made back then was not attacking, or even taking a blind eye to the Game Genie, but giving it their official seal of approval. While on the Nintendo side, having lost the previous suit, all they could do was alter the machines to not accept the Game Genies. So if you have bought an SNES game genie and it never worked--it most likely was 1994 and newer--which I believe is when the alterations went into place. Your Genie probably works fine, it's the system that's the problem. Nintendo sued Blockbuster for photocopying SNES manuals, and won, too. Hell, just review those and the other ones in brief here: http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/...tendosuits.html Of course, this is pretty much all Evil 80's Nintendo, FWIW.