NEWS

Welcome to my news page. Here I will have news on anything new happening in the video game industry, mostly concerning Nintendo. This is also where you will see most of the news for Nintendo's upcoming GameCube system. At least, for the time being. Now off to the news!

Well, we are now just two days away from the launch of the Nintendo GameCube! Anticipation has been very high, and many online and retail outlets have completely soldout of pre-orders. Amazon.com sold every single unit in under 4 minutes! At just about all of their online pre-orders. Also, some games have even shipped to stores ahead of launch. Such as Super Monkey Ball and Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. Nintendo will no doubt have a phenomenal launch.

In other video game news, the Xbox launch was yesterday (Nov. 15) and is said to have gone pretty good. Even though Microsoft's launch numbers were pretty low.

Well, that's about all the news that I can remember that's worth mentioning. I know there' s probably some more news about individual games that's happened since I last updated, but I can't think of any right now :-(

Man, it's strange how things you say happen a little after you say them huh? Case in point; In my last update, I said how disappointed I was with SpaceWorld 2001, because of games such as Resident Evil Zero not even being mentioned or shown in any way, shape or form.

Well, some time later (Probably about a week or two, maybe more, or less, not sure what the actual date was) Capcom pledged it's FULL support for GameCube, and said that it would move the ENTIRE Resident Evil line of games EXCLUSIVELY to the Nintendo GameCube!

That includes a remake of Resident Evil, and the release of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and Resident Evil: Code Veronica to the system!

In addition to that, they announced that Resident Evil Zero is still in the making, and will be released sometime after the other Resident Evil games, exclusively to GameCube!

Then they made the big announcement, saying that Resident Evil 4 is in the works and will, again, be released EXCLUSIVELY for the Nintendo GameCube!

Even Shigeru Miyimoto was there at the press conference, and shook hands with the guy who made Resident Evil. I guess Shigeru Miyimoto hardly ever goes to events that are from another company or something, so it was a rare occurence for him to be at Capcom's conference (Even though it was an announcement for Nintendo's system).

Also, here are some pics of the awesome remake to Resident Evil one. The graphics are unbelievable and are some of the best I've seen. I can't wait to play this one.

One thing that I'm hoping though, is that Capcom re-does the voice-acting for Resident Evil. Either that, or rewrites the script to make it sound . . . not so Japanglish. But even then, they'd still have to re-do the voice. I'm pretty sure they will though, why would they re-make the entire game but leave the voices the same? I'm currently playing the original Resident Evil for Playstation that my cousin let me borrow, and let me tell you that the completely stupid voices majorly detract from the game. Making it even laughable in most instinces, and not as scary as it could've been had the voices been better.

November 18. Which isn't really that long, only thirteen days. Another bad thing is that it puts the launch date after Microsoft's Xbox, instead of before, like it would have. (Update: A couple of days later, Microsoft announced that they have also pushed back Xbox's release date in the US, from November 8, to November 15. And the Japanese release date is now set for sometime in 2002. So now both Xbox and GameCube's release dates are once again 3 days apart (In the US that is). Xbox will still be released first though :-(

The good news about it being pushed back, is that it will now ship in two colors instead of just one. The Nintendo GameCube will now launch in the standard purple color (Indigo) and a black color (Jet Black). It will also ship in greater quantities. The controller will also now ship in four different colors: Indigo, Black, Spice (Orange) and a Translucent Indigo color. The Spice (Orange) color console, won't ship until sometime after the initial launch on November 18.

GameCube is ready to ship THIS WEEK in Japan, on September 15th! (And will launch there in all three colors, Jet Black, Indigo, and Spice).

Also, at Nintendo's annual SpaceWorld show, they showed of the new GameCube Zelda and Mario games. The new Mario game is called Mario Sunshine. It looks to play similar to Mario 64, but seems to be set in a more modern setting. With houses and buildings and stuff.

The game, which so far has no official title, has been drastically changed from past Zelda games. Well, the gameplay seems to remain pretty much the same, but the graphical style of the game has been completely changed.

Zelda has been turned into a cartoon! The game uses an advanced cel shading (Or Toon Shading, as Nintendo is calling it) technique to make it look just like an interactive cartoon.

The new look of the Zelda game shocked just about everyone, and is getting mixed results. Some people love the new cartoon look, while others, who liked the more mature attitude the Zelda series had seemed to be gaining, hated it.

Nintendo said the reason for the change is that there is just some things you can't do in a realistic environment. And has stated that they can do many things with a cartoon-like graphical style that they couldn't with a realistic one. Such as dropping jaws and stretching limbs and doors and things like that.

Nintendo also announced some more third party support. The big ones being Soul Calibur 2 and Sonic Adventure 2 (Which will interface with Sonic Advance for the Game Boy Advance via the GameCube/Game Boy Advance Cable)2.

All in all though, I thought that SpaceWorld 2001 was kinda disappointing. I was expecting some huge announcements, when some games, such as Resident Evil Zero, weren't even mentioned.

But the GameCube still sounds like an excellent system and has tons of very cool games. I'll definatley be getting one when it launches (closer to my birthday now) on November 18.

First: They made the pad a lot more slicker. Uhh, more rubbery I guess. They say it feels a lot like the Playstation 2's pad.

Second: They made the C-Stick fatter. At E3 Shigeru Myimoto said he didn't really like the C-Stick, much and that it'd probably change. Well, looks like he got them to change it. The fatness adds more grip to it, although it still is supposedly kinda slippery, and could use more grip.

Third: They made the Control Stick even better! It has way more grip with deep groves for you fingers so it should never slip. Not like the Playstation 2's controller which has virtually no grip. A lot of people think that Nintendo should give the same sort of treatment to the slippery C-Stick.

Well, that's about it. Nintendo has stated that it is indeed the final controller, although some people still think that they should make more changes, mostly to the Z Button, which reportadly feels akward and out of place.

Anyway, the GameCube controller is cosidered by many that have felt it to be the best of the next-gen controllers, some think it's the best controller EVER MADE!! Well, we'll all get to judge for ourselves when the console launches on November 5!

Some bad news. The Retro Studios game Raven Blade has officially been cancelled. I won't explain it all here, but the gist of it is that Nintendo cancelled the game so that Retro can concentrate on getting Metroid Prime completed and still having it end up a good game. For more detailed info, check out my page on the now defunct GameCube Action RPG, Raven Blade. Just click here to go right to it.