Greetings first-time readers and welcome to the inaugural edition of Gamer on Grounds, a new biweekly videogame column.
This week's information is culled from Electronic Gaming Monthly and Wired News.
Link, Mario and Metroid on the Cheap
The price of a Gamecube recently dropped to a measly $99. Could this be because Nintendo shipped just 80,000 consoles worldwide in the third quarter of FY 2003? Compare that to 3.24 million Game Boy Advances sold in the same period (EGM).
Rumor has it that Sony will respond by cutting PS2 prices to a penny shy of $150 before the holiday season. No word yet on pricing for packages with the network adapter.
Can Gates' bulky Xbox be far behind?
N-Tirely Too Expensive
It's official; Nokia's N-Gage sucks.
Launched three weeks ago with a mascot named Flo, "a young and charming mobile reporter," according to the device's official Website, N-Gage is yet another unworthy pretender to Game Boy's throne.
This combination portable game system/cell phone/MP3 player brings the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none" to mind.
Shaped like a plump taco, the N-Gage comes in any color you desire, as long as it's gray, and requires you to remove the back cover and battery when changing game cartridges.
With no fewer than 21 buttons and an eight-way directional pad, this ergonomically idiotic monstrosity is reminiscent of the hideous Atari Jaguar controller.
The Gamer sampled N-Gage at the local Gamestop, where precisely zero of the $300 schizophrenic handhelds have been sold since release.
Though the graphics are impressive, nearly on par with the original Playstation, one has to wonder what audience Nokia targeted with this over-endowed device.
Final verdict: Skip the N-Gage and drop your three Benjamins on a Game Boy Advance SP, a handful of kickin' games like Advance Wars, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. You'll be too busy hunting vampires and slaying goblins to care about MP3s or cell phones.
Leaky Valve
Wannabe Gordon Freemans will have to wait another few weeks to live out their crowbar-wielding fantasies. The source code for Half-Life 2, the highly-touted sequel to the mod-happy, first-person-shooter classic, was yoinked from developer Valve and released over the Internet earlier this month (Wired).
The game's release was moved from last week to later this year in response to the theft. This thievery is shocking to the gaming community, although the source code does not exclusively make the game.
A word to the wise: A good friend of the Gamer downloaded the leaked Half-Life 2 beta and was inundated with viruses and stern MPAA emails the next week. The moral to this story: You've waited this long for fragging goodness, you can wait another few months.
Same Price, Twice the Vice
In other sequel news, Rockstar has just released a Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City bundle. Xbox owners will receive their first taste of pedestrian punishment for a mere $50 and the same package is offered on the PS2 for $10 bucks less.
New This Week, Sequels A-Plenty
Tony Hawk Underground, complete with online play, off-board wandering a la Grand Theft Auto and face-scanning for create-a-skater, courtesy of the new PS Eye Toy, shipped earlier this week on all consoles.
In the computer world, massive multi-player online RPG fans should begin to reassess their time management following the release of Final Fantasy XI for the PC just a few days ago.
More Light Gun Bang for
your Buck
Props to Namco for adding a whole new set of areas to the console release of Time Crisis 3.The Gamer remembers buying the original Time Crisis for $60 and replaying the same castle levels and tedious hotel extra stages until the friggin' GunCon wore out.
Hopefully, Namco has set a new precedent in the notoriously brief light fun game market.
In Praise of Periodicals
This is the time of year when gaming periodical junkies rejoice. Mailboxes nationwide groan with the weight of reams of copious advertisements and the ridiculous number of reviews and previews crammed into these tomes of autumn.
This two-to-three month run, depending on which mags you subscribe to, often begins with October issues and produces scores of behemoths requiring two hands to lift.
The Gamer loves these perennial half-inch-thick glossies like a fat kid loves cake.
Gamers Non-Anonymous
Two Mondays ago marked the beginning of a new chapter in the storied history of Mr. Jefferson's University.
In the early evening, about 25 gamers gathered in New Cabell for the first meeting of Gamers, the new videogaming club at U.Va.
The club's co-presidents began the summit by reading an editorial call to action uniting gamers around the world.
The club seeks to bring gamers together to create a forum for videogame sharing and discussion.
One of the club's main goals is to establish a videogame rental system similar to the current movie system running out of Clemons.
The club also hopes to become associated with the Media Studies Program to gain funding or at least association and greater recognition of videogames as a communicative medium and not just entertainment.
The loose format of the club is designed to allow spontaneous and passionate debate alongside fond recollections of games and systems past, present and future.
The club also aims to initiate a public dialogue of the role of videogames in society by addressing such issues as violence in interactive entertainment and censorship thereof.
Aural, Visual &
Intellectual Ambrosia
Kudos to Graham Leggat, Ze Frank and Katie Salen for assembling a spectacular machinima revue and examination of videogames as an evolving medium for expression in
Game Engine
The collection of cutscenes and manipulated in-game footage ran at the Virginia Film Festival last weekend and was very well received. Special thanks to Leggat and Frank for narrating the compilation and afterward thoroughly engaging the audience in a dialogue concerning the future of videogames as a legitimate tool, both artistically and communicatively.
Love it? Hate it? I want to know what you think. Send your comments and suggestions to Gamer@cavalierdaily.com
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