To say that this was our best month in terms of traffic and activity would be a gross understatement and I want to thank everyone for their constant support. The GBA Cover project is in full swing with 202 covers done as of this afternoon and Slash000 has been a maniac with making those. Props to him. At any rate, we are going to get back in the swing of things. I have had a lot going on at work and haven’t had the time to focus on writing or site enhancements in any form. I hope that calms down this week. I do know we have a few PSP reviews coming in from Ed Zitron this week so look for those.
January 2005
Is it me or does Lil Mac look creepy? I’m all for Super Punchout being in EA Sports Fight Night Round 2 (Gamecube), but if I ever saw a person that looked like Ol Mac, I would run the other way in fear.
Source: [url=http://media.cube.ign.com/media/718/718415/imgs_1.html]IGN[/url]
Successfully released in Japan where it has earned a coveted score of 34 out of 40 from Famitsu magazine, Phantom Dust is an anime-inspired game set in a post-apocalyptic era where chaos has forced people underground for safety. Players must journey above ground in a quest to learn who and what was behind the destruction, but the surface is a place of deadly evil filled with unimaginable abominations. It is also home to mysterious particles known only as Phantom Dust, a force unlike any other that has given some members of the human race unimaginable super powers. Recently we were given the opportunity to find out more about the game from Yukio Futatsugi, the director of Phantom Dust.
Snackbar Games: Thank you very much for agreeing to speak with us regarding Phantom Dust. If you could, please give us a little background on yourself, as well as what your role has been within this project.
Yukio Futatsugi: For the Phantom Dust project, I served as director, overall manager of the game production work. The main works I have been involved in up until now are Sega’s Panzer Dragoon 1, Zwei, and the third issue in the Saga series. (as game designer) After that, I worked at Konami and SCE before joining Microsoft.
SBG: First off, what was the inspiration for the game’s setting and style? Post-apocalyptic wastelands aren’t exactly new territory, but Phantom Dust’s literally crumbling cityscapes have a compelling disarray about them…
YF: First of all, the core theme is fighting action using supernatural powers. The game combines card game and action game elements, and to realize the concept, I adopted the supernatural powers theme to permit a great range of action in the game in a setting where that would not seem out of place.
Next, I had to justify why people would have this super powers, and I decided that the power was the result of personal will, and that it would affect the world as well. Nostalgia and joy, or regret, memories one wishes to forget — how would these aspects of people’s memory affect the world? Based on this image, the entire map was drawn.
SBG: How many different mission locations will there be, and is the player A
Tsunami Donations
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A big thanks to everyone that has donated to the cause. I am going to be closing that out tomorrow afternoon so I can send the money out. We have chosen to send the money to Direct Relief International and if anyone is interested in checking them out you can do so [url=http://www.directrelief.org]here[/url].
EA calls the Kettle black
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Everyone heard about EA and their exclusive NFL deal as well as their attempt to buyout other sports and then the 3rd party exclusivity agreement between Take Two and the MLB. I know it is all very confusing and this just cracks me up. EA’s reaction to the Take Two agreement was to call it “stupid money”.
[quote]As far as we’re concerned, this looks like stupid money… They are paying an exclusive price for a nonexclusive agreement.[/quote]
Sounds to me like EA is just mad that Take Two is gearing up for a battle.
Source: [url=http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/25/news_6117011.html]Gamespot[/url]
