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And there will be even more added once all of NP's awesome caricatures are finished.  Enjoy two pieces of fanart each from Kame and Narratorway, and one each from seventh and Hikaroo!  

Visit http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fanart/new.php for all the newest fanart.
Visit http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fanart/ for all fanart!

Nintendo has finally released new info and screenshots (news and screenshots both courtesy of Games Are Fun) for the lastest incarnation of the Mario Kart series for the the Gamecube, titled Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Changes have been made in this versions since the N64 and Super Nintendo games.  One of significance is that there will be two riders on each kart now.  The idea being that the front character drives and the one located in the rear controls all of the power-ups and weapons.    The cast of characters has also changed.  Included are Mario, Luigi, Peach, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Yoshi, Birdo, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Koopa, and Paratroopa.  Poor Toad must have come down with a case of SARS or something because he seems to be in quarantine for this title.

One more tid bit on the gameplay for now.   As mentioned, each kart has two characters.  You can switch the two characters mid-race for different effects to change balancing and such during turns and going up hills.  

Source:  Games Are Fun

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It is games like these these that make me wish I had a Gamecube.    The screenshots look pretty fantastic and it looks like the game could be a lot of fun, especially when played with friends (for those of us who actually have those anyways .)  And it is nice that they are making some changes in the gameplays while keeping the basic Mario Kart formula intact.  Even though it was one my favorite N64 games, I've heard that it was a disappointment to many after the SNES versions.  Hopefully this will make it up to those who viewed the N64 Mario Kart in this manner.

Thoughts, opinions, flames? Toss them at me (or the game)

It may be in Japanese, and the game it's from still way out of reach from our Canadian and American hands (further out of the reach for you folks in the UK and beyond) but here it is. The Intro Movie for FFX-2, courtesy of www.rpgamer.com

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ffx-2/ffx-2mov.html

That link will also take you to a few other tasty bits of footage.

For the intro itself, I liked it well enough. It first opens up into an arena that I was sure was going to be blitzball. Instead, we get Yuna, first in her summoner's outfit. She changes classes, into her pop singer costume. While she sings a song in Japanese that is catchy, but sounds like the same sentence over and over, Rikku and FFX newbie Paine cause mischief in the audience. An interesting, colourful intro (though Rikku's braids still look very very fake, even in FMV) leaving the viewer with lots of questions (one of which may be "Why??" for those of you still against FFX-2 on principle).

Courtesy Gamespot
http://www.gamespot.com/gamecub....21.html

Capcom, one of the top video game developers, suffered 19.5 billion yen ($163 million) in losses in 2002.  This happened because many of their games which they expected to be big sellers fell short of what they expected.  For example, three of their main sellers combined to sell 760,000 less copies than they expected.  This accounts for much of the loss, which was explained by the president, that the market was moving in a different direction than their titles.  Capcom's loss caused them to shelve 18 of their games that were in development, which is a huge hit to the company.

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It's interesting to think about other reasons why things fell so flat for the company in 2002.  The American economy, at least, was suffering for much of the year, but it seems to easy to blame it on that when there are many markets around the world that are buying the games.  It would also be nice to know if any other companies had losses to their sales to see if the video game market is in a slump right now.  I think market confidence needs to be up before people will start buying more.  I can safely say that I only got two video games last year, Wild ARMs 3 and Suikoden 3, and neither of those are Capcom titles.  If Capcom wants to get back into the market, they'll probably need to start developing different types of games, and maybe that's the aim in the cancellation of so many games.  What does everyone else think?

To almost coincide with the opening of their North American website, Square Enix has opened up a public online application for those who are interested in beta testing Final Fantasy XI,  their upcoming (already released in Japan) online RPG.

There are applications for both the Playstation 2 and the PC versions of the game. Listed below are the requirements for each that one has to meet if he or she is even going to apply:

For the PS2 version
-PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system (duh)
-Network Adaptor (for PlayStation 2)
-Internet connection (56k or greater)

For the PC version
Pentium® III 800Mhz
-Windows® 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP
-DirectX® 8.1 (included)
-32MB Direct3D compatible AGP video card
-128MB RAM
-CD-ROM drive
-5GB of free hard drive space
-Internet connection (56k or greater)

You also have to be older than thirteen years of age and be a resident of either the United States or Canada.  Keep in mind that most people will not be selected.  There are no numbers on the amount that Square Enix even plans to chose

Source: Square Enix
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I put in an application to beta test the PC version.  I probably won't get chosen, but it will be interesting to see how many beta testers they do actually select.  The application for the PC version was easy enough (it only took about 5 minutes) so I assume the application for the PS2 version would be more simple than that.  It would be neat if someone from the CoN was selected to beta test either version.

The only negative part of applying (that I can see) is that I'm probably going to get a bit more spam E-mail because of it (The privacy policy is lacking.  They even say they will probably give out your E-mail address).  That isn't entirely too bad though because I used a yahoo E-mail address when filling out the application.  Also, since it is restricted to US and Canada residents, some of you forum members are not going to be even able to apply.

There are now two *new* fanfics in the ff6 section http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fanfics/ff6/

One of them is by Narratorway, in the Lights section, "Cyan: The Tortured Light". The other is a songfic by SilverMaduin, at the top of the page, "The War of the Magi - Nothing Else Matters".

Thanks guys for the great works, we hope to see more. Also, I'll be adding more fanfics in the next week or so.

Also, An Esper's Soul, by me, is up on the site, in the same section.