News

Although not a game, there is word of a sequel to the popular Final Fantasy 7, to come out in the year 2004.

Not many details are available as of yet, however it looks like it will be a CG movie, and have Sephiroth and Cloud (in some form, at least.)

According to Gameforms, it will be called Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Personally, although I'd love to see this movie, I'm iffy about bringing Sephiroth back to life. He's dead. Cloud killed him what, four times at the end of the game? Unless it's his cells fused in someone elses body. Either way, I'm greatly looking forward to hearing more news about this.

Square Enix revealed much new information on the upcoming North American release of its MMORPG at the Sony Gamers Day conference.

The planned launch date for the Playstation 2 version is March 2004 and the price is going to be a heavy one. The game will cost $99. The cost includes the hard drive that will be bundle with the game. Note that the game will not be available separate from this bundle. Besides this initial cost, players will have to pay $12.95 monthly subscription fee.

The PC version of FFXI will see a release sometime this fall most likely sometime in October. Hard drive does not figure to be a concern here.

Source: RPGamer

Thanks be to Gamers.com for sharing this with us from MTV and the parent company of Gamers.com, Ziff-Davis.

It looks like MTV and EGM might be planning a reality show based on the habits of hardcore gamers. No telling yet if it will be contest-based, or more like a documentary, but given the fact that MTV shows of either genre tend to be vapid and ridiculous, I'm sure it's bound to be a winner!

You can read MTV's casting call here, and more information will probably crop up on Gamers.com or MTV.com soon.

Fantastic.

The fourth Front Mission game was announced for Japan back on 4 September, the first new game of the series to be announced for the PS2. This is a franchise that I don't think ever really found its audience in the US or Europe, where the love affair with Mechs never really matched that of Japan.

You can read Gamers.com's take on the announcement, and then pay a quick visit to get a look at the first media released for the game. No word yet on the long-rumoured Front Mission Online.

This game has kind of a cult audience, and I doubt that a fourth game in the series, even if it makes it to US and European shores, will really be a breakthrough game for the franchise. However, Final Fantasy didn't really explode until it hit the seventh game of the series. Odds are that Front Mission will never be another FF, though.

To borrow from Saturday Night Live, anthology collections have three sizes: wee, not-so-wee, and FRIGGIN' HUGE. Capcom, a company that has seen better days, redeems themselves significantly now, though, with the release of 10 Mega Man games in one package for the PS2 and NGC..

According to Gamers.com, Capcom will drop the original eight mainstream MM games onto a disc, as well as two MM fighting games that never before have been released in America, for arcades or consoles. Sorry, X fans, but it looks like you'll have to wait for your anthology, if one ever comes about.

Taking a page from DVD releases, you'll also find a fairly sizable section of bonus features, like interviews, animation shorts, and other goodies from the MM universe.

I was always quite bad at MM games, but I did enjoy playing the ones I tried. I would bet that this won't be an expensive game, and therefore it will be well-worth the pickup.

Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, revealed in an interview with the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun Playstation 3 is going to be backward compatible with PS1 and PS2 games.

The PS3 will run PS2 games in the same manner that the PS2 run PS2 games: emulation. Says Kutaragi, "PS one runs on PlayStation 2 through emulation rather than actual hardware. PlayStation 3 will offer the same compatibility for PS2 software and the format will continue forever."

Source: Games_Are_Fun

The new forums should be available about as soon as I've finished with this news post.

There are really too many new features to list, but I encourage you to glance over the rules once again, especially towards the end, where we have added some information about the ability to close your own topics.

You should also edit your profile, in case there have been any hiccups importing it, and to reselect your avatar.

Naturally, there may be a few teething problems, of which you may inform us in the troubleshooting forum, provided you can log in and post. If you can't log in, try the lost password link, and if you still can't, shoot me an e-mail (address on the staff page).

Note that if you had registered on the old board, but had not yet validated your registration, your account has been deleted. You're free to reregister on this board, but the old activation codes would not have carried over successfully. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Have fun, now.