I was right!!! I'm guessing that Nintendo is going to test how well the franchise does with the GBA game, and then if that sells well they'll release the Gamecube version sometime next year.
Quote:Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream revealed recently that a new installment in the Fire Emblem series is in development for the Nintendo GameCube console. No further details except the game's confirmation were divulged, but the magazine expects that a release could come sometime during the second half of 2004. With the second Fire Emblem game on the Game Boy Advance, The Sword of Fire, coming to North America, this could bode well for this new title's chances. We'll have more shortly.
I'm suprised nobody has brought this up yet, seeing as it was a full-page headline of the New York Times. To start off, I'll quote the article:
Quote:JUSTICES, 6-3, LEGALIZE GAY SEXUAL CONDUCT IN SWEEPING REVERSAL OF COURTS '86 RULING
Cite Privacy Right
Texas Sodomy Law Held Unconstitutional- Scathing Dissent
Linda Greenhouse
WASHINGTON, June 26 — The Supreme Court issued a sweeping declaration of constitutional liberty for gay men and lesbians today, overruling a Texas sodomy law in the broadest possible terms and effectively apologizing for a contrary 1986 decision that the majority said "demeans the lives of homosexual persons." The vote was 6 to 3.
Gays are "entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said for the court. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
Justice Kennedy said further that "adults may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons."
While the result had been widely anticipated since the court agreed in December to hear an appeal brought by two Houston men who were prosecuted for having sex in their home, few people on either side of the case expected a decision of such scope from a court that only 17 years ago, in Bowers v. Hardwick, had dismissed the same constitutional argument as "facetious." The court overturned that precedent today.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia accused the court of having "taken sides in the culture war" and having "largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda." He said that the decision "effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation" and made same-sex marriage, which the majority opinion did not discuss, a logical if not inevitable next step. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas signed Justice Scalia's dissent.
While some gay rights lawyers said that there were still abundant legal obstacles to establishing a right either to gay marriage or to military service by gay soldiers, there was no doubt that the decision had profound legal and political implications. A conservative Supreme Court has now identified the gay rights cause as a basic civil rights issue.
Ruth Harlow, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the lead counsel for the two men, John G. Lawrence and Tyron Garner, called the decision "historic and transformative." Suzanne Goldberg, a professor at Rutgers Law School who had represented the men in the Texas courts, said that the decision would affect "every kind of case" involving gay people, including employment, child custody and visitation, and adoption.
"It removes the reflexive assumption of gay people's inferiority," Professor Goldberg said. "Bowers took away the humanity of gay people, and this decision gives it back."
The vote to overturn Bowers v. Hardwick was 5 to 4, with Justice Kennedy joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today," Justice Kennedy said. "Its continuance as precedent demeans the lives of homosexual persons."
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was part of the 5-to-4 majority in Bowers v. Hardwick, did not join Justice Kennedy in overruling it. But she provided the sixth vote for overturning the Texas sodomy law in a forcefully written separate opinion that attacked the law on equal protection grounds because it made "deviate sexual intercourse" — oral or anal sex — a crime only between same-sex couples and not for heterosexuals.
"A law branding one class of persons as criminal solely based on the state's moral disapproval of that class and the conduct association with that class runs contrary to the values of the Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause," Justice O'Connor said.
Texas was one of only four states — Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri are the others — to apply a criminal sodomy law exclusively to same-sex partners. An additional nine states — Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia — have criminal sodomy laws on their books that in theory, if not in practice, apply to opposite-sex couples as well. As a result of the majority's broad declaration today that the government cannot make this kind of private sexual choice a crime, all those laws are now invalid...
OK, after all the infomercial i've seen in my life...and that's a lot...there's something I can't quite understand. Why is it when ever someone's using a product on television the people suddenly become really stupid? I mean, when people are doing simple tasks such as draining speghetti are they really going to fumble and spill the stuff all over the sink like some unco-ordinated clout? Could they be any less patronizing?
Announcer: "Look at little Debbie there in the corner using her kitchen knives! Isn't she dumb?"
Debbie: "Look mom, I made some chic-AHHHHH" *Debbie cuts off her fingers which fly into the deep fryer*
Announcer: "Don't let this ever happen to you again! Buy Ming Low Chow's ginsu knives and not only will you not cut your fingers off like an assclown, we'll also throw the five sets of uber ninja bbqing swords...FREE! Act now, not only will this deal expire 5 minutes after this ad ends...WE'RE ALSO LYING THROUGH OUR TEETH!"
I'm just another nobody prancing about all frilly-nilly to a forum.
Not much else can be said, except for that i'm not really as silent as my name implies.
I'll get to posting when an interesting topic arrises, until then, I lurk. :evil:
P.S. I am the lord and master of the clowns. That is all.
I've never really been into PC games (mainly because my previous computer became constipated when playing something as simple as solitaire), but a few months ago I finished building my new computer and it now can actually play the latest games. Yay! Anyway, here are my new compy's specs if you're interested:
<Geek Speak>
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2200
RAM: 512MB PC2700 DDR
Hard Drive: 120GB 7200RPM 8MB cache
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X Deluxe (with built in USB2.0 and firewire and 2 LAN ports! whoo!)
Graphics Card: GeForce 4 Ti4200 (64MB)
You'll notice I didn't go all out on the graphics card. That's because it's just there to tide me over 'til Doom III. I predict there'll be some huge deals on graphics cards around that time. I also plan to upgrade my RAM and add another 512MB stick to take advantage of the dual channel memory and to have a total of 1GB of memory! Mwa ha ha ha! (I do video editing and photoshop stuff so a lot of RAM really pays off)
</Geek Speak>
So anyway, I picked up UT2003 yesterday and I've never realized how first-person shooters and the PC were just meant to be together. A whole new gaming platform has been opened up to me and I feel somewhat giddy. <insert girlish squeal here>
So anybody play UT2003 regularly or occasionally? Have any tips, tricks, or fun insight? Wanna recommend some other great PC games? Am I asking too many questions? Do you want me to stop?
Quote:Complaint Cites Viacom's Lack of Support For "Star Trek" Movie and Television Franchise and Failure To Cooperate With Activision
Santa Monica, CA – July 1, 2003 – Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), a leading developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment software products, today announced that it has filed a breach of contract suit against Viacom.
In its complaint, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California on June 30, 2003, Activision accused Viacom of breaching its fundamental promise to continue exploiting the Star Trek franchise consistent with its practice at the time the agreement was signed in 1998. “Activision cannot successfully develop and sell Star Trek video games without the product exploitation and support promised by Viacom. A continuing pipeline of movie and television production, and related marketing, is absolutely crucial to the success of video games based on a property such as Star Trek,” charged Activision in its court filings.
However, through its actions and inactions, Viacom has let the once proud Star Trek franchise stagnate and decay. Viacom has released only one “Star Trek” movie since entering into agreement with Activision and has recently informed Activision it has no current plans for further “Star Trek” films. Viacom also has allowed two “Star Trek” television series to go off the air and the remaining series suffers from weak ratings. Viacom also frustrated Activision’s efforts to coordinate the development and marketing of its games with Viacom’s development and marketing of its new movies and television series.
The complaint goes on to state: “By failing and refusing to continue to exploit and support the Star Trek franchise as it had promised, Viacom has significantly diminished the value of Star Trek licensing rights including the rights received by Activision. Moreover, in so doing, Viacom has breached a fundamental term of its agreement with Activision … and has caused Activision significant damage.”
As a result of the breaches by Viacom, Activision has terminated the agreement and filed a complaint seeking to recover the damages it has suffered and will suffer as a result of Viacom’s failure to abide by its agreement, and its stated intention to continue to breach its agreement, and seeks the return of the warrants now wrongfully in Viacom’s possession.
The company expects that the court filing and the termination of the agreement with Viacom will have no material impact on its previously provided first quarter and fiscal year earnings outlook.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $864 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003.
Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at http://www.activision.com.
The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements.” The Company cautions readers of this press release that a number of important factors could cause Activision’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements. These important factors, and other factors that could affect Activision, are described in Activision’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003, which was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers of this press release are referred to such filings.
Well, it seems that Elite Force 2 is the last Trek game we'll see for a while... not really surprising given how Trek is struggling, but its still too bad.
What's with this? It looks like I'm going to have to spend my entire August paycheck on games. Look at how many good games are supposed to be coming out around late August to early October, according to gamestop:
Mid-Late August:
GBA
Sword of Mana
GC
F-Zero GX
PS2
VF 4 Evolution
Silent Hill 3
Kengo 2
PC
Homeworld 2
Xbox
Otogi
September:
GBA
Mario & Luigi
Mega Man Zero 2
FF Tactics Advance
Boktai
Shining Shoul
Mario 3
Harvest Moon
Onimusha Tactics
GC
Soul Calibur 2 (also on PS2, Xbox)
True Crime (also on PS2, Xbox)
Billy Hatcher
Harvest Moon
PC
Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons...
Max Payne 2
Jedi Academy
Half-Life 2
Doom 3... maybe
Early-Mid October:
GC
Viewtiful Joe
Kirby's Air Ride
Rebel Strike
PS2
Jak II
PC
Deus Ex 2
MoH: Rising Sun
Men of Valor: Vietnam
Xbox
PGR 2
Sudeki
Steel Battalion Online
Can't they space these out a little bit? The early summer is pretty much empty.
Dear forumgoers, 
