I can't remember the exact date, but when does the pre-ordering with the Zelda 5 remake start again ? Or has it started already ?

Btw, is this a limited release first come first serve thing, or will they make as much as is preordered ?

Coming this summer. :( Why so long, Blizz? That's 10-12 months after Warcraft III! Warcraft II and Starcraft had their expansions within 6 to 8 months... oh well. At least its finally announced.


http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/new...33,00.html

Quote:Warcraft III expansion revealed
Blizzard's upcoming expansion to last year's best-selling real-time strategy game will be called "The Frozen Throne."

According to a press release published on Computer Games Online, Blizzard has officially announced Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Some fans may be surprised to hear that the expansion may be released release as soon as this summer.

The expansion is set a few months after Warcraft III's final battle, and it focuses on events that take place on the arctic continent of Northrend, which was seen in a few missions at the end of Warcraft III's human campaign. The lich king Ner'zhul is imprisoned deep within the Icecrown glacier, and while this powerful undead foe is attempting to escape his prison, both the night elf renegade Ilidan and the traitorous former prince Arthus are trying to discover the powers that lie within the glacier.

As expected, much of The Frozen Throne's new content will come in the form of many new units and one new hero per race. A unique part of Warcraft III's multiplayer gameplay were the neutral buildings where units could be recruited and hero items could be purchased, and there'll also be plenty that's new here. The expansion will not only have additional neutral buildings to provide new upgrades, items, and abilities, but it will also have neutral heroes who can be recruited by players to supplement their forces with unique spells and abilities.

The Frozen Throne's single-player missions will take place in new environments, so it's natural that the multiplayer maps will also feature three new tilesets, which will come complete with new creeps and critters. Many new multiplayer maps are promised for the expansion, as are multiple new game types. The accompanying upgrade to Blizzard's Battle.net service will include clan and tournament support.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos has sold 2 million units worldwide since its release last summer, and it was named GameSpot's Best PC Game of 2002. For more details, check out our previous coverage of the game.

From Gaming-Age:

Quote:Well, a new contender has thrown their hat into the gaming console ring. Despite the insurmountable lead that Sony enjoys with the PlayStation 2, and the increasing market penetration and mindshare of Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube, Infinium Labs of Florida has decided to laugh bravely in the face of overwhelming odds and introduce a new broadband console into the marketplace. Here's the press release:

Longboat Key, Florida – January 20, 2003 - A Tampa Bay area technology company, Infinium Labs Corporation, will develop and market a new game console that will outperform the XBOX, Sony Playstation 2, and GameCube.

The company plans to market a high performance gaming console and delivery system to provide consumers with options and capabilities that are not available in today’s marketplace. The console will appeal to the hard-core gamer and the high end consumer electronic purchaser. This next generation game console provides a robust, fault tolerant delivery system that supports games on demand, game rentals, game demos, seamless upgrades and patch management. The game console is an “ALWAYS ON BROADBAND DEVICE.” It is easy enough for children to use independently yet so advanced it exceeds the needs of hard-core gamers.

Infinium Labs was formed by veteran entrepreneurs who have a successful track record in building large scale companies and advanced architectures for supporting massive eCommerce and enterprise applications. Combining skills from Telco, Data Communications, Digital Rights Management, Software Development and Security, the management team brings together a unique array of skills to develop the most robust next generation gaming console and delivery network on the market.

The Infinium Labs game console features a high tech design and offers ease of use for the variety of game players worldwide. The on-demand delivery system will appeal to hard-core gamers as well as casual users. The unique design architecture allows for delivery of a large number of games and the ability to participate in online massive multiplayer gaming. Key features include:

- Fastest console on the market
- Broadest selection of preloaded games
- Cross Platform capabilities
- State of the art design and architecture
- Advanced accessories and wireless capabilities
- Online connectivity for multi player gaming
- Seamless upgrades and patch management
- A multi tiered subscription service that meets the needs of casual, moderate and hard-core game players
- Demo games before purchasing or subscribing
- Games on demand
- Game Rentals

The advanced system provides game developers and publishers a secure and efficient software distribution system. Infinium Labs intends for game developers and publishers to reap greater profits using this new game delivery system.

Infinium Labs has engineered its prototypes and expects to unveil the new gaming console in March of 2003. The company intends to launch the game console to the U.S. consumer market by November 2003.

About Infinium Labs: Infinium Labs Corporation was formed in October 2002 as a global entertainment/gaming company. Infinium Labs’ mission is to market a gaming console and delivery system that will be the performance leader in the game playing entertainment industry. The company will market a robust game console that will appeal to a wide audience with its ease of use, quality assurance and robust delivery system.

The mind boggles.

Honestly folks, the roadway is littered with the husks of companies who have tried to get into this business and failed - Jaguar, Nuon and 3DO stand as shining examples of what not to do in the cutthroat arena of console marketing. Still, competition always makes for lively news, so we welcome their presence with open arms, despite some lingering skepticism. Here's hoping that The Phantom's moniker doesn't actually refer to their chances. Rest assured that Gaming-Age will keep you fully abreast of additional news on this new gaming system.




-- Tim Lewinson

Today is the last day for the deal, but I thought I'd let you know anyhow.

If you bring in any two used PS2 games (aside from pre-2003 sports titles and wrestling games), you get a brand-new copy of The Getaway for free on wednesday. This deal only applies for pre-orders, but I heard some Babbages clerks saying that you could get $40 credit for DMC 2 so it might work for that as well.

Yesterday I went with my friend to Blockbuster to buy some of their $10 used games so that we could trade them in and get a profit of $20 store credit. If I like the game I'll keep it, but if I don't I could always return it and get $40 in store credit. My friend doesn't want the game so he's just going to return it and get the store credit so that he can buy Unreal 2.

The only problem with rom sites is that they keep dissappearing... either the owners shut them down because of bandwidth, or game companies force them to shut down... so often good rom sites die. I've seen it happen to several rom sites I once used to get a lot of roms from... :(

Anyway, here are most of my bookmarked emulation-related sites.

Emulation Sites (no roms)

http://www.zophar.net - huge, great emulation site. Other than its up to date emulation news, it has HUGE numbers of translation patches and IPS patching utilities, game music soundtracks and soundtrack players/plugins, lots of emulators, public domain roms, etc... no commerical roms, but still very useful site.

http://www.arcadeathome.com - no roms, but it has emulators and a forum that has plenty of rom links there, if you look around them. I've found links from that forum pretty useful.

http://www.smiff.clara.net - N64 Emulation Help site... very useful for getting N64 emulation going on your system.

http://haggar.emuunlim.com - Has others stuff too, but main thing is Capcom CPS2 (arcade system) XORs. They let you play CPS2 roms, which otherwise don't work.

http://www.phuck-ign.net - no roms, but a good list of rom site links. (on the Links page)

Emulators - Official Webpages

http://www.zsnes.com - SNES. I sure hope you know about this one...

http://www.pj64.net - official site for Project 64 Emulator, the best N64 emulator.

http://gens.consolemul.com - Gens Genesis/32X (with 32X Bios, not found there), and Sega CD emulator.

http://fceultra.sourceforge.net - FCE Ultra (NES Emulator) website

http://vboy.emuhq.com - The best GB/GBC/GBA Emulator. Only one real flaw - no link cable (multiplayer) support. Still, it does everything else the best.

http://pt.emuunlim.com - Project Tempest -- the first real working Jaguar emulator. Not finished yet (its now at ver. 0.4), so many games don't work, but its all there is for Jaguar emulation.

http://nebula.emulatronia.com - Nebula official site (Neo-Geo/CPS1/CPS2 emulator. Runs MAME/Kawaks/Nebula-format Neo Geo roms.)

Sites with Roms

http://www.filemirrors.com - useful. It finds mirrors for many files, provided you know the name of what you are searching for. Many of them are often dead links, but still stuff can be found there if you can't find it elsewhere. Downloads are often pretty slow.

http://www.planetemu.net - Yes, it is in French, and has more European-version roms than most emu sites, but still, its a very good currently functional roms site. The downside? One download at a time, and it forces you to wait a while between downloads, too.

http://www.emugateway.com - Good Neo-Geo emu/rom site. Relatively small collection of Neo-Geo roms, but they all work and its a good place to get some, if you're waiting for the slow downloads at Filemirrors or Planetemu's forced wait times. Oh, and it has NeoRAGEx .07hack to download, and thats my favorite Neo Geo emulator.... its better than the final official release (.6) or the .8 hack.

http://www.classicgaming.com - Has a good selection of roms for old systems (no new systems here). Good, though not up to date (for example it has no newer Neo Geo roms) collection. However, it downloads from FilePlanet so you've usually got those terrible wait times FilePlanet has... :(

Rom Sites -- with few currently working roms

http://www.emuparadise.org - It was once MUCH better, but now its mostly broken links. The Jaguar games currently work... most of the time. I've had some fail midway. Most other systems don't right now.

http://www.emureactor.net - Another site whose roms are currently offline. This one has all of them gone right now... but at least for this one they say so...

http://neodump.cjb.net - very few of the roms are actually available. A couple do, though.

http://www.edgeemu.com - I've never been able to get this site to actually download anything... maybe others here might have better luck or something...

P.N.03 is looking really good.

Software
1. Pokemon Sapphire (Game Boy Advance/Nintendo) 61,046
2. Pokemon Ruby (Game Boy Advance/Nintendo) 60,798
3. Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix (PlayStation 2/Square) 41,303
4. World Soccer Winning Eleven 6: Final Evolution (PlayStation 2/Konami) 36,445
5. Momotaro Railway 11: Black Bombee Arrives (PlayStation 2/Hudson) 33,923
6. Mega Man Exe 3 (Game Boy Advance/Capcom) 28,861
7. Unlimited Saga (PlayStation 2/Square) 25,061
8. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube/Nintendo) 24,514
9. Mario Party 4 (GameCube/Nintendo) 21,495
10. Tales of Destiny 2 (PlayStation 2/Namco) 18,311


Hardware
1. Game Boy Advance: 95,400 (Annual: 95,400)
2. PlayStation 2: 79,095 (Annual: 79,095)
3. GameCube: 19,902 (Annual: 19,902)
4. Xbox: 3,900 (Annual: 3,900)
5. PSOne: 3,165 (Annual: 3,165)
6. Wonder Swan Crystal: 2,718 (Annual: 2,718)
7. Wonder Swan Color: 1,691 (Annual: 1,691)
8. Game Boy Color: 1,125 (Annual: 1,125)


All the consoles went way down in sales after last week. Also most of the games have taken hits as well.

Good to know that Zelda is still hanging in there with 700k copies sold.

I was reading about this in the paper of an allegedly cloned baby awhile back, from the "raelians".

http://www.rael.org

I'm heavily considering buying a PS2. I've decided that if I can come up with a total of 8 games that I can't live without, I shall pick up the ugly black GameCube stand.

Accepted
Silent Hills 2 & 3 (decided to list them together)
Dance Dance Revolution (can someone confirm how much this costs with the dance pad?)
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
GTA3 / Vice City
Maximo
ICO


Rejected
Ahh, screw this... too much effort.

2 more to go.

Thanks guys! I really appreciate your input. :)