- December 28, 2001 -

A R C A D E

- Sammy / Arc System Works have released new screen shots of their upcoming arcade fighting game Guilty Gear XX, the sequel of their popular weapon fighting game. Two new characters are confirmed to be in the game: Slayer is a man with no apparent weapon and fights with his mysterious power, and Bridget is a nun-like girl who uses a yoyo as weapon. The game will run on the Naomi GD-ROM system, and it is scheduled for a spring 2002 release. (Source: Madman's Cafe)

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- Genki announced a PlayStation 2 port of Namco's recently released arcade racing game Wangan Midnight (Bay Shore Midnight), the PS2 version is scheduled for release in March 2002, for 6800 yen. The game will support communication battle with i.Link cable, and the GT Force controller. Bay Shore Midnight is based on the popular comic, the home version will have additional play modes not found in the arcade version, such as the Scenario Mode. The racing battle is similar to Genki's Shutokou Battle / Tokyo Highway Battle series, in which you have to decrease teh Spirit Point (SP) of the rival to win the races, you can decrease the enemy SPs by pass through the opponents.

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- Idea Factory has released new info on their PlayStation 2 simulation RPG title Generation of Chaos Next: Lost Bonds, the game is divided into 2 portions: RPG (Story Mode) and Simulation (Normal Mode and Chaos Mode). In the RPG portion, you play as Eriru, a knight who ran away from his kingdom after been chosen as the king, he is also engaged with the princess Rozzi. In the Simulation portion, your mission is to unit the whole continent, a new Loyalty degree system is added to the game, which determines how loyal the generals are to the kingdom. This game also features characters from Idea Factory's other RPG series such as Kingdom of Chaos. The battle system is similar to Enix's Valkyrie Profile, in which your action in each turn is depending on the amount of points in the Attack Counter, the counter refills after each turn, and when it reaches a certain point, you can use special attacks or magic spells.....

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- Here are some screen shots of AIA / Kaze's PlayStation 2 pinball game Akira Psychoball, scheduled to release in US in Q1 2002. The game features characters from the popular anime series Akira, and continuously evloving pinball play field. There are dozens of event triggers and side rooms, changing just like an action adventure game as you progress through the game.

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O T H E R

- Here is the TRST Top 20 Best Selling Videogames Chart in North America from December 2 to 15, with a much larger user base, PlayStation 2 have dominated the chart with 8 titles in Top 20. The best selling games in the month of November can be found here.

M U L T I

- Activision announced X-Men: New Dimension for the next-generation systems (PS2, XBox and GameCube), the latest sequel of their popular 3D fighting game. This time the game will have multi-tiered levels, non-arean fighting, advanced combos, aerial combat and eight-way movment. X-Men: New Dimension is scheduled for a summer 2002 release. (From IGNPS2)

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D R E A M C A S T

- Sega of Japan announced that they will be ending the Shenmue Passport services for Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka in Japan by the end of March. After March 2002, players will not be able to connect to the Shenmue Passport services and access functions such as message board, Shenmue World, Network Ranking and the Plaza area.