Masterful puzzle action finds its way to the Gameboy Advance with Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo?one of the most addictive puzzle games available. Just make sure you have a system link if you want to dive into the multiplayer action. If you dig puzzle games, click here now

Three years ago, Rick Fehrenbacher and Al Wildey bought GamesFirst! Although founded in 1995, GF! had been left to languish after the previous editor, a friend of Rick and Al's named Zap Reicken, decided he could no longer maintain the site. At the time of the Rick and Al's takeover, dubbed GamesFirst! 2.0, the site averaged 300 visitors per day. I came on board as the site's first console game reviewer. As Rick described so eloquently in his editorial last year, the consoles section and GF! grew together. A few games trickled in from Activision and a handfull of other games publishers for console systems, and those kept me busy for the remainder of the year.

Sony announced several new partnerships and technology deals at E3, making a major play to enter the online gaming market before Microsoft can get its online bits in order. Both companies have professed the importance of online gaming to the success of console systems, and Sony has specifically illuminated desires to create an online distribution network for all kinds of gaming, movies, music, and other broadband entertainment applications.

While there were many points of interest at E3 this year, the most consistently really crowded booth was Nintendo's, where gamers flocked, nay swarmed, to see the GameCube. For those skeptics out there who think the general mediocrity of the N64 experience has soured gamers, witness the intense interest shown for the new system. Let's face it, the N64 has suffered from a general lack of titles, and some companies have released really terrible games for it, further causing pain to gamers who have been forced to pursue the "any port in a storm" strategy (Big Mountain 2000 comes to mind, er, flashes painfully across my memory). However, there have been some very good titles, and it's no mistake that the best titles on the system have been made by Nintendo and it's 2nd party developer, Rare. Nintendo is, in many ways, the Disney of the gaming world “ they have created and continue to create incredibly popular and lasting characters, who appear in all sorts of games and have firmly lodged themselves in the hearts of mainstream USA (as well as mainstream everywhere else).

As we move into the next arena of competing systems, 2001's HAL9000 may be a ways down the road, but there is a wide world of electronic-gaming glory in sight. While most have hopefully known the awesome perfection that is Dreamcast, it does behoove both the serious and casual gamer to look at the upcoming choices and see what each new platform has to offer them.
PS2 has already landed and GameCube and X-Box will within a year. PS2 and X-Box should both be in the $300.00 range and GameCube about $200.00. Like most other technical-equipment purchases, it all depends on what you want your new box to do. The PS2 has made a serious leap forward as a true 'Set-Top Box' offering movie-playback and the promise of serous internet capabilities. X-Box will offer these also and Nintendo's new entry will at least offer online browsing. With DVD players dropping in price everyday and nearly half the houses in the country connected to the internet, these are niceties in a console, but maybe not the prime focus.

So, as I was standing in line at 6:00 a.m., waiting for Big K to open and deliver me my PS2 booty, the hot topic amongst the fellow first-come-first-servers was DVD. None of us doubted the PS2 game system would be hot, but for many people DVD playback was what brought them out to brave hypothermia, and risk social rejection for years to come. (Hey, camping out for a PS2 is a hell of a lot cooler than doing the same for a Furby”you can't even give those things away anymore!) I have to admit I was skeptical.

Okay fellow troopers, here's the deal on the PlayStation 2. We've been flooded with mails here at GF! asking about details regarding the PS2's memory, processing power, rumored bugs, and a lot more, but most often people have been wanting to know the simple, practical bits of info: Does it come with a demo disk? (No.) Does it come with a memory card? (No.) Will my old multi-tap work? (No.) While the technical details are interesting and provide fodder for those late-night debates about what system will be number one by what month and whose momma could whoop who at Tekken, it's those more practical questions that will hang you up.

Obviously, the internet capabilities of the Dreamcast”combined with its superior processor apparatus”give it an edge far sharper than any system to break in the last forever many years. You thought, perhaps, that you had maximized the possibilities of your couch when you finally found the Dukes of Hazzard TV tray you had been looking for the last ten years, or installed the Molson-stocked mini-fridge next to your remote control caddy. But now, Sega has introduced the possibility of leisurely strolling through the internet from that selfsame couch, not to mention given you the option to play console games on-line with friends who are similarly devoted to their domestic sitting arrangements.

In the grand scheme of things the Dreamcast hasn't sold as well as it could have and I don't think there's any real mystery as to why this is so. A lot of people felt like they got burnt by the Saturn and they've lost faith in Sega's ability to deliver the goods. Gamers coughed up 299 bucks to take a stroll through the next generation system, but then a little something called the PlayStation showed up and preceded to whoop Sega's ass all up and down the isles of your local videogame store. When Resident Evil came out it gave gamers an experience they'd never had before and the Saturn was on the ropes. Sony landed jabs and uppercuts and if you listened closely you could hear bones breaking. Final Fantasy VII rolled out and "Fatality" echoed in the background. FFVII helped sell a bajillion more Playstations, and the Saturn basically just disappeared. When the dust settled and the blood was mopped up Sony was the undisputed champion of the console world and Sega's mangled remains were unceremoniously kicked aside, and the videogame world moved on.

Well, Sony has committed. The PlayStation 2 will be available on October 26, 2000, and it will cost $299. I will take a moment to thumb my nose at anybody who predicted a price higher or lower “ it only makes sense that Sony would release their second system at the same original price as the first. Sony also intimated in their press conference that the PS2 will follow a similar price evolution as its predecessor, which means the price will eventually drop.

Just before E3 we received an email from a new company, Indrema, that is bringing a Linux-based console to the market next winter. With a tentative release date of December 2000, the Indrema L600 should launch with 30 titles, including Quake III: Arena, Unreal Tournament, Heavy Gear II, and Sim City 2000. The system is expected to retail for $299 and features an upgradeable graphics processor by NVidia, and there will be two versions to support both broadband and 56K users right out of the box. In addition, the package will include MP3 player software and a Mozilla-based web browser. The hardware specifications for the system are impressive, and the fact that the graphics processor is upgradeable will at least give the system some real longevity. Upgrades are expected to cost between $50 and $100, and may potentially be produced by companies other than NVidia, giving Indrema good mobility in the ever-changing GPU world.

The Game.com Pocket seeks to make Game.com a major player in the handheld gaming arena. With a touch screen and calendar functions, it offers a bit more than the Game Boy Color in terms of features, but the GBC does have that \"color\" thing. Get the lowdown on the Game.com system and the Game.com version of Resident Evil 2 in this review from Shawn.