All you cheesball TV fans take heart: Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be coming to an Xbox near you this summer. Buffy\'s trademark gymkata style of fighting, all of her cohorts good and evil, and a load of cheesy dialogue juxtaposed with quick action make this one for the fans to clamor about. Details are right over here.

Aaron got his turn on Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat, this time on the Xbox, and his evaluation is pretty much the same as Jeremy\'s opinion of the PS2 version. How can you have a scene like the one at right and not have more of a sense of humor in your game? Click.

With all of the different console manufacturers launching their online components this year, it can be tough to sort it all out. So I put together Back to the Front: The Console Wars Go Online to outline the facts and offer up some analysis. See what you think.

Although they sounded intriguing, it wasn't the martinis and massages that lured me into the WildTangent room at E3. As a member of the media, the invites for drinks were as free flowing as T-shirts and temporary tattoos for the normal E3 attendee. Yet, as I was winding my way through the mayhem that is E3, I was surprised to see a rather large woman in a purple shirt handing out gamedisks. With quasi-anorexic booth babes the norm in this venue, I was surprised to note that all of the WildTangent women (as that's who they were) were larger-than-life and exceptionally friendly. I wondered, "Who would be so bold as to flaut tradition and hire large, fully clothed women to entice players to check out a booth?" The answer turned out to be a company that has used just such divergent thinking in all areas of their marketing: WildTangent.

When this game came out for the Dreamcast it was a hit. And it\'s still a super good game. Space Race on the PlayStation 2 brings back all the same tracks and characters with just a few enhancements. Bottom line: If you own the DC version, don\'t sweat this one, but if you haven\'t tried Space Race and if you like kart racers at all, click here now.

Capcom\'s other latest offering is a revolutionary take on their established Breath of Fire series. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter does two things very differently: First, it incorporates a way-cool cel shaded look. Second, the game structure and replay system are unlike anything we\'ve seen in console RPGs. Read all about it here.

Possibly the most beautiful game yet for PS2 is ICO, the strange story of a little boy with horns growing out of his head. Normally, that would be cool, except in his culture they sacrifice little boys with horns growing out of their heads. Check out Jason\'s review here.

Valve has partnered with gaming ISP, Speakeasy.net, to poll the PC gaming public. Just what is out there? What kinds of computers do you folks have? How fast is your connection? How much RAM, baby? The results are a bit surprising if you've heard the lowest common denominator rhetoric of web design courses and instructional manuals. But gaming is an ever-evolving industry, both for producer and player, and those who do not keep up do not, can not, keep playing.

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).

Peter Moore, President and Chief Operating Officer for Sega of America, held a press teleconference this morning to detail Sega of America's plans for 2001 and to comment on Sega's worldwide strategy. In addition to announcing a new $99 price tag for Dreamcast beginning February 4 (the Sega Smash Pack will now be priced at $119), the company has decided on some strategies to move Sega from a lagging hardware manufacturer, to a "top of the heap" software developer and publisher. Moore outlined a three-pronged approach that will go into effect April 1 this year and continue through at least March of 2002. The basic approach involves the following:

Sega is now a "platform agnostic" third-party game developer/publisher.
Sega will license the DC chipset.
Sega will focus on network strengths.

The modern world of videogames is like most other creative pursuits in that it is now coming of age and realizing its full potential. During the course of this realization, many different phases and styles have, and will, emerge. Turning points and plateaus are inevitable, as are special titles that represent "timeless" examples of the artform. Just as a classic Mercedes Gullwing will always stand out from the crowd of other cars, certain games will represent a highpoint in gaming that will maintain a certain "Wow" factor in the decades of gaming to come. Further, just because drastically better 3D modeling, and other innovations, are coming doesn't necessarily mean that the games will make a deeper, or even as deep of an, impression on the audience than its well-crafted ancestor did.

An essential part of any D&D session is the monsters. The updated Third Edition Monster Manual is the source for all your enhanced monster mashing needs. Rob has the review.

My wife hates it whenever I make a significant electronics purchase; she doesn't mind the money spent as much as the buyer's anxiety I always experience after plunking down a few hundred dollars for something I know will be obsolete within a few months. The DVD player, the stereo, the camcorder are all sources of great anxiety to me whenever I think about them. Should I have waited for them to go down in price? Could I have gotten a better deal if I had looked around a little more? Did I get the right brand? Because of this tendency to second guess myself, I try to avoid making major purchases of things new to the market. I waited a year to see if DVD would really take hold, and it did. I had intended on breaking the waiting restriction with the Playstation 2. I didn't think that there could be a surer bet. At the beginning of the summer I started putting pennies away in anticipation of October 26th. I would be the first one on my block to own it, and it would be glorious. There was no doubt. After all, Newsweek even ran a cover story on it. Sure, there were rumors about an X-Box and a Dolphin, but what were they in the face of Sony?

Dan Birlew is the author of several strategy guides for BradyGames, including Resident Evil 3 and Vagrant Story, and has been assigned to the SquareSoft roster of games. He has and is covering new Square titles like Parasite Eve II, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy IX. Birlew has a reputation for high quality work, and a distinct dedication to his craft. GamesFirst!, represented by yours truly, was lucky enough to sit in on a press roundtable discussion with Birlew and Detra Perry, PR Representative for BradyGames. Also in attendance were correspondants from Just Adventure, GameSpin, GameWeek, and The Computer Show. We all had a really nice, and quite long, discussion, ranging in topics from the nitty-gritty construction of a strategy guide, to linquistic and style considerations, to the future of strategy guides and gaming. It was all so fascinating that I followed up the interview with a few more questions, nagging Birlew about some of the deeper issues involved in gaming in general. You can find the GF! Exclusive Followup to the Dan Birlew Interview here, and keep reading to get the rest.