GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #1

Welcome to the new GamesFirst! Podcast. Today is DATE. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and I’ll be your host for a weekly wrap-up of the latest in gaming news, reviews and previews from GamesFirst.com.

Kicking off our news this week is the GamesFirst! site relaunch. We’ve been working hard in our caves to bring you an enhanced GF! Experience. We think you’ll agree that bigger screenshots, enhanced site indexing, and a brand new graphic design makes a hu ge difference for the site. And we’re proud to be 100% seizure-causing advertisement free! It feels like a rebirth of the site for us, and it’s got us all hopped up on the power and glory. So let’s get right into the news.

News

Topping the news this week is the Xbox 360 price announcement. As expected, Microsoft is offering two versions of the Xbox 360 at launch: A $300 version will come with the console and a single, wired controller. The $400 version comes with the console, a wireless controller, and a detachable 20GB hard drive. Microsoft also announced the price points for other add-ons: A wireless controller alone will cost $50, the hard drive will cost $100 if purchased separately, the Xbox 360 communicator headsets will g o for $20, and custom faceplates will also cost $20 each.

In other hardware news, Nintendo announced the release date and price for the Game Boy Micro. The highly fashionable Micro will launch on September 19 at a price of $99. It will play all Game Boy Advance games, and will come in two colors initially: black and silver. Each unit will also come with two custom faceplates in the box, and more faceplates are expected to be available soon after launch.

In addition to the Game Boy Micro details, Nintendo also announced a price drop for the Nintendo DS, effective August 21. The new price will be $129.99 and the drop is set to coincide with the launch of the highly anticipated Nintendogs, a pet simulator t hat has been incredibly popular in Japan.

Of course, not all is well for Nintendophiles this week. The company announced that Zelda: Twilight Princess would not make its release date this Fall and has been pushed back to Spring of 2006. Zelda fans will have an extra six months or so to work out t heir new Twilight Princess cosplay outfits. Our own George has taken it hard, and the only way we could get him to quit complaining about the delay to his imaginary friend, Tingle, was to post a bunch of newly released hi-resolution screenshots on GF! for download.

Reviews

This week in reviews, Blaine takes on Dungeon Siege 2, out now for PC. Although it feels a little dated graphically, it still packs some action-RPG punch. The storyline really pulls gamers along, and the gameplay is deep and satisfying. Of course, to get to the awesomeness, you’ll have to slog through a slow beginning and deal with some minor camera issues in the combat. But the thing that really irks our badass-ness is that you must play through the game the first time on the easy setting before you can ratchet up the difficulty. Forced easy mode is for wimps.

Regardless of its small problems, Dungeon Siege 2 is a great game, and we give it a four out of five stars.

At the other end of the spectrum is Dragonball Z Sagas, which is out now for Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Blaine got to experience the glory and the pain for us, and brought back the complete review. The destructable environments and cool cartoon g raphics in DBZ: Sagas are great, but there are so many gameplay issues in this one that only the most sugar-fueled six year olds will be able to stand playing it. The camera moves as if it were taped to the back of a drunken fruitfly, and for a game base d on a cartoon based on pretty much nothing but fighting, the combat system here is just plain bad. We’ve rarely seen Power Levels so low, so we give Dragonball Z Sagas a two out of five stars.

To finish things out on the review front, Laurie has tackled the revamped bawdiness that is Conker Live and Reloaded for Xbox. The legendary development house, Rare, reworked Conker’s Bad Fur Day, originally released for the Nintendo 64, and mainly added in a lot more multiplayer features. The raunchy humor is still present in spades (have you ever battled a singing boss made of poo?), and the film parodies of classic scenes from Saving Private Ryan and The Matrix are still hilarious. The voices are well-d one and the multiplayer features are much better this time out. If you haven’t played Conker’s Bad Fur Day, then Conker Live and Reloaded is definitely one you don’t want to miss. But if you spent hours and hours in the 90s blowing up evil teddy bears and wooing sexy squirrels, then you won’t find much in Conker Live and Reloaded to dig into. Still, the nostalgia and humor get us where it counts, so we give Conker Live and Reloaded a four out of five stars.

Previews

Moving from games that are out to games that are coming, GF! Just got word of new beta tests opening for The Battle for Orion’s Belt, which is a strategic space shooter for mobile phones that supports online multiplayer. Deathmatch and cooperative teampla y modes are available, and beta testers will be selected from the users who sign up at the Cellufun website. Cellufun is producing several new mobile games this year and are pursuing a unique independent distribution program that will allow gamers on a wid e variety of mobile phone networks to download and play together. To further entice users to check out their games, Cellufun plans to give away the single-player versions for free, and will charge a modest subscription fee to unlock online multiplayer feat ures. More details about Cellufun, The Battle for Orion’s Belt, and signing up to be a beta tester is available in our full article on GamesFirst.com.

Closing

And that about does it for us here at GF! I’m Val Townsend, and those are your weekly highlights. Remember there is always more posted every day at *WWW.GAMESFIRST.COM. Load us up in your browser the next time you’re onlinewe’ll keep the coffee hot for you.