This Weeks News

Well its not long now till Christmas is again upon us, and the majority of us will be forcing on a smile opening presents from elderly relatives and listening to their stories of "better times". You know the kind, everything was cheaper, no sex/violence on TV...........(audible groan). But its not all bah humbug, lucky for you im here to deliver the weekly GBA news and software charts.

First up folks is the great GBA hardware sales figures coming in from all territories, most noticeably the USA and Japan. In the US alone, 1 million units were snapped up in a week! Great news for Nintendo fans everywhere, as this means even more developers (if that's possible) will be climbing on board the purple bus that is Nintendo, to develop for our little 32bit wonder. Japan see's more good news with the GBA leading the hardware charts by a long way. With the user base growing at this rate, the GBA's success is set in stone.

Now some news on the pokemon variety, having played the game (pokemon sapphire) on import from the land of the rising sun I can say that none of you are going to be disappointed. The new 2 on 2 battle system works great, and the pokegear is a vast improvement over its older brother. Now if only I could read Japanese I could tell you if the story was any good :-)

Seriously though, nothing much has changed there. The same old Gym battles remain, with battles with badly named trainers along the way (remember bug catcher and the aptly named gal?) , which is no bad thing. As soon as a US release is here, we will review it in more detail.

Not really news, but some speculation about the GCN/GBA link-up option is floating around in gaming circles right now. According to those in the know, 2003 will see a boom in developers utilising this option in their projects. On the surface this looks like nothing, but this means big development studios like EA and Activision need to make GCN versions of their games, instead of strait ports. About time we cry, but its good news for GBA owners as well, as more depth will be added to games that otherwise would lack originality and vision. I'm not saying that the link up option is a guaranteed unit seller, but the possibilities for it are huge. More news as soon as we get it.

Almost it for this week but for the next few months I'll be asking your favourite SNES games that you would like seen ported to GBA. Games like secret of mana, Harvest moon...............I could go on, but I don't have the time, plus there is a real risk of electrical shock what with all the saliva :-) . E-mail them to me and we will start a campaign with the developer to get them ported ASAP.

Finally guys, this weeks game of the week is Advance wars. I want you guys to write a review (max 300 words). The best one goes in next weeks section, so get writing.

European GBA software charts - Week ending 30th November 2002

1. Harry Potter And The chamber Of Secrets
2. Scooby Doo
3. Yoshi's Island - Super Mario Advance
4. Monsters, Inc
5. Lord of The Rings - The two towers
6. Spyro 2: Season of flame
7. Columns Crown
8. Spyro: Season of ice
9. Chu Chu Rocket
10. Super Mario Advance 2

The E-Reader

There are many people that are still wondering what the E- Reader does. And if you read this you'll now what it's all about. The E-Reader, reads cards just like credit cards. You stick your E-Reader in your Gameboy Advance just like any other game and then you slide a card through the card reader and you will find your self playing a mini-game or maby it's a card that will import things into your Gamecube. There will are three different packages to buy at this moment but there are more coming in the future. There's a Pokemon pack which features mini-games and information about the character you got there are 165 different cards, there's a classic game pack which features loads of classic Nintendo games and then there's an Animal Crossing package and some of the cards have passwords printed in them and you can use the passwords in the Animal Crossing game to receive gifts from your friends and even get melodies. I must say that Nintendo have found a brilliant way to get cash and based on their idea only. You can learn more about the E-Reader here

Pocketeers Interview

Well, I guess this is the first interview that Advance Weekly has ever gotten. It's with the British gaming company Pocketeers. The company have been working hard on a game engine which produces beautiful 3D graphics on our portable monster. The outcome is amazing and makes us wonder how far developers can push the Gameboy Advance. You can learn more about the company on their website here . And the just updated their Quake engine section with new screens and videos. The interview is with Matthew Hopwood.

Thank you for granting my interview.

Would you like to tell everyone who you are, what you do and what the company does.

I am Matthew Hopwood co-founder (along with David Garrison) at Pocketeers Inc. I am the lead coder at Pocketeers and ultimately responsible for the technology that we have produced thus far. Pocketeers produce hand held games primarily for Game Boy Advance and PDA.

When did you start making the game engine and when was it complete?

Development on our 3D gaming technology began over a year ago. Our technology is always evolving so it will probably never be complete in these sense that we stop working on it, however it is in more than a good state to use in the development of stunning 3D titles on GBA.

What kind of educational training is necessary to work for your company?

We hire staff on merit, we look more at demo reels than qualifications. Our motto is that theory is great, but practice makes perfect.

It's really amazing how you could get such beautiful 3D graphics on the Gameboy Advance and I think Nintendo is pretty shocked too. But will this effect how long your games will be since it must take some space producing such graphics?

Our first game is scheduled to fit on a 32Mbit cartridge so it doesn't mean that we need to use larger carts. However, that being said we would like more space to increase the impact of the graphics that we do put into the game. With regards to the visual quality of our demos this has improved substantially since we added the last shots to our web site. Below are a couple of fresh exclusive shots of a generic 3D racing engine we are working on. The complete environment and all vehicles are 3D.

That crime simulator game on your site is really impressive is there any chance that we will ever see that game on the Gameboy Advance?

We are showing a prototype of TWOC around to publishers to gather interest. Should sufficient interest be shown in TWOC then we will certainly develop it.

Can we expect any game from you soon? If so what kind of game?

We are working on a product for a publisher right now. Although we are still ironing out contractual details, we are actively producing content for the game, since it will shipping early 2003.

Why did you choose the Gameboy Advance instead of any other next-generation console?

It's a great platform. It's also the most accessible and less costly to develop for. However, the competition is unbelievably fierce which is tempting us to cross develop.

What game is your all time favorite?

I like many games across a multitude of genres so find it impossible to choose. However I would have to say the likes of GTA3, Max Payne, RTCW, War Craft Series, Quake Series, Bomberman, Metroid Fusion, Pokemon, Zelda, and string of other RPG's on GBA are amongst my most memorable hours spent gaming :)

Which game developer do you like the most?

Rockstar

Which game developer do you like the least?

No comment :)

Nokia and Ericsson are both realising handheld gaming systems some time in the near future. Do think that their systems will be succesis or do you think they will be crushed by Nintendo like every other handheld that tries to enter the market}

The first hurdle for these companies is getting the devices sold to youngsters. To do this they need to offer features that kids really want as well as keep the price low. The second hurdle is being able to compete with Nintendo's game catalog and pricing. I do think that it is possible and we will certainly be supporting the platform with our technologies. In addition, combining the gaming capabilities with a mobile phone could also attract older gamers too, which would massively increase it's potential user base.

If they do show sucess will you and your company ever develop games for them?

We are already looking to port our technologies to Nokia's N-Gage platforms.

What do think of raylight's game engine, Bluerose?

It looks great.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions.