It's that time of the week again and we're celebrating, because on your screen is the 20th edition of Advance Weekly. Not a really turbulent week, but we've still got some interesting stuff for the Gameboy Advance fans.

In the hardware section we only have two announcements this week. First one: the Pokémon Super Paks. NMintendo thought it would be nice to release a special package containing a limited edition Pokémon GBA SP, a branded Pokémon GBA SP case and a copy of Pokémon Ruby or Sapphire. Just like with every other Pokémon branded item, the Pokémon Super Paks will be available in two flavours: Ruby and Sapphire (how surprising). Whether you want the red or the blue edition of the GBA SP, case and game: both versions will be launched across Europe on the 28th of November 2003 at the estimated retail price of 170 euros.

I said there were two hardware announcements this week. Remember the GBA movie adapter by AM3 from last week? Well, it seems that the upcoming game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories will use the 'Advance Movie'-technology from AM3. This allows Square-Enix to include some high resolution cutscenes in their upcoming game. Now this is something I'd like to see for myself. According to our source, usage of this new video-technology will be used more often in future Nintendo games for ingame-movies.

Time for an intermezzo. In the previous roundtable the question to the Cube-Europe staff was to give their opinion on sportsgames. This week, the news reached us that Prograph Research has cancelled both its 3D engine called DR Advance and the racing title GP Advance F1. The reason for this? The SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment of Europe) bought a 4 year exclusive rights agreement with the FOA (Formula One Administration). Since SCEE has no plans to publish games on platforms other than the PS2, this means no F1 titles for the GBA, the GameCube or the X-Box until 2007!

As you can see below in the images, promising games won't get a decent chance because of this. Someone has therefore set up an online petition to ask SCEE to give up their exclusive right, but only for the platforms they do not plan to release Formula 1 titles for. Maybe, just maybe we can make a difference... Maybe it's worth a try...

Let's move on to a licence that's very popular and will certainly be used on our popular platforms: Pokémon. Two facts were given this week on the upcoming Pokémon Leaf Green and Fire Red. First of all, in an interview with EGM, George Harrison (senior vice president of NOA) said that the game won't be seeing a Red/Green combination in Europe, but a Red/Blue (just like with the originals). Secondly, we finally know the Japanese releasedate for the remakes: January, 28 (2004).

Another popular game was finally shown last week. Thanks to Famitsu Magazine, we got our hands on some screenshots of F-Zero: Falcon Legend. The Blue Falcon, the Dragon Bird and Death Anchor will certainly show some speed on the GBA screen within a few months.

A few new titles were also mentioned this week. Not much is known about these titles, so I'll go through them rather quick:

-First of all there's Bookworm. Only two things known about this title: it's in development and it'll be action based.
-A bowling simulation known from the PC, the Playstation and the Sega Saturn will get a sequel: Ten Pin Alley 2
-Another installment of Tetris is also heading our way. Challenge mode, Time Attack and Endless mode are said to be featured in the game.
-Next one up: Thunder Alley... Well, this one was said Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004 will be released in Europe. Another game from the Yu-Gi-Oh card-series, again by Konami. The only details given was '2-player simultaneous play' (read: battle a friend).

Just like last week, many screenshots and movies were shown to the public. Here's a (short) list linking you to some screenshots and/or movies on various games:

• Astro Boy (movies)
• F-Zero: Falcon Legend (screens)
• James Bond: Everything or Nothing (screens, movies)
• Need for Speed: Underground (screens)
• Dragonball Z: Taiketsu (movie)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (movie)
• Sim City 2000 (movie)
• The Sims: Bustin' Out (screens)

It wasn't a really turbulent or exciting week, but I hope you still enjoyed reading issue of Advance Weekly. Comments are welcome (especially positive ones) and can be send to [email protected].

Dennis Stam
(aka Blackbird on the boards) Dennis