Your weekly GBA (and DS) update

Yes, we're back after just one week! You're once again looking at the latest gossip and news from the GBA scene... It's time for Advance Weekly. The last edition was a little large due to E3. However just like every year, the weeks following after the E3 event become dull. Developers and publishers announced or showed most of their stuff already leaving us with a problem. Well... 'problem'. It just makes me search a little mroe for you all. Let's start, shall we?

Let me start with some less-happy news. In the previous edition of Advance Weekly, you could've read that RARE has spoken to someone from GCAdvanced and said that RARE was working on two Nintendo DS games. Only a few days later, SeattlePI.com published an article in which Microsoft commented on the recent rumours. Microsoft and all of its studios were said to be "focusing all efforts on developing games for the Windows and Xbox platforms (..) RARE does make games for Nintendo's handheld Game Boy Advance, but at this time there are no plans to support the DS".

It got even weirder when a few days after that Microsoft was rumoured to be working on one or more GBA titles themselves as well. Halo Advance was said to be in development for the GBA. Microsoft didn't comment on these rumours yet.

Some better news for the Nintendo DS came from Japan. Brownie Brown, known for many great RPG games (ie. Magical Vacation which was never released outside of Asia) spoke about the Nintendo DS. In their recent scribes, Brownie Brown (a subsidiary of Square-Enix) hinted on Nintendo DS support: their writings were nothing but praising the new handheld. According to a Brownie Brown spokesperson, the company plans to announce their official Nintendo DS plans in the coming weeks.

OK, I know this is called Advance Weekly, but I do have two more DS-related newsitems. First one fills me with pride since the country I come from, The Netherlands (which is also the home of the C-E HQ), has a new official DS developer: Engine Software. After the Super Nintendo, the Game Boy, the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance and the Game Cube it was only waiting for the official announcement. Though no announcements were made about possible titles, Engine Software did say they'd rewrite their GBA Music Replayer Library (used for music playback in quite a lot of games) for the Nintendo DS.

Last DS news, I swear (ok, maybe just a few screens in the links-section below). How does The Legend of Zelda DS: Ocarina of Time sound? No, relax... get back on your chair... In an interview, Kenichi Sugino (involved with the Nintendo DS development engineering department) said that porting the Nintendo 64 game Zelda: Ocarina of Time to the Nintendo DS wouldn't be too hard. However, he also made clear that you shouldn't put your money on seeing the game actually being ported: the team was simply investigating the possibilities. Maybe it's a nice idea to start another retro-collection like the recent Classic NES series?

Speaking of the Classic NES Series, Nintendo has opened up the minipage for these 'new' cartridges. Information and screens on the 8 games, the special edition SP and several wallpapers to download (with ringtones and buddy icons yet to come). All this while listening to some tunes from the original games. Pay the site a visit if you're interested.

Time for some release dates (including some new games). We'll start with Nintendo of Japan, since they had some interesting new stuff in their lists. First of all, the list showed Legend of Stafy 3 set for the 5th of August 2004. Another adventure of the tiny star from under the sea. Nintendo of Japan had another 3rd part of a popular game: Mother 3 (or: Earthbound 3). We expected this game to be shown during E3 2003 already, but apparently NoJ didn't think that was the time for it. No European or US releases set (yet) though...

Next up: Activision releasedates. First to hit Europe will be Shrek 2: The Game (18th of June). In this action platformer we'll play as some of the characters from the animated movie (Shrek, Donkey, Puss and Gingy), each with some specific moves. In some levels you'll even play with two or more characters at the same time and you'll have to make them work together to solve some of the puzzles.

Then there's Spiderman 2 on the 9th of July. You'll take New York for a spin featuring a full-3D cityscape that tests your webslinging skills. You'll also track down the maniacal Doc Ock from rooftop to city streets to subterrean sewer while avoiding deadly traps, machine gun-wielding thugs and surveillance cameras that alert enemies of your presence. You'll even (what else?) battle powerfull bosses (including the GBA-exclusive Lizard and Puma) with new attacks like the Double Web Throw, which can heave 2 opponents to their doom simultaneously.

Spiderman 2 also features an all-new experience points-system to earn better web and combat abilities. Every boss you defeat and every hostage you save makes makes your arachnide crimefighter even more powerful. It's the 3D cityscape which interests me most, but since we haven't seen any screenshots yet...

After that we'll get Shark Tale (September 29, 2004). Another game based on a movie. No specific information was released on this title yet. The same story goes for both Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (end of October) and Lemony Snicket (November 12, 2004). Next in line: Disney Interactive. Things just keep getting weirder and weirder. Now, a GBA game has been announced for Quarter 4, 2005! Chicken Little is set for a release in Q3 2005. The game is based on Walt Disney's Summer 2005 animated 3D feature film.

But Disney announced another title: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (full title) for the Game Boy Advance. The game will be based on C.S. Lewis' classic novel and Walt Disney's Christmas 2005 live-action feature film.

No specific information or screenshots yet for these newly announced titles, but then again, Disney has only 1.5 years to fill us in on the details...

Talking about new games, there's a big chance that Capcom's lawsuit-game Gyakuten Saiban will be released outside of Japan. It seems that Capcom USA has registered the name of 'Gyakuten Saiban' in the USA on the 10th of May 2004. No official announcements have been made yet, but this might indicate that Capcom is indeed planning to release the game in the United States.

Not much screenshots were released this week, but for the little amount here's the usual list of game-assets:

• DK: King of Swing (screens)
• Rugrats: All Grown Up (screens & info)
• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (screens)
• The Urbz (Quicktime movie, 11.5 MB)
• Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance (screens & info)
• Various DS Games (screens & info)

And that was everything for this edition. Comments are welcome (I'm not gonna start about 'especially positive ones' due to last weeks' comments) and can be send to [email protected], or simply drop a message at the boards.

Dennis Stam
(aka Blackbird on the boards)