Hello again everybody, to yet another weekly edition of the digest. Might I mention that I'm celebrating a year now at the Digest's helm? Oh yes, and there's the small matter of Christmas coming up in just over a week's time- Cube-Europe are preparing a slew of festive treats for you, our loyal readers.

Anyway, there's plenty of news to sink your teeth into this week. And Saddam's capture is only the start of it. Not least is the revelation that the GC/GBA link-up games, Tetra's Trackers and The Four Swords for the GameCube are to come in the one package- but that's not all- Tetra's Trackers has been renamed the 'Navi's Trackers' with Four Swords being monikered 'Hyrule Adventure'. A third game, Shadow Battle has been added to the combined package. In the game, up to four players will control four different versions of Link in a Battle Royale slug match. Well, we're reserving judgement on the entire package, to be honest, as we simply don't know enough about them at the minute. We will of course, keep you bang up to date on this one. As if we'd do anything less...

You may recall us announcing, for the umpteenth time, that Galleon was in fact going to be released after all. Sadly, SCi contacted us this week to tell us that only the Xbox version was confirmed at the minute, but that they are, ahem, 'currently evaluating other options for Galleon'. When (if?) a decision is made we will let you know.

Our good friend Mario has had a good week- not only are his latest appearances, Mario Party 5 and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Doing fine business the world over, the ol' blighter has now got a wax statue of himself! The statue now resides at the Hollywood Wax Museum at 6767 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood, California. Mario is the first-ever video game icon honoured with a wax figure at the museum- and he replaces Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss, stars of the wonderful (yes, I'm sticking to my guns on this one, I'm afraid) Matrix trilogy. George Harrison was on hand to provide some choice quotes Go-sen would have been proud of- "With four new Mario games in stores right before the holidays, this truly is the 'Season of Mario,' he said. "Mario's induction into the Hollywood Wax Museum further establishes his importance as a pop-culture icon."

Now here's some excellent news: Namco's fantastic role-player Tales of Symphonia (which was greeted in Japan with uproarious delight) has been given a USA release date. Nintendo have updated their site with the 30th June U.S launch date for the game. You don't need me to tell you that this makes the possibility of a European launch all the more likely. Here's hoping. Nintendo of America's 'My Nintendo' loyalty scheme has got up and running. The scheme has three levels- a basic member for all people who register to the site, a "NSider" level for people who register a Nintendo product, and a "Sage" level which offers moderation abilities and extra bonuses- which is rather interesting, in fact, as 'Sages' are given occasional opportunities to play-test upcoming games and other related activities.

Now, can Nintendo of Europe get their act together a little bit more on the Stars Catalogue? Those 'Sold Out' signs on all the good stuff are getting more than a little annoying.

Activision announced during the week in a press meeting it has planned a sequel to the recently released True Crime: Streets of LA. At its press meeting in New York today, Activision announced that it has planned a sequel to the successful action game True Crime: Streets of LA. No details have been announced as of yet, besides the fact the game will take place in other cities. So, presumably, it won't be sub-titled 'Streets of L.A' like the first� Koro Koro Comic, the Japanese magazine, has reported that Hal Laboratories is working on a new Kirby game for the GBA.

The new game is roughly called "Kirby: The Mysterious Mirror". There is no news of an English name yet. The game is set to release in Japan in March 2004. So we can expect a European release sometime towards the third quarter of the year. The game, which is NOT a spin off of the original, but in fact and entirely new Kirby adventure will find our chubby pink friend with a mobile phone with which he can use to communicate with his friends. As in real life, the phone signal will be strong or weak depending on the location from which you call and you must keep your battery charged in order to use it.

Other new powers and abilities have been touted for the game, including angel wings for flying sections. For those of you annoyed, or even furious with third parties for always releasing the GC version of a multi-format game last, here's a refreshing piece of news from Blizzard, the developers of the forthcoming, and very promising, Starcraft: Ghost. Contrary to recent rumours, Starcraft Ghost is firmly on target for its Cube release. A number of rumours about Starcraft Ghost have been haunting the web of late. The most frequent phantoms have been howling about a potential delay of the cube version or that it had been cancelled outright and was to be an Xbox exclusive.

The company was recently contacted by IGN to confirm these rumours, a representative of Blizzard had the following to say: "Our plans are, and have always been, to ship StarCraft: Ghost on all three platforms at the same time," a company representative told IGN today. "The game is up and running nicely on all of the platforms, Nova's abilities are all in, and we're refining the levels and vehicle mechanics at this point." "We will not ship the game for Xbox before we do for PlayStation and GameCube, and we won't incorporate any console-specific exclusives in terms of in-game content," the Blizzard spokesperson added. "We wouldn't want anyone to feel like they're missing out on something just because they own one console and not another."

Now that's the attitude I'd prefer more third-parties to be taking. Bravo. Some more release-date related news, next. Acclaim's decent high-speed racer XGRA has been inexplicably delayed until February next year. Frankly, if any one of you is bothered by this, I would be very surprised. The truly magnificent F-Zero is far superior to it on just about every level. So what are you waiting for?

Ubi Soft have let it be known that their much anticipated follow up to last years 'stealth 'em up' Splinter Cell, titled "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow", will be receiving a release across all formats in March 2004 Europe wide. Let's hope that Ubi have the good sense to port the Xbox version to the GC, rather than the PS2 version to the GC, like they did last time...

Well, I think that just about wraps up this week's edition. Check back for next week's festive edition of the digest- there will be hardly any news to report, but hey- I'll cook up something.

Nollaig shona duit.
Mark Cullinane