Your weekly roundup of everything Gamecube.

Hello again, and welcome to another edition of Cube-Europe's Weekly Digest- your weekly GameCube news-roundup, delivered directly to your inbox. The post-E3 din has died down considerably. It seems that all news and announcements were made back in Los Angeles. Which leaves me to mop up the rest of the week's happenings. And, if truth be told, there's not a lot to be said...

The next fortnight sees the release of a couple of decent GameCube games. The latest in the Tom Clancy series, Rainbow Six 3, has 'gone gold' so to speak- meaning that it has gone into mass production. Expect it in Europe on June 25th. Filling an ominously large gap in the GameCube European release schedule is Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour which finally gets released over here in the coming days. And about time, too�(it debuted in the United States the best part of a year ago). Other recent notable releases include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Film- very good. Game- dodgy. You know the drill.

More information surfaced during the week on the long-awaited Resident Evil 4. Capcom have confirmed that the second playable character will be a girl, in the spirit of gender equality (we're sure that's the motivation). Ashley will be confronted by a sinister religious group. More on this one soon.

Those crafty people at Datel have long been recognized as top-class purveyors of cheating equipment to all and sundry- and now, they've just outdone themselves. The MAX Drive allows for 64Mb of memory card storage and the ability to connect to a PC and download Action Replay codes and saved games.

Coming with three components, a MAX Drive cartridge, a USB cable, and a disc containing Datel's Memory Manager PC software, the MAX Drive should alleviate (if not completely eliminate) your memory card problems- hopefully, Nintendo's paltry Memory Card 59 will become a forgotten memory before too long. We'll get one in and test it as soon as possible- and tell you if this gadget is worth your hard-earned money. Assuming the memory is as stable as Nintendo's own- something that can't be said for some other third-parties- it should be a god purchase.

This week on Cube-Europe saw the return of one of our long-deceased regular features- the Public Roundtable. But now, it's back with a vengeance! You- yes, you- can now partake in the debate about the issues that really matter in gaming. Every week, on the GameCube forum section, you'll be able to air your views for the world to know. So do take part� Cube-Europe this week has gone into movie overload- you can view excellent footage from the likes of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (stunning, if truth be known), Paper Mario 2 (ditto), Geist (complete with fluid four-player mode) and more (including Advance Wars) are on the way in the coming hours and days. Of course, Broadband might help. I'm still stuck on a 56k connection, so it'll be a while before I can sample the joys of regular direct-feed footage).

Well, that's about all the news I could ferret out for this week. Apologies for the brevity of this week's Digest- but unless you'd like me to make up some more wild rumours like some sites do, I can't do any better.

See you next week,

Mark Cullinane
[email protected]