Ladies and gents, welcome to another edition of the weekly digest. Here is your host with the, er, most, Mark!

Let's start this week's slog through the juiciest news of the past 7 days with the news that George Harrison, VP of Marketing, NOA strongly insinuated, in some business journal or other, that the GameCube won't be properly going online. He poured more cold water on any chance the 'Cube will be getting any (first-party at least) online games. During his interview, Harrison droned "We just don't believe consumers are ready for [online gaming]. Right now, no one's paying for subscriptions. The real test comes when you have to start coughing up $15 a month". He also stated it was a "consideration" for Nintendo and that the company is "looking into it for the next iteration of the GameCube". So they are still keeping the same 'wait and see' policy that they've had for the past few years. Looks like we're going to have to wait until the GC's follow up before we're going to see anything online from the big N. Well, they know what's best. (Don't they?)

Incidentally, a massive 100% of respondents to last weeks first text poll said that online gaming should be key to Ninty's next console. Criterion, the U.K developer who recently shot to akklaim (fired! Ed) with the superb Burnout series, has just announced two brand new games- both of which will be winging their way to Ninty's bundle of joy. Wick! 'Dust Storm' is a racing game and judging by the title sounds like an off-roader to me. In the absence of any further information we can only guess. 'Black' is a first-person shooter. And that's it folks. Criterion have 'Rare syndrome' and aren't saying a word else. We managed to get something out of their studio head, though. "Development on Black and Dust Storm has been well under way for some time and we are delighted with how both titles are progressing," said Criterion's studio head, Fiona Sperry. "These new games continue our philosophy of creating new console franchises based on our own original IP." Should be good, going on Criterion's rather impressive track record thus far. Time will tell. Nintendo have finally announced an official European date for the highly anticipated Soul Calibur II. Nintendo of Europe will be co-publishing this title for Europe and will also be responsible for it's distribution. When? 26th September, sir. As you probably already know, the GameCube version will exclusively allow you to play as Link.

Capcom have let slip some fascinating snippets of info about their upcoming title, Killer 7. The game still remains a bit of an enigma at present, but at least now we're able to fill you all in on some concrete info. Players take control of Harman Smith, a wheelchair-bound assassin who's aim is to stop acts of terrorism taking place all over the world. Harman seems to have an interesting form of schizophrenia, though- and here's where it starts to get interesting. Killer 7's (Harman) mind is split into seven different personalities, and he'll have to use the different abilities of each individual persona to combat those nasty terrorists. Weird, huh? It gets even better- read this excerpt from Capcom's great press release- 'People with crazed and distorted smiles are appearing throughout the world. Anyone with this "Heaven's Smile" becomes violent and begin attacking anyone within close proximity. Now these crazed soldiers have started to overthrow huge city governments and have even taken the life of Harman's beloved Suzy�'

Ah. Well that makes sense. Sounds like a cracker, though; lets hope the game lives up to its striking premise. Expect this cel-shaded oddity in early-mid 2004. I for one can't wait. To be honest, there isn't a whole lot else to report this week, people. A couple of games have been announced, though- Zed Two have confirmed that their upcoming story-based and dual-player role-playing epic, entitled Pillage is coming to the GC. It combines a number of different genres, it seem- mixing RTS/RPG with a dash of 4-player party carnage thrown in for good measure. Zed Two have produced the goods before, of course- lets hope Pillage does the company justice. Kemco have confirmed that Loco is being readied for release on the 'Cube. The game, set for release (according to Nintendo's website) in Q4 2003, is another FPS, based on yet another character from DC Comics. Pleasingly, the GameCube version of Lobo will feature GC/GBA connectivity.

Rounding off this week's edition are the review scores for some recent games by the magazine endlessly touted as Japan's gaming 'Bible'- that being Famitsu, of course. This week, Super Mario Advance 4 (that's a remake/port of a remake, believe it or not) which garnered an impressive 9/8/8/9. A great game, to be sure, but not a patch on Mario World or Yoshi's Island, I think. Hideo Kojuma's innovative Boktai for the GBA, which has a light-sensing peripheral attached to it, has received 8,9,10,9. But this week's big surprise is that Kirby Air Ride (not Kirby's as some fools will tell you) has got an impressive 8,9,8,9. Given that it was looking distinctly less than impressive earlier in the year, this comes as welcome news.

Well, that wraps up this week's edition. See you all again next week.

Mark Cullinane
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