I'm afraid I have a touch of writer's block this week, gentlemen. Either that, or there's a serious lack of any interesting news flying around of late- perhaps I'll settle on the latter. It's the summer though, so its only to be expected- but the question remains- how to fill an article like this every week during the summer? I might have to change tack soon enough, and write a different sort of digest. There is just enough material to write on this week though, thankfully. Best get on with it then...

Topping the bill this week I suppose is Rod Cousens the Acclaim CEO's recent comments surrounding Acclaim's GC support- he reportedly said that Acclaim wouldn't be supporting the Gamecube in the 'forseeable future'. Acclaim have since stated that that Rod Cousens's comments were 'taken out of context'- which seems a little silly if you ask me- the man made it clear enough that he's had enough supporting the Gamecube. It seems now that the company will judge each release on a 'case-by-case' basis.

Much has been said on this site about Acclaim's recent poor self-developed games- the disappointing Turok Evolution being a much-hyped example. I have no problems with Acclaim the publisher- they have published a couple of crackers on the Cube- the recent Burnout 2 being a particularly eminent example. Aggressive Inline was quite a good game, too. But compared to the heady N64 days of Turok 1 and 2 and others, their recent output- epitomized by the frankly useless Vexx, the rubbish Jeremy McGrath Supercross World and the turgid BMX XXX has seen Acclaim's stock, in the mind of the consumer, plummet. Add to the mix some irritating PR stunts which frankly backfired on the company (the Turok renaming competition and the company's irresponsible break the speed limit compo on Burnout's day of release being the two most high-profile campaigns) and you can see why the company aren't seen in the same light as before. The company's promising XGRA and the not-so-promising Legends of Wrestling III are still set for release in the coming months. What I'm worried about is the potential loss of big-name quality series' like Burnout- will it continue to come to the 'Cube despite the now-probable loss of Acclaim? Time will undoubtedly tell.

Nintendo 'let slip' er, absolutely nothing on the progression of the GameCube's successor this week. In an astute piece of PR sidestepping during an interview with Famitsu, Ninty told us to 'look forward to' the new console, and that 'we won't be putting it out after other companies' launch periods' � signalling renewed determination not to be late to the party for the third consecutive time. Good news, that. Nintendo also poured a further helping of cold water over the possibility that online gaming would be key to the new console, citing broad band's low penetration as the reason. So Nintendo aren't budging on the issue, no question about it.

This week's apparent announcement that Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, a creaky, frankly rubbish PC and PSone title will be released on PS2, Xbox and GC later this year is definitely not a welcome one. As much as I like the 15-year old wizard, it must be said that unless the game receives a significant renovation, it'll file under 'suicidally bad'. Be warned, folks. Then again, maybe It'll turn out okay. We'll see.

A page on EMAP (publisher of NOM in the UK) has been making waves in the forums this week- a working cover, it seems (judging by the inaccurate references to several games) of the magazine, sporting its fancy new lick of paint, has appeared on EMAP's site. What's causing all the excitement, however, is the inclusion of a picture of a demo disk cover mounted with the magazine- apparently, it's the same one released in the U.S a little while back- with Sonic Adventure DX, Viewtiful Joe, and Splinter Cell playable, among two others. If this is true, its certainly cause for joy. Fingers crossed NOM aren't playing some sort of cruel joke on us, then...

Eternal Darkness is going to be made into a television series and possibly movie, apparently. Hypnotic, a U.S TV company have just bought the rights. I'll eat my hat if anything comes out of it, though- a few years back we were all expecting a Perfect Dark show, which incidentally was much more suited to the medium than Silicon Knight's psychological scare-fest- And nothing came out of that. Perhaps Hypnotic's previous involvement in Eternal Darkness (they helped with the film-making competition last year) will spur them on to make something of the license. Perhaps.

In other news, Namco's much-anticipated fighter, Soul Calibur 2, will come with a couple of extras for its American release soon. The characters 'Rock' and 'Hwang' will be playable in Soul Calibur II, both of which were in the original Soul Calibur. Lizardman will also be selectable in the American version, it was not in the Japanese version. It is unknown at present if these characters will make their way to the European version but it is probable.

New on Cube-Europe this week is a new feature, fittingly entitled, er, 'BitchZone'. It is written by our resident 'bitcher' Ben Havercroft and the first edition (a very good read) is on the site now, at HYPERLINK "http://www.cube-europe.com/news.php?nid=4839" this link. As Ben puts it, the weekly feature deals with 'an orgy of different topics from the gaming world'. This week the focus of attention is on the Playstation generation- a thorny issue if ever there was one, judging by the aggressive emails I received from angry Playstation fanatics when I wrote HYPERLINK "http://www.cube-europe.com/news.php?nid=4198" this article . Read it and judge for yourself if you like- I believe it's a fair interpretation of modern society. But I digress.

Well, that's about all the news I can muster for you this week. Keep your emails coming in, I try to reply to any queries you may have about the digest, and I appreciate all the input I get into writing the column. Have a good week and don't get too sunburnt.

Mark Cullinane
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