Its Primetime!

Ah, Metroid. Good to see you again. Well, I suppose I had better come clean- I forgot to pre-order Metroid Prime. Yes, laugh at me, ridicule me as you will; I deserve it all. And whats more, no shop within a 100-mile radius has the game- either stock hasn't arrived in, or they're sold out. Fantastic. Well, I'm told this here mighty fine article isn't supposed to be about personal grievances, so I suppose I had better move on.

I think I should briefly mention sales of the GameCube- Argos' rather crazy promotion has worked a treat- sales are up in the region of 500%, all of which means they may yet continue to stock the GC. In our warring allies country, the U.S of A, sales of Nintendo's console have reportedly increased by 100% in February, over January. (Although the fact that January is the quietest month of the year, game-wise may have a lot to do with it). Game Boy Advance sales were also high in February, reaching 250,000. This represents more then 25% of all software sales despite the fact the GBA SP launches this month. In February GameCube and GBA combined to make up 37% of all game hardware sales. They also contributed for more than a quarter of all game sales in America. Top news then.

Ninty also announced a set of interesting launch dates for a heap of exciting games- in America, that is. The decidedly odd-titled Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising will be released on June 23rd in the U.S. The even-more-oddly titled Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ will launch on May 26. Golden Sun 2 also has an imminent release (June 14th.) One question I'd love the answer to- the original Advance Wars was heavily delayed in Europe due to the September 11th attacks- with Gulf War: Episode II now underway in Iraq, will the game be similarly delayed here? Hopefully not. But most interesting of all on the GBA front is that Donkey Kong Country is coming to the GBA in the U.S on June 9th. DKC was originally a SNES game- developed by Rare. Now, notwithstanding some worryingly complicated legal issues pertaining to character and code ownership, could this mean that the classic SNES game is really coming to the Game Boy? It should be very interesting- we'll keep a beady eye on proceedings, don't you worry. Suffice to say, this is a guaranteed must-have instant classic- I fondly remembered the day DKC was released- it remains one of my favourite games ever.

Excellent news. And that's not all on the GBA front, unbelievably. In just seven days, the glorious Game Boy Advance SP will hit European shores, and alongside it, the absolutely flabbergasting-good Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which remains probably my most-loved Zelda game ever. Really, one would think Nintendo were trying to empty our pockets�

Elsewhere on C-E this week, we've gone unashamedly superhero- new info has been released on Superman, The Hulk and Batman: Dark Tomorrow (which scored a disappointing 6,5,5,4 in Famitsu- after all those delays, I expected more� how foolish I was.)

Plenty of new info on the site too, about a veritable slew of new game- Shadow of the Sun, Spirits and Spells, GT Racing and Goblin Commander being only the tip of the iceberg- and with new games being announced on an almost daily basis. Who was it that said the GC wasn't getting 3rd-party support? Pity LucasArt's slightly-promising RTX Red Rock was cancelled.

Don't games seem a little trivial this week, with Gulf War: Episode II being beamed into our homes 24-hours a day? Well it does to this writer, which might just explain the shortness of this week's article. Complaints to the usual address- or if you'd rather, you're local U.S or British embassy�.

-Mark Cullinane