Hi all,

Again I apologize for the late delivery of last week's update...all e-mail delivery issues now should be fixed. The past week has been relatively quiet. A new Saturn release, and a wrap-up of the DC showing at the Fall TTS.

Now out for the Saturn is another game in the Capcom Generations series. Volume 3 includes platform and shooter games: Son Son, Higamaru, Vulgus & Exed Exes. This week, several Saturn games are to ship in Japan. Amongst the group is the long awaited Marvel Super Heroes v. Street Fighter from Capcom. Other releases include Strikers 1945 II, and Sega Ages: Mickey Mouse Collection.

Also in the Capcom fighter realm is Capcom Generations Volume 5. Set for late December release, the collection will include: Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II CE and Street Fighter II Turbo.

At the Tokyo Toy Show, Sega Enterprises revealed the first Dreamcast game that was developed by Sega of America. The game, a 3D shooter is called Geist Force. Geist Force is set on an alien planet in the distant future. With hundreds of miles of terrain to explore, the game should offer long term game play. The release also states that due to the DC's memory capacity, game players should expect game play to be uninterrupted by load time. Extensive physics models are also used in the game to help create realistic shockwave effects from explosions. That is, if something nearby explodes, your ship will be effected by the shockwave accordingly. Handling the cinematics and visual effects is Netter Digital Entertainment, Inc. NDEI is the same company that handles the wonderful special effects for the sci-fi TV show, Babylon 5.

Sega of America also confirmed agreements with four major US based game publishers: Acclaim, GT Interactive, Midway, Interplay.

Speaking of last weeks information on Namco planning to do Dreamcast games, there are now rumors that Namco is planning to use hardware similar to Sega's Naomi architecture for their next series of arcade machines. Naomi is the arcade parallel to the Dreamcast console using the same SH4 processor and PowerVR2 DC chip.

On the site in the snapshots area, you will find some images from Sonic Adventure, Geist Force, and Climax Landers.

Climax Landers, from Climax Entertainment, is due for a January '99 release on the Dreamcast. The game makes great use of the DC's 3d abilities creating real time 3D gaming environment and battles. As you can see from the images below, the graphics are of very high detail, in some ways rivaling Final Fantasy VII's visuals...but there's no pre-rendered work here. Unfortunately one will not be able to adjust camera angles in the game. However Climax states that this will not be an issue effecting gameplay. The main character in the story is named Sword. Described as a young male traveler he ends up in what seems to be an abandoned house. Over time the other characters move into this house. The other major characters include: Marlin, Ryle, Rao, and Lady. In the game itself you will have total freedom of where you wish to go and what to do. The battle mode uses a standard turn based system. The extensive dungeon system is randomized, and one cannot leave the dungeon until the boss is defeated. Thus, if returning to the same dungeon later, one will find things different. In the dungeons one can also turn monsters into allies. Then the monsters will be kept in a 'monster farm.' This farm data being saved on a VMS card can then be used as a VMS game in which you can raise the monsters.

Players will also be able to turn monsters in the dungeon into allies. Once the monsters are collected they can be kept in a monster farm in town. The monster farm data can be saved to the VMS. This will open up a mini-game on the VMS where you work on raising these monsters.

That's all for this week, cya!

-Greg