Hi all,

Again, I apologize for the lateness of this week's newsletter....school has just kept me too busy to get it written on time. I plan to have some new images of Soul Calibur and Toy Commander online later this week...I've been having computer problems which prevent me from being able to handle the images in a fast manner.

Things have been happening in Europe in the past week. Today, Sega of Europe revealed 30 Dreamcast titles that they plan to be available by year's end. A list of 10 launch titles is set to be released shortly. In short, the list is quite similar to the US list, here are some things that I have not seen for launch in the US: Jimmy White's 2: Cue Ball (Virgin), Red Dog (Sega), Supreme Snowboardin (Infogrames), Toy Commander (Sega), Wild Metal Country (Infogrames).

The list also includes recently announced Trick Style. Trick Style is a hoverboard racing game underdevelopment by Criterion Studios. Formerly, the title was only known as 'Velocity.' Players can race through a special 'velodrome' (a skate park for air surfers), as well as several city settings including Tokyo, New York, and London. The game will make use of the DC's multiplayer abilities and VMS system. You can get more info on it by visiting: http://velocity.csl.com/ This is one title to watch. At this time, the only images online are from the PC version, but they should be similar to how the DC version will look.

Recently, No Cliché released a little information on their DC title called Toy Commander (formerly Project Gutherman). The game was shown at the E3, and it in a way resembles the world created in the film, Toy Story. Things are looking very complex and colourful, while the game maintains a sort of cartoonish feeling. Essentially, imagine the world from a toy's point of view. This is what you see in Toy Commander. There has been little other information on it other than a Sept 23rd release date in Europe.

Today, Red Lemon announced its first DC project that was known as Project TTB. TTB stands for Take The Bullet. The game places you in a late 1960s America. You play the bodyguard of a presidential candidate. Basically its your job to handle the protection of the candidate, primarily from an extremist group Children of Gabriel who wish the candidate dead. Gameplay takes place in either 1st or 3rd person point of view. The game allows for 4 simultaneous players at one location, and up to sixteen(!) players in an online deathmatch mode. The game has 12 levels and a total of 18 weapons. The game is set for a holiday release in Europe.

Capcom's SF Zero 3 is now set for a July 8 release on the Dreamcast. On August 5th we will see the Saturn version. Both contain everything that the PSX version does. However, hidden characters will be available from the beginning, along with the enhanced World Tour Mode, and some nice load times. Also, the DC version has 3 network modes: one allows you to fight against special characters downloaded from Capcom's SFZ3 web site, the second is a Score Ranking mode where you upload your high scores and compare them against other gamer's scores. Last, there is a message board feature for discussion about SFZ3.

In other news, Sega has decided to cancel Geist Force...as the game's quality was not on par with other DC releases. The development team of GF has moved on to work on a space adventure called Jump Runner. The main character, Ethan Fall, is in search of an antique puzzle, while he is also being chased by bounty hunters. There are around 120 different star systems to explore, each with its own unique traits and inhabitants. The game will support multiplayer modes and is set for release sometime Spring next year.

In America, SoA also sent out Press Releases for Get Bass fishing and Climax Landers. The games currently have a US release date of October 20th. Regarding US release prices, Electronics Boutique is listing most DC titles at $49US...however some games such as Metropolis Street Racing, and Climax Landers, are selling for only $39US. There are also some rumors going around that Sega of Japan is planning to drop the price of the DC by ¥10,000 down to ¥19,800 or ($160US) on June 24th. If this happens, the announcement will probably come on June 1st, at the New Challenge conference. Sega has already hinted about an important announcement taking place on that day...we shall see.

Soul Calibur is coming along great (images soon), and the game has been moved to an August 26th release. However, Namco has stated that the game will be their last DC title for this year, and there are no plans for DC games well into next year. The reason for doing the game on the DC, was that they felt the PSX was incapable of handling the title on the level they wanted (correct in that respect). However, the question remains, will Namco go back to Sony's PSX2 or will they continue DC work? At this time, there is no info on this. They only claim that they will only 'sparsely' support the DC.

So, enough of the distant future...this week we see the release of Sega's Dynamite Deka 2 and Hudson's Elemental Gimmick Gear. After these two titles, there will be another long break before the next slew of release on June 24th.

That's all for this week, many thanks for your support!

-Greg