REVIEWS...

• PS2: Batman Begins [68.5/100] / Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 / Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [45/100] / Colosseum: Road to Freedom [5/10] / Colosseum: Road to Freedom [5/10] / Fantastic 4 [6/10] / God of War [9/10] / Makai Kingdom [8.4/10] / Monster Hunter [75/100] / Psychonauts [9.1/10]
• Xbox: Cold Fear [5.1/10] / Conker: Live & Reloaded [4/5] / Cricket 2005 [3.5/5] / Destroy All Humans! [87/100] / Fantastic Four [5.0/10] / Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack [8/10] / NCAA Football 06 [9/10] / Sid Meiers Pirates [8/10]
• Gamecube: Madagascar [3.5/5]
• PSP: Coded Arms [4.1]
• Nintendo DS: Meteos [8.8]

PREVIEWS

• 187 Ride or Die (PS2) - It's time to race with UbiSoft's upcoming combat car game.
• Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction (PS2) - The good people over at Kuju Entertainment are currently developing a first-person shooter for the PS2 entitled Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction.
  Day of Reckoning 2: The Legends (GC) - Day of Reckoning 2, developed by Japanese Yuke's, features enhanced versions of the full-blown Exhibition and Story modes surrounded by an impressive roster of WWE superstars and Legends.
• Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (PS2/Xbox) - The PS2 version, which is being developed by NovaLogic themselves, has a special feature aimed at the single-player mode that the Xbox version doesn't have. Release date: July 26th, 2005.
• Gun (GC) - Gun is obviously a western-based shooter that will take on the first and third-person perspectives. It is meant to be a very gory and gruesome take, capturing the crazy nature of the American Wild West in the late 19th century.
• Infected (PSP) - The cool thing is that Infected lets you create your own version of Officer Stevens courtesy of an easy to use character editor with around 2 million possible variations.
• King Kong (GC) - In this game, you will take control of both a man by the name of Jack Driscoll and the mighty gorilla himself King Kong!
• Madden NFL 06 (PS2) - The first thing EA Sports mentioned about Madden NFL 06 was the new passing system. The developers at Tiburon found a use to the awareness rating for quarterbacks. The higher the rating, the more depth of field vision your quarterback will have.
• Nintendogs (NDS) - So, it all comes back to the Tamagotchi I mentioned earlier. You take care of your dog from time to time, a few times a day, or more if you feel like it, but it's not what you'll be spending most of your time playing, especially if you are a hardcore gamer that wants challenge.
• Scurge: Hive (GC) - Orbital Media is attempting to create a classic 2-D action game that will appeal to both old and new gamers alike.
• Star Wars Battlefront II (PS2) - Graphically, Battlefront II is shaping up nicely, featuring all the futuristic wonder that makes the Star Wars crowd go googly-eyed.
• The Sims 2 (Xbox) - The Sims 2 on consoles looks to be the first version of the series that can stand strong and proud alongside the PC edition, and that's good news indeed.

MEDIA... 

• IGN's Xbox Summit 2005 Coverage - 360 Games Montage Trailer (pretty cool!) / Enchant Arms Trailer / FIFA 06 Trailer (EA vice president Stan Chow discussing EA's Xbox 360 plans) / Every Party trailer (includes four player board-game play and character designs by Sakura Momoko) / Final Fantasy XI Demonstration (FFXI world updates and runs on the actually Xbox 360 hardware) / Frame City Killer Trailer | Gears of War Shown (Ten seconds of Gears of War is a very good ten seconds!) / Inside PGR3 (videos are split into four parts: visuals, sound, customization and Online) / Namco Loves Soccer / Ninety Nine Nights Unveiled (hundreds of characters on screen at once and displayed awesome magic spells) / Rumble Roses Double XX (clean graphics with hard hitting moves from all of the ladies) | Tengai Makyo Trailer (filled with animation and bright, colorful 3D graphics) / Tokyo Xtreme Trailer / Yukes Does Japanese Wrestling
• Other media: Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks movies (Xbox)  / Project Gotham Racing 3 shots (Xbox 360) + The Sims 2 shots (GC)

MISCELANOUS...

• Microsoft confirms worldwide Q4 Xbox 360 launch - Today at the Xbox Summit 2005 in Japan, Microsoft corporate vice president of worldwide retail sales and marketing Peter Moore reconfirmed that the Xbox 360 will be launching as scheduled in Japan, Europe, and North America at the end of the year.
• Iwata & Miyamoto Talk Revolution - When asked about the talk of Nintendo "giving up" trying to be the technological leader and focusing only on innovation, Iwata had this to tell EGM: "I don't think the Revolution's [graphics] will be inferior in any fashion to Xbox 360 or PS3. Even if you look at Zelda on GameCube, I don't think that looks inferior to what the competition is touting as 'next generation' visuals. But we think there are more important things for now than making the system work with a high-definition television. The majority of people won't be playing our system with an HDTV, [but] with the Revolution, 480p resolution will be standard. We are not making light of graphics and technology -- we are trying to make the best-balanced machine that will appeal to the most people."
• 100 Xbox 360 Titles Before Year End?! - This time, Microsoft said 38 publishers, including Square Enix Co. Ltd., Electronic Arts Inc., and Namco Ltd., are developing 45 game titles. More than 100 other titles are being worked on.
• Ridge Racer 6 (Xbox 360) Announced - Namco today announced Ridge Racer 6 for the Xbox 360, which will take full advantage of the new platform's capabilities with in-depth multiplayer functionality, unprecedented vehicle control and immersive sound and visual effects to provide the most adrenaline-rich arcade driving experience yet.
• The Gathering Creators Working On Next-Gen Console Game - A new Seattle based game development studios called Torpex Games is seeking new team members to join their company to work on a new next-generation console game "involving great big guns" (although it's not clear if there will be big guns in the game or if that was just a metaphor).
• Splinter Cell 4 Info - French game website Jeux-France has posted the first details on the upcoming Splinter Cell 4 game: The history will occur in 2007. The scenario remains unknown but it is known that the Sam agent will be present in Madrid, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, New York and Berlin. The game should be available in in March 2006 on GC, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360. The bit of gossip goes on to mention that Sony passed on a version of Splinter Cell 4 for its ominous PS3 console in favor of whatever Ubi plans to do with Splinter Cell 5. (thanks EvilAvatar)
• Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike Goes Gold (Xbox)  - Ubisoft announced today that Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike, exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox video game system, has gone gold and will ship to retail August 2.
• PSP PPF Patch Collection 5  - The following are PPF Patches for the BOOT.BIN file in the corresponding PSP UMD images.