Pojo's Friday News Page
March 26th - 2005

Bored with retirement, former Wizards of the Coast art director Jesper Myrfors of Snohomish likes the chances of his new chip-tossing game 'Clout Fantasy'

The 40-year-old Snohomish resident was the art director for Wizards of the Coast, the Seattle-based company behind "Magic the Gathering," a fantasy card-playing game that revolutionized the genre.

Now he's back, with many of his former Wizards partners, in a new venture called Hidden City Games. They're promoting a new game, "Clout Fantasy," which combines the role-playing strategy of the Magic games with physical dexterity: the game pieces - decorated poker chips - are tossed onto the playing surface.

The game debuted last week at a convention in Las Vegas, and it's due to hit U.S. stores in July. The early buzz is good, Myrfors said. "The forecast is looking incredible - better than our best-case scenario." FullStory

Graffiti Kingdom Preview
The most customizable game in the history of the PS2 is almost here. Killer tomatoes attack!

Legendary arcade developer Taito, best known for its timeless classic Space Invaders, is set to release a PS2 gem called Graffiti Kingdom. A semi-sequel to Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color, Graffiti Kingdom tests your art skills by allowing you to create your own characters using an unprecedented level of customization. Make them fly, throw fire balls, roll around, or even have them attack with their eyeballs! There's a tremendous amount of freedom here, and the cool thing is you can take up to three of your creations into battle where they'll face off against a plethora of creatures in cute and colorful environments. Graffiti Kingdom will hopefully bring out the artist in us all when it releases this April. FullStory

Batman Begins

SLATED FOR RELEASE ALONGSIDE the movie, Batman Begins explores the origins of the Dark Knight, enabling gamers to play as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman as he stalks criminals in Gotham City's shadowy underworld. FullStory

AOL to offer message service for Sony's PS2

America Online, America's largest Internet service provider, said on Wednesday it was planning to introduce a service that would allow users of its instant messaging to talk to each other through Sony Corp's PlayStation2 video game console.

The "AIM Talk," service would allow PS2 owners with voice headsets to communicate with other instant messaging users on other PS2s or PCs, the company said.

As part of its tie-up with Sony, AOL, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc, also said it would introduce features allowing PS2 users to listen to streaming music and watch movie trailers and TV clips. FullStory

Gunstar Heroes set to return?

Sega has trademarked the title 'Gunstar Super Heroes' with the US patent office, suggesting that a sequel to the Megadrive classic could be on its way.

The original shooter was released in 1997, and earned the title of cult classic thanks to its intense and challenging gameplay and unique visual style. FullStory

14 million Xbox power cord recall a vain attempt?

Even after that big stink MS put up about replacing those 14 million some-odd dangerous Xbox cables with the very safe, very overdone ones with boxes full of circuit interrupters and bomb-proof radiation shielding, it turns out the issue with fried Xboxes isn’t in the power cable at all. Source

Gran Turismo 4
Most Realistic, But Can Get Really Repetitive

To start off, this game is really, really realistic, everything that can happen in real life (except the collision damage and decaling and stuff like that) is here. The graphics even look realistc, this stuff was not supposed to look THIS good on the PS2!!! But, there are some faults to this game, which means basically that not everything here is perfect. FullStory

WB Bringing NeoPets to the Big Screen

Warner Bros. Pictures has entered into an agreement with NeoPets, Inc.® to develop and produce animated feature films based on new and existing stories and characters from the virtual world of Neopets.com, the world's leading online youth community. The announcement was made today by Jeff Robinov, President, Production, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Doug Dohring, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NeoPets, Inc. FullStory

Nagoya now has a Pokemon park

An amusement park dedicated to Japanese Pokemon cartoon characters opened in Nagoya Friday, the Kyodo news agency reported. The park is at the site of the 2005 World Exposition, which opens next Friday. FullStory

The full review of Pokemon Red and Blue.

June 23, 1999 - What you've just clicked on, boys and girls, is the review to easily the most popular videogame ever to hit Nintendo's little black-and-white portable. The game has been available in the states since the end of 1998, but the original Red and Blue editions of Pokémon continue to sell like gangbusters. And there's a reason for that ? the game isn't just a fad. It's an awesome game worthy of any gamer's Game Boy library. FullStory

NINTENDO NO-LINE OFFERS WI-FI MULTIPLAYER GAMING

Play with your Friend from Across the Street or Across the World with Nintendo No-Line

Nintendo DS™ fans have been waiting for Animal Crossing™ since the Electronic Entertainment Expo™ held in May of 2004. On March 31, 2005, these same fans will be able to play the game they have been waiting for using Nintendo's new Wi-Fi service called Nintendo No-Line™. Nintendo DS™ games with the Nintendo No-Line Enabled™ logo are games that take advantage of this new service. The first game to use the Nintendo No-Line™ service is Animal Crossing: New Neighbor™ which will be released on March 31, 2005 in the United States of America and Japan. Third party game developers have already been contacted about the new Nintendo No-Line™ service and are already taking advantage of this new feature. Be prepared for more Nintendo No-Line Enabled™ games in the near future. FullStory