X Marks the Spot - A Nintendo and Microsoft console timeline

PlayStation Mania
PlayStation Mania

PlayStation Mania
is a 3-D fighting game developed by AKI Corporation (developers of Def Jam Vendetta and Def Jam: Fight for NY) and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It is a crossover fighting game featuring franchises owned by Sony, now coming together to fight against each other for the first time. However, unlike OTL's PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, PlayStation Mania has less in common with Super Smash Bros. and more in common with various 3-D fighting and wrestling video games. While comparison to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. are still abound ITTL, there are also a number of comparisons with Sega's long-forgotten Fighters Megamix for the Sega Saturn.

In terms of gameplay, PlayStation Mania plays like a cross of Tekken and the WWF games produced by AKI Corporation, with the button layout consisting of:
  • Cross - Jump
  • Circle - Attack
  • Triangle - Strike
  • Square - Special
  • L1 - Grapple
  • L2 - Block
  • Left analogue stick - Move
  • R1 - Throw
  • R2 - Activate "Champion Gauge"
  • Right analogue stick - Control camera
Attack, Strike, and Special all have "weak", "hard", and "hardest" variations depending on what commands the player uses, and each variation also has midair (during Jump) and dashing (when moving) versions. The "Champion Gauge" is similar to the Blazin' meter from the Def Jam games, filling up as players attack each other, but it has its own dedicated button to press (R2), for simplicity's sake. L1/Grapple allows players to attack opponents while holding onto them, or they can use R1/Throw to toss them a certain distance, which they can turn into a combo by running towards then and attacking them. Square/Special attacks use usually flashy moves referencing various attacks from the characters' home series, while Circle/Attack and Triangle/Strike attacks are standard attacks. The difference between the two is that Triangle/Strike is bare-handed punches and jabs, while Circle/Attack has characters taking out weapons, projectiles, or in the case of fighters that are brawlers, use kicks. Movement in the game is more like the Def Jam and WWF games, in that players can move freely around the arena and interact with various elements on it to their advantage (picking up objects and hitting opponents with them.

Up to four players can play in one match, through the game's various modes. There is Duel Mode (1v1), Battle Royale (four players fight each other simultaneously), tag team (2v2), Horde Battle (one player battling thirteen CPU opponents in succession), Survival Marathon (endless fighting until the player drops out), Deathmatch (tie-breaker only mode, where whoever lands the first hit wins), and Online Mode (Duel Mode but online). In all of these mods barring survival, the main way to win is just like any other fighting game or wrestling game, which is by draining the opponents' health, unlike OTL's PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, which determined winners by how many super moves they struck their enemies with, thus creating for a more traditional fighting experience than the latter title.

The roster for this game consists of thirty fighters, and like the WWF games, as well as similarly to OTL's PlayStation All-Stars, each character has a rivalry with another character, which results in special interactions. The game's roster is:
  • First-Party
    • Auron [Final Fantasy X]
    • Aya Brea [Parasite Eve]
    • Ayame [Tenchu]
    • Cloud Strife [Final Fantasy VII]
    • Dr. Nefarious [Ratchet & Clank]
    • Fei Fong Wong [Xenogears]
    • Gabe Logan [Syphon Filter]
    • Jak & Daxter [Jak & Daxter]
    • Kain [Legacy of Kain]
    • Kyoya Suda [Siren]
    • Parappa [Parappa the Rapper]
    • Ratchet & Clank [Ratchet & Clank]
    • Raziel [Legacy of Kain]
    • Rikimaru [Tenchu]
    • Sephiroth [Final Fantasy VII]
    • Sly Cooper [Sly Cooper]
    • Specter [Ape Escape]
    • Spike [Ape Escape]
    • Sora [Kingdom Hearts]
    • Sweet Tooth [Twisted Metal]
    • Toan [Dark Cloud]
    • Toro [Doko Demo Issyo]
    • Tifa Lockhart [Final Fantasy VII]
    • Vincent Kessler [Snowblight]
    • Virginia Maxwell [Wild Arms]
  • Third-Party
    • Heihachi Mishima [Tekken] (SNK Namco)
    • Jimmy Patterson [Medal of Honor] (Electronic Arts)
    • Nina Williams [Tekken] (SNK Namco)
    • Pyramid Head [Silent Hill 2] (Konami)
    • Tommy Vercetti [Grand Theft Auto: Vice City] (Rockstar)
The characters' rivalries are as follows:
  • Auron vs. Rikimaru
  • Aya Brea vs. Vincent Kessler
  • Ayame vs. Tifa Lockhart
  • Cloud Strife vs. Jimmy Patterson
  • Dr. Nefarious vs. Specter
  • Fei Fong Wong vs. Raziel
  • Gabe Logan vs. Nina Williams
  • Heihachi Mishima vs. Sweet Tooth
  • Jak & Daxter vs. Ratchet & Clank
  • Kain vs. Sephiroth
  • Kyoya Suda vs. Pyramid Head
  • Parappa vs. Toro
  • Sly Cooper vs. Tommy Vercetti
  • Sora vs. Toan
  • Spike vs. Virginia Maxwell
The game also comes with eighteen arenas, and unlike OTL's PlayStation All-Stars, the stage invasion gimmick isn't present, having been butterfield away. The eighteen arenas are:
  • Apostles' Territory - Snowblight
  • Baskar Colony - Wild Arms 3
  • Clockwerk's Lair - Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
  • Dream Zanarkand - Final Fantasy X
  • Gohda's Castle - Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
  • Hollow Bastion - Kingdom Hearts
  • Laboratory Courtyard - Tekken 3
  • Midgar - Final Fantasy VII
  • Metropolis - Ratchet & Clank
  • Ninth Circle - Twisted Metal: World Tour
  • Norune Village - Dark Cloud
  • Pagoda Temple - Tekken 2
  • PharCom Warehouse - Syphon Filter
  • Pillars of Nosgoth - Legacy of Kain
  • Sandover Village - Jak: The Precursor Legacy
  • Silent Hill - Silent Hill
  • Specter's Factory - Ape Escape
  • Vice City - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
PlayStation Mania is released for the PlayStation 2 on October 7th, 2005. Positioned as the big holiday title for the PlayStation 2, the game garners a much better reception than OTL's PlayStation All-Stars, though not as good as Def Jam: Fight for NY or WWF No Mercy. The fighting is praised by fans of Def Jam and other wrestling games, though it also garners a following among fans of traditional fighters who have wanted a PlayStation crossover in vein of Super Smash Bros. or Marvel vs. Capcom. The rivalry system is also praised, helping it distinguish itself from other crossover fighting games by featuring unique taunts, cutscenes, and interactions between characters, emphasizing the feeling of a crossover even more by having characters from different franchises interacting with one another beyond just fighting each other. It also becomes an easy sales success, moving 4.5 million units in lifetime sales, a number that Sony is satisfied with, and bodes well for the high hopes they have for the series in the future, with the relationship between them and AKI Corporation growing all the more closer...

Launch date, price, and launch lineup for Apple iArcade fully revealed

"With Apple iArcade set to release next month, gamers eager to buy Apple's foray into the console market received an announcement that many have been waiting for, that being the price and launch date of the Apple iArcade. Last Friday, Apple announced that the iArcade will be launching on November 19th of this year, one week before Black Friday, for a retail price of $499.99 USD. While more expensive than any of Nintendo or Sony's offerings so far, the console was already expected to be significantly more expensive than prior consoles, due to its status as the first fully HD console on the market, and representing a new generational leap in console technology.

"The launch lineup for the Apple iArcade was also fully revealed, with Tomb Raider Arisen, Veloce, ESPN NBA 2k6, Soulcalibur III, Call of Duty 2, Far Cry, Civilization IV (already available on Windows and macOS), Def Jam: Fight for NY (already available on the PlayStation 2), Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (already available on Nintendo X and PlayStation 2), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (already available on Nintendo X and PlayStation 2), and Crash Tag Team Racing (set to be released on the Nintendo X and PlayStation 2 later this month) consisting of the games that will be available at launch for the Apple iArcade, with the first six games all being console exclusives.
"
 
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Apple announced that the iArcade will be launching on November 19th of this year, one week before Black Friday, for a retail price of $499.99 USD.
100 bucks more expensive OTL 360 but again apple might not want to loss money and unlike 360 doesn't have the Halo hype to tailcoat it
 
Startropics
Startropics

Startropics is an open-world action-adventure game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo X. A revival of the NES duology, Startropics is a continuity reboot that ignores the first two games, and instead features its own story, though characters like Mike Jones and Sam Jones are still featured. The game itself is set in the late 1950s, during tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union, and Coralcola is now an archipelago instead of a village on an island, which the player can traverse and explore freely, much like OTL's Just Cause. However, unlike Just Cause, the player is limited at first in terms of how they can travel, and thus have to wait until they can fly a plane or a helicopter, which makes traveling to other islands at the beginning more inconvenient. This was deliberately done, as the Avalanche was also putting a large emphasis on Startropic's narrative and story, and wanted players to also focus on that. Players could swim or take a boat to other islands if they pleased, but the slow nature of traveling there like that meant that most explored the islands one at a time. Coralcola is made up of six different islands, which are Rau'kiti, Oma'lono, Lakama, Mihuri, Valnui, and Tal-Te-Koto.

Aside from exploration, the game's combat is also somewhat different from Just Cause. Mike Jones, due to being aged up to a college student in this reboot, was not given the yo-yo the original incarnation had in the NES games, nor does he carry guns or other firearms, as Nintendo didn't want him to use realistic machine guns and pistols. As a compromise, he instead uses a bow and arrows as a projectile, with the character being written as part of his university's archery team, while using a wooden bat in melee combat, similar to the original NES games. The game runs on Unreal Engine 2.5, the same engine used for games like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and squeezes out every bit of the Nintendo X's power to make Startropics one of the most graphically impressive games on the system.

Like with Eternal Darkness, Startropics has voice acting featuring a mix of voice actors and TV performers, at the direction of Avalanche Studios. Initially, Nintendo was hesitant to spend so much on voice acting, but Avalanche managed to win them over by pointing to games like Legacy of Kain: Defiance and Kingdom Hearts of successful games with professional voice acting. The recording and motion capture for the characters is entrusted by Avalanche Studios to Retro Studios, who have a motion capture studio in their Austin, Texas headquarters, and was more convenient for the cast of the game to travel to than to Avalanche Studios' HQ in Stockholm, Sweden. The cast and characters for the game are as follows:
  • Mike Jones (played by Jensen Ackles): A twenty-one year old student as UCLA, Mike Jones is on his university's archery team and majoring in American literature, studying the likes of Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is a generally carefree and amiable young man, albeit somewhat naive. In contrast to Indiana Jones, the main character of Startropic's main source of inspiration, Mike lacks the roguish edge of Indiana, instead being comparable to Luke Skywalker from Star Wars in terms of temperament.
  • Dr. Samuel "Sam" Jones (played by Tony Jay): Mike Jones' uncle, an award-winning researcher and archaeologist currently on an expedition in Coralcola, he is researching a fictional civilization that lived on Coralcola named the Zoda, who are based off of various Pacific Islander groups and civilizations. Sam Jones is a notable departure for Tony Jay, who is known for usually voicing antagonists, whereas Sam Jones is a kindly uncle to Mike, though dedicated to his studios immensely. His research makes him the target of S.C.I.R.E.A., a Russian intelligence agency.
  • Elaine Rosen (played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler): Elaine Rosen is a NYU student and an apprentice to Sam Jones, accompanying him on his studies and helping him in his research on the Zoda. While Sam Jones treats her as a peer, she is looked down upon by other characters for being of lower-class status, as she of Sephardic Jewish descent (which was added after Sigler was cast in the role, as an actor-inspired element), being the first generation of her family born in America. She is adventurous and friendly, but also more reckless than Mike Jones.
  • Julian Marley (played by Kevin McKidd): An English researcher and the rival of Sam Jones. Younger than Sam by twenty-eight years (Sam Jones is 66, Julian Marley is 38), Marley is much more brash and hotheaded than Sam Jones, and is also something of a glory hound in comparison to his rival. He is also suspected to be in allegiance with the Soviets, which cost him his honors from Oxford University (his alma matter), though the public sees him as a dashing and handsome hero who was unfairly persecuted.
  • Lisa Marley, née Gloucester (played by Natalie Dormer): The young English wife of Julian Thompson, Sam Jones’ rival researcher. A woman of the English aristocracy, she fills a “femme fatale” role comparable to Ada Wong from Resident Evil or Elsa Schneider from The Last Crusade, and remains ambiguous throughout the story in terms of whose side she’s on. She serves as an potential love interest to Mike Jones, though he remains wary of her throughout the story.
  • Nataliya Aronova (played by Juliet Landau): A Russian KGB agent and the leader of S.C.I.R.E.A., a wing of the KGB dedicated towards extracting and taking information from American researchers and the American Government, be it scientific, historic, technologic, etc. She is cold and unforgiving to her subordinates, and was designed as being a female expy of Darth Vader from Star Wars in terms of her actions, her mannerisms, and behaviors.
  • Capt. Robert Clark (played by Michael Ironside): A Captain in the US Army and assassin stationed in Coralcola. He is under orders to watch over Sam and Mikes Jones, and to combat S.C.I.R.E.A., should the time come for him. An enigmatic man, Robert Clark is an expy of Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell games in terms of behavior and temperament, to the point of even being voiced by Michael Ironside, to boot. While the player doesn't play as him in the base game proper, he is playable in an expansion for the game that is released in 2006.
The game begins with a flashback sequence of the ancient Zoda people, the original inhabitants of Coralcola. They are shown being wiped out by an unseen force or power, with no indication as to who or what it may be. Centuries later, British colonists arrive on the main island of Coralcola, Rau'kiti, and discover the ruins and decayed remains of the Zoda people. The begin investigating and researching the matter, but over time, they continue to lose faith in the project, with what was originally a royally commissioned expedition now being regarded as nothing more than fodder for vain researchers by the British, with America, Russia, Canada, Germany, and Japan all trying their own investigations, albeit with little to no luck.

The story then picks up in 1958, where third-year UCLA student Mike Jones arrives at Rau'kiti, now home to settlements of various Pacific Islander communities, as well as a "no man's land" of sorts in the ongoing Cold War. Mike arrives and meets Samuel "Sam" Jones, his uncle, whom he has come to visit for his spring break. Samuel brings him to his archaeology site, where an expedition commissioned by the American government is currently in the works revolving around the disappearance of the Zoda people. Sam introduces Mike to Elaine Rosen, his apprentice and a student at NYU who has accompanied him on his expedition. The expedition is suddenly interrupted by the appearance of Julian Marley, an English archaeologist and researcher who is a rival of Samuel's. While Julian Marley is adored by the inhabitants of Coralcola, Elaine tells Mike privately that Julian was disgraced in his home country, and has taken up residence on Rau'kiti with the help of an inheritance given to his wife, an aristocrat named Lisa Gloucester.

Later that evening, Mike is out in the main city of Rau'kiti when he sees smoke in the distance, in the direction of Samuel's expedition. Upon arriving to the compound, he finds the place in flames and with many researchers either wounded or dead. When he asks one wounded researcher what happened to Samuel and Elaine, he is told that they were taken captive by Soviet operatives, who had attacked and vandalized the expedition's main compound. Mike is told to go to Samuel's office and get his notes, but finds those missing as well. He eventually finds out that the Soviets went to the other side of the island, where a Soviet ship is waiting for them. Mike witnesses Samuel being boarded onto the ship, named the Red Barracuda, while watching Elaine being taken to Julian Marley's manor. When arriving at and after sneaking onto the manor grounds, Mike sees Marley conversing with a female Soviet operative, apparently working with the KGB. The female is intimidating and cold towards Marley, and confirms Mike's suspicions that Marley is in league with the Soviets. He overhears them saying that Elaine is inside the manor, and has to sneak inside it in order to find Elaine.

Once inside, he finds out that Elaine is being held in Marley's cellar, but has to steal a key in order to get in there. He tries to find one in Marley's bedroom, but is forced to hide when Marley's wife, Lisa, enters the room. Mike remains hidden in their closet and only reemerges after Lisa leaves the room, but as he prepares to search again, he sees that a key was left on their bed where it hadn't been before, implying that Lisa had known Mike was in the room with her. Nevertheless, he takes the key and goes to the cellar, where he finds Elaine struggling against some KGB soldiers, whom Mike helps her knock out and bind together. Elaine tells Mike that once of Samuel's papers was taken inside the house by Marley, and two head to his research laboratory to find it. However, they are surrounded by the KGB and are forced to fight their way out, managing to hold their own for a while, before being overwhelmed. Just before the two are captured again, the KGB are attacked by a smoke bomb and incapacitated in hand-to-hand combat. Once the smoke disperses, Mike and Elaine find an older American man standing before them, who introduces himself as Capt. Robert Clark, saying that he's here to take them elsewhere. He helps them escape to a cove near Marley's manor, where an American military helicopter is waiting for them. He then takes them to Camp Darwin, the American military base on Oma'lano, another one of the islands in the Coralcola archipelago.

Once they arrive on Oma'lano, Clark tells Mike and Elaine that they will be evacuated the following day, with the American military taking over the situation with their own operation. Elaine tells Mike that there are five more sets of notes that Samuel had hidden, one on each of the other islands. When Mike asks why she's telling him and not Clark, she says that she maintains a distrust of Clark and the Americans, in terms of how they'd use Samuel's notes. Mike and Elaine, under the pretense of going on a date, head to a nearby village on Oma'lano, and from there they escape the military's attention and search for the second set of notes, which is hidden in a trading outpost. However, they see the KGB are searching for the second set of notes as well, and are forced to evade from and hide from them. Mike manages to take the second set of notes, but the KGB spot the two, forcing them to escape into the jungle. They sneak back to the village later that night in order to use a boat to travel to travel to the other islands, but the KGB, led by the Russian woman from earlier, Nataliya Aronova, have blockaded all of the piers. The American military then arrives, and a firefight breaks out between the two factions, which Mike and Elaine use as a distraction to steal a boat and escape with it.

They arrive on Lakama, but are forced to abandon their boat in order to evade detection from the KGB and the American military. They hide in a hotel in the island's main village, contemplating what they do next. They hear someone knocking on their door, who is revealed to be Lisa Marley. Lisa confirms that she knew Mike had been at the manor, but has no intention of turning him into her husband. As a token of her trust, she then gives them half of the third set of notes, but will only give them the second half if Mike goes and steals a valuable jewel from the island's museum. Mike, though distrustful of leaving Elaine alone with Lisa, accepts her offer. He disguises himself and steals the jewel from the islands museum, thus receiving the second half of the third set of notes from Lisa. As she leaves, she tells them that she has left a boat for them to use to travel to the other islands

On the fourth island, Mihuri, Mike prepares to search for the fourth set of notes, but runs into an undercover Robert Clark, who is on a mission to assassinate a war criminal in hiding on the island. Clark, despite the hostility of the other American forces, promises Mike that he'll help him find the fourth set of notes and not blow his cover if Mike distracts the war criminal in hiding, who lives on a plantation on the opposite side of the island. Mike is initially hesitant on asking how Clark knows there are multiple sets of notes, which Clark says he had learned from a number of KGB operates the Americans took prisoner back on Oma'lano. Mike then agrees to distract the war criminal, and while he nearly botches the mission, he gives Clark a clear shot from which to assassinate the war criminal. Mike is forced to escape from the chaos by himself and rendezvouses with Clark near the village. Clark gives him the fourth set of notes, and disappears into the jungle. Mike lies to Elaine about how he retrieved the notes, and the two then head to the fifth island, Valnui, though Elaine remains skeptical of Mike's claims.

When they arrive on Valnui, they learn that the fifth set of notes has been discovered by a different researcher, a former colleague of Julian Marley's named Gideon Bruce. They head to Bruce's residency, expecting a confrontation, but Bruce lets them in after recognizing them. Bruce tells them about how he and Marley used to work together during their days at Oxford, and both desired to come to the Coralcola archipelago and solve the mystery of the Zoda people's disappearance. However, Marley grew more obsessive as time went on, eventually leading to Oxford revoking all of his honors. While Marley maintains a good reputation among the Coralcola inhabitants, in England he is considered a pariah by various academics and a laughingstock by the public, eventually moving to Coralcola for good alongside his wife. Bruce also reveals that Marley had manipulated Bruce into killing his father-in-law, the Baron Gloucester, in order for him and Lisa to receive the money necessary to relocate to Coralcola, as Lisa was Baron Gloucester's only child, and thus the only recipient of his fortune.

As the pages are assembled throughout the game, Mike and Elaine learn that Samuel was studying and documenting an ancient ritual that, according to Zoda legend, was meant to summon the deity Whiro, a Polynesian god of darkness and evil. They also discover that he had been studying accounts of their attempts to summon him, noting strange occurrences that happened after every attempt, such as the islands' wildlife turning against them, a storm that rained burning hail, and cataclysmic earthquakes. Their accounts end just before the final attempt, which Samuel theorizes is what wiped out the Zoda. Mike is initially dismissive of this, but resolves to rescue his uncle and find the last page anyways.

On the last island, Tal-Te-Koto, the final page is hidden in a Zoda shrine under a volcano. Nataliya Aronova and Julian Marley have taken Samuel to the mouth of the entrance inside it, though Samuel remains the defiant and refuses to divulge the location of the final page. As Mike and Elaine make their way there, Elaine feels as if they are being watched, but Mike brushes off her warnings. When they arrive, they confront Nataliya, who threatens to kill Samuel if they don't give up the final pages. Despite Samuel pleading not to, Mike gives her the pages, and he and Elaine as bound alongside Samuel. But just as Nataliya and the KGB are about to enter the cave, she and her soldiers are assassinated by a squadron of men lead by Robert Clark. While Mike is initially ecstatic, Clark ignores him, Elaine, and Samuel, and instead takes the pages off of Nataliya's body, and instead approaches Marley, asking him if the last page is inside the volcano. Deducing that Clark had been using them all along and that Marley had been a double agent for him, Mike tries stop them, but he is still bound and still easily beaten by Clark. Clark, his men, and Marley enter the volcano, leaving Mike, Elaine, and Samuel stranded at the foot of it.

At that point, however, Lisa arrives with two of her bodyguards and frees Mike, Elaine, and Samuel. Mike asks her about the information given to him by Bruce, and she says that she had been waiting for years until she could take revenge on her husband for plotting the death of her father, and had guided Mike in his adventure to eventually defeat Marley. She then tells Elaine and Samuel to head back to her boat, while she accompanies Mike inside of the volcano, wanting to personally dispatch of her husband herself. As the two descend into the volcano, Lisa begins making advances on Mike, but Mike rebuffs her gently, taking note of the age difference between them and her scheming nature, though she takes the rejection well. Eventually, they reach the entrance to the shrine, which is guarded by Robert Clark. Mike tries to get Clark to step aside, but is forced to fight him alongside Lisa's help. Clark is difficult to defeat, but eventually the two subdue him. But just as Lisa is about to kill him, Mike pleads with her to spare him, not wanting to kill more people than necessary. She is reluctant to do so, but lets him go, albeit while taking his gun and other weapons, leaving him disarmed. She also says that her bodyguards will kill him on sight if he tries to board her boat. Clark says nothing, and leaves silently.

Mike and Lisa enter the shrine, where Marley is performing the ritual. The bodies of Clark's men are all slumped on the floor, with the ritual having absorbed their life forces. Marley explains to them how both the KGB and American military came to him asking for his help in locating and summoning Whiro, presumably in order to harness his power against one another in the Cold War. He then fed information to both sides while acting as a mole for both, leading either one to believe that he was on their side, as long as he could claim credit for discovering Whiro and proving his peers and the public at home wrong. Mike and Lisa try to stop him, but Whiro had already been summoned. To Marley's horror, however, Whiro possesses him against his will, and prepares to fight Mike and Lisa. The two are then forced to fight against him as the shrine collapses, though Lisa is subdued early on, forcing Mike to fight against Whiro alone. Eventually, Mike wears Whiro down, but is unable to kill him, as Whiro can only be vanquished once the summoning ends. Mike prepares to restrain Whiro, but instead chooses to stay behind with Whiro and her possessed husband, due to her desire for vengeance. Mike is reluctant to leave her, but ends up following her demands and escape from the shrine. He makes it to Lisa's boat, where Elaine and Samuel are waiting for him, and they escape from Tal-Te-Koto just as the volcano erupts and sinks the island.

A week later, the three are on Rau'kiti, packing up Samuel's research and evacuating the compound, preparing to return to the USA. When they land at Washington D.C., a pair of CIA agents approach them and ask them for their recollection of the events. Once they are done, the CIA agents tell them that officially, the events in Coralcola had never happened, and that it would remain a secret. When Mike questions why the American military resorted to plundering ancient ruins to steal something they didn't even know they would control, the CIA agents remain silent, eventually leaving them. Despite Mike's displeasure, he is happy that his uncle is safe, and returns to UCLA, promising to write to Samuel and Elaine more often. As Mike reunites with his friends at UCLA, Robert Clark watches him from a distance, revealing that he had escaped Coralcola.

Startropics is released on October 28, 2005. Nintendo pegs it as their big holiday title and advertises it as such, making note of the large open world and cinematic story-telling, intending for this to be their answer to story-based like Metal Gear and Legacy of Kain, as well as large open-world games like Grand Theft Auto. The game's release is also accompanied by the NES Startropics games being released on the Nintendo DS' virtual console service in August of that year. Startropics receives acclaim for prioritizing storytelling while also providing a solid gameplay experience, for the performances of the voice actors, and for successfully reviving an old NES series and making it fit with modern console games. It sells 3.9 million units worldwide, and while not the last game on the Nintendo X, is considered to be a swan song for the system in wake of Project Next releasing in 2006, as well as one of the defining games for the system in the long run. The game also receives a DLC expansion in 2006 titled Startropics: Classified, which revolves around Robert Clark prior to the events of the game, and a definitive edition containing both the base game and the DLC is released in 2007 for Project Next. Mike Jones quickly becomes a popular mascot for Nintendo, comparable to Kirby or Samus, and Nintendo expands Avalanche Studios in order for them to focus not only on the next Startropics, which would begin development for Project Next in 2006, but also for original projects. The game also has an effect on Nintendo internally, with many developers wanting to add more narrative to their own games, though this change would take a little more time to fully occur...

(AN: No news sections here, this was a hefty update and the Apple iArcade launch is coming up next, which I anticipate will also take some time and be fairly large as well).
 
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Project Next releasing in 2006,
So is coming soon, hope Intel and Ati have everything ready for the next year stuff
e game also has an effect on Nintendo internally, with many developers wanting to add more narrative to their own games, though this change would take a little more time to fully occur...
As long the story is good(I'm calling you other m and three houses), there would be no problem with it, during the GC era all team pushed those unique storylines ended up in nothing long term

and Nintendo expands Avalanche Studios in order for them to focus not only on the next Startropics, which would begin development for Project Next in 2006
Well if they ported the original, that means they might have the Apex engine ready in time.
 
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Well if they ported the original, that means they might have the Apex engine ready in time.
Right now, Startropics uses Unreal Engine 2.5 (the same engine that powered Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and BioShock IOTL), so it's going to stay that way for the rerelease. But as for future installments of Startropics, that's a different thing altogether.
 
Right now, Startropics uses Unreal Engine 2.5 (the same engine that powered Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and BioShock IOTL), so it's going to stay that way for the rerelease. But as for future installments of Startropics, that's a different thing altogether.
Yeah, they could even work something together with DICE, or perhaps not, but yeah with Startropics hit success that gives Avalance a place with the big guys alongside the internal teams
 
given that they're both in Stockholm, it isn't too far-fetched to imagine
Yeah plus they already worked with retro ( nice idea keep using that motion capture studio that was mostly in use for Metroid and DK) so could do a local technological partnership too
 
Hey, so it's been some time, and I want to give a small update on how things are going:
  • I've been traveling for the past week (in Victoria, BC) and won't get home to California until next Sunday, so I'm not updating until then at the earliest.
  • The next chapter (as I mentioned) is the Apple iArcade launch. There's a lot to figure out regarding that, and it's gonna be a pretty large update overall, covering system specs, summaries of the launch titles, etc.
That's it for now; I'll be lurking on here if you need me, but if anyone's expecting a new chapter, I should advise you to wait until sometime next week.
 
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Hey, so it's been some time, and I want to give a small update on how things are going:
  • I've been on traveling for the past week (in Victoria, BC) and won't get home to California until next Sunday, so I'm not updating until then at the earliest.
  • The next update (as I mentioned) is the Apple iArcade launch. There's a lot to figure out regarding that, and it's gonna be a pretty large update overall, covering system specs, summaries of the launch titles, etc.
That's it for now; I'll be lurking on here if you need me, but if anyone's expecting a new chapter, I should advise you to wait until sometime next week.
I thought this was the new chapter, enjoy your vacation, watch the better football lions up north
 
Hey there. So for reasons I didn't see coming, I won't be getting home until the 30th, so it's gonna be a while longer before the next chapter comes out. Sorry about that.
 
Hey there. So for reasons I didn't see coming, I won't be getting home until the 30th, so it's gonna be a while longer before the next chapter comes out. Sorry about that.
Please don't do this, I thought we were getting an update, we're patience enough, just updated or tell us if getting cancelled.

Wonder if we would get fire emblem next of the apple, as with the extra space and maybe budget, narahiro might be able to make the longer game he wanted to begin with
 
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Please don't do this, I thought we were getting an update, we're patience enough, just updated or tell us if getting cancelled.

Wonder if we would get fire emblem next of the apple, as with the extra space and maybe budget, narahiro might be able to make the longer game he wanted to begin with
A specific someone (who will remain unnamed) keeps messaging me whenever I go some time without updating this, and despite me telling them to stop messaging me, they keep doing it. So I've decided to just post here instead of having to deal with them.

I have a vague idea of what will happen with Fire Emblem, but let's just say it'll be expansive as a game.
 
A specific someone (who will remain unnamed) keeps messaging me whenever I go some time without updating this, and despite me telling them to stop messaging me, they keep doing it. So I've decided to just post here instead of having to deal with them.
Ohh... those people never learn it seems.

I have a vague idea of what will happen with Fire Emblem, but let's just say it'll be expansive as a game.
Ohh that is interesting
 
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