– Interested in nabbing some free games? Know any good knock-knock jokes? Boy, are you ever in luck! Nintendo is sponsoring a new contest to promote their upcoming GBA title “Mario & Luigi — Superstar Saga“. This contest involves ya’ll sending Nintendo your funniest knock-knock jokes. The jokes will be judged by Kathy Griffin, who you may remember as Vicki on Suddenly Susan. (I sure don’t.) A winner will be chosen each week until November 9th, and those winners will each receive a G-BASP and a copy of Mario & Luigi. The grand prize winner will be chosen from the pool of winners, and as prizes he/she will receive, among other cool things, a GameCube, a GBA Player, and one year’s worth of online comedy writing classes. Orange you glad you read this?
– Set your VCRs for 7 PM on November 15th — Spike TV is scheduled to air a preview for it’s First Annual Video Game Awards show, which is set to air itself towards the end of the year. Awards will be presented to games in numerous categories, including Most Addictive, Best Soundtrack, and Game of the Year. It’s about time that “The First Network For Men” features something worthwhile besides professional wrestling.
– Kingdom Hearts, GameCola’s Game of the Year for 2002, is set to have two sequels released in the not-too-distant future. The first one is for Playstation 2, and is simply called “Kingdom Hearts 2“. It takes place one year after the first KH, in a place called “Twilight Town”. The second sequel is for Game Boy Advance, and its title is “Kingdom Hearts — Chain of Memories“. This one starts immediately after the first game’s ending, and features a quirky, trading-card centered battle-system. We can only hope that Nemo somehow squirms his cute self into at least one of these titles.
– According to Square-Enix, Final Fantasy X-2 isn’t the only direct sequel they’re putting out relatively soon. The summer of 2004 is scheduled to see the release of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Before you get all aroused about this news, let it be known that Advent Children is not actually a video game — it’s a CGI movie. The film is set two years after the original PSX Final Fantasy VII, and stars Cloud Strife, along with two brand new characters. It is not yet known whether the movie will be released initially in theaters, on DVD, or over the Internet. However, speculation is that it will be better than Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
– In accordance with the series’ fifteen year anniversary, Capcom is to release a compilation of orchestrated themes from Street Fighter. The aptly titled “Street Fighter Tribute Album” will feature tracks created by video game music composers, including those who have worked on the scores for Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Cross, and Sonic the Hedgehog. No word yet on the release date, but my guess is that it’ll be released along side “Super Duper Street Fighter II Turbo Championship Edition V: The Ultra Super Mega Anniversary Edition”, or whatever that new game compilation is called.