– In what experts have been deemed “almost as bad an idea as that Mighty Beanz game,” Take-Two Interactive (widely known as the creators of the Grand Theft Auto series) has announced that in 2005, they will produce a game based on the upcoming re-release of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory“. The movie will be starring Johnny Depp, leading many to wonder if the game will be on par with other ones based on Johnny Depp films, such as Pirates of the Caribbean for the Game Boy Advance, A Nightmare on Elm Street for the original Nintendo, and Secret Window for the Sega Saturn.
– Because there haven’t been enough re-releases of classic games in recent history, Atari and gambling-machine maker Alliance Gaming are getting together to produce one-armed bandits based on Pong, Asteroids, and Centipede, among other oldish properties. The Pong slot machine will be debuting at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas next month, and the others will presumably follow later. (Well, I suppose they could somehow follow earlier, but I’m not hip to the recent developments in time travel.)
– You know, I really didn’t think that Spike TV would be able to produce a gaming awards show worse than last year’s God-awful VGAs. What with Madden taking home Game of the Year, twenty minutes of horrible music for every half minute of video games, and Jenna Jameson talking, I really didn’t think it would be possible to top their atrocity. But this year, instead of booking someone who is entertaining to host the show (David Spade ain’t so bad), Spike TV has decided to call upon the powers of The World’s Most Uncharismatic Man, Snoop Doggy Dogg. Yikes. Does anyone else out there realize that video game fans and rap fans aren’t usually one in the same?
– Speaking of ideas that are “interesting” (that seems to be a running theme this month), Square Enix is hard at work on a Final Fantasy VII spin-off. No, I’m not talking Advent Children — this one’s gonna be called “Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII“, and it will star the hero from the first VII known as Vincent. The game is set one year after the events of Advent Children, and is scheduled for release some time next year. Since Squeenix is going down the path of games featuring odd choices for heroes, how about a new Chocobo Racing, eh?
– I’ve never actually played Romancing Saga for the SNES, but it seems to be a classic RPG for that classic system, and I’ve got little in the way of news that rocks this month, so I guess I’ll hafta tell you what’s going on with that game now. Apparently, it’s getting a remake, in the form of a PlayStation 2 title named “Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song”. The original game’s artist and creator are involved in this project, which should be good news to any fans of the first. Look for this title in the spring of 2005, if you, unlike me, have actually played the original.