Odds And Ends: Tuesday News Roundup

Nintendo of America plans to release Cube/GBA hybrid The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure (known as Four Swords+ in the Far East) across the pond on June 7th for $49.99, a price that includes a GameCube/Game Boy Advance link cable - something of a necessity for the largely four-player ARPG outing. Unfortunately though there's no word on Nintendo's plans for Four Swords in Europe. And we mean "no word". Absolutely none whatsoever. We spoke to Nintendo Europe earlier and it's not on the current Cube schedule at all. If we do get it, we're guessing it won't be until late autumn or early winter. Bah.

We've already heard that Nintendo is planning another expansion in the Cube memory card department. After a positive response to the Memory Card 251 - which actually threatened to house more than a couple of games' worth of data - Nintendo is reportedly considering a new memory card with a capacity for 1019 blocks, which ought to just about house everything. Yet another reason not to buy a Memory Card 59, although on that note we've also been informed that Pokémon Colosseum will ship with a free one when it launches this May 14th. Not a bad way to clear out inventory, that.

Eagle-eyed Final Fantasy fans will have noticed that Amazon is currently stocking a DVD called Final Fantasy Unlimited, which was released just last week on March 15th. Exciting news, surely! Upon closer inspection though, it appears to be the long overdue UK release of the FF Unlimited anime series, which first popped up in Japan some two years ago. Did anything ever come of it? In the words of our anime expert, "Square originally planned to create some Final Fantasy Unlimited games but I think they were canned because the series just wasn't popular." We're told to expect more DVDs to make up the rest of the series, and indeed ADV Films' website points to another on May 17th and another still on July 19th. More from our anime man: "FF Unlimited is part of a massive drive on the part of ADV Films who are releasing loads of anime DVDs in the UK at the moment, and you should probably point out that Square-Enix has nothing to do with it..." Done and done.

JoWooD has announced that it will be handling worldwide publishing and marketing for Aussie developer Perception's Stargate SG-1 title. Perception may also tackle future SG-1 spin-offs like Stargate: Atlantis. Unfortunately, we don't actually know all that much about the game, although JoWooD CEO Andreas Tobler assures us that SG-1 is "perfectly tailored for translation into videogames," and that Perception is more than up to the job. Cosmic, mate.

Activision has released a 1.3 patch for Infinity Ward's World War II themed first-person shooter Call of Duty, which includes two new multiplayer maps (Bocage and Neuville), EAX3 support, some bug fixes, some tweaks to the weapon balancing, and a partridge in a pear tree. The patch is available in Windows and Linux flavours, but we still can't get the game to run for longer than half an hour on our Radeon 9700 Pro system without crashing irretrievably. War truly is hell.

Elsewhere in the world of downloadable downloading downloads, Cyan Worlds and Ubisoft have released a freebie add-on for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst called the D'ni Expansion Pack. According to Cyan, the pack consists of new ages, areas, Relto customisations, technical features, clothing, gameplay and story, as well as forty-two new journals and a new voiceover by actor David Ogden Stiers. Oh him. We're sure it all means a lot more to those of you who play the game. The 174MB file size, however, is universal.

The Sims 2, the next title in everybody's favourite interminable PC franchise, is to receive an early boost this year thanks to a standalone character design tool that can be used to create hairstyles, custom faces, body textures and even clothing. Due for release "this year", the tool will do just about everything besides customising family history and personalities, although we're promised that the "create-a-sim" aspect of the final game will allow players to do just that. What it will do, though, is spit out files that players can port around easily via email or whatever. Now, if you'll excuse us, our boredom meter is throbbing.

Hey! You! Stylish girl! You probably already know about "Sistastyle", the UK's coolest day out for girls - taking place at the ExCeL facility in London's Docklands this April (on the end of a very enjoyable ride on the DLR, we'll have you know). What you didn't know is that in addition to hanging out with the hunks and soaking up the fashion, beauty and musical palaver, you'll be able to have a go on Konami's Dancing Stage Fever and Karaoke Stage games. Wicked-great! Tell your friends! And remember, don't be idle, sista, be a Style Idol!