NCS Daily Journal for January 30, 1998

NCS Daily Journal

Gran Turismo came and went. We are expecting more next week, in both regular and Dual Shock packages. We would venture that Turismo's popularity has exceeded the response to Rage Racer. A major plus that Turismo offers is the large variety of real cars, as opposed to fictional ones, that react to the track environment in realistic ways. Cars will skid and crash, instead of sliding and bumping into the next car.

Turismo

Another attraction may be the ability to drive a Honda Civic or a Toyota Supra as well as an Acura NSX. After you're done with those three, there are 140+ other cars - both everyday vehicles and exotic ones - to motor around in. Sony has made a big leap from their early Playstation racing efforts: Motor Toon GP and Motor Toon GP2. They were fun but perhaps a little trippy with their very flourescent and very pastel (almost hallucinogenic) colors and lighting. Turismo raises the bar on the racing genre and we figure publishers from Namco to Sega are taking stern notice and are keeping busy with their next racing sims.

Gran Turismo

	I	Bio-Hazard 2 will be restocked on Monday when the remainder of our shipment arrives. Most pre-orders were shipped out yesterday but any remaining reservations that we have on hand will be dispatched next week. The improvements in Bio-Hazard 2 over the first Bio-Hazard are obvious. The monsters shine with exquisite detail and animate with lumbering realism. Capcom has embued the zombies and other exotic monsters with what we can only called pure animus. They've given the creatures a spark of life and malice that we usually find in cinema of the macabre kind. The outdoor and indoor scenes that are presented also seethe with life-like intensity.
		We stocked the American version of Bio-Hazard 2, Resident Evil 2, last week. We'll have to run through both versions over the weekend and check up on the censorship level in the American version, if any. One can assume that the blood and gore has been toned down in the American version but what we're interested in are the gross-out scenes. Example: in the first Bio-Hazard, you'll come across a crouched zombie who initially has his back towards you. In a cut scene, the zombie chomps down and severs the head of a team member from his body. The carpet then seeps full of oozing blood that expands outward in a muddy puddle. The USA version wimps out and edits this and other scenes.

Bio-Hazard 2

Tales of Destiny and many others will be restocked next Monday. Like earlier this week, we have a lot of stuff coming back in that we'll post up on next week's Whats New page. Some of the fare include SONYPS Blue Sabre Knights, Calcolo, Einhander, Final Fantasy VII International Edition, Other Life Azure Dreams, and Wizard's Harmony 2. On the SATURN side, we're expecting Arcana Strikes, Cross Romance, Culdcept, Graduation Album, Samurai Shodown IV (ram package), Tactics Formula, and Universal Nuts. Many of the other expected titles will be posted next week.

NCS January Farewell

NCS wishes all of our customers who follow the Lunar New Year a most prolific Year of the Tiger. We had a nice graphic of a big 'ol tiger ready to post up but one of our Syjet cartridges holding our miscellaneous images appears to be missing this morning. In any case, we share our New Year sentiment (sans tiger) with you. May your pockets bulge with red envelopes.

Well, we made it through the first month of 1998 in good fashion. There was a dearth of new releases in the early part of the month but as February rolls around, it will be back to business as usual. A large number of titles will ship from February to March and we'll start with R-Types for the Playstation next week. Have a good weekend and we'll meet again on Monday.

Lunare

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