| PS2
Game Select 5 |
Scans |
Waking
up on a beach, our hero in Game Select 5 appears to be
a former ship captain, now shipwrecked and nary a penny to his
name. Shortly after revisiting consciousness, a rough-looking
but helpful pirate approaches and doles out some advice on
this new land and it's inhabitants. Everyone plays games and
prize money serves as reward for anyone skilled enough to beat
myriad opponents.
With this in mind, the player sets forth into
town to find his fortune. The first encounter that one will
probably stumble onto is the droll shopkeeper whose head rests
firmly on his palm. Any game may be played in his shop
including western chess, Othello, Go, Backgammon, western card
games, and a couple of simple puzzle sims. The chess and
othello AI is fairly good and reacts extremely quickly to your
moves. Needless to say, our quick jaunt to this shop resulted
in failure. Trekking out, the player may visit the wharf to
engage the helpful pirate in a game of othello. If you venture
to the northern part of town, a fairy and a pair of circus
clowns will play card games against you. Other locales await
your exploration. Overall, a thin tale of need and aspiration
helps to bind an enjoyable assortment of classic board games
together. |
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Game
Select 5 US$49 |
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| Gameboy
Advance Updated |
GBA
Pre-order |
A
mailing to all members of the GBA preorder list was sent
earlier this morning. There were 37 bounces out of 653 e-mail
addresses so if you did not receive the message, please contact
NCS so that we can correct your e-mail address in our records
and resend the mailing this afternoon.
The twelve GBA games that pre-order customers may
now choose from are: Akumajou Dracula, All Japan GT
Tournament, Dodge Ball Fighters, F-Zero Advance, Fire Pro
Wrestling A, J-League Pocket, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Napolean,
Play Novel Silent Hill, Super Mario Advance, Wai Wai
Racing, and Yu-Gi-Oh Dungeon Dice Monsters.
Due to new stipulations placed upon vendor
pre-orders, NCS' hand is forced to raise the pricing of the
GBA package to US$275 which includes the GBA handheld and
three games of your choice out of the twelve listed above.
This offer is finalized at this point and no changes will be
made hence. |
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New
pre-orders from customers are welcome but please note that
our priority would be to fill pre-orders from customers that
have already submitted them in the past couple of weeks. If
this does not weaken your constitution or resolve, we ask
that new pre-orders be submitted through our online
shop.
Click on the "Nintendo | Gameboy Advance" link for
the product details, options, and choice of games. We expect
to fill all reservations within 2 weeks of
launch. |
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| DC
Parts
and Components |
Chips |
| The
task of searching the market for official replacement
Dreamcast parts bears fruit and a variety of components will
be available from NCS starting next week. Some examples are
posted below but pricing is tentative: |
|
Components |
| 56K
Modem |
$25 |
| Original
AV Cable |
$5 |
| Replacement
DC motherboard (EUR,USA,JPN) |
$68 |
| Replacement
GD-Rom (Complete Assembly) |
$65 |
| Replacement
controller pcboard |
$12 |
| Replacement
power board (110V or 220V) |
$15 |
| Replacement
DC shell (complete top & bottom) |
$10 |
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A selection of Dreamcast pcboard chips and components are
also being made available but we will not offer these for
general sale due to the nature of the work involved. If you
are comfortable with performing surface mount repairs on the
DC, feel free to contact NCS with your component
requirements and we'll help you further.
Looking over the prices of the DC components
listed to the left, the sum of the parts total much more
than a new DC at the price level of US$99 from Sega. |
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| Restock
Plot |
Wonderswan... |
NCS
has located a supply of Wonder Swan Color Limited
Edition, which includes a copy of Final Fantasy and a white
WSC in nifty packaging. These are first production units and
this stock is expected early next week. We will contact
customers who have been waiting for restock later today. New
inquiries are welcome. Pricing remains at US$138.
D-Direct Street Fighter IIX for Matching
Service is also expected early next week. Unfortunately
pricing is still at the US$68 level for this supply. Also on
the way from D-Direct are De La Jet Set Radio and Nettou
Tennis. |
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| Many
of our usual vendors in Japan and Asia are unwilling to
support the WSC in the face of GBA aggression and might in
March. Perhaps things will even out fairly after the GBA
launches and distributors begin carrying a variety of stock
instead of concentrating on a small number of product
lines. |
|
| Phantasy
Star Online USA Okay |
GD-Rom |
| Thanks
to everyone who e-mailed us and helped with suggestions on
getting Phantasy Star Online to work on chipped Dreamcast
consoles. Yes, it works fine, after cleaning GD-Roms, removing
joypads and re-inserting them, performing some fits of
feng-shui and other major arcana. Apparently, the PSO disc is
sensitive to motes of dust, weather patterns, pollen count, et
al. It's one of those uncanny things... |
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| After
experiencing the problems with PSO, NCS upgraded all of the GD-Rom
drives on our DC consoles with new ones. Our machines have
seen heavy use and it's about time we overhauled them with new
engines. |
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E-mail
NCS
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