href="mailto:mailbag@planetgamecube.com">Feed the Mailbag!

Now that you guys saw the final product for the

Wavebird, and one of you actually won one, I have been worried that the receiving unit

will cause a problem with my Q, and cover up the disc tray. Is that the case?

Billy Says: We'll have this as a

news story once I get a hold of Nathan's wave bird. Or if Dragona or anyone can test this.

Adam Says: Unless you're planning on trying to control

Tom Cruise with your Wavebird, I don't see what the problem would be even if it did cover

up the slot just a bit.

Just plug it in when you play...

Now that Panasonic is actively marketing their e-wear devices and SD-Memory cards, and

Nintendo has initiated their online plan... How much longer do you think we have to wait

for the SD-adapter? Do you think it will still be released?

Jonathan Says: Nintendo will talk about it more

once they have a game to show for it. We're probably talking a major online game like

Final Fantasy XI or something equally ambitious from Nintendo.

Billy Says: There was no talk about the SD

adapter. Actually the last time it was shown was at Spaceworld 2001. The only time

Nintendo has officially discussed it was during Spaceworld 2000 when it was announced.

There is no date, or price. That's the current status. There really is none.

Whether it will be released is still an unknown. I actually hope it will. Coupled with a

large SD card, it's an instant portable hard drive. Yet Nintendo will want to keep the

price down. SD cards have been dropping in price, and the real large cards are still to be

released in Japan. As always, time will tell.

When Nintendo dropped the price of the Game Cube did they also drop the price of the Q?

Jonathan Says: Nintendo doesn't control the price

of the Q; that's Panasonic's job. Panasonic could follow suit just to keep up with the

standard GameCube's pricing (and especially the PS2 and Xbox's new prices), but I don't

think anything has been announced yet.

Billy Says: Nothing has been announced yet, but I would keep an eye out on import

shops, and online importers. There's talk of this happening. You could soon be picking up

a fully modded Q for under $400! I expect the price to drop in the next couple of months.

When Nintendo announced Harvest Moon: A Beautiful Life I expected at least SOME coverage

from E3 on this game; however, none has surfaced. Was this game not on the floor? Is it a

port of the Harvest Moon PS2 version or a whole new game?

Jonathan Says: Harvest Moon for

GameCube was announced but was not present on the show floor. However, I can assure you

that Natsume does not simply port games from system to system; at the very least, A

Beautiful Life will be a vastly upgraded version of Save the Homeland, but I think it's

actually a brand new game. Dragona spent a lot of time at Natsume's booth, so maybe she

can fill in with more details.

Dragona Says: I can assure you that Harvest Moon:

A Wonderful Life is an entirely new game. Marriage is back and there is a crapload of

things to see and do.

Oh yes and the GBA version will interact with it.

I don't think I should say any more... >:)=

Max Says: There was apparently a video clip of

Harvest Moon: A Beautiful Life being shown at Natsume's booth, but I didn't see it. But

don't worry, like Dragona says, it's coming and it should be great.

Why was the Eternal Darkness demo stripped down with the release so near? Where is

all of the coverage? Where are the videos, screens and info from the floor?

Ty Says: I'm getting the idea not many people played this, because, well,

it's been at the last *two* E3s and people have a pretty good idea already of what's going

on in it. That is to say, there weren't any real new information on it, I guess.

However, if you hung around until the game reset, like after 15 minutes of play or so, you

could select one of a couple new scenarios. I didn't catch the name of the character, but

I played a (hot!) female character checking out some Aztec-looking ruins. Lots of detail

with some cool examples of examining the environment and dealing with traps - so it wasn't

that stripped down and had a fairly solid presence.

Rize Says: My opinion was that any new information

that could have been gleaned from the demo wasn't worth spoiling the final game for. The

game will be out in less than a month now, and I'd rather just wait.

Jonathan Says: I'm with Rize. I'm looking forward to ED more than anyone (well,

maybe not more than Rick), but I made myself avoid the E3 demo completely because I knew

two things:

1. The demo was still stripped down for the most part, and much of it is the same demo

I've played at two previous E3s plus the Cube Club.

2. The game comes out in less than a month, and at this point, I'd rather make myself go

crazy in anticipation than play just a little of it so close to the full game's release.

You can bet that we'll have mad coverage of Eternal Darkness closer to its launch date,

but at E3, there was just too much to see that we'd never played before. This was the

game's FOURTH year at E3...I don't think anyone was too excited to play it again at this

point. The full game will be a different story.

Did you go see any other system's booths? Like

Sony's and Microsoft's both? Which one was the most popular? What did you see that you

liked? What was THE game of the show for all of you?

Ty Says: If you mean 3rd parties on GameCube, I

liked BattleBots best, followed by Smugglers Run Warzones and Pac-Man Fever.

Best game on another system? DDR MAX (USA) on PS2 - it's getting TWENTY exclusive

never-in-DDR-before songs. I'm getting the idea the Japanese could be importing from here,

for once.

Rize Says: To be honest, my exposure to

non-GameCube games was very limited this year. I had so many GameCube titles to look at

that I didn't even enter Microsoft's booth. I walked through Sony's a couple of times, but

that was only a convenient way to get to Sega's Super Monkey Ball 2 kiosks and back to

Nintendo. However, a couple of non-GameCube titles did catch my eye. True Crime was most

notable, however, it will launch simultaneously on all three consoles sometime next year.

The game is like Grand Theft Auto 3 except you're a cop and you "steal" cars by

flashing your badge. The graphics are far better than those in GTA3 and the out-of-car

fighting is much more detailed and more Kung Fu oriented. The setting is Los Angeles. We

were actually able to drive by the convention center in game. Anyone who wished that Grand

Theft Auto 3 would come to GameCube should definitely keep an eye on this game.

Jonathan Says: Outside of Nintendo's own games, I

too was really impressed by True Crime: Streets of L.A. LucasArts also had an incredible

showing, with Bounty Hunter and The Clone Wars both looking top-notch. RTX Red Rock and

Gladius were also interesting, though they aren't due out until next year. I also have to

admit that Dave Mirra BMX XXX blew me away and is probably the most surprising game I saw,

though Acclaim wasn't letting anyone play it. I hear Doom III for PC was incredible on

video, but I never had time to wait in line for its little theater showing.

Billy Says: There were a lot of games in other

booths that caught my eye. Enough Sega love for me to buy an X-Box. Bastards. But the

price drop helps the pain.

The online announcements by Sony and Microsoft also made my ears perk up. I will be online

cross platform this fall, and I'm very excited. Online gaming rules.

Daniel Says: Sony had a really weird/cool booth.

There were kiosks set up all around the main structure. The structure itself was two

stories. You took the stairs to the top to play some games. Downstairs they had plastic

couches set up and the games were playing on plates of solid glass from projectors. Not

the best visual quality, but very cool looking.

Still, nothing beats Nintendo's surround sound rooms. The majority of games at E3 might as

well not even have audio with all the loud music, announcers at skate ramps, and video

screens blasting.

Dragona Says: If you're any sort of RPG fan, Enix

and Konami's booths were the holy grail. Suikoden III is absolutely stunning, and Star

Ocean III also has my rapt attention. In Atlus' booth there was a demo of Dual Hearts

which seems very intriguing and Natsume has a PS2 title where you make friends with

townspeople to bring your city's population up. Very interesting ideas there.

There was many more, but unfortunately, I didn't have the time to peruse the booths at my

leisure...

Max Says: I didn’t spend much time in other

booths, as I was usually running back and forth from Nintendo’s booth to the media

center. Capcom’s booth rocked; it does every year if you’re a Capcom fan, though

I didn’t get to play everything I wanted and mainly concentrated on Resident Evil 0.

Sega’s booth was also full of fun stuff, like Super Monkey Ball 2 and Beach Spikers.

Zone of Enders 2nd Runner caught my eye in Konami’s booth, as did the Goemon Mysical

Ninja Action/RPG being shown off by Working Designs. Both great reasons (among others) to

invest in a PS2 I’d say. So is Shinobi. So is Rygar.

On the X-Box front, I only saw Panzer Dragoon for a second. Blinx the Cat was joked about

much during our work, the day of the press conference. Mike Sklens kept pointing out what

a rip-off the character was, while Mike Orlando told me he was actually interested in

Blinx. Both Mikes tried it, and told me it was lame. I am happy to see that Microsoft is

pushing the smaller, more comfortable “Controller-S.”

Still, with all the great Nintendo releases on GBA and GameCube in the next several

months, I’m sure my wallet will be bled too dry to invest in another console, just

yet. Oh! My game of the show? Super Mario Sunshine, hands down.