James asks: when is the new yu-gi-oh game coming out on gamecube? Is it Forcebound or falsebound kingdoms? i can't find out anything about it anywhere!

Aussie Ben says: I've got the Yu-Gi-Oh curse. Just because I reviewed one of the horrible games, it's now automatically assumed I know everything about them. (Kind of like Ty and Hamtaro, I guess.) Answering this question is destroying a small part of my soul. Moving on -- Falsebound Kingdom is supposed to be available now, according to Konami's site, so I guess Forcebound is the next one coming. God, they just keep coming, don't they?

Actually, looking more closely, it appears that Forcebound doesn't even have a US release date. Use that money you were going to buy Forcebound with to buy Beyond Good and Evil instead.

DaColomrican asks: I just have a few questions. I want to know if you can create your own chracter by changeing his hair and his clothes? And what if one of my friends want to be Clavat as a male can I be Clavat as a male also ? Please answer my questions I am dieing to know. This will determine if I am goin to by the game.

Ty says: Well, there isn't exactly character customization, but there's a lot of choices. First, you have the four basic classes of characters, two genders for each, and four designs for each gender of each class. 4 x 2 x 4 = 32 character designs. You can use any combination that you want, so, yeah, you can have same class, same gender, etc, in a multiplayer game. You can't change any character details, though, so you're out of luck if you want to play dress-up.

Daniel says: FFX-2 has corrupted the minds of our youth with all of these costume changes.

Jonny says: The differences in character races and clans are not that big, except at the beginning of the game. They are mainly important as a way to distinguish each player's character in the heat of battle, in addition to the extremely helpful color-coded icons.

Samus asks: My friend claims that the company Zoonami is related to Konami. I know a lot about Zoonami, however, and I see no reason why they would be related. Who's right; me or my friend?

Aussie Ben says: According to their site, Zoonami:

...is a small company based in Cambridge, UK, intent on creating original and innovative games.

Zoonami was founded in 2000 by Martin Hollis, project leader of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, and ex-head of software at Rare.

According to their site, Konami:

...was founded in 1969 in Osaka, Japan by Kagemasa Kozuki, who currently serves as Chief Executive Officer. Originally named Konami Industry Co. Ltd., the company began manufacturing amusement machines in 1973. The company assumed its current name in 1991. Since then, the company has grown into a large international company focused on a wide variety of entertainment and lifestyle technologies and products, from video games to fitness clubs, from toys to gaming machines.

The only thing that makes them related is that they have "ami" at the end of their names.

Jonny says: Well....maybe if the next big thing in developer collaboration is a new Bubble Bobble game, created with the combined talents of Silicon Knights, Konami, Nintendo EAD, Zoonami, Treasure, and Digital Chocolate. It could be called Super Radiant Legacy of Trip Belmont 007.

JBscop asks: I just wanted to know were can I get a good VGA box that will work on a UK Gamecube, as I have previously had one from Liksang.com but it did not work.

Can you help?

Jonny says: There are a couple of pretty good VGA converter cables for NTSC GameCubes, but I'm pretty sure you would need something specially designed for the PAL standard output of your GameCube. A simple Freeloader kind of mod isn't going to work. I'm afraid I don't frequent European retailers, but if you know of a few good ones online or on the street, you should look around and ask the employees if they have heard of one. I'm not sure if such a device would be practical to build, however. The NTSC cables are modified by hand from Japanese D-link cables, which are of course NTSC standard. I don't know if a similar mod could be performed on the PAL SCART cables.

Brad asks: I have questions about GCN RPGs. First I'll start with Atlus, do you know of any plans

to continue the Ogre Battle saga at all? And if so will it possibly be on GCN?

Next Konami has a sleeper set of great strat/rpgs for the PS1 known as

Vandal Hearts I & II. Both better than FF Tactics and FF Tactics Advance in

my humble opinion. The question is do you know of any plans to continue that

awesome series? I think it be great to even get something like a compilation

disc of both of them for GCN with some updated graphics. Even better would

be to see a a more direct sequel to the series involving the characters from

the first VH. VHIII i'm waiting on it.

Onward now to Camelot,the development studio that is. What happened to the

Camelot RPG for GCN?? Was it going to be a Golden Sun game? Or something

totally new? Is it scrapped?

The ones who don't get enough credit in my book,Sega and Overworks. How is

Skies of Arcadia 2 coming? I know it has been officially announced as in

development, but thats about it. Do you know if we might possibly see this

gem of a game on GCN?

Jonny says: First, please realize that Atlus has no control over the Ogre Battle series. Those games are developed and usually published in Japan by Enix, which is now part of SquareEnix. The original developers of the series, Quest, are also part of this huge company. So any new Ogre Battle games will be announced by SquareEnix, and that has not happened so far. Atlus is associated with the series because they have published some of the games in America, when Enix was not interested.

As for Vandal Hearts, I've heard nothing of a new sequel, but I doubt it would show up on GameCube if it existed. Konami has simply not supported GameCube very much, Twin Snakes aside, and the system is not seen as a strong platform for strategy titles. It's actually much more likely that a Vandal Hearts game would be released on GBA, where the strategy genre is VERY strong right now. But again, nothing has been announced as far as I know.

When we spoke to Camelot's founders and chief executives (the Takahashi brothers) last year, they had some very cryptic comments about their next Golden Sun title. They feel that the first Golden Sun and The Lost Age are really two parts of the same game, which had to be split up due to the size of the project. They feel that the idea of psychic powers in an RPG could be greatly expanded in a console game, and they are in the early planning stages of such a game (or were at the time, about nine months ago). However, due to the extent of their concepts and their other responsibilities for developing GameCube titles, the brothers suggested that the console version of Golden Sun may not appear until the next console is ready. However, with the generational cycle apparently pushed from 2005 into 2006, I personally would not be surprised to see this game surface on the GameCube late in its life.

Finally, though I'm sorry to bear bad news, Skies of Arcadia 2 has actually NOT been officially announced. Overworks publicly indicated that they would like to develop a sequel if the GameCube version sold well in America, but as you may or may not know, the game was a total flop in sales. Sega had to discount the game shortly after its release, just to move units. Though its fans are very outspoken and devoted, I don't think we'll be seeing another Skies of Arcadia game for a long time, if ever. And if I were a Sega executive, knowing how the director's cut sold on GameCube, I would be looking towards PS2 for the release of any possible sequel. When an undoubtedly great RPG can't sell more than ten or twenty thousand copies on GameCube, regardless of marketing or the lack thereof, it's hard not to make certain conclusions about the system's owners and their attitude towards the genre.

Kathi asks: Recently I purchased a Gamecube Player for my son and we have been experincing a problem ever since. When we switch on the Gamecube, it stays on for about 15 seconds then turns itself off. I'm not sure if it has to do with the player but the Gamecube worked fine before installing this unit to it. Please help!! I hope he can use both somehow.

TYP says: You may have already tried this, but take off the Game Boy Player and see if the GameCube still turns itself off. If it only happens with the GBP on the system, then it is the culprit. You may be able to get a free replacmenet from Nintendo if it is under warranty.

More likely, though, your GameCube will still suffer from the same problem (regardless of what triggered the problem). If this happens, I recommend you buy a new GameCube and use the old GBP. If the problem reappears with the new GC, then you know the GBP is defective, and the new GC is now broken due to a 1st party product--you should be able to get both replaced at no extra cost.

Robert says: I had a very similar situation to this with my GameCube just a few months back. It turned out that the rumble motor in one of my pads was blown - the system checks each of the pads connected as it boots, so it appeared to power on for a moment before going off again after detecting the faulty pad.

My advice is to try isolating the problem - TYP is right that you should try the GameCube without the GB Player connected, but also try it without any controllers/memory cards as well. If it works, keep adding things back one at a time until you find the culprit.

Hope that helps!