Sorry! It's been awhile, hasn't it? This update will make up for it, I think. Bad dude Derboo, he of the expansive Ninja Gaiden and Realms of Arkania articles, has written an immense article on The History of Korean Gaming. There's not a whole lot on the internet about the country's rather obscure development scene, as there's tons upon tons of fascinating stuff, ranging from the usual bootleg ripoffs to numerous original titles. It's still in work in progress too - expect more in the future. Also up: an extensive look at Fan Translations, which goes outside the normal realm of simply discussing Famicom and Super Famicom games, and includes discussion on numerous non-English patches. The Games of the World section has also seen some updates, which are mentioned more in depth over there.

Onto other games. Myst and I have had a tenuous relationship over the years, which mostly resulted because I felt The 7th Guest was much better at the time. (How time has proved that wrong.) This site previously had a huge article on Uru, the MMO based on Myst, but now that's been expanded to the entire series. It's quite a pretty game, even over fifteen years later. And speaking of updated articles, the site had covered Front Mission before, but the folks over at the Front Mission Series Translation Project has rewritten the entire thing, expanding coverage, adding screenshots, filling in gaps, and generally making it a much better piece overall. There's an impressive overarching story in the games, which is lost on most non-Japanese speakers, considering we only got three of them translated into English. Please do give it another read, then mod your PS2, buy a copy of Front Mission 5, patch it, and then play one of the best SRPGs of the generation.

For smaller articles, we've got a look at Mercenary Force, an offbeat shooter (sorta?) for the Gameboy that takes place in feudal Japan; The Dig, LucasArts' sci-fi adventure, produced in association with Steven Spielburg, which was released on Steam not too long ago; Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, a not-quite-adult adventure title which I wrote in memoriam of Dennis Hopper, who had a role in the game as a CGI'd demon; and Starship Titanic, helmed by brilliant sci-fi author Douglas Adams, who has tons of brilliant ideans executed in not-so-brilliant manners.

6/2

Did you know there are over fifteen video games starring legendary kung fu action star Jackie Chan? I sure didn't, until I read this article, which is full of lots of curiosities, and at least two Mortal Kombat rip-off games with silly digitized graphics. On another note, I bought myself a Japanese Xbox 360, mostly to play more of the decidedly mediocre Otomedius. Of course, a month or so later and it's apparently being localized, but I decided to try to get my money's worth covering Ketsui, a Cave bullet hell shooter with a near-legendary reputation. Also up is a brief review of Aquales, a mecha side-scroller for the X68000 with some cool swinging mechanics. On the adventure game side, I played through both Laura Bow Mysteries, The Colonel's Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra, in addition to its spiritual predecessor, Mystery House, the very first text adventure to use graphics. A few months ago I was also covering some of Legend's games and stopped for a bit - I picked up with Mission Critical, which is part well written sci-fi story and part tedious spaceship repairman sim.

We're playing catch up with updating old articles. There's still a lot of work to be done, but in the meantime, check out review for Ace Attorney Investigations, the new Rocket Knight game, and Elevator Action: Death Parade.

We're also announcing a couple of new stuff outside of the normal articles. First up is a brand new section called Games of the World, which catalogues various articles, both written by HG101 staff and others, about the gaming scene outside of North America, Europe and Japan, places which are already well covered around the English speaking Internet. Do you live in an exotic part of the world and want to talk about games there? Then feel free to contribute! Pictures and videos welcome, of course! Also up is The Life and Times of Jeremy Blaustein, an extensive look at the career of the man who is most known for localized Metal Gear Solid, but also worked on other games like Snatcher, Valkyrie Profile, and Shenmue.

Also, 3D Dot Heroes came out a few weeks ago. We've decided to hold a Make Your Own Character Contest! Atlus is already holding one, with one major snag - you can't make licensed characters. Since we're not affiliated with anything or anyone, we're doing the opposite, and challenging you to make you own renditions of video game characters, the more obscure, the better. (Link and Cloud are right out banned, naturally.) First place winner will get a copy of the 3D Dot Heroes soundtrack imported from the far off land of Japan, and four others will have their heroes paraded on the site and available for download.

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Head Editor: Kurt Kalata
Contributing Editors: Sotenga, Vyse the Bold, Pat R., Neo Rasa, CJ Iwakura, Daijoubu and John Szczepaniak.
Catalog Administrator/Korean Correspondent: Derboo
Awesome Copy Editors: Jorpho, Paul Acevedo "EastX"
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