Joystiq

• An exclusive first look at Resident Evil 4 for the PS2 (pp. 36-40) features an enormous view of Ada Wong in a revealing dress, as well as four different ways to play the promising port. So... did you know that "Morir es vivir" means "To die is to live"? Quite the education.
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• Want to pay $30 an hour to get pwned by a 7-year-old? Check out Lil Poison's site for more (game-coaching spread on pp. 46-47).
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• Remember those awesome NBA Live screenshots for the 360 that we mentioned a while back? Well, they came from this issue (pp. 56-57)—or that old ad from the NBA Draft—but either way, they sure look good (whether they're representative of in-game play or not).
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• EGM took a look this month at the job of a game designer (pp. 60-61), but didn't bother to list who they had interviewed in the table of contents (p. 8). I guess that all can be forgiven because they gave some decent exposure to Lorne Lanning—President and Creative Director of Oddworld Inhabitants—who may or may not be working on a game right now. Lorne has been known to say some interesting things in the past. (See Quick Tip #4 for some practical and, er... colorful advice for artists.)
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• EGM Managing Editor Jennifer Tsao takes an extended one-page look at the controversy surrounding videogame ratings and the double standard against mature content in games versus similar content in other media (p. 68). This is in addition to the connected but shorter editorial she was featured in next to the table of contents on p. 9. It's good to see Jennifer's expertise at the old print Next Generation more fully featured in articles like these.
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• The Top 10 lists to help count down to EGM's 200th issue continue in #196 with "The Top 10 Bosses" on pp. 72-73. If the results of GameFAQs' Character Battle IV—that Link will trump Sephiroth—are to be believed, then that means we can count on the top hero to trump the top villain (by a 10% margin) in the end. Gotta love happy endings (and proofs by majority rule).
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• An Axe Umlimited sample scent enclosure between pages 74 and 75. If you ever open that insert, you'll never have a problem locating your lost issue again (unless you toss it out altogether, that is, due to the odor). Is including a body spray sample in a gaming magazine that unusual? Probably not as much as linking to a girlfriend/"playa" simulator that may require more PC hardware than most primarily-console gamers might have. (A follow-up full-page ad also occupies page 105.) But the ads in question are promoting a game of sorts, so they're catering to a good audience for its target young-male demographic.
  
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• A lengthy preview feature on upcoming high-profile shooters, of which there are many, including a few for the Xbox 360 (pp. 78-86). With 5 titles arriving in October, and 3 in November, it looks like this holiday shopping season should be chock-full of our first/third-person hopes and dreams—and that's not even counting Perfect Dark Zero.
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• Then there's that big cover story on the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII project (pp. 92-106), which includes four different prequels and sequels based on all kinds of (Sony-based) game platforms and media. People who don't want even mild spoilers before the official (still November?) U.S. launch of Advent Children might want to skip the intro, picture captions, character profiles, and last two interview questions for the DVD/UMD release, but the Q&A with director and character designer extraordinaire Tetsuya Nomura is illuminating, nonetheless. The two pages on Dirge of Cerberus (spring of 2006 for the PS2) give away some minor plot points, while the half-page on Crisis Core (late 2006 for the PSP) basically states that "it's about three men and one woman." (Uh, you go, Zack?) Before Crisis is set to hit sufficiently advanced cell phones in the spring. The same feature also takes a look back at the original FFVII for the PS1 with two key members of its development team (Yoshinori Kitase and Nomura); the quote from Nomura that he'd remake FFVII on the PS3 "if the timing is just right"; and a short review of the snags that Square Enix has run into with FFXII (set to release in Japan for the PS2 on March 16, 2006, and in America perhaps by late summer).
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• 17 full reviews (including a shared space for NHL 2K6 and NHL 06), 11 less comprehensive listings (for the games that were "too little, too late"), and 1 page of archived scores for some 66 titles reviewed during the last few months (pp. 110-130). Nintendogs took away the Game of the Month award (and, with scores of 7.5, 8.0, and 9.0, the only average score of 8.0 or above in this late summer issue), while Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance tied with 187: Ride or Die for the Shame of the Month award (each had scores of 4.0, 4.5, and 4.5). For more select reviews, check out the four pages of EGM's archives made available online.
  
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• Two subversive half-page ads for Civilization IV rest on pages 113 and 115 in the guise of an AA-style organization called Civilization Anonymous. Nice to see that the purchase of the rights (to the addictive Sid Meier series by Take-Two's 2K Games) has brought some much needed exposure to the classic franchise, especially in light of the graphical improvements being made to similarly-themed PC title Age of Empires III.
  
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• And finally, a decent retrospective on 20 years of the Nintendo Entertainment System (pp. 136-138).

We hope you've enjoyed our look back at EGM #196. We also have a copy of November's Nintendo Power on tap right now, but donations of the Official Xbox Magazine (with demo disc!) would most definitely be appreciated.