Good news for fans of quirky Japanese RPGs - DS title Contact is to get a Western release later this year.

Apparently it's all about "hunting, cooking, fishing, training, collecting and romance," would you believe. Playing as a young lad named Terry, you meet a Professor whose spaceship has crash landed on a strange planet. The ship's power sources - known as Cells - have become scattered about the place, and it's your job to retrieve them all.

Along the way, you'll have to train animals, collect items and play all manner of mini-games. There's also a bit of real time combat to be done, using something called Decal Attacks. You'll be able to take the game online via Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service, but there's no word of how this'll work just yet.

The game is being produced by Gouichi Suda, director of Killer 7, and the characters have been designed by Atsuko Fukushima of PoPoLoCrois! fame. Take a look at the game's official website to see how it's shaping up.

Contact will be published by Atlus in the US this summer - as yet, there's no confirmation of whether it'll make it over here. However, we do know that the game is being developed by Marvelous Interactive, and UK publisher Rising Star have already brought several of their titles to Europe, so here's hoping. ...

Sega is already eyeing up the PS3 as a hot development prospect, and latest word leaks out of Japan that it will have a launch title for PS3 ready to swing into action this very spring.
Okay, so it's an as-yet-untitled golf game and we don't expect Sony to rush out the console so you can play Sega golf, so perhaps we shouldn't get too excited. But apparently the game is almost complete and, according to Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, will feature the Japanese Miyazato family, who have a cult golfing status right up there with Tiger Woods in the Land of the Rising Sun.

In the game, you select from one of three siblings, Yusaku, Ai or Kiyoshi, and take part in golf tournaments across the whole world. Like the well-regarded PSP smash Everybody's Golf, you'll win all manner of clothes and collectible articles to enhance your golfing career.

Maybe golf has never been right up there among your most wanted sporting genres, but it is a fun post-pub multiplayer offering (just add alcohol forfeits on each hole to make it even more interesting) - and it could prove a vital title in the PS3's home territory for the golf-crazy Japanese.
What's perhaps most significant though is that spring 2006 delivery date. Golf is a fairly tightly confined and limited development project (it doesn't require the resources of an FPS for example), but it's still a significant development in that Sega Golf could very well be the first complete PS3 game, ready in the next couple of months.

An official announcement and final title is apparently expected shortly, but tears of unalloyed fanboy joy will no doubt be wept over at UK Resistance and by all Sega lovers, that their favourite publisher and developer is ready to tee off on PS3 this spring. ...

It's now widely assumed that the PlayStation 3 will miss its projected spring launch date, with analysts lining round the corner to add their delay predictions and even Sony itself recently admitting a possible slippage for the console.
Today another analyst, Shawn Milne of Friedman Billings Ramsey, bellowed his PS3 predictions from the rooftops. In an industry update issued to investors, Milne said that Sony was clearly going to miss its spring window, and added that the Japan release might miss summer as well.

Milne's most intriguing speculation in the update was his prediction that the US might not get as much as a sniff of a PS3 until 2007, citing supply chain data as evidence of a possible delay. "According to our semiconductor research team, there are further indications that the Sony PS3 launch may be late," Milne wrote, "although there remains significant confusion on the timing of launches by geography," quoted on US site GameSpot.
The update also points towards Sony's recent mute showing at its Destination Playstation event as further evidence of a slip, noting that retailers were apparently left in the dark regarding actual release information.

According to Milne, a 2007 release for the PlayStation 3 would cause a poor Christmas turnout this year, however he projects that the console will sell out regardless. EA Games will be the biggest launch victor says Milnes, as it has "8-12 titles planned" to debut with the PS3, including the already announced Fight Night Round 3 and Medal of Honor: Airborne.

Hopefully Sony will divulge some official information on the PS3's mysterious launch schedule soon, before even more analyst reports pile up on our desks. When it happens, we'll be there with the latest. ...

Well, I think that there is some interest in RPGs on the PSP. But while we wait for a from-scratch RPG, I thought I'd surf around and find a finished one to port over. Well, here is my first release of the OpenGladiator RPG which was formerly a commercial game, and in the last four years has become a credible GPLed game for SDL.

The PSP version is compatible with the PC game saves, and you can do almost anything in the PSP port except type in custom names for characters/game saves. Try it out and tell me what you think.

I'm a 2.6 PSP user, so info on compatibility with 1.5 is always of interest.

Source (and more screenshots) are at http://www.adamcon.org/~dmwick/psp/

HardHat ...

Hi all if you are reading this newspost you are on the new server, im sure if you have visited this site regulary you will have noticed that the server has been slow especially on days when we push well over 2000 online at one time.

With Massive thanks to Martin64 our server admin we are on a much faster server, so the problems of the past should be well and truly over.

The DCEmu Network for those of you who are new or not sure of what we are is the only true network to support both Homebrew and Commercial Gaming across all consoles and not just the ones in the news.

We have sites that cover PSP, Dreamcast, GP2X, Nintendo DS, GBA/GB Micro, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, Gizmondo, Sega Saturn, Gamecube, Nokia Ngage and Mobile Phones, Xbox, PS2, PS1, GP32, Ipod, Nintendo Revolution, PS3 and Xbox 360.

We also have hosted sites for some of the best coders across the console scene namely Chui, GPF, PSMonkey, Deniska, PLynx & Miemt11.

We also have a site for Gadgets and retrostuff too and each site has its own forum.

Last week i opened 2 new sites that will hopefully bring more people to the network in the form of a MMORPG site and a Real Time Strategy Site.

I am personally a massive fan of RTS games but like all the sites and forums, its the people who visit them and chat that make the network what it is.

Thanks for visiting a site that started just over 2 years ago and quickly grew as i brought my other sites over to make a network of sites and one with a name thats easy to remember, namely DCEmu - The Homebrew and Gaming Network.

Thanks for visiting our network ...

Hi all if you are reading this newspost you are on the new server, im sure if you have visited this site regulary you will have noticed that the server has been slow especially on days when we push well over 2000 online at one time.

With Massive thanks to Martin64 our server admin we are on a much faster server, so the problems of the past should be well and truly over.

The DCEmu Network for those of you who are new or not sure of what we are is the only true network to support both Homebrew and Commercial Gaming across all consoles and not just the ones in the news.

We have sites that cover PSP, Dreamcast, GP2X, Nintendo DS, GBA/GB Micro, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, Gizmondo, Sega Saturn, Gamecube, Nokia Ngage and Mobile Phones, Xbox, PS2, PS1, GP32, Ipod, Nintendo Revolution, PS3 and Xbox 360.

We also have hosted sites for some of the best coders across the console scene namely Chui, GPF, PSMonkey, Deniska, PLynx & Miemt11.

We also have a site for Gadgets and retrostuff too and each site has its own forum.

Last week i opened 2 new sites that will hopefully bring more people to the network in the form of a MMORPG site and a Real Time Strategy Site.

I am personally a massive fan of RTS games but like all the sites and forums, its the people who visit them and chat that make the network what it is.

Thanks for visiting a site that started just over 2 years ago and quickly grew as i brought my other sites over to make a network of sites and one with a name thats easy to remember, namely DCEmu - The Homebrew and Gaming Network.

Thanks for visiting our network ...

Hi all if you are reading this newspost you are on the new server, im sure if you have visited this site regulary you will have noticed that the server has been slow especially on days when we push well over 2000 online at one time.

With Massive thanks to Martin64 our server admin we are on a much faster server, so the problems of the past should be well and truly over.

The DCEmu Network for those of you who are new or not sure of what we are is the only true network to support both Homebrew and Commercial Gaming across all consoles and not just the ones in the news.

We have sites that cover PSP, Dreamcast, GP2X, Nintendo DS, GBA/GB Micro, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, Gizmondo, Sega Saturn, Gamecube, Nokia Ngage and Mobile Phones, Xbox, PS2, PS1, GP32, Ipod, Nintendo Revolution, PS3 and Xbox 360.

We also have hosted sites for some of the best coders across the console scene namely Chui, GPF, PSMonkey, Deniska, PLynx & Miemt11.

We also have a site for Gadgets and retrostuff too and each site has its own forum.

Last week i opened 2 new sites that will hopefully bring more people to the network in the form of a MMORPG site and a Real Time Strategy Site.

I am personally a massive fan of RTS games but like all the sites and forums, its the people who visit them and chat that make the network what it is.

Thanks for visiting a site that started just over 2 years ago and quickly grew as i brought my other sites over to make a network of sites and one with a name thats easy to remember, namely DCEmu - The Homebrew and Gaming Network.

Thanks for visiting our network ...

Hi all if you are reading this newspost you are on the new server, im sure if you have visited this site regulary you will have noticed that the server has been slow especially on days when we push well over 2000 online at one time.

With Massive thanks to Martin64 our server admin we are on a much faster server, so the problems of the past should be well and truly over.

The DCEmu Network for those of you who are new or not sure of what we are is the only true network to support both Homebrew and Commercial Gaming across all consoles and not just the ones in the news.

We have sites that cover PSP, Dreamcast, GP2X, Nintendo DS, GBA/GB Micro, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, Gizmondo, Sega Saturn, Gamecube, Nokia Ngage and Mobile Phones, Xbox, PS2, PS1, GP32, Ipod, Nintendo Revolution, PS3 and Xbox 360.

We also have hosted sites for some of the best coders across the console scene namely Chui, GPF, PSMonkey, Deniska, PLynx & Miemt11.

We also have a site for Gadgets and retrostuff too and each site has its own forum.

Last week i opened 2 new sites that will hopefully bring more people to the network in the form of a MMORPG site and a Real Time Strategy Site.

I am personally a massive fan of RTS games but like all the sites and forums, its the people who visit them and chat that make the network what it is.

Thanks for visiting a site that started just over 2 years ago and quickly grew as i brought my other sites over to make a network of sites and one with a name thats easy to remember, namely DCEmu - The Homebrew and Gaming Network.

Thanks for visiting our network ...

Hi all if you are reading this newspost you are on the new server, im sure if you have visited this site regulary you will have noticed that the server has been slow especially on days when we push well over 2000 online at one time.

With Massive thanks to Martin64 our server admin we are on a much faster server, so the problems of the past should be well and truly over.

The DCEmu Network for those of you who are new or not sure of what we are is the only true network to support both Homebrew and Commercial Gaming across all consoles and not just the ones in the news.

We have sites that cover PSP, Dreamcast, GP2X, Nintendo DS, GBA/GB Micro, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, Gizmondo, Sega Saturn, Gamecube, Nokia Ngage and Mobile Phones, Xbox, PS2, PS1, GP32, Ipod, Nintendo Revolution, PS3 and Xbox 360.

We also have hosted sites for some of the best coders across the console scene namely Chui, GPF, PSMonkey, Deniska, PLynx & Miemt11.

We also have a site for Gadgets and retrostuff too and each site has its own forum.

Last week i opened 2 new sites that will hopefully bring more people to the network in the form of a MMORPG site and a Real Time Strategy Site.

I am personally a massive fan of RTS games but like all the sites and forums, its the people who visit them and chat that make the network what it is.

Thanks for visiting a site that started just over 2 years ago and quickly grew as i brought my other sites over to make a network of sites and one with a name thats easy to remember, namely DCEmu - The Homebrew and Gaming Network.

Thanks for visiting our network ...