Ever get the joy and satisfaction of opening a letter from a dear old friend in the mail? Me neither, but speaking of letters I'd like to point out that we do have a lovely, and neglected, letters section to this lovely site. So if you have anything at all you'd like to say about gaming, this site, or gaming then click on the lovely button and drop us a line. Your letter will probably be posted online and tore apart by professional cynics, which is all the more reason to do so. Now on to the news!

Ever play Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast? No? Well, Sega and THQ want to get this lovely game into your hands, literally. Coming in the Spring of 2003 you'll see Jet Grind Radio on the Gameboy Advance. How will it transfer to the small screen? Who knows, but Sega aren't exactly amateurs you know. They are promising that the graphical and audio experience will live up to the standards set by the series so far. (The GBA really doesn't have that bad of sound quality if you listen through headphones and forget about the little tincan speaker.) Bonuses include a new multiplayer mode which will pit up to four others aganist each other in various spray can flaunting versions of play.

Like sucking the pants off monkeys? Then you'll go apeshit over the news that Ape Escape 2 is coming to the US. When? I don't know. What to do in the meantime? Why not head to the zoo.

Pokemon fans who don't have enough versions of the game already will thrilled be to learn that the new Ruby and Sapphire versions for the Gameboy Advance are coming out on Mar 17, 2003. They feature a paltry 350 monsters to find and can now battle two at a time to add some more depth to battle strategies. Sadly the games will not be compatible with the previous installments in the series so you'll have to stop bragging about your Level 99 Mewtwo/Charizard X hack monster you traded from the stupid kid down the block for a day or two.

In other Gameboy Advance news, some more info on the very cool GBA Player that attaches to the Gamecube is out. There is no territorial lockout (so you can play all your imports), it works with all your old Gameboy games (those b&w ones will look awesome on a big screen!), and there's a couple of screen size modes to pick from to ease your tender eyes. No US release date has come out yet, but hopefuly soon as this is basically the equivilant of a Super Nintendo 2, which is just too cool. Not so cool is a silly timer feature that parents can apparently can set and when ran out shuts off the system so their kids can go rake leaves and such to earn their keep. I'm not so sure that any parent is even going to venture on how to turn a Gamecube on, let alone set some timer feature. Oh well, more dillusional answers to the dillusional imagery set by a naive, but over reactive media I reckon.

Lastly Square is holding it's JUMP Festa 2003 thing on December 21-22 in Tokyo. The announcements are the expected stuff like Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but also a mysterious previously unnamed game as well. The presence of Kouichi Iskii has some elaborating on a possible new Mana installment if your optimistic like me, or just some Final Fantasy 11 stuff if your a pessimist. Well, that's all for now. Ta Ta.

-Hanzo

Sources: Gamers, RPGFan, Gamesarefun, and the true reality of clowns.