Mailbag	Update by: William
Today's Mailbag is an unqualified disaster. It's filled with tales of gaming woe. Steel yourself for stories of saved games being erased, power spikes frying expensive consoles, destroyed relationships, and dead pets. And you thought video games were supposed to be fun... Next week: We're reviving our "video game triumphs" topic from last week (we need it after all these tales of sadness), only now we're expanding it to include other victories such as setting the top score on an arcade machine, beating your ace gaming friend for the first time, or that time you were able to bench-press six Atari 5200 consoles simultaneously. Got a gaming achievement you want to brag about? Mail us.

NES in Animal Forest	Update by: William
Animal Forest, the N64 "communication game" that is already generating a lot of buzz, will contain playable versions of several classic Nintendo titles. How? Some of the houses in the game will have NES setups ready for playing! Nintendo has revealed which NES titles will be available in the Forest: Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Jr. Tennis Pinball Golf Kuru Kuru Land Balloon Fight According to IGN64, NOA is preparing Animal Forest for a worldwide release. It's not known yet if the NES games list will change for a Stateside release or not.

Redesign Preview	Update by: William
After many discussions, much consideration of user comments, not to mention a few fistfights, we've finally come up with the "final" (barring last-minute tweaks) new design of ClassicGaming we first told you about several weeks ago. If you're curious, we've put up a preview of our brand new front page for you to check out. We hope you like it! Thanks once again to all the readers who sent in useful design comments. I think you helped us avoid doing anything stupid. I've seen this design in action, and it looks like it will be pretty slick! We're now aiming for a late May launch date for all of this, so stay tuned.

2600 Connection #65	Update by: William
Issue #65 of the 2600 Connection newsletter for Atari VCS fans is now shipping. This issue features the Digital Press 6th Edition Collector's Guide review by Tim Duarte, Atari Catalog Redux by Scott Stilphen, News & Notes, Letters, and Classifieds. For some article samples or for information on how to get back issues, head on over to the 2600 Connection Web site.

Shadow of a Hedgehog	Update by: William
PlanetDreamcast recently welcomed a brand new hosted site, dedicated to a certain blue Sega mascot. That's right: the ship from Tac/Scan has its own site now!! OK, I lie. Shadow of a Hedgehog is a site all about Sonic The Hedgehog, complete with a close look at (almost) all of Sonic's games, including the "lost" levels; a museum of Sonic merchandise; an online Sonic comic, and all sorts of other Sonic goodies. The site is perhaps more focused on Sonic's Dreamcast incarnations, but it still contains a goodly amount of resources available for the earlier Sonic games as well. Shadow of a Hedgehog is a tremendous Sonic site! (Now if only someone would do the same for poor Tac/Scan...)

Game of the Week	Update by: William
This week we've got another of those games that could only have come out of the 1980s: Alf for the Sega Master System. That's right, the smart-aleck alien from the TV series actually starred in his own video game, which is a sort of hybrid platformer and adventure game. Most people who have played Alf will tell you it's not that fun of a game — and I'm inclined to agree with them — but our good friend Mark Wiesner actually has some good things to say about it, as you'll see in the review. Perhaps he was just captivated by Alf's whimsical charm, but I suspect his judgment has been warped by too much '80s television. I'll leave the final decision up to you.