Turok 2 Improved for Japan

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil for the Nintendo 64 has finally been confirmed for a Japan release. After months of negotiation with several companies, Acclaim Japan has finally found a distributor for the game. There has been no announcement yet as to which company will be doing the honors, but the release date has been pinpointed for June.

The Japanese version of Turok 2 will be seeing a few improvements (perhaps no more screen freezing bugs?). Also, the game will be getting a name change - it is now being called Violence Killer: Turok New Generation. This is likely a wise move, since the original Turok faced miserable sales in Japan.

Nintendo has also decided to release the Expansion Pak in Japan with the release of the Turok sequel. The only game that currently makes use of the Expansion Pak in Japan is Top Gear Overdrive. Top Gear's publisher, Kemco, neglected to mention that it supported the Pak since Nintendo hadn't released the Pak to consumers yet. Nintendo's original intention was to bundled the Pak with the release of the 64DD, its oft-delayed Nintendo 64 disk drive.

Does this move suggest that Nintendo has dumped the idea of releasing the 64DD in Japan as it has with the US market? Nintendo still maintains that the disk drive will come before the end of this year, although it has been delayed once again from June to a date later in the year.