April Fools

One of the great things about the Internet is that everyone's a goddamn comedian, and this April Fools day was no exception. We've been working hard to pick through all the jokes, spoofs and rubbish to bring you actual news, although we've probably fallen for something. Anyway, since it's a slow news day we thought we'd clue you in on some of the more obvious April Fools jokes, because sometimes, particularly in this industry, truth is stranger than fiction.

GTA was the subject of much Fooling, and we're still not 100 per cent sure that the two main threads were both "jokes". GameSpot reports that GTA: Tokyo 2010 is the name of the next in the series, and that it'll be like Blade Runner with flying cars and aliens. Well, GTA2 was set in the near future, so it's not too far-fetched, but we're bloody sceptical all the same. Likewise, news confirming GTA: Sin City reached us late yesterday but seems to be bollocks. After all, why would Rockstar announce a further GTA sequel on April Fools day? They're not that stupid.

Neither are EA, who reportedly announced a slew of new war-games according to GameSpot (again) to capitalise on events in the Gulf, including Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat (ooh, suck us in with the possibility of truth), Command & Conquer Generals - Sandstorm (hrm) and Coalition: First Strike (ah). Or Sega, who certainly didn't sign John Madden for Sega Sports. Also from GameSpot, "New study links social popularity, attractiveness to video games". That one kind of gave it away.

IGN got in on the action with several efforts that we could make out (although embarrassingly we can't tell if some of them actually are Fools jokes). They recalled their Game of the Year (BF1942), opting for this instead (cripes, that's a URL and a half!). They also ran Nintendo trades Miyamoto for Naka", "Wendy's loses big customer" and "Orange GBA SP coming soon", although we reckon the last one may true, because it's not funny. Not even in the "oh look at how silly we are" kind of way the others are. Ho hum.

Fools slightly closer to home included Cube-Europe, whose voucher scheme for money off Cube games was a hoax (and a cruel one too!), and C&VG, who claimed that SCI's The Great Escape is "The greatest escape of all time!" Oh, hang on, they were being sincere. Dang. Heading overseas again, we reckon Nintendophiles' attempt to charge for content was a bit too out of the blue, but if it isn't a Fool then good luck to 'em.

But by far and away our favourite April Fools was courtesy of Ferrago, who flattered us here at EG by parodying Eurogamer so expertly. Make sure you pay them a visit, because they clearly 'won' April Fools day by virtue of being, well, actually funny. Respeck!

Anyway, there's no way we've conquered all the Fools' jokes out there, so if you spotted anything then let us know in the comments thread. We could do with a laugh!