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Ubisoft has announced that Assassin's Creed is gold and will be released on 16th November for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

"Grisly gang film to be screened uncut - Britain's film censors are facing controversy over their decision to allow one of the most violent movies of recent years to be screened without any cuts." So ran an article in the Sunday Times last weekend that caught the eye between televised bursts of English sporting misery.

When Ubisoft asked us if we'd like to send one of our forumites to Montreal to play Assassin's Creed, we said no, we'd like to send ourselves instead. When they told us to sod off, we had a sulk for a bit and then elected someone - in this case, the young and dashing Richard Horne. What follows is his untouched impressions of the game based on... well, we'll let him explain. We also inserted lots of errors and typos so he doesn't put us out of a job. Good day.

Ghosts 'n Goblins (or Makaimura in Japan) is a strange beast. It's a wholly unforgiving and fist-shakingly difficult game that allows the casual player to see no more than the first few levels. Even a seasoned gamer would be hard pressed to complete it without pumping a large number of coins into the slot; effectively buying their way to the final bos. So how has such a gruelling game become so iconic? Why are we still going back to it 20 years on?

The fathomless scope of Gauntlet was a miracle to behold, leaving the four simultaneous players feeling quite insignificant when plunged into the cavernous dungeons and endless multitudes of savage antagonists. Coupled with the sheer size and weight of the mammoth cabinet, Gauntlet was a dominating giant of a game that demanded solemn, coin-operated worship.

3D graphics were the holy grail of gaming for a long number of years, and developers battled tooth and nail against technology to deliver a realistic experience to arcade punters. As we look back now with myopic hindsight, we can see those early attempts were great not because of their pseudo three dimensional visage; it's because the designers were striving to break down barriers.

Time for some brutal honesty here: elevators aren't fun. They do their job, but aside from that they remain markedly unappealing and you'd deem any developer that decided to use them as a basis for a videogame to be a few tins short of a six pack.

It's no coincidence that some of the most memorable and legendary videogame releases of the past 30 years have been devilishly simple in terms of concept. Pong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders - classics like these are held in high esteem because they kept things simple. That was their strength.

Videogames were still finding their way when this Japanese answer to American trends appeared, proving a success on many more levels than high volume coin guzzling.

The transition from child to adulthood brings important changes. Take the Star Wars arcade machine (shush, it counts as important); almost twenty five years on it remains a brilliant experience, but the sit-down version now seems so small. In order to get comfortably seated, grown-up legs have to dangle outside the cockpit, creating a somewhat unorthodox flying style. Don't worry about that though, just pretend you're some kind of maverick super-ace.

It's important to cast your mind back to 1983 when considering Spy Hunter, lest the suave, tough guy world of the road warrior gets lost in out-of-context tackiness.

We all like different things. Some adore FIFA 08, some hate it. Some love PES 6, others abhor it. It's all a matter of taste. I'll warn you now, a section of you are going to hate PES 2008, simply because it doesn't dance to the right footy rhythm. Others amongst you will think it's the best game of the series to date and lavish it with the type of love usually reserved for a firstborn, while some of you will just groan and write it off as more of the same. Question is, which is going to be?

Not all classic games rocked the world as soon as they were released. Defender took a long time to establish itself as a true landmark, but a steady rise to fame can often result in a much longer lasting appreciation.

Placing Commando in the shoot-'em-up category is almost reason for debate. The ground based game mechanics and army assault theme naturally lent it something of a run 'n' gun lilt, yet when broken down into its raw components, we can see that game design legend Tokuro Fujiwara was keeping to a well established and, certainly in 1985, the single most popular style on the arcade floor - the shoot-'em-up.

Seldom have arcade games been so accurately titled as Berzerk. Not only does it represent the actions of the mental antagonists quite accurately, it reflects the surreal and outlandish design that drives this crazy game to devour our loose change.

It can’t be denied; Atari’s designers came up with some incredibly inventive and interesting games before their decline. Battlezone is one of the finer examples - a two stick game (before Robotron was even a glint in Eugene Jarvis' eye), with the ever-popular objective of destroying as many enemies as possible.

I challenge anyone to sit and play a Space Invaders cocktail cabinet for more than 10 minutes without feeling the subtle pinch of boredom nibbling at their fire-button finger, though it's equally impossible to walk past that original Taito coin-op and not say "Wow! I'd love to own that machine!". Perhaps it hasn't aged particularly well, or perhaps it's just massively overplayed (I suspect the latter), but there's something about the grandfather of the modern games industry that, despite its limited gameplay and simplistic design, remains disturbingly appealing.

It's a good thing we wore the big belt today, because Eurogamer's feeling a bit bigger this afternoon what with the launch of Eurogamer France!

We (the British) have funny ideas about spies. Either they're ultra-suave, tuxedo'd public school boys with expensive, deadly wristwatches (who'd stand out a mile in a crowd), or they're sleazy, rain coated, privacy invaders wearing off-the-rack trilbies and carrying a newspaper with eye holes cut in it (who'd also stand out a mile in a crowd).

Star Wars euphoria over spilled into the arcades in the early 80's with Atari unleashing Star Wars the arcade game onto a public hungry for an immersive experience in a galaxy far, far away. After spending your weekly pocket money shooting down Tie-Fighters and generally saving the Rebel Alliance over and over again, playing the latest Star Wars clone on your home computer did not really live up to the arcade experience. That was until Realtime Games Software Ltd released 3D Starstrike on the Spectrum, a blatant clone of Atari's flagship title.

Gottlieb certainly weren't prolific videogame developers. In fact, it could easily be argued it was a one hit wonder: but what a hit! Q*Bert put his developer firmly on the videogame map for all eternity to see, and although his antics would only really be expanded by way of home system conversions, his well-earned renown places him in the same pantheon as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and... Horace (on account of them both looking so weird).

After the worldwide phenomenon that was Pac Man, Namco found it difficult to recreate anywhere near the level of success that our pill popping friend did. Which is a pity as it has meant that games such as Rally-X have been living under that sizeable cloud ever since.

Will Wright, creator of SimCity, the Sims and forthcoming open-ended evolution game Spore, gave the inaugural annual BAFTA Video Games lecture at an event in London last night, and GamesIndustry.biz was there to capture all the details.

Eidos is still unable to confirm exactly when Tomb Raider: Anniversary will be released on Nintendo Wii in Europe, but it did assure us today that it will be this side of Christmas.

If you're not doing anything next Friday, 2nd November, and you're in the vicinity of London, you might want to consider popping along to the Shepherds Bush Empire to join in with Fuse 07 - a Ubisoft-backed game and music show will feature a gameplay demo of Assassin's Creed among its many stage acts.

Splash Damage's 1.2 update for multiplayer PC first-person shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is currently with publisher Activision's quality assurance folks and should be released within a few weeks.

THQ is the latest publisher to set its sights on Xbox Live Arcade, with four games planned for release on Microsoft's downloadable game service - including two as soon as next month.

When people hear the name Irem, they think of one game and one game only. But 5 years before they were to create the seminal R-Type, Irem coders were cutting their teeth on a very different battle to destroy the alien invaders.

Despite being the third release in Ultimate's near-legendary Sabreman series, it's since beenconfirmed that Knight Lore was completed before Sabre Wulf. A revelation which, if anything, makes the isometric 3D engine even more impressive.

Ultimate Play The Game is a company synonymous with producing ground breaking titles for the ZX Spectrum with their 1983 debut, Jetpac, re-setting the benchmark for shooters on Sir Clive's Technicolor wonder machine that other game developers thereafter had to measure up to.