Latest Articles (Page 2953)

The grass is always greener on the other side, so they say. During the daily, predictable grind of employment, daydreams provide light relief to the monotony of life. Walking down the catwalk in Italy; singing on stage in a West End musical, or starring as Bond in the next blockbuster movie. Even serving cocktails in the new designer bar down the road can seem more alluring than your current career path. Tom Cruise certainly had a blast with it before all that dodgy Xenu business!

The original Breakout added a whole new twist to the bat 'n' ball formula back in 1978, introducing a fortress of bricks to bounce your sphere against. Its success in the arcades meant a sequel quickly followed and, while aesthetically identical to the original, the additional modes make it a more entertaining proposition.

Back in 1982, Pole Position was the star of the arcade racing track. Realistic racing games were in short supply, so this rubber-burning new arrival set the standard -- achieving tremendous success over the next couple of years. Its realistic visual style was unlike anything seen before, with a (then) unique third person perspective, good use of synthesised speech and turbo scrolling speed which gave it the authentic feel of a real formula one vehicle. Chuck in a steering wheel, pedals and a sit down cabinet and YOU were the driver, pursuing your wildest championship fantasies on the open tarmac.

It seems that Pac-People have suffered greatly from personality conflicts; never quite sure who they really are or where they came from. No matter, so long as they know what they're doing, and in that respect, the first official sequel (which was also the best unofficial bootleg) to the biggest selling arcade game of all time was a dot eatin' sensation and gave birth to the original videogame family.

It's true that those crazy Japanese can make a game from anything. And while the obscure premise and gameplay behind Mikie is pretty damned surreal, the scenario was something that was very prevalent in Japanese pop-culture, and goes a long way to explaining how this weird game might have come to be.

Burnout Paradise will be released in the US on 22nd January for PS3 and Xbox 360.

They say there's nothing better than having something throbbing and powerful between your legs and by creating 1985's seminal Hang-On arcade game it's clear Sega took this idea quite literally.

The Eye of Judgement can scan fake cards produced by colour printers, as those of you with fraudulent tendencies have found out.

Some of the most renowned old games ever have a terrible knack of ageing horribly. Take Gyruss. By virtue of the fact that it was created by Yoshiki 'Street Fighter 2/Final Fight' Okamoto in 1983, it appears to have been granted a disproportionate level of historical interest, despite not actually being anything special in its own right. It's yet another luke warm addition to Microsoft's downloadable games service, and one that sure to beg the question: why are they bothering with crap that wasn't even that interesting at the time?

The white noise of Space Invaders clones was becoming deafening in the industrious arcades, and operators were increasingly turned off by yet another space based shoot out. But Gorf (Galactic Orbital Robotic Force) brought a lot to the table; enough to make the most overfed and bloated arcade owner open their coin fed gullets for one more mouthful. In this one cabinet, gamers were given five terrific variations on the well established theme.

Standing happily on the shoulders of Space Invaders and enjoying the view while it's there, Galaga is what happens when a game developer poaches a fine concept and genuinely bothers to enhance it. Making it bastard hard didn't hurt either - those 10p pieces can't earn themselves...

What can you say about a game that's become a worldwide institution? A game that has not only had its own TV show (the Frogger cartoon was shown on American TV as part of Saturday Supercade), but has featured in numerous songs (from 'Froggy's Lament' in 1982 to the Sugababes hit 'Freak Like Me' in 2002). It has appeared on virtually every home system and has had more than 15 sequels (though notably only one arcade sequel; 1991's Ribbit). Surprisingly, however, Frogger wasn't the genesis of the series. It's actually a remake of a game from 1972 called 'Freeway'; created at Washington University for the early PDS-1 microcomputer.

Space Invaders made such a significant impact on the videogame world that for a long time after its release, the only reasonable way forward for game designers was to create weird and wonderful variations on the theme. Centipede is a prime example of how the concept could be modified to produce unique and popular titles that still fed the voracious public hunger for single screen shoot-'em-ups.

A perfect example of how brilliant gameplay can shadow a multitude of developer sins, Bomb Jack has become something of a cult icon in the gaming industry.

Text adventures, despite their rich and significant role in the history of computer games, are rubbish. They're boring, and you know they are. Things improved a bit with graphics, but it was still tantamount to chatting with a calculator about life insurance policies.

The thing everybody remembers about Lords of Midnight is the scale it managed to evoke. Placing the fate of an entire realm in the hands of the player, Mike Singleton's gigantic roleplaying-strategy-wargame-adventure hybrid unfolded across 4,000 locations and featured scores of characters - all controlled through keyboard shortcuts.

Keita Takahashi used his keynote at this weekend's GameCity festival to show off an early demo of his new PlayStation 3 game Nobi Nobi Boy.

Sony has happily reminded us all that the PlayStation 2 has sold more than 120 million units after nearly seven years in the shops. That is considerably higher than rivals Xbox with 24 million and GameCube with 22 million.

Chequered Flag has a serious claim to being the first ever home computer driving game. Certainly in the sense of offering a 'behind the wheel' view of the track and attempting to accurately recreate the physics of wrestling an F1 car around a tight bend. Looking at the number of indebted titles knocking around, it's safe to say the genre took off.

It was such an exciting time for games. Passionate code fledgling's could work like Royal servants in their back bedrooms and produce games that publishers would accept with gracious, open arms. But these home-brewed cocktails could also shake the foundations of the game charts in a way that today's multi-million pound extravaganzas only dream about.

As a child of the seventies it is difficult to talk about pirates without slipping into jokes about Sea-man Stains and Master Bates. Well ahoy there mateys there will be none of that plagiaristic nonsense here!

On December 27th 2004 several satellites and telescopes from around the world detected an explosion on the surface of SGR 1806-20, a neutron star 50,000 light years away. The resulting flash of energy which lasted only a tenth of a second, released more energy than the Sun emits in 150,000 years. But that Starquake was a fart in whirlpool compared to Bubble Bus' superlative platform adventure namesake.

EA has trampled a new course for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 onto Xbox Live.

Not only was Tron a landmark fashion event for fans of skin-tight circuitry wear, the accompanying arcade game was probably the first overwhelmingly successful film license. Indeed, it's rumoured that the game took more money than the film itself. An early exponent of sub-games based on key cinematic scenes - later to become the standard (and extremely tired) method of movie-conversion - the game was a genre-shaping release.

Perhaps I'm too harsh with text adventures. Perhaps - just perhaps - I'm a bit of a mengie and only read books with full-page pictures, which is why I never really got on board the whole "Go North, pick up the key" malarkey. Suddenly, 24 years too late, I realise I may have done myself a disservice.

Microsoft has released a demo version of upcoming movie-based Xbox 360 quiz game Scene it? Lights, Camera, Action, which is due out on 16th November according to Xbox.com.

Microsoft has piped up this morning to tell us about some fresh downloadable content for role-playing game Blue Dragon.

Tucked into a brief chat with Will Wright on The Guardian website is confirmation that Maxis is going to make Spore for the Wii.

The Orange Box on Xbox 360 is definitely amazing, but Team Fortress 2 players have also been complaining of amazing lag, so Valve has released an update that it reckons fixes it.

EA and Crytek have released the long-awaited Crysis single-player demo for PC gamers ahead of the game's release on 16th November.