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Here's a rarity - a cult PlayStation game which appeared in Europe, but not in North America. Popular legend holds that this is down to SCEA's refusal to launch mucky old 2D titles on their shiny new 3D console - if true, that has to be one of the most ludicrous policies ever enforced by a games company (right up there with SCEE's long-held policy of not allowing Japanese voice track options in its games, in fact). Regardless, our US readers definitely missed out on something a bit special with this title.

Rumblings about the imminent launch of PlayStation 2 did little to slow down the prolific output of star developer Squaresoft on the PSone. The so-called golden age of the Japanese RPG reached another of its many high points with the launch of Chrono Cross, a long-awaited sequel to the much-loved SNES RPG, Chrono Trigger. This being the Good Old Bad Old Days, Chrono Cross never graced European shores - but its rapturous response upon its North American release was, even with the benefit of hindsight, fully deserved.

No cult favourites list would be complete without a game from the masters of insane, hyperactive, ADD-afflicted action, Treasure. While the late nineties for the Japanese developer were largely defined by titles like the Saturn's much-loved Radiant Silvergun (and later, the N64's awesome Sin And Punishment), the PlayStation received plenty of love as well - most notably in the form of Silhouette Mirage. Aside from having yet another brilliant Japlish name, Silhouette Mirage was one of the best side-scrolling action titles of the era - or, indeed, ever.

It's a sign of how the games market in Europe was maturing that as we advance through the years, more and more of the games on our list actually managed to get released over here. Admittedly, Grandia took its sweet time - Ubisoft didn't launch the game in Europe until early 2001, after US and Japanese launches in 1999 - but this, at least, is a game which European players eventually had a chance to experience. Which is just as well, because it was fantastic - and moreover, it was a genuine break from the strictly turn based gameplay of most RPGs previously released in the west.

While the Resident Evil series was establishing itself as the unrivalled king of survival horror - and setting new precedents for shock tactic marketing at the same time - a team at Konami was working on a more thoughtful answer to the B-movie excesses of Capcom's zombie mash-up. 1999's terrifying Silent Hill is far from obscure, admittedly, but its inclusion in this list is warranted by its comparatively weak European sales relative to other, lesser, horror titles.

Big cheese Yves Guillemot has said Ubisoft is working on a top secret game based around user-created content.

Would you like to play NCsoft's Tabula Rasa? I know what you're thinking: "Oh if only I could play NCsoft's Tabula Rasa! How heartless of Eurogamer to dangle that prospect in front of me when the possibility of it being so is so minimal!" To that we say: relax! Because we've teamed up with NCsoft to let you play Tabula Rasa.

Remember SOS: The Final Escape? You probably don't (because it sold about ten copies over here), but it's a true cult classic in many ways, and well worth hunting down if you find it. And the reason for its elevated status? Mainly because it was so unlike anything else around; a one-of-a-kind 'disaster survival' where you end up trying to stay alive in an urban Earthquake, and uncover the real culprits behind it. Despite some horrifically clunky animation and iffy gameplay mechanics, Irem's defiantly innovative ideas drove you on through a rather brief adventure. If only a more capable developer could polish up the premise, we'd be first in the queue.

Codemasters Online Gaming will be releasing its second free content pack for Lord of the Rings Online on 21st August.

When it comes to multiplayer FPS games, large-scale testing is proof - and where better to test the first proper from-the-ground-up teamplay multiplayer Quake FPS than QuakeCon, id Software's annual shindig in Dallas? That's certainly the view of id's cohorts Splash Damage, who not only brought the PC and 360 builds to the Con's vendor area, but also distributed Beta 2 among attendees on day one, ran a clan tournament on a range of new maps, and put on a series of advanced tactics seminars for budding fans. With all that in mind, we caught up with creative director Paul Wedgwood to talk about the new levels, the bots, the future - and John Carmack's potentially needling comments the night before when a keynote Q&A brought up the subject of animation and gameplay synchronicity...

3D Realms big shot George Broussard has said Duke Nukem 3D could be coming to Live Arcade. Apparently all he's waiting on is the go ahead from Microsoft.

Sony Europe has kept its lips sealed over the release date of Gran Turismo 5 in Europe, following news that the racing game is expected in Japan next July.

Microsoft has remained quiet on rumours that another Halo 3 beta test is currently getting under way.

2K Games has released a demo of BioShock on Xbox Live, and has said a PC version will follow later this month.

After a few weeks ping-ponging up and down the quality scale, this week sees another solid selection hit the Virtual Console in the shape of two great titles that should tickle the retro glands of action lovers and adventure fiends alike. Oh, and there's also one load of old rubbish that should have been left to fester in the dustbin of history. Still, can't have everything, eh?

Sierra Entertainment will be handling the game accompanying upcoming film The Spiderwick Chronicles.

There was a time, in the early part of this decade, when it looked like Klonoa was on track to replace Pac-Man as Namco's mascot character of choice. The cute cat-like creature, star of a pair of utterly fantastic 2.5D platform titles on PSone and PS2, was on the road to mascot superstar status thanks to a variety of spin-off games on handheld platforms. Namco's commitment seemed to be cemented by the launch of this most unlikely spin-off; a beach volleyball title.

While the PlayStation era was unquestionably a golden age for the Japanese RPG genre, one series never quite pushed its way into the consciousness of gamers outside Japan. Sony's own internally developed series, Arc The Lad, kicked off the genre on the platform - the first title in the series popped up in mid-1995 in Japan. The series scored a number of notable firsts, including bringing orchestral music and computer-generated full-motion video to the field before any of its rivals - it's hard to imagine the RPG genre today without such trimmings, but at the time, they were a revelation.

It's cheating a little bit to consider these titles as PSone cult classics, perhaps - but Square's decision to port SNES-era Final Fantasies IV, V and VI, along with classic SNES RPG Chrono Trigger, to the PlayStation yielded arguably some of the best gaming value of the PlayStation era. Not only that, it raises the intriguing possibility that Sony might end up capitalising on some of the Virtual Console loving which Nintendo has secured for the Wii - via the slightly roundabout route of looking to the PlayStation's own back catalogue of retro re-releases.

As the PlayStation approached the end of its life as a platform for high-profile new releases, some developers sought to eke a new graphical lease of life from the console through a variety of different tricks. One of the most effective was employed by Fear Effect 2, which eschewed real-time backgrounds in favour of pre-rendered video with 3D characters animated over the top. Although the first game in the series had used the same trick, it was this prequel which really perfected the technique - with the result that it was visually stunning in places, and still looks surprisingly good today.

Kenji Eno's fascinating survival horror game, one of the earliest in the genre to be launched on the PlayStation, had a troubled development period (it was originally a 3DO game, for a start), which was compounded when the game was heavily edited for its US release. The watered-down storyline didn't do much to inspire western audiences, unsurprisingly - which is a shame, because in its original form, this is a powerful and interesting game.

The story behind Hi-Octane isn't a promising one. Rushed into making a sequel to the classic Magic Carpet (whose PlayStation version was entirely overshadowed by the far superior PC edition) by paymasters EA, British developer Bullfrog created a racing game using the Magic Carpet engine - in, allegedly, just eight weeks. It doesn't sound like a recipe for quality, but then again, that doesn't take into account the concentrated genius which resulted from the meeting of minds at the heart of Bullfrog.

Where did role-playing gaming begin on the PlayStation? The obvious answers are Arc the Lad, Sony's in-house developed franchise which provided the first true JRPG for the system back in late 1994; and Final Fantasy VII, which stepped up the graphical expectations of the genre into an entirely new realm, almost single-handedly creating an international audience at the same time.

Looking back over the years, one of the most common debates among gamers is not over the superiority of any particular console. Instead, it's the altogether more civilised discussion over which year has been the best year for gaming - and in that particular field, 1995 has a very strong claim to make. Few years have seen the emergence of quite so many games which went on to spawn massive franchises - some of them creating entire genres along the way.

Sony has said it will refund consumers who bought PSone title Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer and now MediEvil from the PlayStation Store.

Activision is planning to release Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on 9th November in Europe for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Ubisoft has announced Chessmaster: The Art of Learning for DS and Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition for Windows PC.

The UK's first Omega Sektor opens its doors today in Birmingham, following a successful launch event last night attended by media, publishers, hardware manufacturers and consumers, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Capcom is planning to reduce the cost of Lost Planet Map Pack #3 to nothing on Xbox Live Marketplace on 16th August - the same day that PC owners will be able to grab a new patch that adds a range of DirectX 10 enhancements.

Scans from the latest issue of Japanese weekly Famitsu show off some new sections of Super Mario Galaxy, including a desert world and a haunted house - where Mario himself becomes a Boo ghost.