Latest Articles (Page 3095)

SEGA has joined the ranks of publishers using Valve's Steam service to distribute games, introducing Medieval II: Total War to the service - but only in America.

Microsoft's casual games boss, Kim Pallister, has told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz that he doesn't believe the growth of digital distribution will have an effect on retailers - at least not in the near future.

Phil Harrison has signalled Sony's intention to make user-created content a significant aspect of the PlayStation 3 platform - and he's not just talking about wacky avatars.

David Braben believes that people shouldn't write off Sony (or on them), arguing that the machine's versatility may lead consumers to regard it "more as a cheap PC than an expensive console".

Enterbrain, publisher of Famitsu, has revealed the the tie-in ratio of software to PlayStation 3 sales is 0.98 - less than one game per console.

A new report by analyst Compete has revealed that almost half of US consumers considering the purchase of a PS3 are in for a surprise when it comes to the console's price.

Yesterday we invited you all to come back and talk to Lumines and Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi at lunchtime. Unfortunately, the PR firm setting it up tells us that he can't join us today and needs to reschedule.

Sports Interactive and SEGA have announced that the Xbox 360 and PSP versions of Football Manager 2007 are finished and due out on 1st December.

With an extra boost due to the Xbox 360 release, Need for Speed Carbon has held on to the top spot of the UK All Formats Charts, despite two new entries from popular franchises Call of Duty and WWE Smackdown Vs RAW.

Swedish simulation gurus SimBin have partnered with Valve to release RACE - The Official WTCC Game through Steam.

Some clever-clogs hackers have worked out how to get the new Xbox 360 HD-DVD player - due out here on 1st December - to work on the PC.

Forza Motorsport 2 is now up and running at 60 frames per second on Xbox 360 according to developer Turn 10.

Fireworks. That's what you expect when EA wheel out a blockbuster sequel, especially one featuring a fully licensed cast of footballing superstars. So it's a little odd that FIFA Manager 07 has arrived with barely a whimper, let alone a bang. EA didn't even confirm the game was on the cards until a matter of weeks before its release. It's the equivalent of a boss not just informing his players who's in the team ten minutes before kick-off, but not telling them there's a match until the stadium's half full.

50 Cent has been shot nine times. Did you know that? It's possible this fact has passed you by, since Mr Cent doesn't like to make a big deal about it. Apart from, you know, when he brings it up in interviews. Or on his albums. Or uses it as the basis for his autobiographical movie, Get Rich Or Die Tryin'. Or for the revenge-fuelled plot of his videogame, Bulletproof, which slunk onto consoles this time last year.

President of Oddworld, Lorne Lanning, has told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz that the majority of videogames do not reflect the passionate feelings held by consumers.

Sony's working on a way of recording PS3 game footage and sharing it with your friends online, according to Phil Harrison.

Sony sold 88,400 PlayStation 3 consoles over the weekend in Japan according to Japanese magazine company Enterbrain, which publishes Famitsu.

Dissing Total War would be like strolling into an army base and proclaiming "you're all only doing this because you're sexually inadequate" - in either case, it'd be massively misinformed and essentially suicidal. But, can I get away with something like, oh, I don't know, "is there likely to be a time when I will not be strung up by my lungs and left for dead for inquiring as to what point one might safely inquire into whether there is a small danger that, at an indeterminate point in the future, some folk might start to question if Total War games might have a small risk of not being considered quite as groundbreaking as they currently are?" Oh, God. I've gone and done it, haven't I? I'm dead. I'm so dead.

The key question for an RTS developer these days is: what can be done that's different to the norm? Their answers have varied, though lately they've tended towards bolting a strategic framework on top of the missions, as seen in the likes of Empire at War or Rise of Legends, where the player marshals his resources and directs the war on the campaign map as well as in the real-time battles. So what does ParaWorld do differently? It has DINOSAURS! That's what. The cavalry don't just have long faces here - they've got really long necks too.

Boot camp. It's where every good shooter begins, the obligatory training tutorial in which a fifty-something bloke with more stars on his uniform than Cat Deeley has in her eyes barks obscenities as I run across planks of wood and through concrete pipes. Then my DEA special agent arse has to negotiate the shooting range, where cardboard villains pop up at windows, waiting to be shot. Afterwards, it's time to polish my boots, then catch the next flight to South America, home of the drug cartels. My job - to stop them carting. I am... El Matador... (Cue brief burst of Spanish guitar). Stop that sniggering.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of lots of excellent games including Lumines and Rez, will be joining us on the web tomorrow lunchtime to field questions from you, our beloved readers.

Pierre-Paul Trépanier, marketing director for Nintendo Canada, has told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz he believes it's unfair to "force" new technologies such as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on gamers.

Developer of EVE Online, CCP, is to merge with table top role-playing specialist White Wolf, with the new company intent on creating new IP for the MMO market.

"It's horse party time!" is the cry that's going out as we discover that our US copy of Viva Piñata works fine on a PAL Xbox 360. We thought you'd want to know.

Remember watching Gladiator for the first time? Remember how the jaw-dropping opening scenes of the movie exploded onto the screen, and how your popcorn (or fattening cinema food of choice) sat abandoned as Maximus' army unleashed hell on the hapless barbarian tribes? Remember how you stood up in the cinema and embarrassed yourself by revealing your online gaming roots and screaming "0wned!" as a particularly large and bearded barbarian was felled by the Roman onslaught� No? Damn. Maybe that was just me, then.

As you may have read in our feature on the Japanese PS3 launch, there have been some early reports of problems getting PSone and PS2 titles to work.

Microsoft has painted a clearer picture of its plans for the launch of Xbox 360 accessories in the run-up to Christmas.

Nintendo's next generation competition may not be all that bothered about the Wii (UK Xbox boss Neil Thompson last week called it "a kid's toy"), but Reggie Fils-Aime reckons they will be proved wrong.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 is still on track to launch across Europe in March 2007.

Bungie has hinted at a big Halo surprise in the next week.