Latest Articles (Page 3116)

Making, and indeed reviewing, a motorcycle game is always a tricky business. On the one hand, you've got bikers who want an accurate representation of their hobby, which despite its tearaway reputation involves a lot more thought, skill and effort than driving a car. And on the other, you've got gamers, who are more acquainted with car games and Super Hang-On than the delicate physics of bike riding. Understandably, they want to get on and have fun without actually learning to ride a bike before they can play.

Nintendo will make money from every unit of Wii hardware and software sold, according to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Looks like Europe might be losing out yet again - Argos has updated its website with a banner advertising the "March 2007" launch of Nintendo Wii.

With The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess set to launch alongside Nintendo Wii in the US on November 19th and Japan on December 2nd, you might wonder what's happening to the Cube version.

Japanese demonstration videos posted on Nintendo's relaunched Wii.com website offer a few clues as to how things like the "Mii Channel" will function.

SEGA has announced that Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will see the introduction of two new characters - YanYan and Doctor.

If you're under the age of 15, it's unlikely you remember the days of Big Breakfast and Ben the Boffin, the resident computer games expert on Channel 4's breakfast TV show. Nor Gamesmasters' north-of-the-border cheeky chap Dominik Diamond. You probably won't remember a game called Turrican, either. It is to Halo what milk is to cheese, a forerunner, if you will, from a time when Wagon Wheels were five times bigger than they are today, when boys discovered enlightenment through grunge, and girls were mourning the loss of New Kids On The Block. It was an age when the sideways-scrolling platform shoot-'em-up was in its' prime, offering the complete entertainment package for any self-respecting nerd, geek or dweeb.

During the early years of the space race, NASA discovered the ballpoint pen didn't work in zero gravity. Presumably fearful of disgruntled astronauts being unable to write their postcards home, the Space Agency immediately assigned some of its brightest minds to the problem. Six months and a million dollars later they solved it, developing a ballpoint that worked upside down and in zero gravity.

There are few concepts more satisfying in life than a cat chasing a mouse. Somehow it seems part of the natural order. Especially when the mouse turns around and whacks the cat in the chops with a saucepan.

Marbles date back to a time when the world was flat and men thumped each other on the head with clubs. Even though they're merely little glass balls with a pastel swirl running through the middle, marbles have been a cheap way to keep kids out of trouble for generations.

Welcome to 1980's Miami. Huge hair, giant sunglasses and girls sprawled over shiny red Lamborghinis. The streets are littered with drug dealers and gun-toting thugs who can only be stopped by the coolest vice squad in TV history. With such an iconic setting, you'll naturally be expecting a glitzy, attitude-packed game.

If you happen to be a terrorist or a drugs kingpin, keep an eye out for the Spectrum Warriors. They're an elite group of men, fearless under pressure, who wouldn't even break a sweat when eating chilli in a sauna. To mere mortals, they're an enigma - shadows in the night, ghosts in the day, that cool breeze on your backside when you're leaning into the boot of your car with your grocery shopping. They remain hidden until they find their target, and when they do, they tend not to exchange pleasantries, just a swift cap to the head.

On the face of it, the Egyptians and Incas don't have much in common.

The best thing about video games is that they allow you to indulge your fantasies and guilty pleasures without fear of any of the real-world consequences. You can race cars at suicidal speeds without losing your licence, take on world champion boxers without losing your teeth or, as is the case with Super Bomberman, simply delight in blowing stuff up without risking your life or having a national holiday named after you!

Some people just aren't happy with the ordinary. People who dress their dogs in little jackets, for example, or the sort of person who buys a deep-fried Mars Bar on the way home from the pub.

For a man who never smiles and talks like a baby robot, Jack Bauer sure knows how to attract the ladies. With his unflinching resolve to fend off terrorists, he manages to save the World (otherwise known as America) and protect civilisation itself from the pesky bad guys all while maintaining that trademark scowl the female characters find so alluring.

It's bad enough being stuck indoors on a Saturday afternoon due to rain, so we'd rather not imagine how tiresome it is to be caught up in a real siege.

The sharp crack of leather upon willow can only mean one of two things - either it's cricket season again or Mistress Trixibell is holding one of her special garden parties. Thankfully we can spare you the sight of high court judges in ladies underwear as it's very much the former that we're discussing here today.

There are thousands of good games, there are hundreds of great games, but there are only a handful of digital creations that can truly be hailed as iconic. Megadrive owners had their Sonic, SNES had Mario and these days the PS2 and Xboxers have their Metal Gear, Halo 2 and Gran Turismo. For Amiga owners though, especially footballing ones, there was simply no challenge to the might of Sensible Soccer.

Well come on, that's what you were hoping for, wasn't it? After all, some sort of monetary reward should surely be mandatory if you have to sit opposite Chris Tarrant for more than five minutes. It's a blessing then that the ever-chummy presenter hasn't been digitised and shrunk down to fit onto your phone.

You know what? We'd take one team of footie-playing 13-year-olds from any playground in the country and put them up against the best team that the English Premiership has to offer. You might think that's bit of a one-sided contest. And you'd be right. The Premier League players would get whupped. There's no team harder in its defence, tougher in it's tackles or more vicious in its attacks than a group of teenaged schoolkids. Think about it; you've got the crazy kid in goal, the one who'll dive flat out to save a shot, knowing full well he's going to land on the tarmac and grit playground. There are the feet-first tackles in the rain and puddles and may God have mercy any player who gets trapped with the ball in the corner of the playground. Then there's the ball control itself; given that most matches take place with a tennis ball, any one of these kids would be past John Terry before you could say "nutmeg".

It's no good, I have to come clean. I can't stand it anymore: the guilt, the lies, the anxious covering up. You see I've had an affair... with Paris Hilton.

Cycling is the lowest-profile of all the summer sports. Think of the others that come to mind before it: tennis, cricket, Formula 1, athletics - even football some years, thanks to the World Cup. Perhaps it's a result of Britain's changeable weather and the fact that motorists are more likely to use cyclists for target practice than embrace them for their green credentials.

Just about everyone in the world must have heard of Tetris by now. The block-stacking video game took the world by storm and sold hundreds of thousands of copies and a good many Nintendo Game Boy handheld consoles in the 80s. Considered by many in our offices to be one of the founders of pocket gaming, its simple graphics and addictive gameplay ensured it appeared on just about every format and in many variations, most of them copyright-infringing. Indeed, its success was matched only by the subsequent battles over who actually created it (Alexei Pajitnov if you're interested) and more importantly who owned the rights.

What do you get if you cross Lego and Star Wars? Princess Brick-Leah...

There are more legends, myths and characters surrounding piracy (we're referring the eye-patch wearing, peg-leg walking, parrot-owning variety rather than illegal music and movie sharers) than any other line of work we can think of. Even before Johnny Depp added Captain Jack Sparrow to the list, there was Blackbeard, Captain Hook, Guybrush and Pugwash, to name just a few.

If it's true that you fear what you don't understand then Jewel Quest should be positively terrifying. Whilst the puzzler appears simple enough at first glance, presenting you with a grid of mystic totems and asking you to swap adjacent symbols in order to make lines of three or more, what happens when you actually start to play is far more bewildering.

You might think air hockey has gone the way of bar billiards, roller-discos and donkey riding in the long list of outdated British leisure activities. Except in Blackpool, obviously, where all of the above are still popular. Often simultaneously.

It's true that games enable you to live out your otherwise-unreachable fantasies. Win a million on World Poker Tour. Save the world as Jack Bauer in 24. And scamper down the wing before incompetently ballooning the ball into the crowd as Djibril Cisse in Real Football 2006. The world is your oyster, albeit on a two-inch screen.

Whether it's the classic PC original, the recent Hollywood movie, or even the slightly alarmist press coverage it's garnered over the years, we're going to assume you've heard of Doom. We're also going to assume that you probably have certain expectations of any game or film attached to the title, namely that it'll include exploring mazes and shooting at monsters, that there's plenty of blood and gore and that the experience is scary, yet somehow intensely entertaining. The good news is that Doom RPG delivers on all these expectations; even better news is that it adds a few neat twists of its own.