Latest Articles (Page 3279)

Football games [odd start -Ed] ... Fine. Tennis games [happier] need the players. In fact, there aren't many ball games that don't. It's all very well having splendidly realistic ball physics and a wonderfully detailed playing surface that scuffs, reflects, ripples, rustles, screeches, whatever. But you need the players too. And they have to look like they're playing the game. Snooker is different. Every snooker (or pool) game that I've ever played has lived or died based on what happens on the cloth within that immaculately polished wooden frame. Believability in snooker games comes down to realistic shot options, ball behaviour, clacking noises and the developer's ability to convincingly move spotless and reflective round objects around without them looking like sprite-based trees in a Build Engine forest turning to face you with every step. So, without the obscure reference: to convincingly move spotless and reflective round objects around and actually make it look like they're rolling.

The battle of the next-generation handhelds finally kicks into high gear in the States this evening with the launch, at midnight, of PlayStation Portable - Sony's not-quite-direct competitor to Nintendo DS, which is now available worldwide.

Grr. I've been tossing and turning all night. And not in that good way where you're running through a labyrinth being chased by pornography. I've had another sleepless one for no apparent reason. Fortunately for me, I soon realised (well, "soon" is a stretch; let's go for "I realised at 5am that...") my PSP was in thrashing distance. WipEout proved a bit beyond me (in gaming terms, my brain was suffering from packet loss) but then I remembered something else I'd done recently. Found out how to do all that video malarkey.

While discussing Playboy: The Mansion last week, we lamented the state of the modern Sim Clones. Despite Hugh Hefner's digital love child being far from a brilliant game, it was still one of the finest things that have sprouted in Maxis' long shadow, because the rest of the lineage are incredibly rubbish rather than merely midly rubbish. The Sims has, perversely enough, proved to be the only huge-selling, genre-creating game in history which hasn't lead to an army of imitators. Doom begat endless Doom clones. Dune II/C&C begat a tank-rush of pretenders. Hostile Waters... well, we can't win them all.

Regular visitors to these hallowed pages will know by now that we've got very mixed feelings about the ongoing videogaming obsession with World War II. In short, it's gone beyond merely lacking the imagination to come up with something vaguely new, and descended into the realms of exasperating self parody where game publishers are only too happy to sign developers connected with Call Of Valor: Medal Of Duty. The thing is, however much we mock, the public just lap it up. It's a veritable money-printing machine.

There's a running joke/truism in the music scene that most bands suffer from the 'difficult' third album syndrome. It's not exactly a hard and fast rule (as there are some notable contradictions), but it's usually the point when previously unassailable success starts to unravel and the cracks start to show. Call it overconfidence, lack of inspiration, the well of creativity running dry, or just trying to play to the crowd, but Chaos Theory is Splinter Cell's Be Here Now.

Forget three. Five is the magic number. Five Alive, Jackson Five, England 5 Germany 1, Five Live, The Famous Five, Ben Folds Five, Hawaii Five-O, Championship Manager 5. Actually, let's Take Five from this list, the cracks are beginning to show.

British independent developer Elixir Studios has announced that it has commenced winding down its operations after a key title was cancelled, but efforts continue to rescue some of the firm's projects.

It's strange, really. Just as one platform holder starts galloping faster and faster toward the next generation of console hardware, the one that seems most reluctant to leave the current generation behind has just as few big exclusives on the slate for release in 2005. Microsoft may be racing towards its next platform, but the humble GameCube could certainly do with the odd Forza Motorsport or Doom III to capture people's interest. As it stands, going into 2005, there's an awful lot of what we'd class as "distinctly Nintendo games" and not a great deal of traditional titles to help the Cube take advantage of its rivals' itchy feet.

For a genre that takes itself seriously to a fault, it's amazing that it's taken all this time for someone to poke fun at RPGs. In those bad old good old days when computers used to be steam powered [we really have come full circle -Ed] and required smacking like naughty children every now and then, Fergus McNeil and his Delta 4 gang were always taking the rise out of chin-stroking fantasy adventures, and for good reason. The comedy value in these mystical, dungeon-roaming, spell-casting epics is there for all to see. From the clichéd dim-witted yokel characters and hackneyed storylines of princesses stuck in towers to the faintly ridiculous game mechanics that see animals coughing up coins upon their death and the ritual destruction of barrels. RPGs may have gotten away with all manner of unselfconscious nonsense for the past quarter of a century, but no more.

Sports games have grown up. And damn them for it. Originally the technology was so limited that they had to cut corners. Having ice hockey players dart around like waterboatmen was just the way it had to be; having the ball glued to a footballer's feet was easier than trying to compute them as separate objects; and using button-mashing to simulate running and other athleticism was just logical. After all, this was back when digital buttons, never mind your crazy new-fangled analogue contraptions, were at a real premium.

Those waiting for the Revolution may be surprised to learn that it's already here.

Nintendo is thought to be furious this morning after a Spanish games magazine revealed embargoed details of the new Legend of Zelda GameCube title ahead of next month's E3 trade event.

Few would have believed, a scant couple of years ago, that the day would come when a GameCube would be an essential platform for any fan of JRPGs to own. After all, if there was one field where the PlayStation thoroughly trounced the N64 (and let's be honest, there were quite a few), it was RPGs. Their sprawling scale and love of full motion video and detailed backdrops were far more suited to the CD than to the cartridge, and Nintendo's falling out with Squaresoft was a final hammer blow to the platform's chances of seeing much in the way of RPGs headed its way. For a long time, we thought the Cube might suffer the same fate - and indeed, for quite a long time the only decent RPG on the platform was Skies of Arcadia Legends, which was unquestionably excellent, but merely a slightly touched up port of a Dreamcast game.

"I hope you like our new direction" says Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls as he kicks off the band's new 'Jazz Odyssey' project. But a restless demin-clad crowd look on in disbelief and quickly turn on the hairy rockers, aiming a chorus of boos, unkind hand signals and probably phlegm at the humiliated Brits before storming out of the gig in disgust. Unreal Championship 2 is the Jazz Odyssey of the shooter world. A project borne out of the admirable sentiment of splicing various gaming ingredients into something new, but one that ultimately tastes like ice cream pizza to this old hack. I wanted the old hits given a new lease of life, not Unreal Mortal Kombat Championship.

Frank Castle. Apart from sounding like a 70s game show host/old school comedian, he's actually probably the biggest double-hard bastard ever to star in a videogame. Forget John Rambo, sneer at Max Payne. This man is virtually immortal as bullets bounce off his frame almost apologetically, and any wounds he might incur along the way will magically heal over so long as he has someone to slaughter viciously nearby in as gratuitous a fashion as you can possibly imagine.

Eidos-published title Lego Star Wars has jumped one place to become this week's best-selling title in Britain, giving the publisher its first UK number one in almost a year and knocking Midnight Club 3 down to number two.

With most traditional adventure game franchises content to morph into kill-heavy action spectaculars these days in a bid to tap into the lucrative casual gamer market, the traditional atmospheric, narrative-rich, puzzle-driven genre has started floundering on the rocks. Occasionally the adventure game corpse threatens to twitch into life, but most of us have long since accepted that its glory days are long gone. But then - confounding all expectations - Capcom quietly goes and releases an unpretentious horror thriller about a young girl trapped in a castle ("Not again!" you cry) with only a white Alsatian for company and all seems right with the world again.

Dishonour! How is it that a company as experienced at making games as Capcom can suppose that Western gamers are somehow superhuman enough to enjoy playing an already brutally challenging game on 'hard' mode by default? Hilariously, in this case that's exactly the gaff Capcom made when it elected to pitch Devil May Cry 3's default skill level at the same level as the Japanese version's unlockable 'hard' mode with its US and European releases. No wonder I was having a few issues. And there was me thinking I'd just become terrible at games overnight. ["Become" -Tom]

Namco has unveiled its forthcoming action role-playing game for PC, Mage Knight Apocalypse.

New military strategy effort Shattered Union will be a PC and Xbox exclusive, according to publisher 2K Games.

Criterion's popular crash-and-bash racer will be screeching onto PSP this autumn under the title Burnout Legends, according to a report in Official PlayStation Magazine.

SNK PLAYMORE USA CORPORATION sends VERY LOUD WORD that it plans to unveil eight new games for Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Advance at E3 in a fortnight's time. The majority of which involve the words "King of Fighters" or "Metal Slug" in some context, predictably.

The recent settlement in the long-running legal spat between Valve and VU Games will see Valve's entire portfolio of boxed product being pulled from shelves in August - creating a potential loss of millions to UK retail alone.

US-based broadband network Heavy.com has signed an agreement with Sony to make its entire library of animated and live-action video shorts available to PSP users.

The AOL Radio Network has launched a new station playing original soundtracks from classic games.

CDV Software has unveiled more details of forthcoming WWII real-time strategy title Codename: Panzers, Phase Two, including news that Peter Weller has signed up for voice acting duties. You can see some screenshots for the game here.

Not content with offering EverQuest II players their very own eBay, Sony Online Entertainment has revealed that there are two new add-ons for the game on the way.

US network ABC News is providing Sony PSP owners with news and information programmes, downloadable from the psp.connect.com website and stored on the handheld's Memory Stick.

Sony America has revealed the first details of two new PSP titles and a PS2 game currently in development, and gone on a bit more about three games it's already mentioned.