Latest Articles (Page 3299)

News Corp sources have today flatly denied that the company is in any kind of buyout talks with Eidos, despite several sources from within the British publisher this week boasting that a deal between the two companies was imminent.

Specialist RPG developer Troika Games has shut its doors, with final confirmation of the closure coming from co-CEO Leonard Boyarsky after weeks of industry rumour-mongering about the fate of the studio.

Finding themes to fixate upon is a constant problem for What's New (as is Kristan effing off and leaving me to write everything so this doesn't get done until lunchtime). After all, it's not every week that you get an avalanche of Midas games, including one based on a children's cartoon like He-Man that you vaguely remember and pretend to cherish because it was always very camp and it now seems ironic to do so although let's face it it was no Thundercats and couldn't hold a candle to Super Ted [gasp], along with a couple of modern-day updates to some of the original, old school hardcore fighters and shooters.

Nintendo has warned South Korean developer Webzen over screenshots released last week to accompany the announcement of massively multiplayer online title Wiki.

Britsoft publisher Digital Jesters is to give away a full version of its critically acclaimed racing/puzzle crossover PC title TrackMania with a national UK newspaper tomorrow as part of its efforts to promote the sequel, TrackMania Sunrise.

As is traditional, Nintendo of America has press-released some of its key release dates for Cube and GBA. However, bucking convention somewhat, it's decided to announce the four games launching in the States this May on or around E3, which is either a good or a bad idea depending on how you look at it.

Last night I spent most of the evening attempting to transfer over expanses of water using huge half-pipes, carefully measuring the hastening effect of boost pads against my trajectory and trying to avoid ending up in the water - or on my head.

Sources at UK publisher Eidos have confirmed that the company is about to be sold to Rupert Murdoch's media empire News Corporation, with the deal expected to be announced within the coming week.

Atlus has announced plans to publish Puyo Pop Fever for the Nintendo DS in the States this April, and... actually, just read the press release. We'll port it across verbatim. Not as a comment on Puyo Pop Fever's ubiquity through constant recycling (though, in hindsight, that would have been a clever justification). Just because it was, well, interesting! It's okay; we'll do something constructive with the time we save.

BattleBorne Entertainment has announced its second project, 6GUN, a third-person modern combat tactical-action game for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC due out next year. You can find PS2 screenshots here.

Microsoft and Day 1 Studios have released 3977 blocks of downloadable bonus maps for MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf - their recently released futuristic third-person shooter featuring giant robotic transmogrified unlicensed money lenders. Probably. The downloadable content's free (we checked) but don't get too excited - apparently the two maps are merely the extras featured in the limited edition version of the game.

Sony Japan has stopped manufacturing both models of the PSX media centre cum game console, with the company revealing that production has stopped and giving no indication of whether it plans to resume at some point in future.

Uno-Fisher-ly, we expect, there's a single-player Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory demo doing the rounds this morning, reportedly extracted from the cover disks of a German games mag. It's very probably the same demo currently spinning around in our drives thanks to PC Gamer UK's demo disc, too.

Its inevitability probably had more to do with rumours of its existence than any actual solid evidence, but, perhaps spurred into action by media speculation [punches air], Sony has now officially confirmed that Zipper Interactive is working on another PlayStation 2 SOCOM game, due out this autumn. Which obviously confirms speculation relating to this, the third game in Sony's third-person squad-based online shooter. And you know, isn't it a touch ironic that we can now predict when elite, super Special Forces who Do Not Exist are about to turn up? We can smell clampers too, you know, and quite frankly Echelon has nothing on us. [Actually, I bet it has a heck of a lot on you. -Ed] You know, since we mentioned it, we've always wanted to try this...

Nintendo has dated the titles it plans to release during Q2 in Europe, giving firm release dates to promising GameCube and Game Boy Advance titles and clarifying when one of its first offerings for the Nintendo DS post-release will be made available.

For ages it seemed like Ubisoft was playing some elaborate practical joke on fans of the Tom Clancy games. On the one hand you had Splinter Cell, a game of such startling visual opulence its initial late 2002 arrival seemed to descend upon us a generation ahead of anything else, and on the other Ubi were busy chucking out Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games so visually retarded they appeared to belong to the generation before. It probably says everything about how good Red Storm's efforts were in gameplay terms that even our inner graphics whore was forced to pipe down while we hugged them to our imaginary bosoms and cherished them for what they were. Beauty is often only pixel deep.

British publisher Eidos Plc may have found a buyer at last, with a number of UK industry sources indicating that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is set to acquire the firm - even as rival firm SCi overtakes Eidos' market cap on the London Stock Exchange.

The unlikely alliance between French publisher Ubisoft and the US Army announced last April will blossom this summer with the release of America's Army: Rise of a Soldier for PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

Vivendi's released a playable single-player demo of Irrational Games' SWAT 4, which looked mighty fine when we saw it running recently. It even lets you choose between a simplified interface and the original SWAT 3 approach, ya know. This single-player demo features one hostage-rescue situation set at the Victory Imports Auto Centre, and allows you to create variations on it using the Quick Mission Maker. You can find the demo here.

An engineer working for leading publisher Electronic Arts has become the second staff member to file a class action lawsuit against the company, seeking back pay, damages and penalties for unpaid overtime hours.

Digital Illusions' latest financial report, released this week, has confirmed the suggestion that multiplayer PC first-person shooter Battlefield 2 will not be released until the second quarter.

Nintendo this week unveiled its Garage Games website, which allows owners of its brand new Play-Yan peripheral to download and play mini-games using the device - primarily designed to allow Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance SP owners to watch movies and play back music on their handhelds.

Sony Computer Entertainment has offered to repair PlayStation Portables returned in Japan that suffer from a defective square button - despite conflicting comments from SCE boss Ken Kutaragi, who last month insisted defiantly that the issue "wasn't a mistake" and was "according to specifications".

Publisher LucasArts has debuted a second title in a row at number one in the UK, with PS2 and Xbox military action title Mercenaries taking the top spot and knocking Knights of the Old Republic 2 down to number two.

SEGA Europe is set to publish NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2005 this summer on PC/Mac, full of new features and revisions - many of which were influenced by feedback from fans of last year's Eastside Hockey title.

Anno 1503 publisher SUNFLOWERS (whose need for capitalisation we've never quite understood) has revealed that its chums at Spieleentwicklungskombinat (or SEK for short - theirs we do understood) are working on a 3D real-time strategy game called ParaWorld for release on the PC in Q4 2005.

With Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 due out on PS2, Xbox and PC this 18th March, Ubisoft is ratcheting up the PR campaign by bringing Colonel John Antal (US Army Retired), historian and military/authenticity advisor at Gearbox Software, to visit GAME and Gamestation stores around the UK this week.

Those budget maestros Sold Out have announced their line-up for this coming March, giving anybody with a spare fiver another few ways to get rid of it in exchange for some cheap, faintly retro-sexual thrills.

It appears that GameCube title Killer 7, Capcom's split personality action game, will be released worldwide at roughly the same time this summer.

This is no ordinary game launch.