Latest Articles (Page 3329)

SNK's dogged pursuit of old school gameplay values and 16-bit technology is something revered by the hardcore gamer, but only one company has stuck it out as long as SNK, which continues to carve its own niche in Japan and the US with 2D fighting games and run-and-gun platformers that most developers said goodbye to a decade or more ago. In 2001, the company was even forced to close its doors and say goodbye to its fans for good after filing for bankruptcy. Yet somehow SNK's name lived on, its assets changed hands and not only is it thriving once more, but has finally tied up European distribution of all the games we've missed out on over the past few years as well as the new ones coming down the pipe.

Reflective types pining after another bout of Shining Force will be pleased to hear that SEGA of America has decided to publish - and thereby obviously translate - SEGA Japan's Shining Tears action-RPG for PS2.

A federal jury in the USA has found in favour of technology firm Immersion Corporation in a case taken against Sony two years ago, agreeing that the PlayStation's Dual Shock controllers infringe two Immersion patents.

SEGA and Sports Interactive today announced that Football Manager 2005, the UK-based developer's first foray into the genre since it parted company with Eidos and lost the use of the Championship Manager brand, will launch in Europe on November 5th. SI signed a five-year publishing deal with SEGA in February.

Konami's PlayStation Portable FPS project has finally been named, apparently. We say apparently, because we barely remember there was one in development. There is though, and it's called Coat of Arms. Which is an odd name for a first-person shooter, but we'll let that pass. (Konami being no stranger to odd names of course - Pro Evolution Soccer, Metal Gear Solid, Dance Dance Revolution, CastleVania, etc.). Coat of Arms was shown off recently at Sony's big strategy meeting in Japan (from whence the PStwo came) and should be playable at the Tokyo Game Show later this week.

In light of the PStwo's unveiling earlier this week, Sony Computer Entertainment's American arm has come out and clarified the future of the Hard Disk Drive, and the message seems to be that people who want to use it will probably continue to do so using the older hardware, but that the PStwo will not be in a position to support it.

Take-Two Interactive could be about to leap in and secure the publishing rights to Juiced, the British-developed arcade racer Acclaim would be publishing at the moment if the embattled firm hadn't shut down at the start of the month.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is set to ship in Japan on December 16th according to games mag Famitsu Weekly, and Japanese fans of the series will once again be invited to choose between normal (6,980 yen / €51) and limited edition (12,800 / €94) versions of the game.

Pandemic Studios is working on a sequel to Full Spectrum Warrior, the developer confirmed this week, although it has yet to decide whether to focus on current console technology or look forward to the next generation instead.

Unbelievably, your faithful hound of a reviewer had never touched a Sims game before in his life. For some reason the idea of nurturing some sort of Tamagotchi human had lost its appeal around the time Activision tried the same trick back in 1986 with Little Computer People on the C64. The chances are, four and a half years ago, there were more appealing games around, and the moment passed. But then came the chart residency, the onslaught of expansion packs, the multi-million sales and even the console versions. Surely someone who plays games for a living should at least have played one of the best sellers of all time? Burying your head in the sand and saying "this just isn't my thing" is all well and good when you're a consumer; but as a professional that earns money from having opinions? You can't really get away with that attitude - not on a game of this cultural significance at least.

Zsolt Nyulászi looks satisfied. Which is understandable, really. His game, Nexus - The Jupiter Incident, has been in development hell for a long time, and now it's ever so nearly out. November 5th is the current projection. After going through three different iterations - including a rather unhappy union with the Imperium Galactica franchise - HD Interactive (with distribution partner Vivendi-Universal Games) is currently gearing up to release it - and although Nyul would probably rather be on holiday like the rest of the development team, he's clearly glad to be done. Sitting down with him in the European Space Centre last week, we talked about the long road to the present, mods, demos, control schemes, the game's appeal and the team's aspirations for the project.

Tribes: Vengeance is now finished and should be out in the States at least on October 5th, Australian developer Irrational Games and publisher Vivendi-Universal Games announced this week.

Smiling Gator Productions has licensed the Source Engine for use in its forthcoming MMORPG Twilight War: After The Fall, Half-Life 2 developer and Source creators Valve Software announced overnight.

Hardware details of the forthcoming Gizmondo handheld console have been revealed today, with Gizmondo Europe Ltd confirming that the system will ship with a new graphics chipset provided by NVIDIA.

The eighth annual ResFest event, which kicks off in London on September 30th to October 3rd before travelling to Sheffield, Glasgow, Bristol, Dublin and Nottingham over the course of a six week tour, is set to include two sessions highlighting the relationship between videogames and filmmaking.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Electronic Arts' hugely anticipated sequel The Sims 2 has gone in at number one in the UK software charts, knocking another EA title, Burnout 3, from the top spot and becoming the second fastest selling PC title of all time.

Rockstar's attempt to bring Grand Theft Auto to the Game Boy Advance for the first time is starting to gain some media exposure as we draw closer to its late October release target, and the signs are that the collaborative efforts of Digital Eclipse and Rockstar North may have produced an old-school top-down GTA game with some semblances of the 3D elements that made GTA III such a success on PS2 and PC.

Sony has finally unveiled its worst kept secret besides PS3. A remodelled, slimmed down version of the PlayStation 2 - dubbed 'PStwo' by the press, but not yet referred to by that name in Sony's press literature - is due out this November 1st across Europe. It should retail for the same price as the original PS2 - around £99.99.

Irem is planning to demonstrate a sequel to cult PS2 title SOS: The Final Escape (known as Disaster Report across the pond) at the Tokyo Game Show this week. Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2: Ite-tsuita Kioku tachi (the latter section meaning "The Frozen Memories") is due out next year on PS2 in Japan.

Shop for games now with Simply Games.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory has been delayed until March 2005 on all formats, Ubisoft announced this afternoon, "in order to maximise the marketing impact".

Konami has confirmed that Pro Evolution Soccer 4 will launch in Europe on October 15th on PS2, with the PC-DVD and Live enabled Xbox version due out as planned a month later in November.

Namco is planning to exhibit a brand new racing game at the Tokyo Game Show this week, according to reports from Japan. Rune Racer is a free-roaming mission-based job set in fictional Prio City, where players will tackle missions along the lines of pick-up/drop-off, destroying targets, evading enemies and taxing people out of harm's way. What that harm is is impossible to say, but Namco is reportedly claiming the game will have the narrative depth of an RPG, with more than 50 missions in its story-driven scenario mode and a free roam option for people who just fancy popping out for a drive. The game is currently PS2 exclusive with no confirmed release date.

Sony Japan has changed its release target for Polyphony Digital's latest 'driving simulator', Gran Turismo 4, from "fall 2004" to "winter". With separate listings for "winter 2004" and "winter" on the schedule, speculation is now mounting that GT4 has slipped into 2005.

Wanda to Kyozou (or "Wanda and the Colossus"), the latest game developed by the team that created ICO, is due to be unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show this week, but it seems that game designer and art director Fumito Ueda and producer Kenji Kaido - both of whom worked on the seminal ICO - have already spoken to the Japanese press about the project in more detail.

The ongoing US beta of World of Warcraft has been knocked offline after the Virginia-based datacentre housing all the servers was hit by a tornado on Friday night and the servers were shutdown to avoid damage. Fortunately none of the servers wound up wrapped round a tree, but the roof of the datacentre wasn't so lucky judging by the photographs on the WoW community site at the moment.

Doom not shooty enough for you? Rather wrestle with a US Army-funded game of potentially dubious morality that involves killing the locals in a middle-eastern hotspot? Probably best to keep that on the down-low, then, but you can at least download the demo of Pandemic Studios' Full Spectrum Warrior this week from Eurofiles.

Order yours now from Simply Games.