Latest Articles (Page 3332)

As those of you admiring the plains of Azeroth on a nightly basis at the moment probably know, the World of WarCraft MMORPG "stress test beta" has been extended until this Sunday, and developer Blizzard plans to allow thousands of additional testers onto the closed-beta who are currently languishing on the waiting list.

Sports Interactive has revealed which countries will be featured in Football Manager 2005, and how many levels and divisions will be included per country, along with a host of other FM2005-related statistics.

Codemasters has announced that the PC version of LMA Manager 2005, due out in late October, will be "way beyond a console conversion", combining the mechanics of the successful PS2 and Xbox titles "with the scope only possible on PC". You can find screenshots of the game here.

Electronic Arts has announced further details of its FIFA Interactive World Cup competition, which kicks off - in association with FIFA itself, naturally - on the pitches of FIFA Football 2005 this October.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Rockstar Games has updated its website for Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition with a selection of new screenshots and a brand new trailer of the game in action - an extremely shiny 90-second showcase of all things chrome and pimped-out.

"3D? Pah! It's for tourists!" If that's the sort of thing you occasionally find yourself saying, then you're clearly psychotically deranged and need to get the hell out of our sight before we do something vicious involving our S.T.A.L.K.E.R switchblade.

SEGA is "definitely" working on a PS2 and Xbox Monkey Ball title, retail sources told Eurogamer today, and should be able confirm its existence in the near future. A SEGA Europe spokesman declined to comment on the story this morning.

Microsoft has released a version 1.05 "Hotfix" (patch) for the PC version of Halo, addressing "a rare crash bug that could occur if a malicious individual (hacker) purposely sends a malformed packet to a game server". Furthermore, "it incorporates fixes to resolve compatibility problems with Windows XP SP2 and certain 256MB video cards, which could cause the game not to launch, or not to display chat messages". Might be worth downloading then, Halo fans. You can get hold of it by clicking here.

The Doom III demo should be "coming in a few days" according to id Software programmer Robert Duffy. It's just "finishing the last stages of QA" at the moment. In a recent .plan update, Duffy also spoke of the contents of the demo: "It contains three levels of the game and is single-player only," he wrote.

Speaking during the recent European Games Network trade show in London, Bioware joint CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka revealed that forthcoming Xbox title Jade Empire is intended as the first game in a new franchise.

One of Nintendo of America's key promotional efforts in the run up to the holiday season, the Fusion rock music event, is preparing to kick off a 37-date tour on September 20th, with Story Of The Year to headline the gigs.

British publisher SCi has emerged as the victor in the battle of the Vietnam-themed titles at UK retail last week, as Conflict: Vietnam took the top spot in the charts ahead of Eidos' Shellshock: Nam '67.

Konami has officially confirmed that Pro Evolution Soccer 4 will be fully playable over Xbox Live, bringing to end months of speculation and confirming reports carried by this site over the past week based on comments from highly placed Konami insiders, and has revealed that the Xbox version will be released in November along with the PC version. The PS2 version will be released in mid-October.

Microsoft has pinned down a Japanese release date for its EyeToy-ish Xbox Video Chat package, featuring headset and camera, which allows up to five people to connect up and engage in videophone-style conference conversations over Xbox Live.

The latest issue of Japanese magazine Dorimaga carries a series of comments on the recently announced Shenmue Online project from series creator Yu Suzuki, reprinted on IGN this week, who claims to have been "interested in massively multiplayer online gaming since the time of the Dreamcast version of Shenmue," and even suggests that a massively multiplayer setting is what "the series was meant for".

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Sony's PSX combination console and home media device has reportedly seen its price cut by almost half at some Japanese retail outlets as sales of the system continue to disappoint despite a relaunch a few months ago.

If the Medal of Honor demo proved a bit chunky for your ailing modem or what-have-you, then you'll be pleased to hear that the demo of Chris Sawyer's Locomotion - a sort of modernisation of Transport Tycoon - is available in two flavours, including a 30MB version that sacrifices the music files to save space.

The ongoing Tribes: Vengeance beta test has now been opened up to everybody who's interested in it. All you have to do to get involved is surf on over to FilePlanet and scribble down some details to get your hands on a key and a copy of the 480MB executable. You can also find the system requirements and all the rest over there, which aren't as hefty as perhaps you might expect. You can read more about Tribes: Vengeance in our two-part (one, two) interview with the game's producer, and we also have a look at the single-player aspect here. We'd also like to apologise for our use of the phrase "surf on over" just now. Won't happen again.

As you've probably noticed, EA has released a one-level demo of its forthcoming World War II first-person shooter Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. The full version of the game is due out exclusively on the PC this November 12th.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

SWAT 4 "is going to be incredible," according to a progress report from Irrational Games' Meredith Levine this week, as the PC game nears completion ahead of its Q1 2005 ship target.

Valve Software plans to ship Half-Life 2 release candidates to publisher Vivendi-Universal Games on 15th September, it emerged late last week, amidst speculation that the game itself might not hit retailers' shelves until November.

The next Tomb Raider game will debut at E3 2005, according to publisher Eidos, speaking at last week's Game Stars Live show, although there's no firm word on a release date at the moment - despite recent reports that the publisher was aiming to ship in summer 2005 at around the end of its financial year.

When you think of PlayStation 2 platformers - or "character-driven action games" even - you probably immediately think of one of Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank. Which means that there's probably little or no space on your mantle for Sly Raccoon - a sad fact that saw the game fail spectacularly to excite anybody at retail in the UK when it first launched just after Christmas in early 2003. And this is a shame, because while it takes a more traditional line than its contemporaries from Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games in a lot of ways, it's no less fun for it - and veterans of the first campaign will happily regale you with tales of how there's barely a pixel wasted.

Order yours now from Simply Games.