Latest Articles (Page 3345)

Fans of Project Gotham Racing 2 screeching into the lounge this evening will arrive just in time to get their hands on a brand new batch of downloadable content, Microsoft announced this morning. As reported here yesterday, this time it's a Long Beach Booster Pack (screenshots) consisting of eight new cars and tracks set in the eponymous Californian city. As a piece of 'Premium' downloadable content, it will set you back £2.99, or €4.99 on the continent.

It's a bit of a generalisation, but you could probably make a strong argument that says that PC gaming moves through a cycle of two distinct phases. You go from real-time strategy games to first-person shooter games, then back to strategy and back to shooters once more - a cycle which has continued, in some form at least, since id incubated Wolfenstein and Westwood dreamt of Dune 2.

CDV is planning to release the Combat Mission Anthology on August 6th "at 0900 hours" amusingly, and priced just £19.99. It's a set that comprises all three Combat Mission titles, covering the action on the Western front of World War II, the Russian campaign, and of course the desert campaigns detailed in the most recent instalment of the historically sensitive strategy series, Afrika Korps.

Nintendo is planning to release a third batch of Famicom Mini titles in Japan on August 10th, according to reports on Game Watch and elsewhere this week. Priced around 2,000 yen (less than €20) the new range takes in a number of Famicom Disc System titles, and includes the likes of Metroid, Castlevania and Kid Icarus.

Vin Diesel has lent credence to speculation that a PS2 version of celebrated Xbox film spin-off The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay is in development, claiming in a recent interview that he wasn't sure why it was Xbox exclusive and that he was "trying" to ensure a PS2 version would be on retailers' shelves this Christmas.

Id Software is planning to host the world's first Doom III multiplayer tournament at its annual QuakeCon get-together between August 12th and 15th, the Texas-based developer announced this week, fuelling ongoing speculation that the highly anticipated FPS will be out at the beginning of that month.

Japanese publisher From Software has acquired the rights to the Tenchu series from Activision, and will be handling the development and publishing of all future titles in the series - with plans to develop the brand beyond games.

Following the success of the £2.99 Paris Booster Pack a couple of months ago, Bizarre Creations is currently preparing to unleash a second series of downloadable circuits and vehicles for Project Gotham Racing 2 in the form of the Long Beach Booster Pack. It should be available on Xbox Live very soon.

While Nintendo of America prepares to flog a few cartoons on cartridges using Majesco's GBA Video technology, the Japanese are already a few steps ahead, judging by an intriguing report on the ever-illuminating Game Watch this week.

Ubisoft has delayed Far Cry Instincts until Q1 2005, a move that "will ensure that both the Xbox and PS2 versions have the same impressive graphics and unique immersive gameplay elements as the highly-regarded Far Cry PC version," according to the publisher's statement this week. It had previously been due out by the end of 2004.

It's a regular source of befuddlement for us that games companies ignore the rich pickings of the Wild West when building first-person shooters. From memory, only LucasArts' flawed gem Outlaws ran with the idea - and that was seven years ago, back when 'LucasArts' still meant something. Since then, we've been bombarded with World War II, Vietnam and of course outer space, but the boundaries aren't much wider than that. So, faced with the prospect of something different, we couldn't resist granting it a stay of execution in the face of an anorexic release schedule. Sure, Dead Man's Hand came out a few months back, but we figured that we'd take the rare opportunity to catch up on some of the titles that slipped past us during the E3 mayhem, at a time when your local stores are doubtlessly offering such titles at knockdown prices to keep their businesses ticking over.

Atari's Driv3r has stayed at the top of the UK sales charts for a second week, despite a decline in sales of some 17 per cent, while only two new titles entered the All Formats Top 40 as the flood of new titles at the end of June abated.

Regular followers of the news roundup may recall that we commented on a mysteriously updated patch file for Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising the other day, which seemed bigger, but for no apparent reason. Well, now the reason is well and truly apparent - this is not version 1.1.1.5 or whatever it was, but instead is version 1.2.0.6, boasting all manner of new improvements. Say goodbye to "several" map bugs, say hello to "optimisations to player models" and so on. You can find details of the rest in the readme file, available alongside the file, right here.

Oxygen has announced (What an odd phrase... "Wait, this just in from Methane!") more details of Vietnam: The Tet Offensive, the PS2 and PC based first-person shooter it's planning to release in the UK on September 24th for a penny shy of twenty quid.

Datel is relaunching its Game Boy Player alternative, the Advance Game Port, adding Action Replay functionality to improve its capabilities. The new Advance Game Port is available to buy from the Codejunkies.com website for £29.99.

Konami has reportedly reached an agreement to include Dutch footballing sides in Winning Eleven 8, the Japanese sister series to Pro Evolution Soccer, from which we can infer that the recently-announced PES4 will most likely also include them.

Nokia's N-Gage summer tour bus will be making its first stop over in the United Kingdom tomorrow, as part of a 25-city European tour that takes in the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Belgium and France.

Summer blockbusters are something that moviegoers are more than used to by now, but it's not often that the games industry throws up a bona fide summer blockbuster. With Headhunter: Redemption though, Sega and Amuze is fostering a cinematic blend of action and adventure the likes of which so many big-screen prospects are fumbling at the moment. The original, starring motorcycle-riding 'headhunter' Jack Wade, was an interesting mixture of stealth and action that we rather liked. With the sequel due out next month, we flagged down creative director John Kroknes as he sped past on Jack's bike and found out what makes Redemption tick. And, to begin with, who's redeeming what...

Final Fantasy XI for Windows will launch in Europe this September, Square Enix has confirmed. Its release will be timed to include and coincide with a worldwide launch of the game's second major expansion pack, Chains of Promathia.

There was further bad news for troubled publisher Acclaim in its latest round of regulatory disclosure documents, as the company admitted that it has lost the rights to the Turok franchise and Major League Baseball.

Sports Interactive's NHL Eastside Hockey Manager, released last Friday on PC, is now available to download and buy thanks to Softwrap's digital distribution system, which keeps the whole game under digital 'wraps' until you've paid your fee. All you have to do is head to either Sega's or Sports Interactive's website and you can download the file, pay for and play the game without ever having to set foot outside your front door. Which is good news for anybody still waiting for a regional release (hello America!) and indeed for those of you who played the freeware original and fancy sticking with the downloading tradition.

Publisher Acclaim has announced its full-year results for the twelve months ended March 31st, revealing a net loss of $56.4 million and a major decline in revenues - along with a warning that the firm may face bankruptcy in the near future.

Who said all the good names were gone? [One-time contributor Yolanda Kefka, probably. -Ed] Well, if animal-bashing first-person shooter Vivisector is anything to go by, it wasn't developer Action Forms, nor publisher Brigades. Due out in October on the PC and sounding curiously (and spookily, given Marlon Brando's death last week) like The Island of Dr Moreau, Vivisector is a straight shooter that harnesses a seemingly unhealthy obsession with offending animal lovers, including promises that our enemies - cybernetically modified animals, apparently - will "gorily fly to pieces under the onslaught" from our 16 different types of weapon.

Mario RPG series fans can see one of their biggest glimpses yet of Intelligent Systems' forthcoming Paper Mario 2 this week courtesy of a new Japanese website that includes a 'pulp-sating' trailer movie. Oof.

Square Enix is planning another title in the Seiken Densetsu series, and has started advertising to fill a wide number of positions on the development team via its Japanese website. Although few details of the new title are made available, the recruitment page does include a couple of snaps of colourful concept art.

We'd have far more parties than we do, but not everyone can tolerate our taste for depressing music played by skinny shoe gazing types that jingle jangle along with voices that convey the emotion of someone who has just lost their job, their drug addled girlfriend, all their money and possessions 6,000 miles away from home and denied promotion to the Premiership on a penalty shootout all on the same, day. It all sounds woefully improbable, but you couldn't make this stuff up.

Following on from Square Enix' oft-repeated commitments to focus more strongly on Europe, the firm has formally announced a number of changes to its subsidiary here - most notably the appointment of a new European CEO.

It's been a while since we wrote about TrackMania, but we certainly haven't forgotten about it. Imagine our delight, then, when we got our hands on the first details, screenshots and indeed video footage of the full-blown sequel, TrackMania Sunrise, which is due out from Britsoft publisher Digital Jesters in Q1 2005.

Ever since Unreal burst onto the scene over six years ago, Epic's technology has been at the forefront of gaming, providing the raw power for an increasing catalogue of games from its own Unreal series, then onto titles as diverse as Splinter Cell, XIII and even Harry Potter titles. Now onto the third generation (screenshots), Epic has been touring the globe over the last three months with its latest creation to offer a glimpse of what's to come in future generations of PC and next generation console titles. As part of a three-day stopover in London, Epic's main men Mark Rein (Vice President, the self-confessed business head of company), Tim Sweeney (programmer and founder), and Alan Willard (level designer) spoke to Eurogamer about how the technology is shaping up, their plans for an all-new non-Unreal-related title and the kind of horsepower gamers will require for their next-gen gaming.

Digital Jesters is planning to make the process of updating games easier for PC owners, having signed a deal with a company that cuts out the legwork and downloads updates suitable for DJs games automatically.