Latest Articles (Page 3359)

This week Britsoft publisher SCi Games found its way into headlines on both sides of the pond after a financial report mentioned a new Carmageddon title, scheduled for a provisional 2005 release date on PS2, Xbox and PC. Some folks also got rather excited about mention of Conflict: Vietnam, a September 2004 target on PS2/Xbox/PC.

One of the most interesting things to be found on the show floor at the Tokyo Games Show last year was the return of a few familiar faces, as Square Enix proudly showed off its long-rumoured return to the world of Final Fantasy VII in a short trailer which sent shivers down the spines of the many among us for whom the epic RPG title was a huge milestone in the development of our gaming addictions.

As you may have heard by now, 2003 was - yet again - a record breaking year for the UK games industry. 12 months in which the nation sat glued to their sets, not watching Pop Idol or Corrie, but playing some of the more than 50 million games sold last year, a combined outgoing of over £1.07 billion. That's triple the number of games sold (by units) compared to 1997 and over double the value. We are, without doubt, a nation of committed gamers - and it's my pleasure to wade through this mountain of ChartTrack-compiled stats to bring you the tasty stat nuggets that will make you the envy of all your friends - but don't quote me on that.

The American GameCube version of Wario Ware will cost just $29.99 when it's released on April 5th according to Nintendo of America, which bodes well for its prospects here in the UK and Europe. Wario Ware Inc.: Mega Party Game$, to give it its full and rather clunky moniker, draws inspiration from the phenomenal Wario Ware GBA title (or "The best Nintendo game Miyamoto never worked on"), which was completely and unfairly overlooked by the vast majority of gamers and games hacks when it was released here last May.

Famitsu Weekly reports that Street Fighter III: Third Strike is on its way to PlayStation 2 later this year, and that Capcom is currently considering whether or not to offer online options. Although Third Strike (not to be confused with Double Impact) was originally released on the Dreamcast back in 2000, huge lapses don't often stop Capcom porting games with older tech - just look to Resident Evil 2, 3 and Code: Veronica on GameCube if you want some current examples.

Take-Two Interactive openly blames Max Payne 2's slow sales for its lower than expected Q4 earnings last year, and, whether by its own design or through developer Remedy's own desire to break free from the franchise, it now looks like the inevitable Max Payne 3 will be handled by a different studio altogether.

Cease! Fire! Last week's edition of Reader Reviews may have been an acknowledged Retro Special, but you could equally place the tag on this week's offering, which consists of games probing as far back as the Dragon 32, and it really is delightful to hear people waxing on about games from many a year ago as if they just came out yesterday. Except for regular contributor Kami, who this week wants to convince me Lufia 2 was better than Final Fantasy VI. Not 'aving that, son!

Having just had to fiddle around with our own various systems for user management, I can only imagine the horror Blizzard.net admins face on a daily basis.

Team 17 has released a patch for Worms 3D that upgrades your spineless soldiers to version 1073, the key change being the addition of support for multiplayer games featuring clients using the recently released US version of the game. You can download the patch from this page.

Raven Shield has been patched for the billionth time today - a milestone unequalled amongst PC titles of the same ilk. The new patch brings the version number up to 1.55 and should be available from this page. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the 1.55 patch however is that it also constitutes a 1.0 patch for Raven Shield expansion pack Athena Sword, ensuring compatibility between the two and addressing a sound looping bug in the former to boot.

Marvel's newly formed Games Group is promising to branch its characters and brands into uncharted water, promising to make games based on its comics as well as explore other genres.

US publisher Enlight has snapped up the talents of American McGee, signing on the "gifted designer" as the firm's creative director.

The forthcoming Jak III will be the last game that Jason Rubin works on at developer Naughty Dog, with the studio president planning to leave the SCEA-owned company once the game is finished.

Ubisoft is determined to woo first-person shooter fans with its tropical FPS Far Cry, which was recently completed by German developer Crytek, and now plans to round up any fence-sitters with a third single-player demo due to launch on March 15th, eleven days prior to the full game's European debut.

Much to our surprise, Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala has revealed that one of the major additions to the Xbox port of DOOM III will be a co-operative mode for two players, scuppering any hopes we had for similar antics in the less technically compromised PC version.

Electronic Arts' latest James Bond 007 title, Everything Or Nothing, strengthened its grip on the top of the UK charts this week, but there were good debuts for Eidos' Deus Ex sequel and Sony's SOCOM II as well.

Remember how Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was meant to have downloadable content on Xbox Live? Remember how it came out on September 12th last year, and all we heard from the developer was that we'd get something after the PC version launched? Well you can finally unplug that section of your brain, because yesterday evening the fabled downloadable content finally launched.

Developer John Romero, who created the port of Red Faction for the Nokia N-Gage, has told a Russian site that he has already seen a prototype of the successor to the game deck, which addresses many criticisms about the original console.

Ubisoft has announced plans to publish another CSI title for the PC this winter. Not to be confused with CSI: Dark Motives (due out in Europe this May), CSI: Miami is based on the TV show of the same name, which span off from the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation TV series and has enjoyed record audiences since it launched.

Doom and Quake co-creator John Romero has denied reports which quoted him as stating that he'd seen a prototype of Nokia's next-generation N-Gage hardware, saying that quotes attributed to him on a Russian website were incorrect.

Publisher Activision and a number of its key executives have been named as defendants in a class action lawsuit by a group of the company's shareholders, who claim that false statements were issued by the company to enable insider trading.

Rather boringly, rumours of Viewtiful Joe for the PS2 continue to rattle around mags and the Internet with no sign of absolute clarification. When contacted recently with regard to a report in the UK Official PlayStation 2 Magazine that Viewtiful Joe could be on its way to PS2, Capcom Europe dismissed it as conjecture, and when contacted today about this 'street team' marketing exercise, which states in no uncertain terms "Viewtiful Joe will soon be released on PS2," the publisher declined to comment.

Swords. Swords are brilliant. You can't really say anything all that nasty about swords. Think of all the great swords that mark significant chapters in your entertainment lifestyle, for example - there's Luke's lightsaber, Aragorn's re-forged Sword Of Some Elvish Word I Can't Remember, Cloud's colossal Buster Sword, and of course Link's legendary Master Sword. And, as you may have guessed from the title of this here report, a Scottish blacksmith has now built a detailed replica of the elf-like fantasy gardener's monstrous Tri-Force weapon, for an equally loony chap willing to stump up £1,800 and wait ten months for him to make it.

Sales of the three main console remained static year on year during February, according to the latest set of figures from ChartTrack's panel of 6,500 UK retailers. Just 400 more consoles sold in the four weeks to February 28th compared with the same period last year, with only a handful of major game releases emerging to spur demand for increasingly cheap gaming hardware. This contrasts with last month's figure, when demand shot up by nine per cent year on year.

Britsoft developer Ignition has announced that Jimmy White has resumed his old school collaboration with top development bod Archer Maclean on the forthcoming Pool Paradise, revealing that the legendary clack-man worked as pool advisor during the game's development. White first worked with Maclean on Whirlwind Snooker back in '91.

Dead or Alive Ultimate has been delayed until summer 2004 in the US and Europe, developer Tecmo explained last week. DOA Ultimate, which consists of the original Saturn version of the Dead or Alive beat-'em-up, and a port of Dead or Alive 2 redesigned to look spesh on the Xbox, should make a sizeable contribution to Microsoft's E3 offering. Both games will support Xbox Live features.

The latest issue of Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream continues to shed light on various Nintendo projects in its ever insightful Q&A column. This month (or week, whatever), we've got word on the progress of the Famicom Mini titles, Mario Tennis on the Cube, N5, the GBA wireless adapter and Animal Forest. Coo!

Eidos UK dropped us a line today to point out that a new trailer has been added to the Hitman: Contracts website. Just pop over there, mute the audio, click "Downloads" and look for a little Hitman icon lingering somewhere on the image, which brings up the "Trailers" section.

Mentioning Fuzion Frenzy usually elicits one of two one-word reactions: a "meh", or a "huh?" Unless, that is, you're Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, in which case you reportedly enjoyed it more than any other Xbox launch title. "Look, it's about crushing my opposition by exploiting the environment!" he absolutely did not say at the time.

Ahem. Yes. Well. I was going to mention this on Friday, but I got a little sidetracked watching Kristan play Transformers Armada. You understand. Anyway, the point is that Electronic Arts registered the domain name "needforspeedmostwanted.com" on January 27th, and of course following Need For Speed Underground's bizarrely long reign at the top of the UK Charts, lots of folk are running around flapping their hands in the air or decked out in inconceivable mini-skirts stroking beastly automobiles while Vin Diesel prowls around growling at rookies. You NEVER had me. Or something.