Latest Articles (Page 3372)

Allen Adham, a co-founder and vice president of successful development studio Blizzard, has resigned from the company to pursue a career in finance, although a spokesperson claims that he has not cut ties completely.

Leading publisher Electronic Arts has acquired the rights to the next instalment in Criterion's highly regarded Burnout series of racing games, and plans to make it into one of its key titles for 2004.

LucasArts sends word that fans of Xbox Live enabled dogfight-'em-up Secret Weapons Over Normandy can now get their hands on a new package of downloadable goodies - including a new plane (the Italian Macchi 202), a new single-player mission ("Escape from Tripoli") and a new camouflage scheme for the Ju-87 Stuka.

Having already announced their courtship, Acclaim and developer BattleBorne have now announced the latter's next-generation console project due out in June - Combat Elite: World War II Paratroopers.

Few games have divided opinion more than The Getaway. In fact several members of EG have had full blown handbags-at-ten-paces rows with various close mates attempting to defend what some people deem an indefensible game. We've all made up since, of course [lies! -Tom] [damned lies! -Rob], but whenever Team Soho's gangland London crime opus is mentioned, there's that knowing look. Now we get a chance to fall out all over again as the first information on the full-blown sequel begins to disseminate, courtesy of the UK Official PlayStation 2 magazine and its World Exclusive four-page feature.

Destination Software's Game Boy Advance version of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, originally announced way back in 2001, has risen like a dwarf from the shadows of the Ubisoft stable - the place it now calls home according to representatives of the French publisher speaking out last week.

Having uncovered a number of potential titles for the next Grand Theft Auto game, gamers have suddenly turned their attention to mining the US Patent and Trademark Office database for gaming news (E.g. plugging in popular franchise titles and publisher names and seeing what turns up), and already we're beginning to see the fruits of their Boolean labours.

Publisher Atari has shut down Legend Entertainment and laid off most of the development team at the Virginia-based development studio, various reports and former staff confirmed over the weekend.

Cheshire-based Evolution Studios has confirmed that World Rally Championship 4 (WRC 4) is in development and should be released in autumn 2004. Speaking on the developer's website, designer Si Barlow broke the news in a New Year's update.

Just before Christmas, I promised you a trophy of some interest when we returned. Given that I'm up against thousands of individual preferences, I've decided to play the odds a bit and offer up as many random odds and sods as possible unto the altar of giveaway. This week's winner, lucky so-and-so that he is, gets to pick from the following, with the remainder rolling over into next week's prize stash. Aren't I good to you?

Japanese publisher Konami is set to become the first third-party publisher to release a game for the PS2 in China, with Winning Eleven 7: International being unveiled at the China Joy expo in Beijing this week.

The founders of the company behind the 32 million-selling Tomb Raider series have announced their return to the games industry under the guise of Circle Studio, and have hired 35 former Core Design employees to work on two prototype titles.

Another Friday in January, another week light on big name videogame releases, despite the presence of Capcom, EA and Ubisoft on the release schedule.

US comic publishing giant Marvel Enterprises has announced the formation of a new group within the company which will focus specifically on the development of video games based on its wide range of character franchises.

The organisers of Game Stars Live, a consumer games show set to take over the ExCeL exhibition facility in London's Docklands for five days this September, will also play host to the European Online Gaming Championship, arranged in association with World Cyber Games organisers Sujoy Roy and Dominic Mulroy.

Killer 7 director Gouichi Suda's Grasshopper Company development studio is working on a new PS2 horror game dubbed Michigan according to reports in the Japanese press.

Sony in the States has begun notifying beta testers for Resident Evil Outbreak, with discs expected to go out to them around about January 22nd, a number of those involved with the closed test have revealed this week. The news suggests Outbreak is still on track for its March 30th release date across the pond.

French-Canadian publisher Microids has denied that Vivendi-Universal Games is to publish fantasy adventure sequel Syberia II

Metal Gears are thrashing this week with the news that Nintendo and Konami plan to release a limited edition console bundle for The Twin Snakes in Japan, and the release of a ridiculously long trailer for the original sneak-'em-up.

Tim Wright, the creative director/designer of Jester Interactive's "Music" series, which most recently gave us Music 3000 on PS2, has made an amicable split from the publisher he helped to establish along with other key staff to form Tantrumedia, a new developer based in the North West of the UK.

Atari has released a trailer promoting the first episode of an upcoming, online-only three-minute film short about DRIV3R produced by Ridley Scott Associates. The 7.5MB trailer appeared on www.driv3r.com earlier this week, with a second trailer due on January 19th and the first, one-minute episode in its entirety airing on January 23rd.

Atari has agreed to sell the www.games.com domain name and a number of digital board game licenses to Games, Inc. in exchange for $1,125,000 (€900,000) in cash and stock. The deal is due to close on or about March 31st upon Atari's redemption of its preferred stock.

Hidden & Dangerous 2 has been patched to correct a large number of minor issues in single and multiplayer. The 65MB, version 1.03 patch is available from Take-Two Support with a complete list of changes here.

Argonaut is certainly a versatile little developer these days. When it's not producing million-selling licensed Harry Potter titles for EA, or underrated first-person shooters like SWAT: Global Strike Team, it's busy developing its own intellectual property like I-Ninja, a platform game that draws on even more genres for inspiration than the likes of Jak II and Ratchet & Clank 2. After all, even they couldn't boast a Punch-Out tribute boss, aerial katana combat and Monkey Ball/Marble Madness-inspired robot construction, right?

Media giant Warner Bros has announced its intention to become a major player in the games market, with the foundation of a new Interactive Entertainment division representing a move away from its current licensing model.

As we wade through the insane pile of unreviewed pre-Christmas releases and wonder just why publishers are so intent on releasing 40 per cent of the year's games in one month, we stumbled across WRC 3, one of the many non-essential titles that are now languishing in the nation's sale racks and bargain bins. But how could such a high profile first party title get so lost and underperform so dramatically compared to previous incarnations? Was it really that bad or just one of those B-list brands that can't excite punters to buy the revised version on an annual basis? We were curious enough to find out, one way or the other.

PS2-based EverQuest spin-off Champions of Norrath will include USB headset support for its PS2 Online features, publisher Ubisoft announced this week. "Voice chat is the final piece of the puzzle with Champions," said Michael Lustenberger, EverQuest overlords Sony Online Entertainment's director of marketing. "It's the one feature that has been most requested in the game and we are pleased to announce its inclusion." In the US, CoN's headset support has led to it being classified broadband-only, but of course here in Europe PS2 Online is broadband-only anyway.

Remember Pirates of the Caribbean? Remember the film? Remember how swash-bucklingly and surprisingly excellent it turned out to be? Remember chortling at Johnny Depp's every move? Amazingly, Disney did manage to turn a slow and rather dull Disneyland attraction into one of the best pure blockbuster movies of last summer, and now they're hoping to do much the same with The Haunted Mansion, a movie based on the theme park attraction driven by the noteworthy presence of Eddie Murphy, an estate agent who finds himself stranded with his family at the mansion du jour, with a wife who could be connected somehow to the various things going "bump" in the night. And as it turns out, Take-Two will be the publisher that gives us a videogame take on the potentially money-spinning franchise when it debuts a game-of-the-film-of-the-ride on PS2, Xbox and Cube in February.

When I think of oversized and overpriced peripherals, nothing springs to mind faster than the £129.99 plastic monstrosity Capcom produced for love it/hate it Xbox shoot-'em-up Steel Battalion. However, when stocks of the 40-button tank front-end are recycled this year for the launch of Steel Battalion - Line of Contact, they won't be the only hulking plastic willy extensions packed tightly in a Capcom brand warehouse somewhere in the mountains.

German publisher Sunflowers has signed a publishing agreement with Electronic Arts that will see the Chertsey-based chart-topper publish Anno 1503 - Treasures, Monsters and Pirates worldwide in spring 2004.