Latest Articles (Page 3390)

The recent launch of a new Deus Ex: Invisible War site brought with it much confused murmuring because of the displayed shelf date of December 3rd, apparently brought forward from the previously announced February 2004. However, when we quizzed Eidos on the mysteriously shifting date they cleared the matter up by stating that the December date applied to the US only, with European releases still lodged firmly in 2004, presumably for localisation reasons. We imagine this is going to bring Eidos under a spot of fire, particularly as staggered releases like this have in the past invited mass piracy on the part of users who begrudge having to wait months for an essentially identical version of the US game.

Rockstar Games has confirmed that the forthcoming Xbox GTA Double Pack will support custom soundtracks. Like the PC version (which allowed you to use your own MP3 radio station), the GTA Double Pack will let gamers rip their own discs and then set them a-spinning.

Mafia has become the latest in a long line of Christmas titles to slip into early 2004, with the conversion team taking a couple of extra months to shoehorn the gangster epic onto the PS2 and Xbox.

Former Ion Storm and Monkeystone Games frontmen John Romero and Tom Hall have signed on the dotted line at Midway's San Diego studio, the publisher officially confirmed yesterday, as new CEO David Zucker furthers his efforts to galvanise the company's development arm.

This Czech Vietcong fansite reported on Friday that Vietcong Fist Alpha has slipped to January 2004 according to Michal Janacek, top bod at co-developer Pterodon. The mission pack, announced in July, had originally been expected to appear in September before slipping to the end of October. Take-Two and publishing label Gathering have confirmed the news.

Awkwardly named Take-Two subsidiary Gathering has announced that Vietcong's first mission pack is due out this September, and will be called Vietcong Fist Alpha. Co-developed by Pterodon and Illusion Softworks, Vietcong was one of a recent spate of Vietnam-based shooters, released in April, which met with a degree of critical acclaim, not least of all from our own Kristan Reed.

Phew! Peter Jackson can rest easy. There's no need to delay the third Rings film - EA is ready! That's right, wormtongues, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has gone gold this week on (deep breath), PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PC and Game Boy Advance. We haven't heard anything about an N-Gage version yet, but who knows? "This is where I got whipped by a hobbit," would work fine as part of their TV campaign.

When we reviewed the "original" (there's an abstract use of the word, eh?) Super Mario Advance back in June 2001, we said "blah blah blah not bad but why not Super Mario Bros. 3? What is this Mario Bros. 2 shit about? It isn't even Mario! It's based on some random Japanese platformer that Nintendo bought up and then repainted!"

Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Rare's first major release since their defection to Xbox and one of the most unlikely titles in gaming history, has finally gone gold and should be available in the US from October 21st and in Europe from November 14th.

According to Nintendo, UK sales of the GameCube have shot up 400 per cent since the console was cut to £79, meaning that the Nintendo system ("the only truly dedicated home video games console" - an interesting way of saying "the only current-generation games console without DVD functionality") is currently enjoying success on both sides of the Atlantic. Last week, Nintendo of America announced that the console was outselling both its rivals on the back of a cut to $99.

Atari has released a 90-second video of Driver 3, showcasing far more of the game in action than we'd previously seen in several months of screenshots and teaser footage (including the damp squib that was the ECTS trailer). In it, Tanner is seen wheelie-ing around on a bike and throwing Bullitt-looking vehicles around busy streets - from outside angles and the driver's seat - and even across the rooftops of Nice. Viewers also get to see some of Reflections' best noir-ish cut sequences, as a fat crook meets a leaden end and Tanner trots around looking harder than a bucket of Phil Mitchells in sunglasses. With guns.

Much like its Argonaut-developed platformer I-Ninja, Namco's kill.switch will be a PS2 exclusive for the PAL market, despite PS2 and Xbox versions going gold earlier this month.

There's no doubt about it - Hideo Kojima loves giant robots. From the earliest days of his career, he's had a fascination with them - okay, admittedly he couldn't find a way to fit big stompy mechs into his high school romance dating sim, Tokimeki Memorial (although given half a chance we bet he'd have turned it into Gunparade March...), but Policenauts was full of the things, and there's a strong case for saying that the lengthy exposition of Metal Gear (in all its various incarnations) is just an excuse for throwing around some really cool robots at the end of the day.

Codemasters has announced that Russian developer 1C Company's Battlefield Command will now be known as Wartime Command: Battle For Europe 1939-1945. Still set for release on the PC in spring 2004, Wartime Command has apparently been retitled "to give it prominence in a cluttered market of similar product brands," like The Bitmap Brothers' World War II: Frontline Command, for example, itself not to be confused with Frontline Attack: War Over Europe...

Nintendo has sent out a reminder that Mario Party 5 is launching on December 5th, just in time for Christmas. As with, well, the other four, MP5 will see various Nintendo characters working to restore peace to Dream World by navigating a game board successfully...

Microsoft's Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge has gone gold and will be appearing in "Only on Xbox" stamped packaging at a high street near you on October 31st. We're already sharpening our moustaches for dogfighting on Xbox Live.

Sega has decided not to port Chihiro arcade titles OutRun2 and Virtua Cup 3 to Xbox. That's according to a report that originated in Japanese gaming magazine Dorimaga, in which a Sega insider claimed that the Xbox was not popular enough in Japan to justify OutRun2, and that a new light gun peripheral for Virtua Cop 3 would be prohibitively expensive to produce.

LucasArts has announced that Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, the GameCube exclusive follow-up to the console's best-selling launch title Rogue Leader, has gone gold, and according to UK distributor Activision, it will be released over here on November 7th.

Before the flame wars kick off again, I thought Halo was a great game, a true classic that deserves its lofty status as the Xbox's killer app. It still stands as the best console FPS and nearly two years on still looks ahead of its time with benchmark AI, great visuals, a credible sci-fi tale, great soundtrack, cracking multiplayer including the superb co-op mode. But it wasn't perfect.

According to a report in the LA Times, LucasArts president Simon Jeffery has resigned. Shortly after the news broke, the developer/publisher released a brief statement confirming it and adding that Jeffery is leaving to "return to his native England with his family". Good to have you back, Si.

It's cold. It's windy. It's grey. No wonder we get so many games this time of year - who would want to leave the house when it's as depressingly uncomfortable as it is now? Thank the lord for online retail, eh?

Tron 2.0 has received an upgrade to version 1.030, which could well be vaguely confusing to those who know nothing about the game. But then, that would mean they wouldn't be interested in this story at all anyway. So er… Ahem. So what does it fix? Well you can skip the single player light cycle races without side effects, which to us seems a bit of a silly feature, there are a couple of multiplayer tweaks including the removal of an exploit that allowed the use of weapons other than the disc in Disc Arena/Tournament modes, and support for Intel 865G graphics chipsets. Super.

To celebrate the release of Hidden & Dangerous 2 on October 24th, publisher Gathering has come out in a fit of generosity, releasing the Deluxe version of the first Illusion Softworks title onto the Internet for free. Just head here and you'll find a series of download mirrors for the 264MB file. Of course you're encouraged to pre-order the second game on the back of it (and receive H&D Deluxe on CD for your troubles), but, even if you don't end up doing that, it's still a top promotion. If only more companies did this. If mother publisher Take-Two is after suggestions, we'd quite like another bash on Max Payne? No? Oh well.

JAKKS Pacific's PS2-exclusive WWE Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain has gone gold and should be released in Europe on November 7th according to publisher THQ. After last year's Shut Your Mouth edition further mimicked the stage show antics of the TV programme, it seems likely that we can expect more "plotted" lunacy from this year's edition. And if recent progress is anything to go by, a better game to boot. Fans obviously won't care either way though, given that WWE games have generated more than $350 million in the US in the last four years...

One of the current BGEs (Best Game Ever) at my household, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 may not be exactly the same on the PC as it is on consoles (believe it or not, having those analogue sticks around makes a huge difference), but it's still pretty close to the same game, and now EA has released a 99MB three-hole demo you can see that for yourself. Here's a direct link to the file.

Extreme G Racing has always chugged along rather nicely carving its own two wheeled version of events in 'the future', despite living in the long shadow cast by the WipeOut series and, of course, F-Zero. Amusingly, the press blurb talk of a future motor sport "unlike anything ever experienced". What, absolutely nothing like its rivals in any way? We'd better look into these outlandish claims.

Publishers take note. On Friday mornings, we respond very positively to charming top-down, web-based puzzle games. It gets us to write about your proper games. You know, the ones you sell to try and make money. Release more innocent little freebie distractions like this (or release entire games for free like this) and even the most tedious, unfulfilling titles will probably catch our attention. (And don't worry too much about using good games to market poor ones, because you've been doing that for years!)

Nobody's played it yet, but with GTA apparently infecting every aspect of gaming (even platformers), it's little surprise to see many gamers pinning their hopes on Reflections' Driver 3, despite the relative disappointment of hard-as-nails restart 'em up Stuntman. And with the game due out in Q2 next year, the developer has finally started to open up, revealing various details in the latest issue of the UK's Official PS2 Mag.

Nintendo has shot to the top of the class in America, with the GameCube outselling the PS2 by 20 per cent to become the best selling home console in the USA last week following a price reduction in late September.

SCE's chief technology officer has revealed that mass production of the Cell microprocessor is due to begin in the second half of 2005, a timescale which hints at a spring 2006 launch for the PlayStation 3.