Latest Articles (Page 3391)

Nokia may be keeping schtum about early N-Gage sales figures, but Nintendo is coming out to bat this morning with news that the Game Boy Advance SP has shipped more than two million units in Europe in its first six months on sale - bringing the platform's total installed base to a whopping nine million units.

Former Genesis frontchap Peter Gabriel will be lending his tune crafting talents to Ubisofts forthcoming Myst sequel, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. He will allow the use of his song "Burn You Up, Burn You Down" for the title, and will pen an original track for the next game in the series.

With the excitement of the N-Gage's worldwide launch just about dying down, we feel it's safe to note that EA now plans to release FIFA 2004 on the Finnish "game deck" by the end of the year.

Nintendo has issued US retailers with artwork showing off a Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition disc for the Cube, perhaps to be bundled with new consoles or with The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. There's no word on that (or confirmation of a European release), but it looks like a big treat for Zelda fans.

Another Halo patch has appeared today courtesy of Bungie and Gearbox, adding remote console support, allowing for multiple instances of a dedicated server, and fixing a handful of minor bugs. All of which drags the game up to version 1.02 before it's even hit the shelves here in Europe. Oh well, we can't complain about other people paying to do our beta testing, eh!

It's not every day that we see a gold announcement from Gabe Newell, and sadly this isn't some sort of Half-Life 2-shaped surprise either (you can find today's HL2 bombshell elsewhere) - it's just news that Counter-Strike: Condition Zero is going gold "this Friday" and will be available via Steam and at US retail on November 18th (perhaps appearing in Europe on November 21st or 28th).

Remedy and Rockstar have released another Max Payne 2 trailer following the gold announcement earlier this week. The trailer is available in resolutions from 320x164 to 640x328, and you can get it from the likes of 3D Gamers (who have torrents) and 3D Downloads (who have also mirrored it in Windows Media format).

Unlike PCs, consoles have been crying out for a few more decent first-person shooters to call their own, with only a few true greats and true turkeys standing out amongst the backdrop of endless 3D platformers. Along comes THQ then, waving its Warhammer 40,000 licence about and hoping to join Medal of Honor: Frontline and TimeSplitters 2 in the upper echelons of PS2 shooters.

One of Sega's most innovative game creators has announced his decision to leave the company following the dissolving of his in-house development team.

Doesn't it make you sick when some smart Alec pipes up that a game is 'too easy' after you've sweated blood attempting to get even halfway through what you thought was an epic game? There was certainly a chorus of allegedly 1337 gamers after Jak & Daxter came out two years ago. Some grudgingly admitted it was the best platformer ever (and it was, unbelievers), but usually followed up with bile relating to its perceived lack of challenge. Gah. For us, it pitched the difficulty perfectly, and the fact that we went back after we 'finished' the game and collected all the orbs and eggs speaks volumes for the pleasure we gleaned from Naughty Dog's finest 15 hours.

Retail updates in the US have shed some light on their Mario Kart: Double Dash!! bonus disc, a promotion which bears similarities to the Rebel Strike promotion that furnished the yanks with playable demos and a copy of the original Star Wars arcade game.

As promised, Sony has chosen the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) in Tokyo to unveil the multimedia PSX console in detail. Due out in Japan before the end of the year, the PSX is a monstrous concoction of top-end audio/visual components that also happens to play PSone and PlayStation 2 games to boot - or at least that's how Sony plans to market it.

Commandos 3: Destination Berlin has gone gold. Which is handy, because it suggests that the review code we have is, you know, reviewable. The third instalment in Spaniards Pyro's tactical strategy series is destined for release on October 24th, and adds a new interior engine, smaller, more detailed maps, a stronger narrative and the prospect of ambushes, assaults and even bosses to the classic formula. We'll be bringing you our tales from Stalingrad, Central Europe and Normandy as soon as we can find a window to review it. Most likely later this month.

UK developer Argonaut has announced pre-tax losses of £10.9m, which it blames on the cancellation of two key titles; Malice (which Vivendi pulled the plug on back in May) and Orchid (which was subsequently canned by mutual agreement with Namco). Last year the developer enjoyed pre-tax profits of £2.8m.

Perhaps leaving Kirby sitting on the pause screen while I pen this review wasn't such a good idea. Playing it mostly on my Cube using the GB Player peripheral, I'm currently being bombarded on all sides by a sickly sweet theme tune at which even the Teletubbies would probably recoil.

Namco's Soul Calibur 2 has been knocked off the top spot in the UK sales charts after only a week, with EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 rising two places to take poll position.

Vivendi Universal Games chief executive Christophe Ramboz has stated that highly anticipated PC title Half-Life 2 will not ship in time for Christmas, following the distribution of source code from the game online.

Ubisoft will be bundling a Thrustmaster Neckband Boom Mic headset with EG 'Muffie' winner Rainbow Six 3 on Xbox as part of a limited edition promotion which will also apply here in Europe.

Oh, cool! Tetris! Yeah, I'll do that. Shit, getting paid to play Tetris...

Namco and Todd McFarlane Productions have named a mysterious background character in the long-running Spawn comic book series, who now looks set to more to the fore on paper and as part of Namco's Spawn: Armageddon game, due out in November on PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

Hack and slash. Hackandslash. On several occasions this year we've been pressed into action to wave a mighty sword at an Army of Evil, jump like a flea on a hotplate and dispense the kind of magic that would have had dear old Freddie Mercury howling like Montserrat Caballe.

It's a bad day for fans of frankincense and myrrh, as another videogame - this time Namco's third-person tactical shooter kill.switch - has gone gold and been whisked off for duplication. It's due out on PS2 and Xbox later this month, and should make the perfect gift for baby Jesus. Assuming he's over 18 and likes killing things.

After a successful tour with EA that brought us the only vaguely stomachable Simpsons Road Rage and the execrable Simpsons Skateboarding, we didn't have high hopes for our favourite cartoon at Vivendi. Placed in the hands of Radical Entertainment though, The Simpsons Hit & Run could become an unlikely "must-have" as its overzealous publisher puts it. If early reviews are anything to go by (and they sometimes are), then it's actually not that bad.

Gold is certainly the colour of the day today, as another "off for manufacturing" type press release filters down the wires. What's more, it feels safe to be excited by this one, because while some of our more desired PC sequels slip into the obscurity of the "holiday season", Remedy Entertainment's Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne has gone gold. And when's it out? October 15th in America and October 24th in Europe. That's just over a fortnight away. Bless you, Remedy.

LucasArts gladiatorial RPG Gladius has gone gold, and will be available on PS2, Cube and Xbox in Europe from November 21st.

Sniff. It's with great sadness this morning that we have to announce the completion of the last ever Sims expansion pack. Makin' Magic, which we covered in detail here, is the seventh in a long-running and highly successful series of annoying updates to the classic life management sim, and is expected to be the last Sims title to appear on the PC ahead of The Sims 2. But will it be a delicious swansong or the final insult? We'll let you know closer to the game's confirmed October 31st release date. Waaaa!

One million happy little gamer-people have pre-ordered Pro Evolution Soccer 3, Konami gleefully announced this morning, ahead of the game's PS2 release on October 17th. Although a spokesman wasn't able to confirm whether that's actual bona fide pre-orders or just the amount that shop owners have requested, it seems a safe bet that lots of people will be picking it up next Friday. We certainly will.

If science fiction teaches us only one thing, it's that even the most shit-stained, blood shod cesspits of this planet barely compare to the dark, terrifying unknowns of outer space. Frankly, it's something Alter Echo could do with looking into, because despite leaving the player virtually alone on a planet where the very environment is a living, breathing, snarling entity intent on his destruction, it's about as frightening as a bouncy castle.

This just in! Or rather: this press released on September 19th without much fanfare! Auto Modellista is coming to Xbox in February 2004, with eight-player Live support in addition to all the features of the PS2 version. Sorry, we'll keep our eyes a bit more open next time.

Konami Japan has released a new five minute trailer of the Metal Gear Solid GameCube remake Twin Snakes, made up from cut-and-pasted footage of the game's cut scenes. The last time we had an extended peek at Twin Snakes was at this year's E3, and suffice to say Rob wasn't all that impressed. However even with this knowledge in mind, we couldn't help but get all clammy at the sound of old Snake's gruff tones once more. I think what we're trying to say is that it looks quite good for a bunch of cut scenes, as long as you don't take them too seriously of course. You can find the 17MB Window Media file sitting pretty on Konami's server.