Latest Articles (Page 3393)

"What is your name?"

PC game developers - and publishers - have a tough job. We can appreciate that. Whereas console developers have one specific set of specifications to shoot for, and tools that won't change between projects, PC production units are faced with a moving target, and a range of end users putting their game through hundreds of thousands of different permutations of hardware. We are not disputing that this is a pain in the arse.

Ahh yes, The Beano. Personally, I never had much enthusiasm for this very British institution because as a child I was a snob. Some might say I still am, but that's irrelevant. However, I did have a school friend who was still getting his Beano subscription when we left sixth form at 17, so I expect he amongst many other quickly ageing gamers clutching onto the last remnants of their youth would be extremely delighted to learn that Beanotown Racing will be making its way onto PCs on 7th November, courtesy of Simian Industries.

When you're ten years-old, parties are basically the best thing ever. Or they were the way I remember them. The simple pleasures of Jelly and Ice Cream, radioactive pop, followed by a clip round the ear for breaking everything to the soundtrack of Baggy Trousers bring us over all nostalgic.

According to a story on CNET's News.com, George Lucas is to further extend his tendrils into the gaming industry, this time via his THX sound company, famous for offering a quality standard for sound departments in film production companies to work to. THX has apparently been approached many times over the past five or six years by publishers interested in gaining THX certification for their titles, but only in the past 18 months has the company finally recognised the game industry as a major player in quality soundtracks and audio effects.

Old farts rejoice! The dream of a Bard's Tale remake is finally a reality thanks to the re-emergence of original creator Brian Fargo, who has returned from his Interplay exile to form, um, inXile, and has announced that his new company will create a 'modern interpretation' of the RPG classic for all 'next gen' consoles and the PC.

Hot on the heels of the game's PC release Stateside, Bungie/Gearbox have released a patch for Halo, taking the game from retail to version 1.01. The 3.6MB patch is available from all the usual suspects, including 3D Gamers, Gamer's Hell, etc. Given that the game is due out here on October 10th (er, as you've probably noticed), Halo now joins an exclusive club of FPS games which were patched before release - although, given the quality of the port, we'll probably forgive it in the long run. We'll be bringing you our thoughts on the game in the near future.

Half-Life 2 will be bundled with the new Radeon 9800 XT and 9600 XT graphics cards, ATI and Valve have officially confirmed to coincide with the game's original September 30th release date and its twin press soirees in Munich and San Francisco. Not put off by the game's slippage, ATI has decided to release the cards without the work of their most significant exponents, on the promise that purchasers of the two new cards will receive a free copy of Half-Life "when the game ships" via their choice of download or delivery.

"From the creator of Sonic The Hedgehog." They're not kidding. Back in the day, we squirmed a little at the sight of a cuddly hedgehog and his band of saccharine sweet woodland friends rescuing enslaved animals, but at least they were traversing manly electro-labyrinths, and flew around on airships, right? Billy Hatcher, by comparison, is like a triple-strength sugar injection straight to the brain. After a few hours of rolling eggs through fruit and into Nickelodeon reject cartoon bad guys, hatching soft and squidgy animals and listening to kids singing "la la la" on the map screen, you'll probably find your gamepad is glazed in honey and fairies are fluttering out of the other controller ports.

Aw. Eidos has officially unveiled the final product of its longstanding relationship with UK developer Sports Interactive - Championship Manager: Season 03/04. Due out this November, Season 03/04 makes all sorts of changes to the CM4 formula, some less obvious than others.

Namco's Soul Calibur II has gone straight to the top of the UK All Formats chart, also topping the GameCube and Xbox charts in the process - while EA has also had a great week, with four new titles in the top ten.

Taking a trip for what is surely the umpteenth time into Tom Clancy's world of foliage-clad soldiers, panicked AK47-wielding terrorists and relentlessly bad tropical weather, we couldn't help but wonder how much more life there is to it all. Surely there's only so many times you can be informed that your team has "bagged another one" before you start looking for something else to do? This is how we felt. We were ready to view Ghost Recon: Island Thunder with the most cynical of eyes. Ah.

These are dark days for RPG fans. Not only are reviewers making puns in the very first line of their articles but, worse still, the NTSC to PAL conversions are slower and less frequent than ever. The recent news of Suikoden IV's development only served as a sorry reminder of this fact. Sure, we're all happy to hear of another title in a quality series, but we'd be a lot happier to see the third game in Europe.

We all hop around like impatient Chimps whenever someone mentions the elusive Resident Evil 4, and this morning was no exception when we discovered this video (direct link) nestling on Capcom's Japanese website, fresh from TGS.

Namco's GunCon 2 PS2 shoot 'em up Time Crisis 3 has gone gold, which means it stands a good chance of hitting Sony's planned October 31st release date. In the arcade version, players handled VSSE agents Wesley Lambert and Alan Dunaway (who comes up with these names?), charged with liberating a Mediterranean coastal nation from Zagorian Federation troops. In addition to the arcade game modes, the PS2 version should ship with a more complex story mode, a new playable character and various other diversions - like 'Crisis Mission' mode. You can find out more about it on the game's official site, which also has some downloadable trinkets to enjoy.

According to a report on The Washington Times website, the American CIA is planning to spend millions of dollars developing a videogame to help analysts think like terrorists. It's a project - underway at the Counter Terrorist Center and Los Angeles-based Institute for Creative Technologies (part of the University of Southern California) - aimed at helping them "think outside the box". At which point most of the people we've spoken to about this comment: "Why not think inside the box? They're all a bunch of sodding terrorists anyway!"

Activision is still planning to release Call of Duty across the USA on October 29th. But although this is a silly pre-release, pre-gold, pre-anything press release timed to get to gamers on what was meant to be the biggest day of FPS calendar - September 30th - Activision's coddling of the COD is entirely justified in our view.

We're not sure if it's any good. We're not sure whether it's ever coming out anywhere other than the US. We're not even sure who the hell Jar Head Games are, but, on a recent foray into the world of download sites, we discovered this derivative-sounding Lithtech-based first person shooter with a demo/purchase model that is long overdue a revival.

What's the game that made you into a gamer? What's the slice of digital entertainment that changed you from someone who was casually interested, perhaps even intrigued, by this emerging medium, into a believer - someone who spends far more money than you should on consoles, PC upgrades and games, someone who has sacrificed social life for nights in front of a videogame, someone who, frankly, reads videogame websites when they should be working? Looking back over the years, what caused your addiction?

Pro Evolution Soccer 3 will be released on October 17th for PS2, and later in the year on the PC, Konami has announced, while the distinctive features of respected international referee Pierluigi Collina will cover this year's packaging.

Konami has announced that Suikoden IV will be released on the PS2 in the US towards the end of next year, following on from the critically acclaimed release of volume three in 2003.

As those of you who tuned in on Friday will know, Sony is cutting the price of the PlayStation 2 this Wednesday to £139 (with the silver version available for a slight premium at £149). However it has only come to light in today's official announcement that, rather than just dropping the price, Sony is also changing the model number, finally introducing the SCPH-50000 model PS2 to these shores, the main benefits of which are a built-in IR receiver, improved DVD-R/RW playback and a quieter system fan. Yet more reasons for me to pop out and get a silver one to go with my Platinum Cube, no?

Dennis Publishing's Golden Joysticks videogame awards are set to be broadcast to an audience of up to eight million viewers on music TV channel MTV, thanks to a new sponsorship deal with the channel.

As the late Victor Kiam so memorably uttered after a particularly successful shave: "I liked it so much, I bought the company!" Whether SCi Games used their Remington Microscreens this morning is open to debate, but it followed the great man's example by shaving the price of the acquisition of Conflict: Desert Storm developer Pivotal Games down to a mere £2.36 million. As close as a blade or your money back.

From Software is working on a new game in the Tenchu series for the PS2, the multi-talented developer has announced at this year's Tokyo Game Show. However disappointingly there isn't much to report - all we know is that the game will feature returning female star Ayame and fellow female ninja Rin (it's something of a female ninja morning, this), and that "Kurenai" is a shade of red lipstick showcased in splashes of colour on this one-image teaser site. We also expect to say "hiiii-ya!" to new supporting characters and a revised stealth kill system when the game ships in 2004, courtesy of recurring publisher Activision.

Kunoichi, the spiritual successor to the rather dire PS2 Shinobi title, will not be called Kunoichi. Those looking to follow in Hotsuma's footsteps as a mystical female ninja on Japanese government pay will want to look out for Nightshade - as it will be known in the US, and presumably Europe. Although Sega wouldn't confirm the name change for Europe this morning, they did send out seven new screenshots.

British publisher SCi has rescued Pivotal Games from the ignominy of parent company Kaboom Studios' receivership, paying receivers Ersnt & Young a cool £2.36 million for the developer's trade and assets, the company announced today. Pivotal is expected to continue much as it did before, with no lay-offs planned for any of the 70 staff - an altered payment structure the only real evidence of new ownership.

Vivendi has released details of a title in development by new Japanese team Tranji. Red Ninja: End of Hono[u]r is set in Japan in the 1500's during fierce power struggles, a time when the Samurai have lost their clout thanks to years of clan conflict and warlords are turning to the Ninja to aid them in their political gains.

Nintendo plans to launch a wireless link-up adapter for the Game Boy Advance and GBA SP next year, according to a press release from Motorola, who will be providing the wireless chipset. The adapter is expected to be small enough "for convenient mobility", and will boast interference protection and low power consumption, which is obviously crucial for the GBA, whilst enabling link-up play for up to five players.

Good afternoon, and say hello once again to your good friend on the new-fangled typing machine. We should really change that image... Anyway, this week we are, as ever, compiling some of your least rubbish splutterings, and then offering you a special prize to make you go away. Although we do still have copies of Madden NFL 2004 coming out of our helmets, we will instead be offering a superior prize this week - a copy of Freedom Fighters for a platform of the winner's choosing. This is somewhat dependent on that turning up early next week (come on, postie!) but if it doesn't we'll make arrangements. We always do our best for you.