Latest Articles (Page 3424)

Sega of America has announced a new, GameCube-exclusive title called Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, currently in development at Sonic Team under the direction of Sonic creator Yuji Naka. It's the first new platform game and character from Yuji Naka and Sonic Team since the Saturn era, Sega tells us.

What with the concerning announcement this February by Activision that the single-player element of Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was to be dropped, it's been left to developer Splash Damage to salvage the remains of the game as a free multiplayer download.

Oooh, more patch news. Next up is Ubi Soft's Raven Shield, the first patch for which fixes the quite infuriating CD-key issues that cropped up when trying to play the game online, along with a few other multiplayer issues. Head on over to the official Raven Shield website for a nice list of mirrors.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Japan, Nichiho Marumo, president of Japanese production company Gaga Communications, spoke of his company's work on the forthcoming Tekken and Onimusha movies, which we probably knew about but had certainly forgotten at the time of writing.

Quicksilver has released a patch which addresses a number of balancing issues in its space strategy title Master of Orion 3. The 678k update is said to rebalance the combat and starship construction elements in the game, and improve military AI. Other alterations include changes to weapon costs and ranges, research costs, and race abilities. You can download the patch directly from Quicksilver here

Rogue developer Running With Scissors sneakily slipped out a demo of its forthcoming gore 'em up, Postal 2 on Saturday. Naturally, we jumped on the chance to see what the fuss was about and give our antisocial side, which has been eerily absent since we conquered our GTA3 addiction, a proper workout.

Hold the phone, put down the cat, stop piling china precariously on the sideboard and get a load of this: Dantooine will be the tenth planetary environment in Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, LucasArts' MMORPG set (and apparently developed) in a galaxy far, far away. The other nine include Tatooine, Naboo and Yavin 4. Any other queries are best directed at this exhaustive FAQ.

It's Good Friday this week, which has something to do with Easter, but more importantly is a bank holiday. This means we'll be running away and hiding on Thursday evening, and won't return until we've gorged ourselves on chocolate bunnies and beer. Hrm, we could even try drinking the beer from the chocolate bunnies! Anyway, what all this means is that there is widespread confusion - and outright panic - amongst paranoid gamers petrified that their favourite boutique will be shut and unable to sell them Lego Drome Racers or some crap. Fortunately, our local GAME (a microcosm for the games-flogging retail society, we'll have you know) claims that they will be ignoring the occasion to flog games anyway. "BloodRayne," they tell us, "is this week's big title".

Tom forced me to say that Scientists at Dublin's Media Lab Europe have developed a type of computer game that responds to input generated by the player's breathing. Sensors are quite literally attached to the player's body which measure the movement of their waist and ribcage, determining how the character in the game moves.

GameSpot (there it is!) reports that Human Head Studios is seeking developers with skills enough to handle a Doom III engine title, because apparently one of their upcoming games, which apparently hasn't been announced, will apparently use it. Or so we hear. Maybe they'll mention it at E3.

Have you got what it takes? Has anybody ever had what whatever it is apparently takes? Because we hear this a lot, and nobody ever elaborates. If we were cynical, and some people would say we are, we might think of it as some sort of filler cliché for bored public relations people to use on Fridays. Or Thursdays, since this one is a day old. But we digress…

Following Microsoft's decision to halt development on Tiwak-developed platformer, Tork, the developers have responded by stating that they intend to continue developing Tork until it's finished, and it looks like Tiwak will be able locate another publisher willing to release the title.

Microsoft Game Studios has announced and released screenshots for its first hockey title on the Xbox, NHL Rivals 2004.

Buka Entertainment has released a demo of its helicopter arcade-action title Red Shark. From what we can gather, the game puts you in the pilot's seat of a time travelling Ka-50 helicopter, in which you're tasked with altering the outcomes in past conflicts to affect the future. Or something like that.

You may have spotted that the list is a bit lopsided this week. That's thanks to the efforts of Microsoft, whose Xbox Classics line launches today, vomiting forth a collection of older titles at a new price point of £19.99 - some classic, some crud. For the benefit of those who haven't kept in touch with the format since March 14th, 2002, here's a rundown of the ones we'd recommend, the ones we'd probably buy, and the ones we'd have destroyed:

This week, we offered you the chance to win five copies of the recently released Delta Force - Black Hawk Down for the PC, along with five copies of the book by Mark Bowden, and five Delta Force-emblazoned floppy hats. Competition for these items was fierce, let me tell you now, but in the end there could only be five winners, and in no particular order they are: John Sulby, Kevin Reid, David Kiernan, Johnathan Rowlands and Ed Marchant. We'll be in contact with each of the winners shortly.

Ignition Entertainment is set to release nine new GameBoy Advance titles at the surprisingly low price of £14.99. The first of these to be released is World Tennis Stars, which is available now.

Codemasters is going football c-c-c-razy or something with its intention to expand its team-specific Club Football games on Xbox and PS2 to some 17 titles, each one officially licensed and headlined by a major European club.

Vivendi has announced today that the licensed game of The Hulk movie will be in stores on June 13th, a few weeks before the film opens in the UK on July 18th.

The winners of the previously reported PlayStation 2 Creative Award have been announced this week. Apparently the judges - including artists Marc Quinn and Dinos Chapman, SCEE's VP of development Phil Harrison, and Chris Sorrell, Creative Director at Studio Cambridge - were completely split on the decision of who the winner should be, and have subsequently announced two winners.

The American Conquest looks set to continue. No no, not that, but GSC Game World's intricate strategy sim for the PC, which looks set to get its first expansion pack very shortly. "American Conquest: Fight Back!" is due out in Germany on May 30th, with international release dates to be announced shortly, and you'll even be able to play it without the original game, which is nice of them. As well as five new nations to control, the game promises a complete new battle mode, with 10 single and multiplayer maps, 50 new units and 25 new missions in eight campaigns. Note to EA: this is how you do an expansion pack!

Despite releasing a rather enjoyable anti-war ad, Sony is clearly suffering from the rampant Francophobia currently sweeping the US, announcing a cycling sim of its own to compete with Konami's Le Tour de France: Centenary Edition, announced exclusively (at least for the time being) for PS2 yesterday afternoon. Ah not really, we're just stirring.

InfogramesNotAtari has released details of Kya: Dark Lineage, in development at Eden Studios for PlayStation 2, and to be shown in some detail at E3. Although we haven't sourced any screenshots at the time of writing, we are given the usual song and dance about "highly-aesthetic environments" and unrivalled beauty. The game is powered by Eden's own proprietary game engine, we're told, which affords Kya "a liberating sense of movement and freedom" in a world that "delivers high-resolution models and textures, smooth-blended animation and utilises spectacular physics". So make of that what you will.

On the last day of March, we reported on POSTAL 2's proposed release date of April 14th, but it seems that the game has been held up a week or so, as publisher Whiptail Interactive's latest press release is a mite evasive. OK, it doesn't rule out an April 14th date, but the claim that the game will be available "across Europe and the UK from Easter" is a bit non-committal. Let's hope nobody gets upset and shoots people.

Konami of Europe is celebrating the 100th Tour de France cycling competition this year with a Centenary Edition of Le Tour de France for PlayStation 2. Following on from last year's Tour de France title, this Centenary Edition will include all the teams and riders in the 2003 competition, and many enhancements.

Microsoft is set to cut the price of the Xbox to £129.99 in the UK this week according to reports from retail sources, in a move which will see the console matching the hardware price of the GameCube.

According to a story on the Hollywood Reporter, plans for a live action movie based on Tecmo's Dead or Alive series have been cemented and the film is about to enter production. Headed up by Impact Pictures, the same team responsible for the Resident Evil movie sequel, the film is going to run up an estimated cost of $30 million. The story is said to rather predictably focus on four female characters from the game who are invited to take part in the fighting tournament on an exotic island, and will be penned by J.F. Lawton, also known for his work on Pretty Woman and, er, Under Siege. Great.

In a quite possibly ludicrous move, Sega is bringing the insanely fast-paced Crazy Taxi to the GameBoy Advance this June. From the still shots we've got it actually looks like a fairly decent port, what with a pseudo-3D graphics engine and all. It remains to be seen whether or not it can keep up the essentially insane pace, though.

Sega has announced plans to publish Virtual On Marz on PS2 in the good old US of States this November. What's more, Sega will be releasing the Virtual Twin Stick, a sort of joystick controller which Virtual On experts can use to recreate the arcade experience.

Vivendi Universal has announced the signing of hardcore rocker, actor, spoken word artist and all-round scary-but-nice guy Henry Rollins, who is to voice the lead role in forthcoming sci-fi shooter, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter.