Latest Articles (Page 3436)

It may be fond of telling us that's its name is now Atari, and that it's shipping 10 billion copies of Enter The Matrix, but details on its E3 line-up remain elusive. Fortunately we've stitched together one from what we know anyway. We're good to you like that.

Eidos has released a new trailer of Republic on its official website. (Go on, have a direct download link then.) Oh, and we've been meaning to point you in the general direction of Novistrana.com for quite some time.

Second Sight is the name of the next Free Radical title, according to a report on C&VG, with the publishing duties reportedly bagged by the ever proactive Activision, which also recently signed up Valve for future projects.

F-Zero GX could well be one of the stars of E3 2003, and a few details on the gameplay modes have emerged from the latest Japanese games magazines to tempt us.

Have you ever been frightened by a videogame? Probably not. You could say that something like Resident Evil scares you, as a zombie lunges out of nothing and you leap from your seat in the darkness, but through its haunting narrative and the developer's skilful use of 'sanity effects', Eternal Darkness has the power to actually frighten you, and that's an important distinction.

If you take the Nintendo first party games out of the equation, the GameCube's list of exclusive titles is a painfully short one. But one that has just hit the shelves - and belatedly, our desk - is Bits' Die Hard Vendetta, a first person shooter loosely based on the movie trilogy. Normally we'd treat movie tie-in fodder with more than a little suspicion, but given that it's exclusive to the platform, we assumed this would be a cut above the standard all formats fare.

Rare will likely never make another GameCube game. It's a sad fact, but Starfox Adventures, completed just prior to the Microsoft buy-out, will stand as the final serious collaboration between Nintendo and Rare (save for some GBA titles waiting to have their fates determined). And with 15 hours of Ocarina of Time-like stick swinging and a liberal sprinkling of classic Arwing action ahead of you, you'd think it would make a delicious swansong. However, the truth couldn't be further from the myth.

We've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Pandemic's Star Wars: The Clone Wars since it was first announced. Picking up where Episode II left off, you control a number of vehicles in ground-based combat on worlds ranging from Geonosis (as you take on the forces of Count Dooku) to Kashyyyk (the Wookiee homeworld). You even get your saber out occasionally for a bit of hand-to-hand combat.

When we first heard that Nintendo had handed development of Metroid Prime over to second party Retro Studios, we were mighty sceptical. Surely Intelligent Systems, the game's creator and masters of the 2D platform adventure, should be the ones proudly steering Samus Aran through her first 3D adventure? Many, many moons later and we've been playing Prime for a whole week, virtually unabated. Even the lure of brand new Christmas releases on many formats has had no effect. Our first impressions of Metroid Prime? It's Metroid in 3D, and it's so faithful to the series that we want to take back every last word we've said against Retro in the last few years. We want to withdraw our scepticism and revel with them in their success. And most of all, we want to finish this bloody article so we can get back to playing it.

We've been tracking the progress of Battle Engine Aquila, an epic-scale shoot 'em up from British developer Lost Toys, with quite a degree of interest for some time now, as regular readers of the site will know. The game's premise is an interesting one - a hardcore shoot 'em up with the added depth of a full scale war going on in real-time around you, the outcome of which your actions can affect in a very direct way - and when we posted first impressions of the game back in January, we were certainly impressed with what we'd seen of the game so far.

Start, Run, Word. I sat staring at the screen wondering what more could possibly be said about the infamous Metal Gear Solid 2. By now we're all used to the 'too many lengthy cut scenes/codec conversations/girly-haired ladyblokes' exchanges that seem to permeate throughout comments threads following every web article published about the game, ever. We've established that there are some parts of MGS2 that should never have made the cut, and that there simply wasn't enough game for some of you. Konami wants to change this.

For five minutes back at the turn of the year we were given a quick play of Nintendo's remodelled Game Boy Advance SP, and came away quietly impressed that the Japanese veterans had finally delivered a truly pocket sized console that lived up to the billing of Gaming: 24/7.

Tetris. Differently shaped chunks consisting of four blocks raining from the sky, and the only way to clear them is by arranging them into a series of complete, horizontal lines. That's just genius, isn't it?

Ok, are there two versions of this game or something? Have we been sent the rusty old, invariably tedious, hard and annoying side-scrolling version of the game whilst all the other reviewers have some sort of money-producing mechanical love toy? We just can't seem to explain the positive response this game has met with in the US, where several reviewers said it was only a certain distance from being a vanguard of its genre. It certainly is, of course, but that distance is best measured in miles, and developer Torus is apparently circling the M25…

We'll probably still be banging on about the merits of Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast until we're old and grey, but it really is one of the finest games ever made, so you can't blame us. "How can a mere Tennis game, a glorified remake of Pong, be so compelling", you're probably musing. And if we'd never played it, we'd be wondering the same thing. But we have, and our lives have never been quite the same since. How on earth could Sega hope to cram in all that instant playability and bottomless depth into a handheld version?

Sega Europe has signed an agreement with Warhammer Online Ltd., granting them the rights to publish (you guessed it) Warhammer Online for the PC across Europe, North America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Auto Modellista is an awkward game to review. The novelty graphics are definitely the game's best feature, and the chances are that the main thing you know about the game is that it basks and roars beneath an elegant cel-shaded veneer; that speed lines are drawn in front of you as you race through tunnels, neon cityscapes and leafy autumn hairpin magnets; that the cars have been modelled as well as they need to be, on the cream of Japanese motorsport, but without inheriting every single unnecessary line, nook and cranny; and that in-keeping with Capcom's recent pledge to treat hardcore gamers with a bit more respect, it boasts both 60Hz and widescreen options.

Vivendi Universal Interactive has released a demo for The Hulk. The 166MB demo contains two levels through which you can play as Bruce Banner and his charming alter-ego, the Hulk. Rumours that Tom has been modelling himself on said green anti-hero since his recent revival are completely baseless, but probably true. You can download the demo directly from Vivendi or, if you're feeling slightly masochistic, FilePlanet.

GameCube and Xbox owners finally get the best arcade racing game in recent history this week [what about Midnight Club II? -Ed] in the shape of Burnout 2, which we're still utterly smitten with.

SCi is planning to show off several of its biggest titles at this year's E3, and also recruit some new developers and even products - it even encourages developers to email acquisitions@sci.co.uk if they feel they have something to offer.

CNN (of all people) ran an item on upcoming games recently ("Big Video Game Hunt!"), or something like that, from which wily grabbers pinched this 20MB movie featuring extended footage of F-Zero and a little unknown called Mario Kart: Double Dash. Apparently the latter is some sort of Nintendo-themed racing game. We understand it was quite popular when we were children, although we spent our respective childhoods under rocks.

An updated demo of Tropico 2: Pirate Cove has made it onto the internet this week. Weighing in at 147MB, this one includes two scenarios; the first of which demands you build up industries and construct a new ship to increase your raiding force, while the second gives you four years to build two mansions to keep your captains living in style. Tropico 2, if you missed it, is a really excellent strategy game.

A sequel to Tecmo’s survival horror classic Project Zero is in the works, entitled simply Zero 2, the company has announced. The game is scheduled for an Autumn release in Japan on PlayStation 2. PZ was of course known simply as Zero in its homeland, so expect it to become Fatal Frame 2 in the US and Project Zero 2 over here.

Operation Flashpoint 2 will be a globe-straddling behemoth, Codies confirmed today, with the combat due to be set across Southeast Asia, Central Europe and Africa, with the mission-based campaigns taking gamers through fictional conflicts based upon authentic events during the years around 1970.

The first details of Meteor Blade, a 16-player online fighting game for PC and Xbox, have been released. Developed by Taiwan-based InterServ, the game takes place in huge destructible environments with players duking it out with weaponry that's currently a mystery, and pulling off special finishing moves. So it's a deathmatch then. We'll have a look at E3.

Here's one we forgot earlier.

Microsoft has revealed some of its plans for the US operation of the Xbox Live service, hopefully giving us some idea of what they have lined up for us over here. The pricing structure for renewals will start at $49.99 for a year's subscription, and $5.99 for a month's, and subs can be topped up either online or with top up cards bought from various stores. The voice communicator will sell separately for a rather princely $29.99, but new users will also be able to buy an all-in starter kit including bundled games, communicator and one year's subscription for a pretty respectable $69.99.

Bethesda Softworks' upcoming Morrowind expansion Bloodmoon will include the vocal talents of Lynda Carter, best known for her TV role as Wonder Woman. Lynda is responsible for the voices of the female Nords, the native race of Solstheim, where players venture in this latest instalment in search of new quests, werewolf tussles and so forth. Bloodmoon should be out in the next couple of months.

Having never played Tecmo's original and apparently well-loved Rygar, it's safe to say I was going into this one blind. Yes, I've seen all the shots, and even the little movie of Rygar swinging his yoyo about, breaking bits of rock, but honestly... I wasn't anticipating much, despite the game's esteemed dynasty. [We were - Eds] Piss off guys!

The Xbox version of MotoGP 2 is due out on May 16th, THQ has just announced. Unlike the first title, whose online play was literally a bolt-on, the second instalment of Brighton-based Climax's multiplayer two-wheel extravaganza has been constructed from the bottom up to work on Xbox Live, and should offer the best-yet realisation of the Dorna-owned motorcycle grand prix.