Latest Articles (Page 3460)

As The Sims continues to dominate the PC charts, this Friday heralds the series' debut on PlayStation 2. But instead of scoffing at the very idea of handing over forty quid to direct a slack-bladdered, nonsense-warbling virtual household, first consider your current gaming diet. If you're a PS2 owner, you've got a healthy selection of platform, sports, mission based driving and the ubiquitous third person action titles to your name. This is all very well, but don't you ever yearn to do something less, well, gamey? What you need is a supplement.

Electronic Arts is to open a new development location in Los Angeles, consolidating its existing Las Vegas (Westwood), Irvine (EA Pacific) and LA operations into a single combined campus that will initially employ around 200 staff.

Those cheating swine at Datel have announced that Action Replay for GameCube, and the long overdue Freeloader disc which circumvents region protection, will be released on February 3rd in the UK and Europe.

In the best traditions of the Internet, we offer "props" to N-Philes, who dredged up this little titbit secreted on the bottom right of Nintendo.com's front page. It's a poll, which asks, "If you were casting a Metroid movie, who would star as Samus Aran?"

Ubi Soft Montreal has finished work on Splinter Cell for the PC, and the game is on target for its February 28th release date in Europe. The PC version is very much a straight port of the Xbox version, and should be more than a match for its popular sibling.

European GBA owners will have a new set of repackaged retro fixes to thoroughly ignore this May, as Infogrames confirm that the Sega Arcade Gallery package (Afterburner, Outrun, Space Harrier and Super Hang On) will make its way over the Atlantic.

Everyone's hopping on the Vietnam bandwagon, and the latest to have hopped up is Infogrames. Line of Sight: Vietnam is being developed by nFusion Interactive, whose previous efforts include Deadly Dozen and, um, Big Game Hunter 6.

Activision has plucked Pitfall from its archives in an attempt to score an easy success on the current generation of gaming consoles. The game is to be developed by Edge of Reality (one of the teams who worked on The Sims for PS2, oddly), and will star Pitfall Harry on another adventure, this time in a race against his main rival through the South American jungle.

Konami's Quake III engine driven first person shooter Apocalyptica is to be released in Europe only, representatives have told disappointed American reporters. The PC and Xbox project is an exclusively KOE title. In the kind words of those IGN ran into, it would take a sales miracle over here to force it out in the US.

Final Fantasy Origins, the package comprising the first two games in the long-running RPG series, is to be made available in Europe from March 14th, according to Sony's official press outlet.

With Unreal II completed and out early next month, forums have been rife with talk of a demo. And even more so since the game's US Brand Manager told fans that "there is no demo for this game because there wasn't time to deliver one."

BioWare has responded to speculation that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was to slip by confirming that the game is, in fact, to slip. The news means that instead of a February rendezvous for thousands of budding Xbox owning Jedi [Sith then, surely? - Ed], it'll be later in the spring.

Clearly us Brits are almost as obsessed with dancing games as much as those crazy Japs, judging by the fact that two of Konami's PSone Dancing Stage titles are currently occupying the UK's Top 10 at a time when PSone titles are generally pointed at and laughed at by cruel children, who cross the street to avoid them.

Since you all seemed quite excited by Sony's 37/40 Famitsu-rated 'voice action' title Operator's Side, we thought we'd bring you up to date on a couple of other speech recognition based titles due out on the PS2 in Japan.

It seems so logical. Gamers, as a group, are always whinging about their lot, complaining about the intricacies of games and endlessly lambasting publishers for their role in the downfall of noble ideas. Surely nobody knows this better than poor old Midway, who can't even sell the games which achieve something (Haven, for instance, was actually a rather enjoyable platformer at times, but try convincing anybody else of that!).

Aces are to be High for the second time in Q3 2003, HiTech Creations has written to inform us. Aces High II: Tour of Duty aims to capitalise on its predecessor's success as "the most popular massively multiplayer online flight simulator on the market".

UK based Graphic State, whose previous titles include GBA titles Star X and ZooCube, has announced that its pool simulation, the excitingly named Extreme Pool, has been completed. The developer is now looking around in earnest for licensing, publishing and distribution partners.

I liked Metal Gear Solid 2 a lot. Despite agreeing with much of the criticism levelled at it, we still immensely enjoyed Kojima's ambitious and apparently misunderstood opus. Yes, the cut scenes were too long and too many, yes, the codec 'conversations' were utterly ridiculous for the most part, and there arguably wasn't enough action to even justify calling it a proper game, really. This is something Konami are intending to correct with Substance, and with the franchise debut on Xbox, they may just pull it off.

Acclaim has trumpeted the latest addition to the NBA Jam series at a press event in the US. The word for stat aficionados is that there'll be more than 300 players and all 29 current NBA sides. In addition to the current playing staff, NBA Jam 2004 will also include 60 of the sport's greats in a special "legends tournament". Playing through said tourney unlocks each NBA legend for use in the rest of the game.

Acclaim has bought the rights to Alias, Disney's spy gal TV series, and has announced that its Cheltenham, UK studio will develop the game. It's not clear how much Acclaim spent on the license, nor whether it lasts beyond the first title. The game is due out in "fall" 2003 across all three so-called next gen platforms.

It's been a long time coming, but the third in the Master Of Orion series has officially gone gold, with strategy gamers everywhere dancing a jig at the news that Infogrames has earmarked an early 2002 release date. Clearly that should've read 'early 2003', but hey, we're still in January so we'll forgive the typo.

With mission based driving games still hogging the nation's charts, one based on the big haired '70s crime fighting dudes Starsky & Hutch could either be the worst game ever made or a stroke of genius.

As anybody who chanced upon our gallery of screenshots will by now have realised, RollerCoaster Tycoon is on its way to Xbox, and soon.

Treasure's masterful vertical shoot 'em up Ikaruga will appear during April in the US and Europe, Infogrames, sorry, 'Atari' has announced. This after representatives in the UK admitted that it might be out within "the next few months".

Sony's The Getaway has stormed back to the top of the ELSPA/ChartTrack All Formats chart, but it was another week of inactivity on the new release front, with not one single new entry appearing in any chart.

It's been a tough time for Sega. Having survived the almost ruinous hardware days intact, the publisher has more recently had to contend with all but a small fraction of its releases meeting with public indifference. In particular its commercial fortunes on the Xbox have so far been dire: Jet Set Radio Future, Gun Valkyrie, Sega GT, Crazy Taxi 3, Soccer Slam, to name but a few, and not a single big selling title between them - and its recent fortunes on other consoles haven't exactly been blockbusting, either.

With the greatest possible respect, we find Tom Clancy's books incredibly boring. A rich tapestry of military insight and clever storytelling they may be, but if we wanted long-winded descriptions of American weaponry and terrorist threats, we'd subscribe to bin Laden's newsletter. It's only thanks to the likes of Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell (which jostle competitively for position near the top of our All Time Greats list) that we can say we enjoy his work.

Overpriced console MMORPG EverQuest Online Adventures has gone gold, says Sony. "In a few short weeks, PlayStation 2 owners will get to experience the magical world of EverQuest, which is one of the most amazing fantasy universes ever created," Sony Online pres. John Smedley proclaimed.

Jeff Minter's Llamasoft and Peter Molyneux's Lionhead are collaborating on a GameCube title called, appropriately enough, Unity. Described as "a fabulous journey through a succession of beautiful abstract 3D spaces, with gameplay varying in tempo, from fast paced shooting to a more gentle progression," it sounds like the sort of gamer's game that Rez set out to be. Audio, it is said, will be closely linked with the game's pace and tempo and "will be an integral part of the playing experience."

Creative Assembly's Total War series continues to grow with the announcement of Rome: Total War, a fully fledged sequel to Medieval, a mission pack for which was only announced this month. However, there's no word on how long it will take Rome to prosper.