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Rebellion and Novalogic's Delta Force : Urban Warfare is one of the finest remaining PSone prospects, but its big brother on the PlayStation 2 is perhaps even more exciting. Unfortunately, while it was originally pencilled in for a November 2002 release, the publisher today informed us that the PS2 game has been put back until April 2003 due to development delays.

It's almost a year now since THQ picked up the licensing rights to Games Workshop's classic table-top game Warhammer 40k, but today the first fruits of that deal have finally been plucked from the overladen branches of THQ's release schedule by a horde of strange PR people making bad jokes about hammering the opposition. The cringe inducing puns were a result of British developer Kuju apparently fighting off tough competition from as many as thirty other companies who went to THQ pleading for a chance to develop the first game for them. Business director Ian Baverstock reported that "the whole company's thrilled to be working with the licence". As they should be. For their part, the Games Workshop was said to be "very impressed with the originality, quality and raw ability behind their design vision", and will be working closely with them on the title, which bodes well. Actual firm details on exactly what it is that Kuju are developing for THQ are fairly thin on the ground at this stage, but we do know that the game will be appearing on the PlayStation 2 in the not-so-distant future. No doubt more information will emerge soon, possibly at the ubiquitous E3 trade show in Los Angeles next week. Related Feature - THQ snags Warhammer 40k license

Sierra is the latest publisher to reveal it's E3 line-up, spoiling any surprise that attendees of the show may have expected. Covering all of the major platforms (and the PC), Sierra modestly claim that their five headlining games "really offer a glimpse into the future of this industry". Hyperbole aside, it's not a bad line-up. Top of the pile is undoubtedly Malice, the oddball ex-Xbox exclusive from British developer Argonaut, which is also on its way to PlayStation 2 now. It looks great and features a girl with a bloody big hammer, but hopefully this year's E3 will tell us a little more about the actual gameplay. Another game being transferred to the PS2 is Tribes, the fairly popular online shooter franchise. Tribes Aerial Assault will use Sony's new network adapter to let players battle it out over the internet, with the traditional Tribes mixture of on-foot and in-vehicle action across vast outdoors levels. Meanwhile GameCube fans can look forward to The Hobbit, following Bilbo and the boys there and back again. Due out next year, Sierra are promising to "set new standards for fantasy video games" with it. PC owners can look forward to seeing Sierra's new tactical action game SWAT : Urban Justice, not to be confused with the more sci-fi tinged Xbox offering SWAT : Global Strike Team. Due out in September, Urban Justice pits players against brutal LA street gangs across sixteen missions in "stunningly realistic locations". Also on PC is NASCAR Racing 2002, the latest in the peculiarly American motor racing series which sees players trying to avoid getting dizzy while driving round and round in circles at high velocity. Related Feature - Malice heading for PS2

Development of a GameCube port of Medal of Honor: Frontline is underway, an Electronic Arts spokesperson has told IGN. Typically, the publisher refused to comment further. Frontline is due out on the PlayStation 2 sometime this year, but slippage has hit the title regularly. The Cube version should be on show at E3. Rumours are now abound of an Xbox version. Related Feature - Medal of Honor: Frontline preview

THQ has saddled a horse and ridden G1 Jockey style over our hearts with its E3 line-up announcement. Of course, in reality it hasn't, but we're running out of stupid metaphors, puns and analogies and the bloody thing hasn't even started yet. We're reaching; let's leave it at that. Anyway, the games. Leading the way are fast-paced aerial combat game Yager (PC, Xbox), the follow-up to the rather tedious Summoner (PS2), a martial arts fighter called Pride FC (PS2), the once-conflictingly-named-now-stupidly-named Moto GP: Ultimate Racing Technology (PC, Xbox), bike whatsit MX Superfly (PS2, Cube) and first person shooter sequel Red Faction 2 (PS2), which might save the day. Not to mention the usual slew of WWF WWE titles for every format under the sun, and another string of licensed titles from Nickelodeon and Matchbox. THQ is also promising to announce a few more strategic partnerships at the show. Related Feature - Get the F out!

[A game show announcer writes] Hey kids! Do you like PlayStation 2? Now you can carry it around with you! Thanks to InterAct Accessories' amazing 5.6-inch portable LCD screen, you can play PS2 outdoors. Great for showing off your brick-shaped console and getting it wet! And we know that's what the ladies go for, right? Wahey! Mobile Monitor 5.6 was made exclusively for PlayStation 2, with custom fitted clips which fasten securely to the PS2's tough exterior. The backlit display fully exploits the graphical prowess of the game system, although it is not suitable for people who like to discern detail, and features speaker and headphone outputs along with an AC adapter, completely useless for people who actually want to take it outside! And although InterAct has released a Mobile Power adapter for up to 90 minutes of play, this only works with Mobile Monitor 5.4 and the Nintendo GameCube! So, if you want to take your PlayStation 2 out of the front room, to a place with two power sockets and no television, and you want to be completely unable to pick anything out on the screen (including but not limited to: menu text, menu buttons, facial expressions, HUD information, enemy positions, tactical details, background animations and much much more) then buy Mobile Monitor 5.6! A snip at $149.99! That's right! It's not even out in Europe! Get down to your local importer's car boot right now! Don't forget that step-down!

It's doing well, then. More than 50,000 units sold in Germany, more than 75,000 units sold in the United Kingdom, and it seems to be virtually sold out everywhere to boot. But then, who cares if that's more than the you-know-what sold, and if you-know-who's press release extolling the virtues of third place in a harsh market read like an obituary? I'm just amazed by the attach rate. What I want to know is, what the hell were you chaps buying?

Eidos has once again become a take-over target, with Ubi Soft the latest company to be linked to the British publisher. In an interview with French business paper Les Echos, Ubi Soft chairman Yves Guillemot confirmed that "we are certainly going to grow by acquisitions this year", going on to say that "Eidos could be a target for us". The French company, until recently best known for their Rayman series, has grown rapidly over the last couple of years, snapping up Rainbow Six developers Red Storm, the remnants of Mattel Interactive, and German publisher Blue Byte along the way. Whether Eidos will be the latest name to join Ubi Soft's lengthy acquisitions list remains to be seen though. Despite Yves Guillemot's belief that Eidos will be bought out this year, whether or not his own company has anything to do with it, they aren't likely to give up without a struggle. Eidos turned down a substantial offer from Infogrames two years ago, and although their recent sales have been disappointing, with Championship Manager 4 due out later this year and Lara Croft arriving on PlayStation 2 for the first time in November, the publisher is presumably feeling fairly optimistic about its immediate future.

Rage announced this weekend that their online-focused action game Mobile Forces has gone gold, and will be going into full production in the next few days. As a result the game is now expected to hit shelves across Europe on Friday May 31st, with a recommended UK price of just £24.99. While it's certainly not the best looking online shooter due out this year, the pre-release versions we've been playing with for the last couple of months certainly showed promise in the gameplay department, as you might expect from a development team that includes veterans of Grand Theft Auto and Wild Metal Country. With any luck we'll have final review code for the game soon and be able to tell you whether it lives up to its promise, but in the meantime we'll be posting more exclusive screenshots snapped from the latest beta version, so keep an eye on our Mobile Forces gallery. Related Feature - Mobile Forces preview

Klonoa and his imp compatriot Huepow are in a spot of bother. Emperor Jillius is suffering from a terrible illness that prevents him from sleeping, and having been deprived of that sweet embrace, he has unreasonably forbidden his subjects to dream. To Klonoa's surprise he has been hauled in front of the Emperor, whose pompous advisor Bagoo decides that if Klonoa can defeat the four monsters ravaging the Empire, his execution will be cancelled.

No Turok game would be complete without an array of over-the-top weapons to blow stuff up with, and Turok Evolution is no exception. From simple axes and shotguns to devastating miniguns and a tactical nuclear device, your arsenal is certainly varied.

Hot on the heels of Metal Gear Solid Substance and ZOE 2, Konami's latest big announcement is .. er .. Disney All-Star Sports. Coming exclusively to GameCube and GameBoy Advance this autumn (see, Konami do love you), the game will feature six sports ranging from football (both American and the real kind) to snowboarding and skateboarding. As the title suggests, the twist is that the action centers around popular Disney characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, but with "a hip new attitude" being promised for these staples of childhood entertainment. Rumours that they are being 10% Rasta-fied have yet to be confirmed. "Disney's all-star cast of beloved characters combined with arcade-style sports games will yield incredible success for this new series", Konami of America president Tomofumi Gotsubo declared. Either that or you'll get lynched for turning Mickey Mouse into a skate punk... Related Feature - Metal Gear and ZOE return

Raven have finally released a demo version of their hit first person shooter Jedi Outcast, featuring an exclusive new single player map which was shown at E3 last year but later cut from the retail version of the game. The revamped map comes with an intro movie to get you in the mood, five of the game's rather feeble firearms, the all-important lightsaber (any self-respecting Jedi's weapon of choice), and a selection of force powers to unleash on unwitting (or simply witless) Stormtroopers. Weighing in at around 65Mb, you can download it from any of the following sites -

The Barbican Gallery in London has lifted the lid on the educational side of its GameOn exhibition, which will be celebrating 40 years of gaming history this summer. Teachers will be able to attend a special private viewing at the gallery on the evening of Wednesday 22nd May, where they can collect a teachers' pack containing a project aimed at getting eight to thirteen year old pupils to design their own computer game. Included in the pack is a video about the creative process behind Lionhead's hit god game Black & White, which presumably consists of Peter Molyneux running around for four hours punching monkeys and coming up with bizarre new ideas like integrating Radio 4's shipping forecast into the game or making your creature sing along to Britney Spears songs. The Barbican will also be hosting a pair of seminars about the gaming industry, kicking off on May 18th with "The State Of Play", looking at the impact of video games on history, politics and culture, followed by a closing seminar imaginatively titled "The End of Play" on September 7th, exploring the future of computer games and new technology. Speakers include Charles Cecil from Broken Sword developers Revolution and Cannon Fodder 2 designer turned journalist Stuart Campbell. Other events include a series of family workshops for five to eleven year olds at the beginning of August, tasking your little 'uns with designing a story, characters and sounds for a new game. Which should be .. er .. interesting. More details can be found on the GameOn Education page, along with an HTML version of the teachers' pack (minus video, sadly). Related Feature - GameOn interview

Granada are planning to produce a major new videogames show for ITV, labouring under the working title of Games Stars. Expected to screen on a Saturday evening some time in November, the project is being supported by industry magazine MCV (from whence came the first details of the show this week), with additional backing reportedly coming from the likes of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. A "major retail chain" (that'll be GAME / Electronics Boutique then) will promote nominated games, while Future Publishing (surprise surprise) provides the official magazine. Granada licensing director Martin Lowed modestly describes it as "the biggest event the games industry has ever seen", while MCV compare the show to Pop Idol and the Brit Awards. We're cringing already. "The games industry has always wanted its own entertainment event to sit alongside the music industry's Brits, and that's what we very much intend to deliver", Martin added. Unfortunately this means that we will be enforced to endure self-proclaimed comedians Ant & Dec presenting the show, with an all-star cast of bland chart topping musicians inexplicably being roped in to play during the event. Presumably because actually showing the games and gamers being honoured by the awards would be a bit boring. Kylie, Travis and Gorillaz are all apparently on the short list for inclusion, showing just what an edgy zeitgeisty synergistic youth entertainment landmark event this is going to be. Or not, as the case may be.

Since its birth, Turok has been firmly caged up on the N64, with only a couple of GameBoy spin-offs and a lacklustre PC port breaking out of this captivity. September 2002 should mark the rebirth of Turok though, as the dinosaur laden action series gets its first outing on the latest generation of consoles in the guise of Turok Evolution. We took a trip down to the wilds of London (a penthouse suite round the back of Kings Cross, to be precise) to chat with Turok's creator and see how the latest installment in the series is shaping up...

Konami has confirmed its E3 line-up for 2002 as part of its Japanese financial report, as detailed by Swedish website Gon.nu yesterday. Having spoken to Konami this morning, we can confirm the following. Footy detractors skip the next three paragraphs. PlayStation 2 owners can breathe a sigh of relief. Pro Evolution Soccer is still a PS2 exclusive. Winning Eleven 6 will be on show at E3, and, having played the thing more or less non-stop for the last two days, we can say it's looking very nice indeed. Hopefully some of the game's niggles (lack of back pass rule, players not running towards passes and dodgy offsides) will be tweaked out of the equation in the transition between WE6 and Pro Evo 2, which we expect to see this October in Europe. A GameBoy Advance version of Winning Eleven will also be on display, and having sampled this also we can say it looks very much like the GameBoy Color ISS games. It is not known whether the game will be exported to Europe, but it sounds likely. Cube fans hoping to receive Winning Eleven 6 will actually be disappointed. Although the report indicated a Cube version of WE was planned, it is not the same game as Pro Evolution Soccer. In fact, this is a strategic rebranding of ISS2 to encourage interest. Other PlayStation 2 titles include Suikoden III (announced yesterday), Silent Hill 3 (about which virtually nothing is known except the developer, KCET), Tokimeki Memorial: Girl's Side (a popular Japanese franchise, staying where it is before you ask) and New Contra (also appearing on GameBoy Advance and GameCube). GameBoy Advance owners can also look forward to a new Castlevania title at this year's show. Castlevania: White Night Concerto (known as Dissonance of Harmony outside of Japan), will be on display for the first time. Related Feature - Metal Gear and ZOE return

Crave Entertainment has previewed its line-up for E3 2002, highlighting a number of exciting prospects. After its last title met with critical acclaim, Crave is now planning to expand the Ultimate Fighting Championship line of games with UFC: Throwdown for GameCube and PlayStation 2, due out shortly after E3 in June. The Lost is a survival horror game with an RPG-lite skills system, which will take players through modern day adaptations of Dante's nine circles of Hell. The Lost is a game for PlayStation 2 and Xbox due out in Q4 2002. The other big title is Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter, a game combining first-person action sections and space combat. Although the game sounds distinctly like a poorly contrived Jango Fett spin-off, it has nothing to do with Star Wars, and is pencilled in for a Q4 2002 release date on Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2 and PC. Completing the line-up are Whirl Tour and H2Overdrive. Whirl Tour is an extreme sports adventure puzzler (honestly) where someone kidnaps six members of a rock band and you presumably have to get them back. Sounds great. Cube and PlayStation 2 in Q4 2002. H2Overdrive, on the other hand, is an extremely bad pun, which we have to applaud given we're in the same business, and focuses on speedboat racing. It is to appear on PlayStation 2 in Q3 2002.

Konami of Japan's financial report, released yesterday, included news of major new titles including "a second and third original title to follow on our Metal Gear Solid series", IGN is reporting. Gamers are also promised a new Z.O.E. game. Hideo Kojima's most famous creation will be appearing on multiple platforms, as speculated by the mainstream press recently. The new games are titled Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance and Zone of the Enders 2: The Second Runner, the former appearing on PS2, Xbox and PC with the latter a PlayStation 2 exclusive. Sequels are promised as well as derivative titles, and with regards to the latter, IGN reports that Konami is considering using the MGS franchise as the basis for an online game. Obviously details on these titles are very thin on the ground, but this is great news for gamers everywhere. Except, by the looks of it, Cube owners, which would be a blow for Nintendo. Related Feature - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty review

Infogrames plans to dominate E3 with an aggressive line-up comprising more games than your average high street. The highlights, for us, are Lost Toys' Battle Engine Aquila (Xbox), Civilization III: Play The World (PC), Terminator: Dawn of Fate (PS2, Xbox) and the Unreal triplets; Championship (Xbox), II: The Awakening (PC) and Tournament 2003 (PC). C&VG is reporting what looks to be the entire line-up. We continue to giggle like schoolchildren over all the great game prospects at this year's E3.

Seamus Blackley, formerly a major figure in the Microsoft Xbox project, is forming the Capital Entertainment Group with three other game industry veterans, News.com is reporting. The group will fund and supervise the development of games and then sell the finished products to publishers, much like a production company in the film industry. The company hopes to incubate "exciting, innovative ideas," co-founder Kevin Bachus - another member of the original Xbox team - told News.com. Capital will start out with a production fund of $40 million to $50 million, according to Bachus. British investment bank Durlacher is acting as a financial advisor, and not as an out-and-out investor as previously reported. The group's first deal will be to deliver two games to Sega, who publish in Japan and North America. Related Feature - Seamus Blackley speaks

In a move which means precisely nothing to us, Sega has signed an exclusive, multiyear partnership deal with American sports brand ESPN. This comes barely a fortnight after the American sports network allegedly dismantled a deal with Konami because the ESPN branded games they produced were failing to chart. Acclaim Entertainment also produced games under the ESPN banner at one stage, and no longer does for similar reasons. Echoing EA's mission statement somewhat, Sega of America President and COO Peter Moore explained that "Gamers told us they want to feel as if they're playing a broadcast game. They want to feel like they're in control of a live game." The Sega Sports 2K3 series of games forms a major part of Sega's multi-platform strategy.

PlayStation 2 now has a global installed base of 30 million units, Sony has announced. Our friends on the other side of the pond in North America have lapped up 11.3 million, while Japan and the rest of Asia accounts for 9.9 million. There are 8.8 million PlayStation 2 owners in Europe. It's nice to see the company emphasizing borders for once as opposed to marginalizing them. Earlier this year Sony announced an installed base of two million units in the United Kingdom alone, and threw a big party to celebrate. However, we were not invited, presumably because of jokes like the one above. The company claims to have sold four million units since February. Analysts speaking to Reuters are predicting 15 million sold by the year's end. Related Feature - Twenty-millionth PS2 ships

LucasArts continue their flood of new product announcements in the run-up to E3 with the unveiling of Gladius, a "turn-based action role-playing game" all about gladiators. Taking on the role of a young Roman lad or the daughter of a barbarian king from somewhere up north, you must recruit and train a team of savage warriors to fight for you in the arena, with the fighters honing their abilities as they gain combat experience. This being a role-playing game of sorts, there are naturally hundreds of skills to learn, weapons to master and accessories to buy, as well as a wide range of character classes to choose from, including everything from Imperial Legionaries to Galdr witches. In addition to the expected exhibition battles and four player co-operative bouts, the game also features an expansive story mode which will take you across the mighty Roman Empire, with each of the four regions you visit along the way bringing with it a new selection of warriors to purchase and arenas to fight in. All in all LucasArts are promising about 36 hours of gameplay for each of the two characters. Gladius is due to appear on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube some time next spring, but no doubt we'll be hearing a lot more about it come the end of the month and the ubiquitous E3 trade show in Los Angeles. Related Feature - Gladius screenshots

Work is now underway on the film adaptation of Sega's House of the Dead series, with movie rumour site Dark Horizons reporting that principal photography has just begun in Vancouver. The film, due for release next spring, is directed by Uwe Boll and stars a variety of obscure young actors we've never heard of before, with the lead role of Alicia played by a woman whose sole feature film role to date was as "Poolside Cocktail Waitress" in My 5 Wives. Which hardly inspires confidence. Meanwhile German veteran Jurgen Prochnow continues his career's downwards spiral, apparently playing a "crusty old sea captain". How's that for typecasting? On the bright side, the story was co-written by Free Enterprise scribes Mark A Altman and Dan Bates, so we do have some faint hope that it could still be worth watching. Certainly the synopsis on the movie's official website ("a band of college students go to a rave on a mysterious island and get more than they bargained for when they find themselves stalked by killer zombies and terrifying creatures intent on feasting on the flesh of the living") does suggest that it's being played for laughs. Or at least, we hope so... Related Feature - Dead Or Alive : The Movie

Hot off the back of their successful first person shooter Agent Under Fire at the tail end of last year, EA have announced that another Bond adventure is on its way from them. Promising to leave players "shaken and stirred" (oh dear), the new game will be available on PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox towards the end of the year. Titled NightFire, it again features an original storyline, rather than following the plot of the forthcoming 20th Bond movie, Die Another Day. As such you will find yourself exploring exotic locations ranging from the Austrian Alps to the South Pacific as you try to track down an evil criminal mastermind called Rafael Drake, who has cunningly disguised his organisation and its plans for world domination as a bunch of tree-hugging environmentalists. Obviously this game is going to be a big hit with Greenpeace then. As in Agent Under Fire there will be a wide range of Q department gadgets and fast cars to play with, although the driving levels (designed by the team behind the Need For Speed series) will be exclusive to the console versions of the game for some reason. To compensate, the PC version will feature a few extra pedestrian levels and "robust multi-player support". Indeed, the various versions of the game are actually being developed by two different companies, with Britain's Eurocom Entertainment handling console duties and perennial Half-Life expanders Gearbox dealing with the PC. All four versions should be out by the end of the year though, and no doubt we'll see more of them in the wake of E3 later this month. Related Feature - Agent Under Fire review

Tatooine. Bespin. Star Destroyers. Luke Skywalker. Darth Vader and his TIE Advanced. The Death Star. Twice. X-Wings. TIE Fighters. Stormtroopers. AT-ATs. R2D2. Rogue Leader is Star Wars the way you remember it. Except this time you're piloting the ships and fighting for the Rebellion, in the struggle to overcome the evil GALACTIC EMPIRE. We often compare games to movies, but from the archetypal star screen introduction right the way through to the game's monumental climax, this is the ultimate accompaniment and tribute to those three original Star Wars movies we all cherish.

EA has confirmed that NBA Street for the GameCube has been abandoned as far as Europe is concerned. After mediocre sales on the PlayStation 2, not even an audience of hardcore EA Sports BIG fans could persuade the company to continue with its original plan for the game to be a Cube release title. As it stands, barring a dramatic change of heart by the bigwigs at Electronic Arts, it will never now see the light of day in Europe. Fortunately, the PlayStation 2 version is still available, and blummin cheaply if you shop around...

Capcom Eurosoft, to give the company its proper name, has updated its release schedule to reflect the impending release of three big titles later this year. For Europe, unless the Eurosoft bit wasn't clue enough. First up is Dino Stalker, which supports the G-Con 2 and plots the course of a downed pilot on a peculiar Atlantic island packed with dinosaurs. That's now due out on PlayStation 2 on 6th September. Meanwhile, the highly anticipated GameCube edition of Resident Evil, realised with pant-browning audacity if you ask us, is now due out on 13th September. That's more than four months away. Sorry. Looking slightly further ahead, the PAL conversion of Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny on PlayStation 2 (the well known figurehead of the 'survival control/camera system' genre), is now due out on 4th October. We've heard lots of good things about Onimusha 2, and we hope that like Resident Evil on the Cube, the realisation of the rest of the game will offset the recycled features of the previous incarnation. Only time, and our solvency-defying penchant for expensive imports, can tell us otherwise.

The Lara Croft auction held by Eidos and Core Design last week has raised £4,400 for UNICEF. Dozens of bidders from around the world tried to get hold of the original Lara Croft outfit, worn by model Nell McAndrew in the late 1990's, but the eventual winner was one Paul Lai, described in Eidos' press release as "a successful international tax specialist". We're glad to hear him report that "I don't intend to wear the costume", but having won the auction his next task is apparently "to find a girlfriend with Lara's build". Good luck to him...