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JoWooD have announced that their latest management sim will be released in the UK on May 17th. Titled Hotel Giant, you should be able to guess what it's about. Over twenty different cities are included, with a range of hotels available for you to manage, from a small bed and breakfast to a giant luxury hotel. As well as hiring and firing staff and indulging in a little voyeurism by watching your guests' behaviour, you can also play at Changing Rooms by shuffling some six hundred moveable objects around to design your dream hotel. There's even a built-in website creation tool which allows you to take snapshots of your creations and show them off to other players. "Hotel Giant gives gamers the opportunity to experience what it is really like to build and manage a hotel", according to MD Vip Patel. "It combines three vital business sim gameplay elements - building, observing and managing - so that gamers can have the total experience of the hotel industry." Whatever floats your boat. Related Feature - Hotel Giant screenshots

According to a report on the amusingly named horror movie fan site Bloody-Disgusting.com, New Line Cinema have green lit a movie adaptation of the chilling horror game series Silent Hill. "We know what fans you all are of this game and we know it is crucial that we get it right, and that is what we intend to do", production company Dark Aura Entertainment are quoted as saying. "We believe that this will be a revolutionary film for two genres - the film based on video games and more importantly the modern horror film." At least in this case they have a decent foundation to work from; last year's PlayStation 2 release Silent Hill 2 was one of the scariest games in living memory, and sported a solid storyline and involving characters to boot. A far cry from some of the plot-free pap that is being turned into films these days - Crazy Taxi, anyone? Further details are scant at this early stage, but no doubt we'll hear more once it goes into full production. Related Feature - Silent Hill 2 review

Following on from the release of Final Fantasy VI in Europe, Square has announced plans to bring the PSone versions of IV and V to these shores. The GIA speculates that the two may arrive in the same package, but we're not going to get our hopes up this time. As reported elsewhere, FFXII is due to finish development in 2003. Related Feature - Final Fantasy Tactics 'remixed'

This week's issue of Famitsu in Japan features an interview with Square producer Yasumi Matsuno, transcribed by avid fans as usual and shown to reveal details of the upcoming GBA version of Final Fantasy Tactics. Matsuno-san will oversee the GBA version of the game, which he directed on the PlayStation, and at about 30% complete the producer is speaking of a "remix" rather than a straight port. Although the game is not meant to be a true successor to the original game, nor a continuation, it will include elements in "a new arrangement". Matsuno-san also let slip in the interview that Square may be collaborating with his former employer Quest, and The GIA speculates that this could be to do with the Ogre Battle Saga he began during his time there. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XII is due to finish development sometime in 2003. Related Feature - Sony questions Square

Although Pitfall and Earthworm Jim taught us to be sceptical of 16-bit GBA ports, the news of THQ and Sega's GBA alliance this morning is enough to have us fairly cheery. Sega plans to bring a Phantasy Star Collection comprising the first three games in the series to the GBA in early 2003, and the larger Phantasy Star IV may eventually materialise as a separate release. Further products of the Sega/THQ GBA publishing alliance will include staff favourites Super Monkey Ball and Crazy Taxi, pencilled in for early 2003, along with Virtua Tennis, which is expected slightly sooner in the tail end of 2002. Those of you not yet versed in the delights of Super Monkey Ball would do well to check out this rudimentary flash version of the game to get in the mood. Related Feature - Super Monkey Ball GameCube preview

Tony Hawk's back. This time he's popped his head up on the Xbox, and this new version of the game has been upgraded here and there to give Tony Hawk fans a little more incentive to check it out than the Cube version released in the States last year. Tony's third game makes several departures from its predecessor and also features a collection of new tracks and of course an array of real skaters to choose from including the eponymous Hawkster himself, each equipped with an arsenal of signature moves. The graphics have received their seasonal update, but the touch of sparkle promised Xbox owners is absent. Grass was meant to become more than a mere texture, swaying slightly in the wind as you skated past it, but apparently (despite stealing a few seconds of film on a recent Xbox mag coverdisk) it was cut to keep the frame rate up. Regardless, as with the PS2 and Cube versions, each of the skaters is superbly drawn, modelled and animated, and the tracks are full of neat visual effects and intricately detailed. Virtually every edge can be used to grind with plenty of jumps and half pipes and of course all the usual level goals - collecting S-K-A-T-E, the secret tape and racking up high scores. Themed goals feature prominently too, with skaters racing to take out a handful of pickpockets in the Airport, and squashing pumpkins in Suburbia. Tricks are as easy to perform as ever, and the control system maps surprisingly well to the Xbox controller, although I reckon Controller S with its spaced out diamond will be a better bet. The tutorial (including Tony's cringeworthy voiceover) clears up all the important stuff for beginners, and instructions for performing the big tricks can be accessed in-game and assigned to different button combinations. With each level the high score goals become harder to attain, but thanks to the skill points scattered throughout each level you can upgrade your skater's abilities before it becomes a problem, from ollying and grinding to grabs and catching air, and these attributes make a big difference to the outcome of each two minute run.

Microsoft dubbed March 13th Xmas Eve in honour of the arrival of the Xbox in Europe. By our reckoning, that makes tonight Twelfth Night. So is it time to start pulling down the decorations already, or has the Xbox yet to show its true potential?

THQ has revealed that there will be more than meets the eye to their motorbike racing game Moto GP when it arrives on PC and Xbox. Not satisfied with producing glorious graphics for the game, the developers at Climax have decided to add a few bizarre little easter eggs of their own for players to unlock, in the form of several hidden brain-melting visual effects modes. Yes, you too can now imitate your favourite A-ha music video (what do you mean you don't like A-ha?) and drive around at high speed looking like something out of a sketch book, or examine all those gorgeous polygons in more detail thanks to a wireframe view. There are also some modes which can only be described as hallucinatory, including what looks like a "hot wax" effect, gaudy colour filters, and eye-destroying over-use of the game's motion blur effect. Expect a sharp increase in the number of Xboxes being returned as faulty by confused punters come June. Related Feature - Moto GP Xbox screenshots

Cossacks developers GSC Game World have unveiled their latest game - a first person shooter named FireStarter. Nothing to do with the Prodigy song, or the Stephen King horror movie of the same name for that matter, it drops you into a futuristic virtual reality game which has been infected by a virus. Now you're trapped inside the machine and must complete the game within 48 hours to escape. Damn script kiddies. Along the way you will face objectives ranging from simply surviving for a given time to eliminating a target or blowing up a device. As you would expect, the game will feature a range of monsters, from demonic and parasitic creatures to more technologically inclined creatures, as well as a wide selection of big guns to shoot them with. And if you get bored of blowing up the AI, there's always the eight player online and LAN support to sink your teeth into. No great surprises so far then. What could set the game apart from the crowd though is the choice of five different characters - including soldier, agent and gangster - which you are offered at the beginning of the game, along with some RPG lite elements which will allow you to spend the points you earn from killing monsters and completing objectives on boosting the skills of your character. With the game expected to be available late this year or early next, we should know more soon. In the meantime we have a selection of not tremendously impressive looking screenshots of the game for your viewing pleasure, and more details can be found on the official website. We can only hope that this one works out better than the horribly flawed Codename Outbreak, GSC's last attempt at a first person shooter... Related Feature - FireStarter screenshots

Infogrames and Pipeworks Studios will be bringing some of Japan's biggest movie stars to life on the GameCube this autumn, with the release of Godzilla : Destroy All Monsters Melee. The over-sized beat 'em up will feature fourteen Japanese monster movie favourites such as Mothra and King Ghidora, as well as Godzilla himself, who will be appearing in a variety of different guises, from the new design seen in the recent Godzilla 2000 through to a mecha version of the halitosis-afflicted hundred foot tall creature. And in keeping with the movies, you will find yourself towering over Tokyo as well as taking on Seattle, San Francisco and Monster Island. Office blocks, construction sites and tiny houses will all be fully destructible, and you can even pick up debris and lob it at your opponent as people desperately try to escape the mayhem in their cars. On the gameplay front, Godzilla Melee will feature the now standard versus mode (one to four players battling it out mano a mano), survival mode (keep battling until you drop) and story mode (although let's face it, Japanese monster movies aren't exactly renowned for their deep plotting and involved dialogue). There will also be a practice mode, allowing you to stomp around the cities collecting power-ups and honing your skills, and a destruction mode, which sets you loose in a city to cause as much damage as possible within the allotted time. All in all it sounds like it could be a (radioactive) blast, and the early screenshots are certainly quite impressive as GameCube graphics go. Expect Godzilla to land in Europe some time this autumn. Related Feature - Godzilla screenshots

Nintendo made several key announcements yesterday concerning release dates. Concerning the slippage of Star Fox Adventures, Nintendo has confirmed that the game will not be with us until the autumn. However, the company went on to appease fans with news that Super Mario Sunshine is due out on 26th August. Furthermore, the company plans to release a 2Mb memory card solution to rival third party peripherals. Memory Card 251 will be released on 24th June alongside Eternal Darkness : Sanity's Requiem, which finally makes its debut, and the long awaited wireless Wave Bird controller, which will retail for $39.95. No European dates were discussed, but it stands to reason that all four items will arrive in time for Christmas. Related Feature - Eternal Darkness : Sanity's Requiem preview

A new insect menace is emerging from the wilds of Norfolk, where Prey Digital Studios are hard at work genetically splicing insect DNA into the first person shooter genre. Enter Stung!, an action game where you take on the role of a tiny fly with an itchy finger. Apparently a horde of vengeful genetically engineered insects have escaped from a top secret Ministry of Defence research center which was (ahem) mothballed at the end of the Cold War. Now the MOD have decided that the best way to contain this angry swarm is to revive another insect warrior prototype to fight them. That would be you then. Along the way you will get to battle a wide range of heavily armed bugs and creepy crawlies, while facing lethal obstacles such as flypaper, steaming kettles, spider webs and bug spray. Stung! will also feature full multiplayer support, with a mixture of deathmatch and teamplay modes, all with an insect slant. For example, Capture The Flea awards you points for holding on to the eponymous creature, while Protect The Queen tasks you with defending a queen ant against your opponents as they try to break into your nest. There's no word yet on when the game will be released, and the developers are still looking for a pubisher. What we do know is that PC and next generation console versions are on the way, and it all looks very, very odd... Related Feature - Stung! screenshots

Ubi Soft has announced that four bundles of gaming goodness will be out on Good Friday. Everquest Gold Edition will include the hit massively multiplayer game and all three expansion packs released to date - Ruins of Kunark, Scars of Velious and Shadows of Luclin - in a single convenient box for 30 platinum pieces (or pounds sterling, if you don't have any Norrath currency lying around). Myst Trilogy follows much the same pattern, featuring the second best selling PC game of all time, Myst, along with its sequels Riven and Myst III : Exile for £35. Next up is the Worms Battle Pack, allowing early birds to catch Worms 2, Worms Armageddon and Worms World Party for just £20. Finally, the odd man out is the bizarrely named RTS Trilogy bundle, which includes three completely different and utterly unrelated games - Battle Realms, Settlers IV and Shogun Total War - one of which wasn't even published by Ubi Soft. We're not quite sure what the logic is behind this one, but at £30 it's good value for money if you missed the games first time round and like your real-time strategy.

Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive have confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 3 will be released on the PC platform in May 2002. Rockstar president Sam Houser was quoted as saying "We look forward to building on the astronomical success of 'Grand Theft Auto 3'," apparently by porting it to other platforms and selling it all over again. The Rockstar Studios (née DMA Design) developed game sold more than four million copies worldwide during its first five months on the PlayStation 2, and PC owners have been crying out for it ever since. Fan sites litter the web and message boards and mailing lists titter with gossip to combat the suspense, which for them at least is now over. Grand Theft Auto 3 is being released for the PC, in just over a month… Related Feature - Grand Theft Auto 3 PlayStation 2 review

Cube fans awaiting details on their potentially spectacular remake of Resident Evil may be in luck. The game is set to launch in North America on 30th April, although Capcom has yet to formally announce it.

Last week Microsoft issued a press release commenting on the European Xbox launch, although we are still waiting for the company to boast about its official sales figures. But this morning we learnt that in a recent interview, Britney Spears did indeed comment on her boyfriend Justin Timberlake's new-found addiction to Xbox, explaining that "The whole time we're together, all he does is play on it. I feel he loves that thing more than me." Reluctant though we are to perpetuate the myth of an Xbox PR with basis in fact, it does seem we were a little harsh to dismiss it completely last week. That said; two things do occur to this writer as he sits, tapping away nonchalantly this Monday morning. Firstly, who honestly cares? And moreover, if it's watertight, why is it that this nugget of information - and the item about the word 'Xbox' entering our vocabularies - ripped out of the press release before it hit the newswires? Related Feature - Xbox European launch a success [sic]

Like the Xbox itself, the title Project Gotham comes from Bizarre Creations' original codename for the project. In short, it's nothing to do with Batman. Both titles stuck though, and so here I am reviewing Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox. Silly names aside, this is a remarkably good driving game built on the foundations of the Dreamcast's lovable Metropolis Street Racer, and so apart from being one of the console's most promising titles, it's also the quasi-sequel to a game we all bought and cherished. It has a lot to live up to. Fortunately for Bizarre and Microsoft, punters won't be disappointed with the work that has gone into Project Gotham Racing. The game offers several driving modes, several garages worth of licensed vehicles and a series of circuits based on London, Tokyo, San Francisco and New York. It does so in style too, with a glitzy interface, painstakingly detailed graphics and a richly diverse soundtrack of popular tunes from all over the world. After creating your own driver, with customisable name, license plate text and helmet details, you can dive into the Quick Race mode to get a grounding in what makes Project Gotham tick. At first you can only race the four easiest tracks, fighting to beat off the competition in a series of fairly simple races, before moving up to the medium, hard and very hard difficulty levels, which do exactly what they say on the tin. Although this and the Arcade Race mode with its Kudos-based scoring system touch on the underlying reward structure of the game though, it's not until players sample the Kudos Challenge mode that it all becomes clear.

Rage Software's highly anticipated "Crash!" has been renamed for the American market, due to the popularity of the similar-sounding Crash Bandicoot series. Yank publisher Majesco and developer Rage have gotten together and decided on something more appropriate, but unfortunately it lacks a lot of the onomatopoeic incisiveness of its predecessor. The game is still expected to carry the "Crash" moniker in Europe. "Totaled!" as its now known will arrive this summer. Related Feature - Interview with Steve Pritchard of Rage

Dolby Laboratories launched its Pro Logic II technology for PlayStation 2 from the floor of the GDC, allowing developers to supply five-channel sound as a two-channel stereo audio signal before decoding it using a Dolby Surround Pro Logic II decoder. The report on Al Bawaba (not one of our usual haunts admittedly) claims that the advantages of Pro Logic II in game applications include minimal latency, full frequency range, compatibility with existing cables and backwards compatibility with mono, stereo and legacy Dolby Surround Pro Logic equipment.

Sony is a bit miffed at Squaresoft's decision to develop for Nintendo systems. The GameCube at least. Speaking on the subject, a Sony spokesman told reporters that the company "welcomes the fact that Square plans to expand profits by supporting the GameBoy Advance," before adding that Sony "questioned any plans to develop Final Fantasy titles for GameCube". Sony's expensive stake in Squaresoft had been expected to bind the high profile RPG series to its consoles for the foreseeable future. Related Feature - Nintendo and Square reunited

Handheld technologies are responsible for physical mutation in the under-25s according to a drastic-sounding new survey quoted by The Observer yesterday. The study conducted by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at Warwick University shows how youngsters in nine cities around the world are now the proud owners of overly muscled and dexterous thumbs, a physical anomaly which the report claims is caused by the regular use of mobile phones, GameBoys and computers.

Fans of Sony's car combat spectacular Twisted Metal : Black will be pleased to learn that the game was recently demonstrated running in multiplayer at the Game Developers Conference. Using the suburbs level and playing exactly like the original game, the demo linked three PlayStation 2 units together via a server in San Diego, California, thus demonstrating the online facility. GameSpot, reporting on the GDC, said that TMB Online retains the original's fast pace and smooth frame rate. Sony has mentioned in the past its intention to replace existing versions of PS2 software with online-enabled equivalents, but it is unknown whether or not TMB Online will ever materialise on store shelves. Related Feature - Twisted Metal : Black review

Many publishers have taken a sceptical approach to developing for the Xbox, and that's probably why Capcom's first major European release for the new console is a port of one of their biggest PlayStation 2 sellers of last year, Onimusha. Genma is little more than a solid revamp of the original PS2 version, which was an impressive but critically ineffectual action game. As the story begins we find sword-wielding Samanosuke determined to cut his way through the ogres and demons of mystical Feudal Japan in search of the kidnapped Princess Yuki. In the process he meets up with a bounteous ninjaress by the name of Kaede, and the quest continues with her pitching in to a certain extent. When it first came out it was noteworthy more because of its expensive and elaborate use of CG videos than for the actual gameplay, and although Genma Onimusha's cinematics are impressive, nine months on we're more than used to this kind of thing, with Metal Gear Solid 2 and a number of other big titles more than matching Capcom's prowess with the camera. Onimusha is also starting to show its age outside of those video sequences. The game is played from the usual horror survival style fixed cameras, with characters moving around pre-rendered areas. These environments, beautifully drawn and painstakingly brought to life, effectively drive Samanosuke and Kaede down a straight and often narrow path through swarms of demons and cutscenes. The swordplay along the way grows progressively more exciting, thanks to frequent upgrades and powerful attacks, but the game is marred by the two areas I always find myself criticizing when it comes to Capcom action games: controls and camera. Like Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and the original Onimusha, Genma's control system fights the player at every turn. The analogue stick isn't often my first choice for this type of game, but Genma's total lack of analogue support left me stuck with my least favourite aspect of the Xbox controller, the d-pad. It sat there, grinning at me. The painful experience of having to use the derisive d-pad was only accentuated by the characters' slow turning speed, and having a 180 degree spin bound to black, the least accessible of all the buttons, didn't help matters much. Getting Samanosuke facing in the right direction to deflect blows is hard enough, but action sequences are often made unnecessarily difficult due to the game switching between camera views, leaving you struggling to readjust. Luckily Samanosuke's blows make easy contact from the slightest of angles, and most demons hit the deck before the end of his three-thrust action. But to say that the result of nine months' conversion process is a disappointment would be an understatement.

Mafia has apparently become the latest Take 2 game to run into controversy, with Italian police trying to block its release in the homeland of organised crime. The game's Italian distributor Cidiverte commented that "the game is aimed at adults, who should be capable of distinguishing between reality and fiction", but Italian police and politicians were less forgiving. "I'll do anything I can to ban the sale of the game in Italy", Roberto Centaro, president of the police's anti-mafia unit, is quoted as telling an Italian newspaper. "This is an instruction book for wannabe Mafiosi", Roberto added, ironically quoting almost verbatim from a marketing blurb for the game. Indeed, developers Illusion Softworks told the Prague Business Journal that "Italian politicians are providing us with excellent advertising, surely worth millions". Assuming that the police fail to get Mafia banned, the controversy is sure to make it an even bigger hit in Italy than it would have been anyway. Related Feature - Mafia preview

When I reviewed the original PC version of Max Payne last summer, I ended by saying that "maybe, just maybe" it was worth going through the pain a second time. Well, eight months later I've finally got around to playing through the game again, but this time round it was on an Xbox. Max Payne could almost have been made with the Xbox in mind. A triumph of style over substance with gorgeous graphics shown off to maximum effect thanks to the introduction of Matrix-style bullet time™ sequences, it was a fun but ultimately shallow and at times frustrating action game. The bad news is that the recently released Xbox version of the game is a half-hearted affair, a virtually straight port which fails to correct any of Max's shortcomings while adding a couple of new problems all of its own. As before you step into the boots of one of New York's finest, a bizarrely named undercover agent for the DEA caught in a web of double crosses, drug dealing mobsters and sinister corporations. Within the first hour the game has run through almost every cliché of Hong Kong cinema and classic Film Noir; Max is now on his own, seeking revenge for the death of his wife and child, with both the police and the mafia on his tail.

Microsoft's lead developer for the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, Pete Isensee, used his slot at the GDC to chat about the Xbox's journey to the market. "We didn't have a choice with Xbox. If we didn't get it right with version one, Sony and Nintendo would eat us alive," he was quoted as saying. Later on, he chatted about international issues that face the Xbox. "There is a perception we didn't know what we were doing when it came to the controller," he confessed. "What we failed to do is a usability test for a global market. You need to do that, because things that work in the U.S. don't always work in Japan or Europe." One amusing anecdote concerned the German market. The Xbox start-up screen actually had to be redesigned for Europe, in order that the German "einstellungen" could fit the same space as "settings". Given how few Xboxen flew off the shelves in Deutschland, never let it be said Microsoft don't pander to minorities. Related Feature - Xbox 2 'designed with AMD processor'

Sony Computer Entertainment is focusing its PlayStation 3 research efforts on distributed computing, according to CTO Shin'ichi Okamoto. Using distributed computing would allow PS3 to spread the burden of computational tasks across networked computers. Distributed computing is best known for its application in worldwide bug hunts like SETI@Home. At the ongoing Game Developers Conference (GDC), Okamoto-san told the huddled industry masses that game developers would like to have a thousand times the processing power of PlayStation 2, but that there is no way to achieve that purely through hardware advances. Referring to Moore's Law (truism which argues that semiconductor power doubles roughly every 18 months), he told onlookers that Sony "can't wait 20 years" to achieve its goals. "Maybe the PlayStation 6 or 7 will be based on biotechnology," he was also reported as saying. Sony is working with IBM to apply the latter's "grid computing" research to the next PlayStation console.

Microsoft engineers are busy designing the second version of Xbox around an AMD CPU, according to Fechtor Detwiler, the Boston-based investment bank. Their channel checkers picked up this tidbit, and say that Intel won't be able to snatch and grab the contract as easily as it did first time around. "One of the primary reasons for the selection we understand," the firm says in a research note, "was the close relationship of Microsoft with Nvidia. We were told that Intel's strategy of combining graphics capability with processor function on the same device left Microsoft with fears that they would lose the ability to provide enhanced video features offered Nvidia or potentially others." Hmm. As Fechtor Detwiler points out this would be an "impressive win for AMD and a noteworthy loss for Intel". But the reasoning looks a little suspect; granted Nvidia and AMD are bosom buddies, and granted that Nvidia and Microsoft are new best friends, with plans to jointly dominate digital entertainment in the home till Kingdom come. But would Intel really jeopardise an important gig like X-Box for the sake of integrating graphics onto its CPUs? More to the point, does Microsoft really think Intel would jeopardise the gig? First time around with XBox, Intel won the deal because it underbid AMD at the death. By dallying with AMD, MS is simply keeping Chipzilla on its toes. There is still everything to play for.

LucasArts has announced that it will be bringing a version of its upcoming Star Wars Bounty Hunter release to the GameCube later this year. The game is based on the events of Episode I and II, and lets players take up the role of Jango Fett as he travels through the seedy underbelly of the Republic, trying to capture the leader of an evil cult. The game will be played from the third person perspective, and the emphasis is said to be on "intense combat". The story will concern Fett's past, a subject with which those brought up on the films will have no real experience. Fett's arsenal sounds deadly, with blasters, a flamethrower and missiles at the player's disposal, and of course the ubiquitous jetpack, which we will have to wait for the film to see. One of the most interesting things about the Bounty Hunter project is that LucasArts' sister companies Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound are also said to be contributing, to the cinematics and sound effects respectively. Meanwhile, American gamers will find a teaser trailer for the new game bundled onto the end of the new Jedi Starfighter PlayStation 2 release. Related Feature - Star Wars : Rogue Leader GameCube preview

Microsoft have just announced that the first ever console game based on the BattleTech franchise is under construction at Day 1 Studios. The game, titled MechAssault, will be an Xbox exclusive third person action game, with both a full single player campaign and a range of online multiplayer modes, taking advantage of the Xbox's built-in network adapter. Players will be able to take control of a dozen different mechs and rampage their way through a world of fully deformable scenery, where "everything can be destroyed bit by bit". Microsoft Games marketing director Pete Parsons proclaimed that "we are going to blow action gamers' minds when they unleash the massive firepower and military strength of MechAssault". What he didn't say is when this mind blowing will be taking place, but given the inclusion of multiplayer support it certainly won't be until late this year at the earliest.