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CenturionSoft will be publishing a bizarre Scandinavian adventure game called Zelenhgorm at the end of August. Mixing Cryo-style 360 degree rotatable pre-rendered locations and over 140 real actors who have been digitized into the game, it's certainly lovely to look at. As for the gameplay, we've been playing with a beta version for the last couple of days and at this stage the best description we can give you is .. odd. It seems that you play Arrikk Vaheirr, a young man who was viewed with some suspicion by his neighbours, even before a mysterious ship appeared moored outside the back of his house. So far we've been labelled a southpaw magician, accused of bringing ruin to the village, and been locked in the stocks overnight on account of our bushy eyebrows. And we've only just got started. Well, we told you it was odd. Fans of good old fashioned point and click adventure games can look forward to the arrival of the first episode of Zelenhgorm (titled, appropriately enough, The Great Ship) at the end of the month. We'll be bringing you a full preview just as soon as we've worked out what the heck is going on, but in the meantime these exclusive screenshots snapped from the beta should give you some idea of the weirdness awaiting you. Related Feature - Zelenhgorm screenshots

After what seems like an eternity of waiting, gamers should finally be able to get their hands on the hotly tipped Mafia at the end of this month. In true epic gangster movie style, the game tracks several years in the life of a young taxi driver who gets involved in the mob and soon finds himself rising through their ranks in a fictional 1930's American town. Along the way you get to carry out hits, drive getaway cars and take part in a brutal baseball bat fight, with a mixture of on-foot and in-vehicle missions. A kind of Grand Theft Auto 3 for wiseguys, if you like, but with a more structured single player campaign and storyline. When we saw the game in action last November it was already looking very promising, and since then things seem to have only got better. The latest batch of screenshots taken from the game are absolutely gorgeous, showing both vast sprawling outdoors scenes and detailed interiors, while a brief half minute TV advert has also been released to give you a sense of what the game will look like in motion. Included are a number of short clips from cutscenes (most of them in-game by the looks of things) as well as some actual gameplay, with the player going wheel to wheel with rival gangsters on the streets and driving an old fashioned car around a race track. The ad can currently be download in MPEG format from Take 2 Germany. Related Feature - Mafia screenshots

It's about a year now since Californian developers Reflexive released the excellent isometric actioneer Zax: The Alien Hunter. With work now nearing completion on their latest project, an alternate history role-playing game called Lionheart, we caught up with lead designer Ion Hardie.

The Men In Black have returned this summer, but if you've seen the trailers, you've seen most of the film's best bits. Likewise, if there were a playable demo of the first level of Men In Black II: Alien Escape, then I would be able to tell you the same thing about the game. Infogrames' movie cash-in is just that, and it's a poor, by-the-numbers cash-in, which reminds me of trash like Time Cop from the 16-bit days. Back then you walked along left to right, pasting down the fire button and ducking to avoid being shot. In MIB2, you wander around in circles shooting aliens, upgrade your weapons and then do the same thing again. This practice continues for more than twenty levels, and it's twaddle.

LucasArts has released a trailer promoting its forthcoming third-person action epic RTX Red Rock, a game made all the more interesting because it isn't based on a Star Wars film. Due out early next year on PlayStation 2 and GameCube, RTX is a typical science fiction adventure about a one man army's attempts to reclaim the vital Red Rock colony from aggressors on Mars.

When it was revealed at E3, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball quickened the pulses of countless journalists sick of staring into the abyss of tedious sequels and revamps, and when the first videos of the game filtered onto the web, it gave one-handed surfers a new reason to consider an Xbox purchase.

Word has emerged from the Tribes Council event in America that Tribes: Fast Attack has been cancelled, just four months after it was first announced. Originally the plan had been to release Fast Attack as a stand-alone game for the PC, featuring a proper single player campaign, new multiplayer maps, redesigned vehicles and tweaked gameplay to make it work better with small teams. The new game was being developed by the same team responsible for the PlayStation 2 entry in the series, Tribes: Aerial Assault, and would have shared its single player campaign with the console release. Unfortunately it seems that things didn't quite go to plan, with American site HomeLan Fed reporting Sierra's Tribes project manager as saying that the single player campaign was too similar to the single player mode found in the original Tribes 2, and not at all what they were after. Whoops. Fans of the Tribes series will no doubt be suffering deja vu at this point, as a planned single player spin-off based on the original Tribes (to be titled Tribes Extreme) was canned under eerily similar circumstances at the end of 1999. Again, problems with the single player campaign were blamed for the decision. With Fast Attack dropping off the radar, Sierra will now re-release Tribes 2 at bargain bin price with several new maps, revamped versions of ten popular Tribes 1 maps, a pair of new mods ganked from Fast Attack, and a patch developed by Tribes veterans Garage Games. Those of you who already own Tribes 2 will be able to download the additional content for free. Related Feature - Tribes Extreme or not...

Drakan: The Ancient Gates is a cautionary tale courtesy of Sony Computer Entertainment, directed at budding quality assurance types. Don't join us, it says, or one day, you might be involved in something like this. Despite a lot of people's best efforts, this third person adventure is too bug-ridden and sloppy to be enjoyable. I've been waiting for this game for what seems like years [you have been waiting for years, actually -Ed], and after all that, it's a buggy, poorly executed blooper. For a start, I find myself questioning the system requirements. A sticker on the front warns that you must own a memory card to play this game, and fair enough, that's a given these days anyway, but each save consumes 1.5Mb of space (at the speed of your average glacier, too), and you'll be needing at least two of them in case the game glitches you into an untenable position and you have to resume from an earlier save, and it does that a lot. The first time I loaded the game up, it crashed trying to load the first gameplay sequence after the opening cutscenes.

Multiplayer support has always been an important part of the Delta Force series, and the latest entry in the franchise (Black Hawk Down) is apparently no exception. Accordingly Novalogic have released a multiplayer test version of the game, which will give players a chance to try out one of the deathmatch missions from the game, and Novalogic a chance to make sure that everything works properly out of the box when the full game is released later this year. Both internet and LAN play are supported in the demo, with up to 16 players in a single server, or 32 for games hosted by Novalogic themselves. There are two pieces of bad news though. Firstly, the demo version will expire on Friday 16th August, just two weeks from now, although a proper demo version should be available some time after that. Secondly, the game engine hasn't been fully optimized yet, so Novalogic are recommending that you have a 1.2GHz CPU, 256Mb of RAM and a GeForce 3 or equivalent graphics card to get the most out of the multiplayer test. Ouch. If you have the hardware to handle it and fancy taking an early build of the game for a spin though, you can now download the 47Mb Black Hawk Down demo right here on EuroGamer, courtesy of our friends at the blueyonder multiplayer gaming service. More details can be found on the official beta website. Related Feature - Novalogic announces Black Hawk Down

I'm standing in a street. In any other game, I might say that I'm alone, but the world of Enclave is far from barren. Ahead of me are some steps leading up to a wooden double-door, flanked on both sides by marble pillars, with the partially-shredded standard of some otherworldly tribe draped across the top of it. I think I can see life on the battlements far above, but I can't be sure. To my right, the familiar sight of barrels creeps into view, but above it the wooden framework of a building juts out from the beautifully detailed masonry, and beyond that sits a withered tree, the incandescent light from several torches illuminating its contours and the crumbled pavement just in front of it. The whole scene is bathed in the eerie blue of nightfall, with shadows growing steadily darker the further up the stony walls they creep.

Falling firmly in the "strange but true" category, new Swedish developers Rock Solid Studios have announced that they are working on a videogame adaptation of Tremors, the cult tongue-in-cheek horror movie series. Following the formula laid down by the films, the game will be a third person action-adventure affair in which players must explore the desert around the town of Gold Rock, which is under attack by the giant burrowing worm-like creatures known as Graboids. Few (rock) solid details are available at this early stage, but the Swedes are promising a combination of an immersive storyline, plenty of surprises, and high-octane action. All of this should be coming to PC, PS2, GameCube and Xbox towards the end of next year, with more information expected to surface over the next few months.

In an interview with movie site The Arrow, director Paul Anderson has let slip some more details on what Resident Evil fans can expect from the second film. As we've reported in the past, the sequel will be subtitled Nemesis and as such is loosely based on the eponymous third game, with Paul promising "more of a fully loaded action movie" this time round. "Where the first one was sort of claustrophobic horror, Nemesis will be a lot more expansive. Nemesis will take place in one night in Raccoon City after it's been overrun with the undead. You have a group of survivors fighting for their lives and trying to get out of the city." And as one of the more entertaining (not to mention profitable) videogame movie adaptations to date, it's perhaps no surprise that the Resident Evil film franchise could continue beyond Nemesis to become a fully fledged trilogy. "I've got the idea for the three movies mapped out already", Paul told The Arrow. "They were always in the back of my mind. Now that the first movie did the business it did, the trilogy might become a reality." Related Feature - Jill Valentine meets Milla Jovovich?

THQ will be debuting their latest motocross game, MX Superfly, at the Have A Go Show at Newnham Park near Plymouth next weekend. Visitors will be able to try out a demo build of the PlayStation 2 version for themselves, and THQ will also be sponsoring the event's Freestyle Motocross arena, where punters can watch some of the country's craziest riders doing silly things on motorbikes. More details of the show can be found on the Have A Go Website. Fans of the MX series may want to make the most of this opportunity, as the game's planned simultaneous release on all three console platforms this September has been delayed, with PS2 and GameCube versions now due on October 4th and the Xbox version to follow some time in November...

Midway are teaming up with Oscar-winning special effects company Stan Winston Studio to produce the imaginatively titled AREA 51. The game will see players probing the mystery of the eponymous "secret" base in Nevada, which is reputed to house the remains of crashed flying saucers and their occupants. Apparently this highly creative scenario has been cobbled together by a "professional military sci-fi scriptwriter", although Midway aren't naming names. What we do know is that you will get to indulge in both sniping and hand-to-hand combat along the way, with alien creatures to be designed by Stan and the boys. It's a task they're no stranger to, having contributed special effects, animatronics and make-up for movies such as Aliens, Galaxy Quest, Predator and Interview With The Vampire. AREA 51 is already being described by Midway as "sure to be a blockbuster title", but there's a long way to go yet. The game is expected to surface some time in 2004, with PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox versions all planned.

The Western world seems to experience an almost seasonal obsession with everything superhero, and you'd be hard pressed not to notice the enormous success of the new Spider-Man movie and all its associated merchandise at the start of the summer. It proves that the utterly fantastical powers of a supposedly everyday civilian versus an evil threat of some sort is still a highly profitable idea, and Irrational Games appear fully aware of this, having put a good couple of years work behind their comic book opus Freedom Force.

I should start by pointing out that, despite its numerous flaws, Slam Tennis is still the best of the PlayStation 2's current crop of tennis titles. It's just that compared to the likes of Virtua Tennis, it's complete pish. After a few rounds of Slam Tennis you'll be moaning about awkward player behaviour, pitiful diving motions, overly complicated serving systems, ridiculous "super shots" which ultimately decide every point, the way the ball heads towards your opponent no matter which way you hit it, and the fact that ninety percent of the time you can barely see the ball anyway, because in motion it's hard to pick out from the court surface. All in all, bestowing the accolade of best PS2 tennis title on Slam Tennis is a pretty harsh indictment of the rest of the genre.

Xbox owners looking forward to the arrival of the one and only Buffy will have to wait a little longer, as EA's planned August release for the game has recently been pushed back to Friday 13th September. Which may or may not prove to be unlucky for some. This is just the latest in a long line of missed release dates for the game, but reports suggest that the world's best loved vampire hunter should be well worth the wait. While you sharpen your stakes in anticipation, why not check out the latest batch of eye candy to issue forth from EA and The Collective? Related Feature - Buffy screenshots

GameForms is reporting (by way of the similarly named GameFront) that Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has unveiled his first Nintendo title since the original Metal Gear NES games. Little is known about Eclipse, but in a press pack released at the Game Giant fair in France, Kojima-san himself described it as a family affair, telling the story of a son trying to eclipse his father's legacy.

The summer lull is in full effect this week, with only the GameBoy Advance and PlayStation 2 getting any new releases whatsoever, and most of the fresh arrivals on store shelves consisting of budget re-releases for the latter. The highlight of the week is undoubtedly Acclaim's Aggressive Inline, touted as the world's first inline skating game for the latest generation of consoles. While generally the arrival of any extreme sports game without the magic words "Tony Hawk" in the title is met with derision and scepticism, Aggressive Inline is actually very good. We'll have a full review for you next week, but early opinions are certainly positive. Otherwise we're in tumbleweed territory when it comes to new games. The PlayStation 2 gets a port of the entertaining (if rather short) Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and the beautiful game turned plastic in the form of LEGO Football Mania. There's also Slam Tennis, but we really wouldn't recommend buying it (wait for our quick take review later today to find out why). On the GameBoy Advance there's the quirky first person boxing game Punch Kings from Acclaim, a handheld version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf, and a couple of Medabots games from Ubi Soft, based on the TV series of the same name. Which may mean more to you than it does to us. Meanwhile the one real gem amongst the budget releases today is the PlayStation 2 Platinum version of the original SSX, now yours for under £20. New Releases - Cube No new releases GBA Medabots Type A - Metabee Medabots Type A - Rokusho Punch Kings Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf PC No new releases PSX No new releases PS2 Aggressive Inline Lego Football Mania Slam Tennis Star Trek Voyager Elite Force Budget - Army Men Sarges Heroes Budget - FIFA 2001 Budget - International Cue Club Budget - SSX Budget - Warriors of Might and Magic Xbox No new releases Related Feature - UK Release Date List

When John Romero (he of Daikatana fame, kids) decided to focus on diminutive PDA releases and formed Monkeystone Games, there seemed some hope that he would return to his roots and produce software grounded entirely in the golden embrace of pure gameplay. Whether or not you played the company's first release, Hyperspace Delivery Boy, the team behind it is unquestionably talented, and the news that the adventures of delivery boy Guy Carrington will be appearing on GameBoy Advance in the near future should be reason enough to celebrate. So far the game has been announced in the US, to be published by Majesco, but we don't have any European release information just now. Which is either a blessing or a curse, depending on your view of the man Romero and his art. Related Feature - Daikatana review (PC)

Playmore, owners of SNK assets and the company behind forthcoming King of Fighters 2000 and 2001 Dreamcast and PS2 releases in Japan amongst other things, has added a mysterious new title called Metal Slug Survival Mission to its release schedule. MSSM will be a GBA title, but apart from that, literally nothing is known about it. Hopefully it will take slightly less time to make it to market than its PSone counterpart Metal Slug X, which is still waiting for release, despite having been finished for months. Related Feature - Metal Slug X review (PSone)

As we said in our review of the game yesterday, the features which really make Neverwinter Nights stand out from the role-playing crowd are its easy-to-use editor and large-scale multiplayer support, allowing people to create entire new worlds for fellow gamers to explore. That's exactly what EuroGamer has been doing for the last couple of weeks, and today we are happy to announce the opening of our very own persistent world Neverwinter Nights server, running an exclusive custom module hand crafted by editor-in-chief John "Gestalt" Bye. The module is currently restricted to the frontier town of Northbridge, which includes a keep, a temple, a store, and .. er .. some sewers. If you hunt around you'll find a quest to carry out and some rather unusual characters to talk to, or you could just decamp to the local tavern, the Traveller's Tail, for a cheap beer and a natter with your friends. If you want to find out more about the module before you take the plunge, why not read the first issue of our Northbridge Tourist Guide? To join the adventure, simply start up Neverwinter Nights, select multiplayer from the main menu, then "join internet game", and finally ignore the chat room and click on the "direct connect" button. The server address is 195.157.98.210:5121, no password is required, and the module will quickly auto-download from the server as you enter each new area in the game. This is just the beginning for Northbridge. At the moment the city is having something of a refugee crisis, and as a result its gates are locked shut and many of its inhabitants are staying at home. However, over the coming weeks we'll be adding new areas to explore, more NPCs and merchants to interact with, and of course more quests to bring you fame and fortune. And the best part is that you could be a part of this, as Northbridge will be a collaborative effort. We're now accepting submissions to be added to the module from developers and readers alike. These can be anything from a new unique item or NPC, to the interior of one of Northbridge's many houses or a whole new wilderness area or dungeon complex, complete with its own quests and monster encounters. Whatever you feel comfortable with. If you have an idea for an addition you'd like to make to the module, simply e-mail john@eurogamer.net with an outline of what you want to do. Please note that not every submission will be accepted, and we may edit contributions to ensure that they are bug free, well written and consistent with the rest of the game. Some background information about the module's setting and the region's history can be found in the Tourist Guide and by chatting to the NPCs within the game. If you need to check anything else, just ask. Help with scripting and the toolset can be found on the game's official forums, and several basic scripts already used in the module (including a working sundial, plot item respawners and a simple script to automatically close and relock opened doors) are available from us on request. Whether you want to help create Northbridge's surroundings with the toolset or simply to explore them within the game, we hope you enjoy playing with it as much as we've enjoyed building it. Related Feature - Northbridge Tourist Guide - Issue One

In an action-packed press release, Take 2 have announced the formation of a new studio, the purchase of another developer, and no less than three new games. Barking Dog, the brains behind Homeworld: Cataclysm and Global Operations, and also a contributor to Counter-Strike in the past, have been purchased for $3m and now become Rockstar Vancouver. In their new guise they're working on an as-yet unannounced (until now, anyway) military action game, with a second unspecified title due to begin development soon. Meanwhile the studio-formerly-known-as-Rockstar-Canada is being renamed Rockstar Toronto to avoid any possible confusion, and the marathon press release also lets slip that they're currently working on a game called The Warriors. In a bizarre licensing move, it's based on the 1979 movie of the same name, and no, we've never heard of it before either. Or any of the actors who appeared in it for that matter, although director Walter Hill went on to helm gems like Last Man Standing, Supernova, Brewster's Millions [oh dear], 48 Hours [ugh], Red Heat and [no no, that's quite enough thanks - Ed] It's not clear how closely the game will follow the plot of the film, but apparently it all involves gang warfare in the streets of NYC, as the eponymous Warriors are falsely accused of killing a big time gang leader. Needless to say, this upsets a lot of people, and the Warriors find themselves battling their way through New York while every gang along the way tries their best to beat the living daylights out of them. Truly a concept worthy of a videogame adaptation.

Nintendo may be planning to release the first overhaul of its GBA hardware before Christmas, if reports from Japan are to be believed. The new version of the handheld console would incorporate an improved display and a contrast control, described as a "super contrast function". The reports are believed to have originated with an entry for the new and improved console in the release schedule of Japanese retailer Cosmobit, citing a release date towards the end of the year. Although Nintendo has not commented officially on the report, it would not be an unusual move for the company, which redesigned the original Game Boy handheld several times over its lifespan. An improved display would answer the single largest criticism of the Game Boy Advance hardware - the ongoing complaint that the screen is too hard to see under most lighting. Several fan groups have created modification kits for the GBA which enable users to install backlighting systems in their consoles, although these are not modifications for the faint of heart, as they involve delicate work inside the console's shell. According to the reports of the new model, the altered screen and added contrast control would be the only changes, with the technical specification and design of the console remaining the same as previously. The company has previously mentioned that it is opposed to putting a backlight in the console, as it would run down battery life significantly; this may well be seen as an acceptable alternative strategy for the system.

3DO are taking a break from their usual output of fluffy family-friendly Army Men games to produce the ominously titled Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, a futuristic dark fantasy game with adults themes, mature content, and lashings of blood. Co-created by comic book artist Simon Bisley of 2000AD and FAKK2 fame, it's loosely based on the Biblical tale of armageddon and is being pitched by 3DO as "The Matrix meets Hellraiser". Certainly an interesting mix of inspirations, then. Taking on the role of Abaddon, players must track down three Chosen ones to do battle with Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. Lovely. Aside from the darker subject matter, the game will also feature "incredible gore and destruction", varying from simple dismemberment to realistic exit wounds, with the necessary mayhem caused by weapons including swords, magic and projectile weapons. There's also the promise of "adult themes" and even some "brief nudity" as players progress through the game and its graphic novel style cutscenes (which, thanks to the involvement of Bisley and friends, should look a lot better than the ludicrous Photoshopped abominations found in Max Payne). 3DO are obviously trying to establish a more serious reputation for themselves with this game, and they're certainly not sparing any expense in the process. As well as Simon Bisley, Marvel and DC Comics veteran Dave DeVries will also have a hand in the game, Smashcut Action Team (who apparently worked on Fight Club and The Matrix) will be choreographing and performing fight moves and death scenes, voice acting will come courtesy of cult actors such as Tim Curry (Charlie's Angels, Legend) and Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Millenium), and even porn star Traci Lords is getting in on the act. Four Horsemen is due out on PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox and even the GameCube some time next autumn. A mature big budget game that's actually worth playing. From 3DO? Shurely shome mishtake.

Oslo-based developers Innerloop are promising that their stealth shooter sequel IGI 2: Covert Strike will feature some of the most realistic weapons seen to date in a videogame. Over 30 real guns will be included in the game, with a variety of clever tricks and a "comprehensive physics engine" ensuring that they all act in a believable manner. Muzzle velocity, calibre and other factors effect the bullets' penetration through everything from flesh and wood to steel and walls, while guns' firing rates will match the behaviour of their real life counterparts, including the frightening G36 assault rifle, which apparently blazes its way through 750 rounds a minute. Clip capacities, reload times and so forth are also mirrored in the game, and Innerloop claim to have "unsurpassed" special effects for realistic muzzle flash, gun smoke and ejected bullet casings. We should get to see whether the end results live up to the enthusiasm some time in September... Related Feature - IGI 2 screenshots

They said it wouldn't be done, but according to an Ascii interview translated by XenGamers, Xbox Live will support keyboards in order for those uncomfortable with or reluctant to indulge in voice communications to converse happily with their contemporaries. The reported reliance on voice communications was arguably one of our biggest concerns about Xbox Live, and this is a significant step towards answering our criticisms. Okay, so Microsoft originally told us that Xbox would never see a keyboard connected to it, but we're not going to slate them for changing their minds - this is what we wanted! In response to a question about voice chat, Xbox Live director John Thomson told Ascii that "PC players are naturally going to be more comfortable with a keyboard because they're accustomed to using one. However, voice communication is more natural among console game players." Despite taking up this time-honoured stance on the subject though, Thomson concedes. "Nevertheless, we've included the keyboard option for game developers who aren't interested in incorporating voice chat features." There are still clinks in the service's armour; issues of broadband dependence, too many games and too few users, and a lack to date of detailed rollout plans for Europe, but make no mistake - this latest revelation is significant. For a start, it gives Microsoft a better chance to implement parental controls, and furthermore, it means that not everybody will have to dress up like a call centre employee to remind their friends just who is the Daddy.

When we left them way back in 1982, Kurt Russell (MacReady) and Keith David (Childs) had just stumbled out of the flaming wreckage of their Antarctic base after an encounter with The Thing, a terrifying alien lifeform able to imitate any living creature it touched. "Why don't we just wait here for a while, see what happens", MacReady suggests in the closing shot. Well, twenty years later we're about to find out whether this was really a good plan...

While most border towns are little more than militia forts or farming villages with delusions of grandeur, Northbridge is the last bastion of civilization in the northern territories. Built on an island in the middle of the Nekrine river, it was founded a little over a century ago by Duke Duncan Redclaw as an outpost to defend local settlers against bandits, goblins and lizardmen. Since then it has grown into a thriving town with its own temple, tavern, gladiatorial arena and marketplace, as well as being a key trading station linking the southern realms to the northern settlements.

The Capcom "Vs" series has been going for quite some time now, and has so far imbibed Marvel superheroes and SNK's distinctive arrangement of fighters, but this is the first time - some months after SNK's unfortunate demise - that the firm's characters have appeared on PlayStation. The subtitle, "Millennium Fight 2000" perhaps best highlights how long it's been waiting to make its mark, and potential buyers should bear in mind that this is not the decidedly superior Capcom Vs. SNK 2, but an enhanced port of the Dreamcast release of the 'original' game.