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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.

Xbox is enjoying a spell of increased interest in the Far East, largely thanks to the release of From Software's far-fetched mech blaster with a shouty name. Murakumo allegedly shipped more than 30,000 units in its first week on sale and drove hardware sales above the 5,000 unit threshold for the first time in ages, leading to renewed interest in other Japanese Xbox projects; none more so than From's own RPG project, Otogi. Otogi - the name is taken from the Japanese word for fairytale - is about 30-40 percent complete, and in a recent interview with Famitsu Xbox translated by XenGamers, From Software revealed intimate details about the project. Like Blinx: The Timesweeper, Otogi was designed from the outset to harness Xbox's hardware advantage, and features a totally destructible environment. "When environments are destroyed, the game calculates the velocity and angle of impact to determine how something should collapse," senior planner Yamada-san explained. "Thereby, a piece of the environment can break and send fragments into nearby buildings, causing them to partially collapse as well. For example, when players destroy a Shinto shrine marker it can cause a bridge to collapse nearby. Likewise, flying fragments can also hurt enemies. The level of fragment damage inflicted will depend upon whether the environment being destroyed is wooden or stone." Set in the Japanese Heian Era of 794-1185 AD, Otogi will feature a hero by the name of Raikou (a handle taken from the Raikouki, a collection of fairytales which serve as the game's story), and unlike your standard Japanese RPG, Raikou will not be armed with a sword - "we're planning something more original and directly related to the story," Otogi director Takeuchi-san commented, hinting at an elaborate underlying hand-to-hand combat system. The game will be mission-based, and this has given the creative team license to dabble in many types of gameplay. "One of the missions will be to take a boat across a long river," Yamada-san enthuses. "We wanted to render a unique boat and something that captured the essence of the game's dark story and setting." Although boating will be a fixture, many of the characters and enemies in Otogi can actually fly - "most of the actual fighting takes place in mid-air," Takeuchi-san reveals. "Players can expect huge four-legged monsters who will be able to jump long distances as well. Those kinds of enemies have distinct advantages for our gameplay system, one of which is our interest in creating a fun beat-em up style." Although Otogi is still many moons away from completion, Japanese Xbox owners will doubtless be watching it carefully, and with Murakumo on show at E3 earlier this year, it seems likely that platform holder Microsoft will be extending From every courtesy should the developer wish to export their latest adventure overseas. Related Feature - Otogi screenshots

Famitsu is reporting (by way of Gameforms) that the GameCube port of Skies of Arcadia will feature new cinematics and a new female character to play with. The lass fights with a sickle, apparently, although little else is known about her at this stage. Famitsu also stated that the game is very much like the Dreamcast original with a handful of slight improvements akin to Square's PSone Final Fantasy touch-ups. The Japanese can expect Skies sometime this year, and the Americans sometime shortly afterward. Us Europeans on the other hand… well, it's a bit of a lottery. Update - In a bit of related news, one of the reasons that the Cube version is being given a touch up is that Arcadia on the PS2 is no longer under development. Apparently, Sega canned the project to spend more time with their Cube conversion. Curious, given the size of the PS2's installed base compared to the GameCube's... Related Feature - Skies of Arcadia review (DC)

British developers Nicely Crafted Entertainment have announced that a PDA version of their addictive online strategy game Time Of Defiance is on the way. Due for release in November, the handheld port will run on Pocket PC 2002 based systems and (obviously) requires an internet connection. All of the features of the desktop original will be included, giving players a chance to keep their empire running while they're on the move.

When id Software showed off the latest build of DOOM III at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles a couple of months back, it was something of a surprise that it was running on a graphics card supplied by ATI rather than NVIDIA. John Carmack uttered some typically incomprehensible technobabble about how "the R300 is an ideal rendering target for the DOOM engine [as] it can do both our highly complex pixel shaders for light surface interactions and can very rapidly render all the stencil shadow volumes which deal with all our dynamic masking of way light operations". Bless him. We now have a better idea of what that actually means in practice though, as ATI have released a video testimonial showing clips of Dungeon Siege, Asheron's Call 2 and DOOM III in action. Unfortunately the footage rapidly brought ATI's website to its knees and now seems to have vanished entirely, but the good news is that Czech gaming site Tiscali has mirrored the movie, providing both the full version and a 25 second clip showing just the DOOM footage. Despite the small file size it's all in fairly high quality DIVX format, and shows that the game does indeed look much more convincing in motion than it does in the rather unimpressive screenshots we've seen so far. Animations are lifelike, from the strained breathing of a zombie trooper to the way the demonic dog-like creature seen in one of the E3 screenshots crushes a barrier and nudges a corpse around on the floor of a bathroom as a light swings overhead, the shadows all moving believably in real time. It's very much a "don't blink or you'll miss it" affair and the footage had already appeared in the longer "Doom Legacy" video at E3, but this time the clips are clearer and run at a much smoother frame rate, so it's well worth a look. You can download the clip or the full testimonial video from Tiscali. Related Feature - We're all Doomed!

It's a very boring week, this. Most of the people we've spoken to this week have either been sunbathing or drinking profusely. Still, we have uncovered some interesting things this week, and we've learnt to appreciate the smaller things in life. The sound of a bird singing, for example. The sound of drunken teenagers in the park across the road. The sound of the impending release of Square and Disney's RPG crossover Kingdom Hearts in Europe. Hot on the heals of the immensely popular Final Fantasy X, Sony will be publishing Kingdom Hearts in Europe during the fourth quarter of 2002, around about Christmas time we would imagine. There is no word on the PAL conversion, and whether it will be up to the - cough - standards of FFX's PAL showing, but here's hoping that both companies will pull their socks up and treat us like something other than the Third Place for once. Related Feature - Kingdom Hearts screenshots (PS2)

Westwood's recent release of a batch of Red Alert models for Command & Conquer: Renegade has been confirmed as the death knell of a planned sequel. Although Renegade looked highly promising when it was first unveiled way back in 1999, by the time it finally hit shelves earlier this year it looked distinctly dated and suffered from lousy AI and network code. Since then the multiplayer has been patched into something more playable, but EA apparently decided that developing a sequel for the game was a waste of resources and cancelled the project. Originally the intention had been to make a spin-off set in the Red Alert universe and to have a greater focus on multiplayer, which was always Renegade's big attraction, but now die-hard fans will have to make do with an inevitable flood of amateur Red Alert mods and maps using the newly released models. And hopefully the programmer responsible for Renegade's AI is now locked in a basement at 3DO making Army Men games. Related Feature - Renegade review

Codemasters have released a new single player demo for their latest Operation Flashpoint expansion pack. Resistance is set several years prior to the original Operation Flashpoint, acting as a prequel in which you play a retired special forces soldier trying to put an end to the Soviet occupation of the islands you have made your home. The pack features a whole new campaign with twenty missions as well as a brand new island to fight over, more detailed models and textures, several new weapons, enhanced network code and extra multiplayer missions. Thanks to our friends at the blueyonder multiplayer gaming service, the 78Mb demo is now available to download right here on EuroGamer. Included are a pair of exclusive missions set on the new island of Nogova, along with a selection of the new weapons your men will get to play with in Resistance. Related Feature - Operation Flashpoint: Resistance screenshots

Password save systems were the bane of every 16-bit gamer's existence, besmirching the reputation of a number of otherwise truly respectable adventures throughout the ages. Thankfully the advent of CD-based consoles and memory cards quickly and quietly put this menace to bed, but the coming of the GameBoy Advance helped it to manifest itself once again in the shape of 16-bit ports and SNES-style games, and GT Advance was a prime example. The good news is that the sequel has appeared in the West complete with its Japanese battery backup save system. The bad news is that recycling the same old game in a rally guise just won't work these days, especially with V-Rally 3 on the market.

Zoo Tycoon didn't really tickle our fancy, but apparently somebody bought it, because hot on the tail of the release of the Dinosaur Digs add-on pack earlier this summer, Microsoft have announced that another expansion will arrive in October. Titled Marine Mania, it sadly doesn't involve American soldiers going on a rampage through your zoo, and the only seals you'll find are the cute furry ones that the Canadians are always beating up on. Over twenty aquatic animals varying from octopi to otters will be included, along with a variety of new marine-themed scenic objects and shows, and ten additional scenarios to put players through their paces. It all sounds about as exciting as watching kelp grow to me (and yes, you can do that too), but whatever floats your boat... Related Feature - Zoo Tycoon review

Giving us one more reason to buy a Pocket PC, Infinite Ventures have announced the release of a PDA version of Speedball 2, the classic full contact futuristic sports game from The Bitmap Brothers. It's a dozen years since the game was originally released on the Amiga, but despite the disappointment of the PlayStation sequel and the host of second-rate imitators it's spawned over the years, we still have a soft spot for the Speedball series. Now Pocket PC owners can grab a free demo of the game from Portable-Games.com, or buy the full version for a princely $19.99. Just the thing to divert your attention during boring board meetings, and somewhat less conspicious in the office than a GameBoy...

Activision have announced that they will be publishing Gungrave in the PAL territories of Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Developed in Japan by Red Entertainment and Yasuhiro Nightow, creator of the bizarre anime series Trigun, the cel-shaded action game is promising a combination of over-the-top battles and spectacular cutscenes as players take on the role of an undead assassin who carries a coffin full of heavy weapons around on his back Django-style. Sadly all we've seen of the game so far are some horribly mangled screenshots that make it look like second-rate PSOne budget tat, but we expect that it's somewhat more impressive in real life. Either way, we should know for sure soon, as the game is expected to arrive on our shores this winter. Related Feature - Gungrave screenshots

has announced that it will be starting insolvency proceedings in court tomorrow, having run into problems finding financing to keep the company afloat while a publishing deal was finalised for its latest game. The Köln based studio is currently working on a highly promising Unreal engined action-adventure game called The Y-Project, as well as another as-yet unannounced title. Reports of the company's troubles first emerged on German gaming sites this morning, but having spoken to Westka's head of marketing Ingo Horn, we're happy to report that the situation may not be quite as terminal as it initially sounded. Westka's cash flow is apparently secured for the next three months, and the entire staff should remain employed until at least the end of September. Beyond that the future is less certain, but in the meantime work continues in an effort to find new investors to ensure the company's survival. Hopefully Westka can find the funding it needs, and we can all look forward to playing The Y-Project next year... Related Feature - Y-Project preview

Neverwinter Nights was arguably the most eagerly anticipated PC role-playing game in living memory, and one of the main reasons behind this excitement was the game's modability. [Is that even a word? - Ed] With an easy-to-use toolset included on the CD along with the game itself, and a flexible (if not always entirely logical) scripting system for more advanced users to tinker with, the possibilities, we were promised, would be endless. Apparently that wasn't just blind optimism, because just a few weeks after the game hit the stores, its 500th add-on module has already been released. Ok, so most of those are "my first dungeon" material, but it's an impressive number for such a new game and bodes well for the future. Offerings range from basic deathmatch and capture the flag arenas to full-on role-playing quests, additional dungeons and campaign settings, and you can browse all 514 (at the time of writing) modules in the Neverwinter Vault. Amongst the recent releases that helped push the module total over the 500 barrier is BioWare's own Neverwinter Chess, which (as you might have guessed) is a fully functioning Battle Chess style game for two players. Simply walk on to the board, talk to the piece you want to move and then choose from the list of valid moves you're offered. If you fancy taking some time out from your hardcore dungeoneering for a nice quiet game of online chess, head over to BioWare's website. And if you're still undecided on whether or not to buy the game, fear not - our review will be posted tomorrow.

For those of you who missed the Breath of Fire series during its heyday on the Super Nintendo, Capcom's GameBoy Advance port of the original may have seemed a little complex, elaborate, perhaps even tedious. With random battles raining down like a monsoon, it drove a number of my friends to distraction, despite my will for them to enjoy it. Fortunately, as 16-bit veterans will recall, the second in the series was a much sleeker adventure, offering a far more agreeable range of characters, a more interesting plot and a total of about 30 hours of enjoyable turn-based role-playing gameplay. And fishing. Oh yes.

In a piece of fortuitous (or just plain cynical) timing, CT Special Forces sees you taking on the role of an elite operative battling international terrorism around the world. Any similarity to real events and persons living or dead is purely coincidental though, as this is an old fashioned side-scrolling action game. As such you take control of a gun-toting hero as he pounds his way through four themed areas, ranging from desert bunkers to snow-covered mountains, all of which are packed full of evil doers to eliminate.

Jamdat Mobile has signed a deal with Activision to bring their full range of extreme sports titles to the latest generation of Java-compatible mobile phones. The deal covers Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX 2, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder 2, Travis Pastrani's Pro Moto-X, Shawn Murray's Pro Wakeboarding, and Mum's Pro Kitchen Sink. Probably. Jamdat's VP of sales muttered something about key demographics and market penetration. It's not yet clear when any of these games will be available, but given that Tony Hawk has already graced virtually every platform under the sun from the ZX Spectrum on up, it was only a matter of time... Related Feature - SNK goes mobile

Mithis Games, a new Hungarian company formed by several developers from the team behind the forthcoming space strategy epic Imperium Galactica 3, have unveiled their debut project. Going by the working title of Midway - Naval Battles, it's a World War II strategy game that puts you in command of one or more battleships, fighting for the British, Americans, Germans or Japanese as you work your way up the career ladder from humble captain to admiral. Planes and submarines can be brought into play as well, with the promise of 40 different units at your disposal, while formations and fleet tactics can be used to make the most of them. Players will also be responsible for managing their ship's crew, who will develop new skills over time as they gain combat experience. Midway should be casting off in late 2003 or early 2004.

Nintendo has shipped one million GameCubes to European retailers, apparently, and to celebrate, they're letting us know when some of its most eagerly anticipated titles are due out. Obviously the most interesting news is that Super Mario Sunshine will be with us on October 4th. Already available in Japan (and the reason this writer didn't sleep much this weekend), and due out in the US in late August, European gamers are being forced to wait only just over a month, which makes a change from the usual six. Nintendo hasn't stopped there though. September 20th will welcome the release of Doshin the Giant, a Japanese delicacy with a streak of Black & White running through it, and November will showcase Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem on the 1st, Star Fox Adventures on the 22nd, Mario Party 4 on the 29th, and the mysterious Wario World will be with us on December 6th. Equally encouraging, but less specific, is the news that WaveBird and Memory Card 251 will be released in Europe this year. Hopefully before long Nintendo will establish precisely when.

One of Capcom's most intriguing Xbox prospects, Tekki (the vertical tank game with a controller the size of Brighton pier), has slipped from its original Japanese release date of August 22nd and will now appear on September 5th. Capcom hasn't given any particular reason for the delay, but it wouldn't be too surprising to imagine this knocking the US and European release dates back a bit. Presumably Capcom has had difficulty acquiring enough Nimitz-class aircraft carriers to transport the game's proprietary controller around. Related Feature - Steel Battalion screenshots

Sony has had litigation in an Australian court blow up in its face. Federal Court Judge Ronald Sackville determined that - first of all - PlayStation consoles don't have a copyright protection measure installed, and therefore he couldn't rule that mod chips go against any laws concerning copyrights. Furthermore, the court was told that chipping allows people to play games legitimately purchased overseas alongside pirated games, and Judge Sackville seemed to agree that there is nothing wrong with this. As you may recall, Australia has been rejecting Sony's claims about mod chips bringing about the downfall of humanity for quite some time. Sony has been litigating against mod chips and mod chippers worldwide for a while, quashing Neo and Messiah projects in Europe to a certain degree of success, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been standing up to the consumer electronics giant's claims on behalf of its consumers. Worse still for Sony, the ACCC has announced that it will review this latest judgement, not in the hope of overturning it, but because many down under still believe that Australian people are being denied access to lower priced games overseas. Effectively, the ACCC has turned the issue into one about imported software and not about piracy, which is something Sony had been doing however deliberately by continuing its aggressive court tactics apace. That's it - we're emigrating. Apart from beer, Christmas on the beach and the Minogue sisters, Australia seems to have government and judiciary institutions not entirely devoid of a clue. Related Feature - PlayStation Wars: Episode II

Filipino police are hunting for a schoolboy who shot a 17 year old girl with a home-made shotgun last Wednesday, apparently after suffering a string of humiliating defeats at her hands in a local computer store. There's no mention of which game they were playing, but according to a report from the Philippine Star the victim had started teasing the boy about his lousy playing after beating him several times. Eventually the boy "flew into a rage" outside the shop and shot the girl in the face, killing her instantly. It just goes to show that some people take their games far too seriously.

It's over two years now since Colin McRae Rally 2.0 arrived on the PlayStation. Probably the greatest rally sim of its day, it went on to meet critical and commercial success, was quickly ported to the PC, and finally makes it onto the GameBoy Advance later this year. Codemasters weren't about to rest on their laurels though, and work is now nearing completion on the third entry in the multi-million selling series. We spoke to studio head and series producer Guy Wilday to find out what fans have to look forward to.

Looking like a PlayStation racer and playing a bit like Outrun, V-Rally 3 on the GBA is actually a darn sight better than its PlayStation 2 sibling. But the question is; can the game stave off competition from the likes of GT Advance 2, which has had time to refine itself, and propel itself into pole position as the serious handheld racer? Surprisingly, and despite numerous problems, it can!

The latest teaser trailer for Codemasters' forthcoming TOCA Race Driver is now available from their website. Simply titled "Damage", it does exactly what it says on the link, showing you what happens when your race comes to an abrupt end. Let's face it, the first thing any true gamer does when he gets a new driving game is go around the track as fast as he can in the wrong direction, collecting as many cars as possible along the way. [Remind me never to let you drive - Ed] And that's pretty much what this trailer shows - a whole minute of wild spins, spectacular collisions, flying bodywork and insane pile-ups as the player takes his car into a variety of corners way too fast, and comes out the other end in a cloud of debris. All of this mayhem comes courtesy of the game's Finite Element Modelling damage engine (if that means anything to you), which apparently simulates the deformation of a car's structure during the course of an impact, knocking both internal components and external bodywork out of shape in a realistic manner. Which is all very exciting, but what you really want to know is, does it look good? Grab the Damage trailer from the TOCA downloads page and see for yourself. Related Feature - TOCA Trailer #2

Ubi Soft have announced that they will be publishing Far Cry, the game-formerly-known-as-X-Isle, some time late next year. Developed by Germany's Crytek (best known to date for their GeForce tech demos, featuring reflective dinosaurs stomping around a forest), it's a tactical first person shooter set amongst the beautiful Polynesian islands. Which certainly makes a nice change from your traditional Quake-style space base and gothic techno settings. Given their past work it's no surprise that eye candy ranks high on the agenda, but Crytek are also promising us advanced team-based AI, realistic physics and stunning sound effects to help immerse the player in the game. With any luck we should see the results in about a year, but in the meantime we have a few early screenshots to keep you occupied. Related Feature - Far Cry screenshots