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- NintendoPrice - £39.99 Eagled eyed readers will have noticed that last week heralded the release of not one, but two new consoles into the UK and Europe. Although GameCube is still over a month away, Nintendo used 15th March, 2002 to launch Pokémon Mini, a pint sized pigmy of a handheld featuring a trio of Pokémon themed games.

Interplay today announced a deal with Infogrames which will allow them to continue making games in the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series. Infogrames were possibly the last remaining company with a license to develop and publish Dungeons & Dragons video games, but they have now sold a multi-year multi-title sublicense to Interplay. The exact terms of this deal are unknown, but we would guess that a fair amount of cash exchanged hands, as the only alternatives would have been for Interplay to allow Infogrames to publish the games, or to abandon the franchise entirely. Interplay have already confirmed that this opens the way for them to release Icewind Dale II and an Xbox version of Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance, and the press release reveals that "sequels to the multi-million selling Baldur's Gate franchise" are also in development. No doubt we will hear more about these soon, but CEO Herve Caen is said to be "very excited about our strong Dungeons & Dragons product lineup". With the possibility of a Baldur's Gate 3 looming large, who wouldn't be? Related Feature - Infogrames to publish Neverwinter Nights

It was only a matter of time, but the controversial (and not particularly good) anarchistic street combat game State of Emergency has incurred the wrath of Britain's self-appointed guardians of morality, The Daily Mail. In a shocking page 58 exposé this morning, the paper posed the question, "do you really know what's on your child's computer screen tonight". Not State of Emergency, one would hope. "A mini-skirted girl in military-style jackboots runs up to a passer-by and delivers a punch so ferocious he is decapitated", writer Nicola Tyrer spouts in righteous fury. "Blood fountains up from the headless collapsing trunk. As the head hits the floor, the girl snatches it up and uses it to bludgeon another passer-by... This, believe it or not, is a game called State of Emergency - and it is aimed at children." Apparently our Nicky didn't spot the prominent BBFC 18+ rating printed on the front cover of the game, which signifies that the game is actually aimed at adults and, indeed, that store owners must not sell it to anyone under that age. Determined not to let simple facts get in the way of a good rant though, Nicola continues to express her distaste at everything from the recently released Hooligans : Storm Over Europe ("violent and anti-social") to rather more entertaining games such as Grand Theft Auto 3 ("a celebration of recklessness, chaos, hooliganism and thuggery which invites the player to commit acts of mindless violence") and Max Payne (whose bullet time effects apparently suggest that guns are "not just an instrument of death but an object of beauty"). And the solution? "It's up to parents to become computer literate, find out what their children are watching - and be prepared to ban violent trash". Yes, apparently stopping your own kids from playing violent games isn't enough. We have to ban this filth to make sure that nobody else can get their hands on it. God forbid, they might actually find it entertaining. And if that happens, "how long will it be before the thuggery on the screen is translated into yet more sickening reality"? Still, she got half of that right - parents should become more computer literate and check up on what their kids are playing. Obviously a lesson that Nicola herself needs to learn, as she admits to being "shocked" to discover that her son was playing Carmageddon at the tender age of 16. Perhaps you should be paying more attention to the gaming habits of your own children, instead of trying to run our lives?

Electronic Arts today announced that The Sims is now officially the world's best selling PC game, ever. Surging past the likes of Doom, Myst and Command & Conquer, The Sims has shifted over 6.3 million copies in 13 different languages, and has taken up permanent residence in the American charts. Meanwhile the game's first three mission packs (Livin' Large, House Party and Hot Date) have added almost seven million more sales to the tally, bringing the franchise's total haul to some 13 million units, give or take. "Reaction to The Sims by both customers and critics have exceeded our most ambitious expectations", EA president John Riccitiello beamed. "The Sims has become a cultural phenomenon. Its worldwide appeal spans hard-core gamers, casual computer users and even gaming's most elusive group of consumers, women. Over 50% of new Sims players are female." With a fourth add-on due to reach Europe in a couple of weeks, there's no end in sight to the game's total domination of the PC gaming industry. Then of course there's the online version of the game, which is almost guaranteed to become the world's biggest massively multiplayer game on launch, with over a million people a month already visiting the official Sims website just to trade stories and download new furniture and clothes for their little computer-generated people. At this rate it won't be long before The Sims franchise is selling more units than every other PC game released in the year. We fear for the future.

Microsoft has issued a press release talking about its new, silly-sounding Xbox peripheral Controller S. Ignoring the various controller issues we've raised in the past for now, Controller S does look quite nifty. But just in case the pictures it released a couple of weeks ago weren't enough, Microsoft has clarified what's interesting about Controller S and how it's different from the Japanese controller in a page of easily digestible bullet points. Perhaps this release was intended for another market… Anyway, the Controller S is of course smaller, so as to fit the human hand, and the improved diamond layout allows people to hit more than one button at once without rupturing veins. The secondary black and white buttons have been moved to beneath the diamond, and on the other side the Start and Back buttons mirror their position. This is an odd play and we'll be interested to see how it's received, as we reckon that's where a big chunk of our hand rests… Furthermore, Microsoft promises that the new d-pad surface isn't quite so awful, and that the thumbstick surfaces have been altered to increase surface area. As it happens, we didn't actually have any complaints with regards to the thumbsticks on the original pad. If anything, our thumbs don't slip off them during intense situations quite as often as they do with Sony's Dual Shock 2. Those other, subtle differences of which Microsoft spoke include cable length, which has been increased by half a metre to three, button appearance, the colour of the Xbox emblem and most interestingly, stronger springs have been used in the triggers. Whether this means the springs are now stronger than their regular Xbox pad equivalents though isn't expanded upon. We'd be surprised if there is much difference, however. Related Feature - X Marks The Spot

Mindscape have announced that they will be publishing the Polish developed adventure game Schizm : Mysterious Journey in the UK and Ireland some time within the next three months. Available on 5 CD-Roms or a pair of shiny DVDs, the game was written by award-winning Australian sci-fi author Terry Dowling and sports gorgeous pre-rendered graphics which bear an uncanny resemblance to those found in the Myst series. As you would expect from a modern adventure game, you can admire this glorious scenery in full 360 degree spinny-rotatey™ glory, but Schizm also features positional audio effects and dynamic music. One to keep an ear open for when it launches in the UK this spring then. Related Feature - Schizm screenshots

Core Design have dropped the veil of secrecy surrounding the next installment in their Tomb Raider series, releasing the first in-game screenshots along with a glimpse of what we can expect from the game. Due out on PC and PlayStation 2 towards the end of the year, Lara Croft Tomb Raider : The Angel Of Darkness (to give it its full, rather unwieldy name) will see a new, tougher look for Lara, more in keeping with the recent movie. There will also be less actual tomb raiding involved, with Lara abandoning her old calling after her experiences in The Last Revelation. Instead the game will begin with her former mentor Von Croy calling Lara to Paris, where she finds herself caught up in a gruesome murder case involving alchemy and ancient blood feuds. "Our vision is to take the player somewhere dark, a place they might not necessarily wish to go, but a place they will have to venture if they are to bring Lara back", Core's Adrian Smith revealed. "Lara will have some tough moral choices to make. It's no longer a clear-cut case of good versus evil - this is a more complex tale, which will ask more complex questions of the player. It will be a new experience for people who have played Tomb Raider in the past." Core are apparently trying to make a darker, more mature game to mirror the more adult audience that it will have to please, and the change of atmosphere and pacing should be welcome after the rather repetitive rut that the series got itself into over the last few years. The developers are also promising a less linear experience, with players able to choose their own path through the game and to interact with other characters. Naturally the graphics have been updated to take advantage of the latest hardware as well, with Lara herself sporting ten times as many polygons as in previous outings. As you can see from the screenshots, the results might not be spectacular but they are a vast improvement on the angular characters and blocky level design of previous Tomb Raiders. Could this be an exciting new direction for the Tomb Raider series, or is it just a (much needed) cosmetic face lift for Lara? With the game coming along nicely, we should know more soon hopefully... Related Feature - Tomb Raider : Angel Of Darkness screenshots

Pirates - The Legend of Black Kat is a Westwood-made action-adventure game which snuck right up under our collective noses and proceeded to fire cannons and other pirate-related paraphernalia in our direction until we gave it a good going over. Featuring plenty of things for us to get excited about - an amply imbued heroine, spectacular sea battles and swash-buckling activities of every description - it struck us as a bit peculiar that we had heard so little about the game during its development… With our cynical senses tingling then, we fired the game up to give it a jolly rogering [steady on - Ed] and discovered that it consists largely of two separate games lashed together with some spare rigging. Unfortunately, while one of these games is rather good, the other one .. er .. isn't. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to the ridiculously bad Geena Davis movie Cutthroat Island, the game kicks off with the luscious Katarina discovering her father in his death throes and uncovering his piratey past, before setting sail on the Wind Dancer and putting pay to some scurvy sucker-punching scum. From thenceforth it's up to Geena - sorry, Katarina - to move between land and sea, performing death defying feats of sword-fighting bravery in a Tomb Raider like third person environment while also tending to her flea bitten ship, fending off those stupid enough to venture close by, and conquering various forts and their surrounding islands.

The Inquirer is reporting that Microsoft will skip DirectX 9.0 and release DirectX 9.1 instead. According to the report, the new API will make some big differences in future games programming, with some new parts that programmers will appreciate. An easier to use pixel and vertex shader 2.0 will be included, comprised partly of displacement maps, which, The Inq blurts, developers prefer to use instead of bump mapping in the creation of terrain. ATI and NVIDIA regularly squabble over DX support, but overall improvements to the API including a smattering of new features will doubtless lead to some exciting new… technology demos. Related Feature - GeForce 4 Titanium review

Earlier this week Utrecht, Holland played host to the first of Nintendo's Dutch Cube Clubs. With free drinks and food on hand and over 50 GameCubes, punters were kept happy with a large percentage of the launch line-up, along with a few games still in development, including Eternal Darkness. Unfortunately for Dutch Nintendites, Star Fox Adventures was shown on video, but not playable. Rumour has it the title has slipped to September in the US… Other attractions included a bucking bronco-style jetski and basketball challenges, with a GameCube and a GBA on offer to whomsoever managed to do best on both. Goodie bags distributed on exiting the club featured GameCube game sized CD-Roms packed with screenshots and the like, and a promotional T-shirt. Next stop, Rotterdam. Oh, and the official Cube Club website is now open. Related Feature - Nintendo busts out the chequebook

BAM's latest signing on the GameBoy Advance has been revealed to be Star X, a futuristic flight combat game which bears more than a passing resemblance to the classic SNES title Star Fox. Under development at British company Graphic State and due for release in May, the game will feature a mixture of atmospheric and deep space combat as you fly an advanced fighter against the usual hostile aliens in 22 missions across nine different environments. Thanks to the link cable you will also be able to battle it out with your friends in four player multiplayer modes, while a training mode should help you get up to speed. "Star X incorporates proven gameplay elements and a classic graphic appearance that will appeal to a wide variety of gamers", according to BAM boss Anthony Williams. Well, that's one way of putting it. Star X is also one of the first true 3D games to grace the GameBoy Advance, showing off the power of the processor inside Nintendo's latest baby by throwing literally dozens of flat-shaded polygons around the screen simultaneously. Ah, those were the days... Related Feature - Star X screenshots

Whilst Microsoft is rapidly replacing its imaginative Xbox adverts with actual game footage, Sony is continuing its irreverent and mildly insane series of Third Place adverts with a take on popular French icons such as Mr. Mange Tout, whose plane and car eating abilities were famously catalogued in a series of made-for-school French magazines. Which, to clear things up, I was subjected to during my brief spell at an 'institute' for several gruelling hours a week before I used my finely honed Street Fighter skills to decapitate and generally mangle the teaching staff… Back to reality though, and we have this rather bizarre new advert, which, as you may have guessed, consists of a portly fella (who closely resembles EasyJet owner Stelios Haji-Ioannou if you ask me) working his way through several PlayStation 2 peripherals before getting stuck into the main course: an actual console, complete with leads and everything. Although it is just regurgitating a pretty old concept, it is nonetheless fairly amusing and if you would like to see the advert for yourselves, Sony has erected a shrine to the advert at http://www.ps2dinner.com, where you can choose between low and high bandwidth downloads. Bon appétit.

Confirming what we all knew already, Bam! have officially announced that a PlayStation 2 version of Ecks vs Sever is in the works, based on the conspiracy-laden action film of the same name. Like the eponymous GameBoy Advance shooter, the game will give you control of both FBI agent Jonathan Ecks (played by Antonio Banderas in the film) and rogue NSA operative Sever (as portrayed by the delectable Lucy Lui), with seperate but intertwining missions for each. Four player split-screen action will also be on offer, along with an array of semi-realistic weapons to blast away with as you rampage your way through alleyways, railway sidings, and of course the inevitable sewers. Ecks vs Sever is being developed for the PS2 by Zombie Studios, the company behind the Spec Ops series, Rainbow Six : Covert Ops and .. er .. Disney's Atlantis. Related Feature - Ecks vs Sever

According to publisher Take 2 Interactive, Scottish developer DMA Design will now become Rockstar Studios, bringing the firm (whose name Doesn't Mean Anything) into line with the corporate branding structure. As a big fan of DMA's work over the years, your humble correspondent is saddened at the passing of this great name. DMA has been responsible for some spectacular achievements in gaming to date, and is renowned for injecting enthusiasm and innovation into its software, and gamers will no longer be able to buy DMA games safe in the knowledge that they're 'goodies'. Unfortunately, some of our journalistic brethren on the other side of the pond are blinded by .. well .. actually I'm just convinced that IGN is insane, now, okay? "Why name your development studio anything else, when Rockstar is clearly the best choice?" beams their Xbox sub-site this morning. Ah well, a toast to DMA, may their talent prevail above all else… Related Feature - Grand Theft Auto III review

It only takes a few minutes with Naughty Dog's inspirational platformer to gauge its strengths. J&D is an entertaining, exciting and intricately detailed adventure with a quirky sense of humour and a distinct lack of loading screens. Vexx, on the other hand, is borne of an equally fantastical premise, but the most humour we can expect is dark, and despite its zany graphics, this is more Legacy of Kain than Mario. The story concerns the plight of young Vexx, whose arms are bound by ancient gauntlets of immense power. The gauntlets, which initiated the bond, have turned Vexx into a mixed entity, comprising good and evil in equal amounts. However, these two forces have a habit of propagating themselves without warning, leaving our reluctant hero in a sort of Jekyll and Hyde situation. Astara, Vexx' homeworld, was once a vibrant, animated place (pun duly intended) full of life and vivacity. But for some reason this era of peace and tranquility all came to an untimely end with the advent of the Millennium War, which literally tore the place apart, leaving only four life-supporting fragments of the planet for its occupants to quarrel over. On one of these quarter-planets sprang up a village called Rockhaven, where the peaceful former denizens of Astara tried to make the most of their crummy lives in the aftermath of Armageddon. As you might have expected, however, this was not to be. A Shadowraith by the name of Dark Yabu quickly enslaved the people and set them to work in the caves surrounding the village.

Microsoft this morning declared the Xbox's European launch to have been a great success, describing the console as "a runaway hit" and adding that "preliminary reports show [the] Xbox has taken Europe by storm". According to the press release, thousands of gamers in sixteen countries across the continent queued up overnight to be first in line for an Xbox, making the console "a near sell-out in its first day at retail". Games were also selling strongly, with Electronics Boutique commercial director Lisa Morgan reporting impressive sales on launch day and "a good attachment rate covering both 1st and 3rd party games". "I'm excited to finally see Xbox in the hands of gamers", Xbox Europe VP Sandy Duncan beamed. "I've always known that Xbox is the best video game system ever, but after playing games with people at launch I see that gamers also recognise the amazing power and intense fun that only Xbox can offer. European gamers have welcomed Xbox into their hearts and into their homes in a big way." Meanwhile Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell reported that his company had "had a very good weekend with Xbox" in a small motel near Lilles. Oh, he was talking about their sales figures? Apparently "we have had to produce more copies of Jet Set Radio Future .. to keep up with demand [and] Trans World Surf is also doing well for us". Meanwhile 74% of Xbox buyers at Amazon.co.uk took the day off work to play with their new toy, people across the country were describing things as "totally Xbox", a gospel choir in Rotherham broke into a spontaneous rendition of Infogrames' infamous Xbox Rocks My World song, and Chairman Arafat and Ariel Sharon agreed to settle their differences with a bout on Dead Or Alive 3. Note : some or all of the above may in fact be completely untrue. Actual reports suggest that the Xbox had a solid if uninspiring launch in the UK, with 48,000 consoles flying off shelves (and probably injuring a small child in the process) along with some 120,000 games, giving the Xbox no less than seven slots in the all formats top 20 games chart. But elsewhere in Europe things were rather more patchy. Early rumours suggest that the Xbox's Irish launch floundered in a bog somewhere west of Dublin, while price cutting failed to make an impact in Germany as the country's stores experienced something of a ruhetag, with just 10,000 consoles said to have been sold. In other news, Infogrames' Jet Set Radio Future rounded out the bottom end of the Xbox top ten, in the UK at least, making it rather unlikely that the company would really need to rush off to the factory for fresh supplies. Trans World Surf was last seen being attacked by sharks off the coast of Australia. So that's five stars for enthusiasm and one star for factual accuracy. You can find the greatest work of fiction since War & Peace here if you want to find out more about how Microsoft would have wanted the Xbox's European launch to have gone. Related Feature - UK Xbox sales figures

Sega is continuing to drip-feed Phantasy Star Online fans with news of the GameCube version of the game. The latest information we have suggests that a new beach area will be included exclusively for the Cube release, featuring paddling pools for the party of up-to-four and a number of enemies not seen elsewhere in the adventure. Unfortunately, C&VG is reporting that Yuji Naka (head of Sonic Team) is losing patience with Nintendo over the issue of the GameCube modem. Naka-san told reporters recently that he is "hoping" just the same as everybody else that PSO V2 on the Cube will arrive in synch with its other-platform siblings, but that "it really depends on when Nintendo is going to launch its online services." Citing "other technical problems," Naka-san admitted that the game may not be ready, but in all likelihood will be. "That's what I'm aiming for," he explained. Worryingly though, he also confirmed that as you can play the game with four players in split-screen, there is a chance the game will arrive before the modem with its online options stripped out. "There is a possibility for the game to come out first and people will still be able to play multi-player without the online service." "I'm trying very hard to talk to Nintendo so that the modem will come out the same time as the game," he added. Related Feature - Phantasy Star Online Dreamcast review

Sports Interactive has announced that the Xbox port of its Championship Manager : Season 01/02 game will be released in April, clearing up the confusion surrounding the title, which was at one point expected to launch with the console. After scouring the game for a couple of elusive bugs, SI is now confident that the game is in a condition suitable for release on Xbox. As MD Miles Jacobson put it, "We're dealing with a different prospect now that we're developing for Xbox, in that you cannot fix a bug, no matter how small, post-release with a patch." Related Feature - Sports Interactive on educating gamers

Further to last night's report of 48,000 Xbox sales in the UK, MCV's German edition is reporting that 10,000 units were sold across the country during its first weekend. PlayStation 2 sold roughly 70,000 units during the same time period following its launch in November 2000. Several German retailers reportedly discounted the Xbox from its starting price of €479 to €399 when it failed to sell late last week. Microsoft is expected to announce its figures for the whole of Europe later this week. Related Feature - Ch€ap Xboxes in Germany!

Microsoft UK has confirmed the official ChartTrack sales figures for the Xbox in its first days in the UK. Its performance in the rest of Europe remains shrouded in mystery, and we've heard some pretty diabolical figures for Ireland on the quiet already. Microsoft has not yet confirmed how many it made available in the UK, but C&VG, breaking the news, conservatively estimates 80,000, of which 48,000 were apparently sold. To put that into perspective, Sony sold roughly 70,000 PlayStation 2 units in its first weekend. Unfortunately for Microsoft, PS2 would have sold a lot more if the supply was there, as evidenced by sales figures leaked to EuroGamer recently, which saw sales across the first couple of months spike regularly as new shipments arrived. Indeed, some weekly figures were as high as 30,000 more than a month after the console's launch. Analysts are already clamouring to adjust their estimates. As far as we're concerned though, it looks as though everybody who wanted an Xbox bought one. It'll be another week before we see how badly sales have turned downward, however. Meanwhile, although Microsoft has confirmed the figures, it has not issued a press release. We're waiting with bated breath to see how they spin this one. In terms of software, Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty topped the charts, followed by Halo. The next best selling Xbox title being Project Gotham Racing. Microsoft is also claiming a 2.5 game sellthrough per console - arguably the most impressive aspect of the lauch, but in a lot of cases online retailers hid non-bundled deals from immediate view, and obligatory bundles were definitely the order of the day in many of the high street stores we visited. Related Feature - Virgin sold 550+ Xboxen on launch night

Eidos has issued a warning to shareholders that its revenues for this year will be slightly lower than expected thanks to the poor performance of its Who Wants To Be A Millionaire sequels and delays in the release of key titles, particularly here in Europe. For starters Hitman 2 is no longer due out before the end of the company's financial year on March 31st, adding credence to rumours that it's been delayed until the autumn. Meanwhile the fate of the eagerly anticipated Xbox version of Championship Manager is also the subject of some confusion at the moment, and like Hitman 2 it is no longer expected to be released during March. At one point it had been touted as an Xbox European launch title. Other delays only apply to Europe - neither the Xbox version of Blood Omen nor the PlayStation 2 port of the award-winning action role-playing game Deus Ex is expected to be available on this side of the pond this month, but American releases apparently remain on track. We had been expecting both games to appear on shelves in the UK at the end of next week. Despite these problems Eidos remain confident, insisting that "the balance sheet remains strong" and that their cash reserves are in a better state than they were last summer. Related Feature - UK release date list

Reaction within the games industry to yesterday's Teem report has naturally been very positive. Sports Interactive MD Miles Jacobson told us that the report made the Championship Manager team "very proud". "The findings of the report show that what the dev team at SI are doing is not only creating a great, fun, simulation of football management, but it is also stimulating to the mind," Miles told us. "It's always better to make people think whilst they are being entertained, rather than dumbing down through entertainment." We were also curious about what CM actually teaches kids. "I still haven't seen a full copy of the report," he admitted, "but from what we've been told it helps kids learn how to use databases, and also helps them learn financial management, which are both very important job and life skills. "By providing an editor with ChampMan, it means that kids can be set tasks, such as 'find the best sixteen players in the database and put them all at Watford' (I wish!), then let the kids play a season to see if they are successful (in which case kids learn about man management skills too, coz 16 prima donna's are quite hard to manage properly!). With the financial management, they could be set a task such as 'return Everton to profit, whilst retaining their place in the Premier League'. I wish I had lessons like that at school - maybe I would have done better there! "We've also been told that in a similar study, it was found as the best way to get 11-15 year old delinquents back into the classroom, which is an amazing statistic - we can feel the truancy rate coming down already!" Instead of using the report to help sell more copies of the game, SI aims to celebrate it by co-operating with the powers that be. "We'd love to sit down with the education authority and discuss it all further, and will hopefully be able to grant site licenses for free to schools who want to add it to the curriculum." And Miles was also happy to wax lyrical about the next iteration of the popular footy franchise. "There have always been plans afoot to make CM4 a bit more educational anyway - for the last few releases of the game, we've included 'A history of Football' with the game, which is criminally overlooked by most parties (it'll be there on your hard drive somewhere) and it would be great if we could make the training areas of the game more educational too - wouldn't it be great if little Johnny who plays CM goes and says to his PE teacher 'Can we run round some bollards today please, because I need to build up my stamina and acceleration over small distances?' "Overall, it's just great to be able to give something back, and hopefully stem the flow of 'videogames are evil' arguments for a while with a positive 'video games are educational' argument instead!" Our thanks to Miles for taking some time out to answer our questions. Related Feature - Games do provide education

The BBC is reporting that computer games could soon become part of the school curriculum based on the results of a UK study. The group Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia (Teem) is responsible for the research, which concludes that simulation and adventure games where players create societies or build theme parks developed the children's strategic thinking, planning, mathematics and spelling skills. The 700-strong test group consisted of children between seven and 16 years old, and also concluded that children prefer to play games in pairs or small groups. The Department for Educaton is examining the research. Meanwhile, Teem director Prof. Angela McFarlane told the BBC that "adventure, quest and simulation type games have a lot of benefit", but was quick to stress that the group is "not advocating arcade, shot(sic)-the-baddie type games." Teem aims to integrate popular forms of multimedia into the classroom setting, supplementing the curriculum where appropriate. They face stern opposition however, with many other researchers arguing that the multimedia age has put children off reading and produced a generation which spends too much time playing indoors. Some of the more well known games on Teem's list include Age of Empires II, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Sim City 3000, The Sims, The Settlers and the ubiquitous Championship Manager.

Back in the day, Wipeout was thought to represent the convergence of videogames and mainstream entertainment, and it helped to make it socially acceptable to have a games console in your front room. Having established PlayStation as the clubber's companion and laced the games with contemporary soundtracks though, Sony discovered that Wipeout was able to fend off all-comers, including superior games such as Nintendo's F-Zero X, without actually improving upon the ageing formula at its heart. Ironically, while Wipeout Fusion's advertising campaign hints at a vastly improved game with an incomparable approach to futuristic racing involving mapping it around known landmarks, Sony's development studios apparently lack the innovation borne of their marketing allies, because no such remodelled London track exists within the game. Instead players are faced with another Wipeout game, cast from the same mould with none of the groundbreaking aspects of its predecessors. Anti-gravity racing is, as per usual, the focus of the game, and although Sony has elected not to turn the game into a futuristic NASCAR simulation a la Extreme G3, the game does bolt along at a commendable pace, and thanks to some tweaked physics it feels better than ever. That said, coming at the game after a week in Wipeout boot camp to get my trembling fingers up to speed, I was stunned by the initial difficulty of placing in any of the races. One of Fusion's biggest flaws is the overemphasized combat element, which hands racers the ability to take down their soon-to-be-erstwhile competition within metres of the chequered flag. In fact, I placed sixth in both of my opening races and failed to finish the third at all after receiving a rocket to the proverbial crypt. Switch off the weapons though and you can steadily acclimatize yourself. The handling takes a bit of getting used to, with your back end sliding out through even the slightest of turns and often connecting with the unforgiving barriers at the side of each course. One or two unfriendly clashes and a spin could leave you out of the race, confirming Fusion as the Monaco Grand Prix of Wipeout games, with half the field limping home or not making it to the end at all.

The popular World War II online combat sim Aces High has reached v1.09, with a number of new features being added as well as the usual selection of additional planes. Topping the list is a new built-in voice communications system to enable players to chat with their team mates. "Our range-based voice system allows you to directly talk to anybody that you can see without having to coordinate communication channels or IP information with them beforehand", CEO Dale Addink boasted. "In addition to this very simple-to-use system, there is also simultaneous support for private and squadron channels." A film editor has also been added, allowing you to splice together movies of your online exploits and export them as AVI files. You can view demo recordings from any angle, hop between plane cockpits, examine positional data for other players, and even listen in on your squadron's conversations. Meanwhile, back on the audio front, players will be able to hear air raid sirens going off as their base is attacked, in case the bombs dropping around them weren't obvious enough. Rounding out the patch's contents is a smattering of new planes to fly, including the German Bf109E, Bf110C and Bf110G variants, the Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-67, and early versions of the British Hurricane and Spitfire. Full details on the Aces High website.

3D Realms have revealed that plans are afoot to create a new gaming franchise based around .. er .. Bombshell. Yes, the blonde sidekick from the terminally delayed Duke Nukem Forever will one day become the star of her own series of games, and CEO Scott Miller is confident that she will be just as big as Duke Nukem and Max Payne. "George [Broussard] and I have studied and discussed characters for almost a decade, and finally in the last 5-6 years we think we've put together the key pieces of the puzzle better than anyone else in this industry", Scott proclaims in a feature about character design on game development site Gamasutra. And what is this great revelation that has been visited upon Scott through constant meditation on the 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding? "Positioning and differentiation", apparently. "Duke is the first white male action hero. No other character will ever have a chance knocking Duke off his particular pedestal, because it's better to be first than it is to be better (a key concept of positioning). Likewise, Max Payne is the first character of his type - a true antihero vigilante cop - and no other developer will ever have a chance making a better character with this description. Thanks to the well-known psychology of the human mind, better doesn't win; being first is what really matters." You'll be glad to hear that even Scott doesn't believe that being first in your own narrowly defined category is enough to make your character a hit though. You also need a silly name. "One commonality of catchy, memorable names is that one of the names is only one syllable long. For example: Johnny Quest, James Bond, Darth Vadar, Luke Skywalker, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen, Indiana Jones, Max Payne, Han Solo, Lara Croft [and .. er .. Bombshell - cynical Ed]. There are several important rules like this that should be followed to create a great character name." "Duke Nukem and Max Payne do this very well", Scott continues, before claiming that "other game character names like Lara Croft, Kate Archer, John Mullins, John Blade are just generic, valueless names that say nothing about the personality of the character they represent." "We planned Max to be the next great male action character and franchise from day one of the games design, and guided Remedy in the key ways to make it happen. And we're going to do it again with two more coming game characters, Bombshell (appearing first in Duke Nukem Forever before starring in her own games), and another game I can't announce yet (wait for E3 2002)." Whether Scott's faith is well-placed remains to be seen, as pretty much all we know about Bombshell at this point is that she has big tits and a stupid name, and she doesn't fancy Duke Nukem. A girl of impeccable taste then...

Last week visitors to the big CeBit electronics trade show in Hannover, Germany were disappointed to discover that they couldn't play on the Xbox consoles at Microsoft's stand, as they were firmly locked behind glass. At the time Microsoft blamed the exhibition's regulations, which block companies from allowing visitors to play with any games and electronic entertainment devices. Unfortunately nobody had told Sony this, as the Japanese behemoth has apparently been flaunting the rule and letting punters get up close and personal with their PlayStation consoles for the last few years. Until now. According to a report from CeBit's newsletter, Microsoft lodged a complaint with the event's organisers, forcing them to admit that yes, Sony were breaking regulations. As a result the publisher had to remove all 27 PlayStation 2 consoles from their stand at the weekend, leaving the Xbox as the only major console on show for the remaining four days of CeBit. It looks like Microsoft are adopting a strategy of "if you can't beat them, beat them up", as the kid gloves come well and truly off in the war for console domination of Europe. The one ray of light from this sordid little incident is that the event organisers are now said to be reconsidering the rules concerning games consoles, which could open the way for both companies to open their games up to the public next year.

CPL Europe has unveiled its first major pro-gaming event of 2002, taking place in the German city of Köln between May 17th and 19th. There's no information yet on how much it will cost, how big the prizes will be or how many people will be able to take part, but all of these details should be announced over the next few weeks, with registration opening next Monday (March 24th). What we do know at this stage is that both Counter-Strike and Quake 3 teamplay tournaments will be taking place at the event, which will be hosted by the Maritim Hotel, conveniently situated on the banks of the river Rhine. CPL Europe have also decided to eliminate the bring your own computer LAN party area which has been a fixture of previous events. Apparently this "underlines its intention to focus on the official tournaments". And is nothing to do with the fact that only about a dozen people bothered to show up for the free BYOC area at the CPL Europe event in London last summer. Related Feature - CPL London coverage

SCi has issued a snappy press release (more of these, please) announcing The Italian Job's ascension to Platinum sales status. The PSone game, released at the beginning of October, has enjoyed chart-topping status and remains a firm favourite with the PSone-buying public. Don't get too excited though; the Platinum re-issue of the game isn't due out until September.

PS2 owners can now turn their console into a multi-region DVD player for the price of a magazine. Datel informs us that this month's PSi-2 magazine (issue 18) ships with a copy of its vaunted DVD Region-X software, for almost a third of its usual price. Plus you get a mag into the bargain. DVD Region-X allows PS2 owners to watch DVDs from any region by inserting the disc, choosing a region and then inserting the appropriate DVD. The software also cures the PS2's annoying green-tinged RGB DVD output problem, so it really is indispensable. In related news, both Amazon and Gameplay are promising a March 22nd release of DVD Region-X for the Xbox. We'll be sure to let you know once we have our hands on this. Update - Datel has been in contact to confirm that copy of DVD Region-X distributed with PSi-2 does indeed work with the latest PlayStation 2 consoles. "We immediately upgraded our disc format in December and now all Datel CDs work with the newer PS2 models," Datel Marketing Manager Grant Hughes told us this afternoon. So for all of you worrying about that, don't!