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The US Marine Corp will be using a modified version of Operation Flashpoint for training exercises, according to the game's publisher Codemasters. Created by American contractor Coalescent Technologies in association with the game's developers Bohemia, Virtual BattleField Systems (or VBS1 to its friends) adds modern weapons, vehicles and uniforms to the chart topping Cold War combat sim. Flashpoint was apparently picked out thanks to its squad control system, flexible scenario editor and the ability to include land, sea and air vehicles alongside infantry in a vast outdoors setting. "The USMC and other branches of the Unites States Armed Forces are constantly investigating new and alternative tools to incorporate into the current training regimen", Coalescent program manager Michael Woodman is quoted as saying. "Our job is to research these tools and determine if they are, in fact, useful in training. In the case of the first-person military simulation games the research has shown that they are useful tools and Operation Flashpoint is the most valuable product we have found to date." The US military has a long history of using computer games as training tools, from the famous "Marine Doom" mod to a recent partnership between Sony and Battlezone developers Pandemic to design military simulators for training officer candidates. In this case though the game will remain limited to the US military, although some of the new units and features included in VBS1 may be patched into Operation Flashpoint in future. Related Feature - US Army funds Future Combat

Nintendo of America and Syngenta Seed's flower brand, S&G Flowers/USA have teamed up to create the five-petaled Pikmin flower. The Pikmin flower is a genuine flower with a yellow centre that resembles the plant-like creatures in the videogame, Cloudchaser reports. Nintendo's veepee of sales and marketing Peter Main commented, "Naming a flower after a video game is just one more way Nintendo is 'seeding' creative marketing." Good grief. Gardening is the number one pastime in America. Related Feature - Pikmin preview

Electronic Arts' unique Bond adventure, Agent Under Fire, which debuted on PlayStation 2 earlier this month, will be ported and released on Xbox and GameCube early next year. EA has yet to announce any exclusive changes for either console. Agent Under Fire is a rare case of a licensed videogame actually selling on its own merits. With no new Bond film in sight, the game has had to duke it out with reviewers, with whom it has struck a chord thanks to its fast-paced mix of first person, driving and adventure elements.

IGN's Japanese gaming sources are claiming that the next Gran Turismo game after GT Concept (the true GT4 if you like) will feature online racing. GT4 is tentatively pencilled in for the spring of 2003, and by then it will certainly not be the only racer with online play, but it may be enough to stay ahead of the pack. Meanwhile, those same sources are claiming that Concept will ship with more tracks than originally reckoned, as well as a variation on the license tests that were the bane of GT drivers' existence for the last three games. There may be as many as 80 cars now, too. We'll know more for sure when the game is released on New Year's Day in Japan. Related Feature - Gran Turismo 3 review

Channel Technology has slammed Sony for forcing it to to stop distributing a PlayStation mod-chip product. On its web site, the company attacks legal actions from the consumer electronics giant and defends the legality of its Messiah mod-chip. The site's owner, calling himself Gazza, says the mod-chip can be used for legal purposes, such as playing imported games from other countries and regions and being able to view certain titles in full-screen mode at 60hz resolution on PAL consoles. Bar possible restrictions on how Messiah's other capabilities are advertised, this functionality is useful and, arguably, legal, he says. Mod-chips are a popular addition to gaming consoles and other devices which remove various restrictions placed on them by their original manufacturers. Typically, players are restricted to playing games or watching DVDs zoned for their particular region, but installing a mod-chip can free users to use titles from any zone. On the site, Gazza enters a lengthy dialogue on the ins and outs of how various alternatives work and how Messiah remains a useful addition to the PS2. He notes that certain other mod-chips, widely sold across the Internet, are built to only play unlicensed or pirated media, whereas Messiah is able to perform various legal functions (as well as the illegal ones). But, as he summarises further on: Messiah does not play pirate software, humans do. It's the chips ability to play copied and pirated titles that has annoyed Sony enough for it to stamp down on two UK-based mod-chip distributors - Channel Technology and Playstationmods.com - forcing them to stop sales of their products with immediate effect. In a personal email, which The Reg has seen, Gazza bitterly admits that even though Channel Technology's position is legally defendable, its ability to do so is entirely dependent on the depths of its wallet. As he describes it, it's "like I have to fight by getting in the ring and taking on the likes of Mike Tyson ... I'm probably going to get knocked out in round one". Attempts to contact Gazza and Channel Technology were unanswered.

3DO have officially announced Army Men RTS, an imaginatively titled new game for PC and PlayStation 2 which does exactly what it says on the box. Yes, it's a real-time strategy game starring the little green plastic soldiers. Before you write this off as another piece of derivative mass-market pap from 3DO though, we should probably mention that the game is being developed by Pandemic, the company behind Battlezone II and Dark Reign II, both of which were fairly entertaining but sadly flopped at retail. Apparently this is their penance... "Featuring easy-to-learn, intuitive controls and a comprehensive tutorial, Army Men RTS allows players to collect resources and build bases before the Tans can retaliate", according to the press release. "Army Men RTS players are constantly faced with a variety of challenges and strategic decisions throughout the game that have direct impact on the abilities of the troops. The fun is fast and furious in this in-depth, pick-up-and-play RTS adventure." The words "fun" and "in-depth" don't often spring to mind when talking about Army Men games, but with the game headed for a March meltdown we should know soon whether or not Pandemic can breath fresh life into this combination of a stale franchise and a stale genre. Related Feature - Army Men RTS screenshots

Ah yes, our old friend Tony. It hasn't been long since the last time we paid a visit to the realm of the King of Skating, yet Neversoft seem perfectly able to knock these things out in cookie-cutter fashion now. With Tony Hawk's third title in the immensely popular Pro Skater series, his PS2 debut feels like the license was custom-made for the platform. While the Tony Hawk's games are easily the most addictive, playable skating games available to date, you'd be forgiven for noting that the more recent releases have been fairly devoid of innovation and rarely strayed from the formula established in the first game. THPS3 is such an example of wheel re-invention, with eight new levels (plus hidden bonuses) and obviously improved graphics being the only immediately obvious differences. The main portion of the game is, of course, the career mode. This takes place across the aforementioned eight levels spanning some bizarre locales, including a steel works and a cruise liner. The aim remains the same; complete as many tasks on the checklist as possible in order to advance and unlock more levels. It's a simple concept that has remained unchanged since the original, yet Neversoft seem confident they can milk the idea to great effect.

The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has upheld a ban on the sale and demonstration of Grand Theft Auto III in Australia. This is the first country where the game has been banned. The reason for the ban, according to our sources, is the presence of hookers in the game, and in particular a scene where the player can kill a hooker to claim his money back. A revised version of the game from Take 2 will be available sometime in January 2002. Related Feature - Grand Theft Auto III review

We had expected to see updates (read: patches) for Xbox games in one form or another, but Tecmo's announcement concerning Dead or Alive 3 updates is peculiar. Tecmo plans to add all sorts of extras to the Japanese version of the game, including additional costumes for existing characters and perhaps even additional fighting stages, and it wants to offer these to US gamers as well. The thing is, instead of offering them as a download to be stored on the Xbox hard disk, Tecmo is planning to release them in the form of an add-on disk. Whether this is in addition to an Internet download is unknown, but it seems odd because surely all an add-on disk would do is foist them onto the hard disk anyway. We shall see.

No-one, apparently, wants to be a millionaire. The Guardian is reporting that games based on Chris Tarrant's WWTBAM quiz show are losing their appeal, and have experienced a major slump in sales. After the enormous success of the first WWTBAM game, expectations were great for its successor, but the game - released on PC and PlayStation - has bombed out, amidst competition from titles like The Weakest Link, Championship Manager Quiz and Sky Sports Football Quiz. Eidos' total revenues for the first half of the fiscal year have slumped 42%, mainly because the publisher chose to hold back its few big-hitters for the run up to Christmas. With games from rival publishers grabbing headlines at the moment though, they might start to wish they hadn't. Nonetheless, you can expect to see an artificial increase in revenue based on this Christmas overload, in the next few months. Related Feature - Who Wants to be a Millionaire 2 review

According to a CBBC Newsround report, this year's most sought after Christmas gift is none other than Sony's PlayStation 2. The GameBoy Advance is in second, followed by a Nokia mobile phone and a few different games, before seventh place goes to Microsoft Xbox. That's pretty amazing. Obviously Xbox is not going to feature on anybody's shopping, let alone Christmas lists until March 14th, and yet it's the seventh most demanded Christmas gift… CBBC didn't actually point out that the console will be off limits for another few months, but its very presence in the top 10 points to some sort of marketing miracle, especially since Xperience was such a load of tat. Or does it? The clue here may be the researcher, Ask Jeeves. No information is provided on whether this was simply a UK survey or whether it had a wider scope. And besides, kids know how to get what they want at Christmas. The trick is to ask for something stupendously large and expensive, then agree to "put up" with something of a lesser, but still impressive value.

It seems that you can't move without stumbling across a massively multiplayer game these days, with several major offerings already online and an apparently endless barrage of new titles on their way over the next couple of years. So the prospect of Blizzard joining this headlong rush with a new Warcraft role-playing game immediately brought to mind the words "band" and "wagon".

Last week Sony ran into trouble with Dutch customs authorities over the levels of cadmium in its PSOne cables. This meant immediate cessation of all PSOne sales and the grounding of 1.3m consoles and 800,000 accessories. Following on from those reports, Ananova is now saying that Sony will lose up to 125 million skr on the Nordic withdrawal of PSOne consoles. Ananova's story is based on one written by newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet in its online edition. New PSOne consoles that meet EU regulations will be shipping shortly, a Sony spokesperson was quoted as saying. Sony was also eager to point out that the increased levels of cadmium in current PSOnes will not effect consumers, only the environment. That's okay then. Related Feature - Sony responds to Dutch console problem

Rage Software is working on an Xbox version of its extreme inline skating title Rolling, which was previously announced on the PlayStation 2, C&VG is reporting. The game will feature established inline skaters such as world champion Cesar Mora, and some other guy called Fabiola da Silva, but you can also customize characters and create your own. To be honest, we know nothing about inline skating, and no disrespect to Cesar, he's not exactly going to have Tony Hawk waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, Rage will be making a serious go of 'Rolling', especially after the failure of its licensed David Beckham football game, which led to a serious lack of confidence amongst the company's investors last week. According to a Rage spokesperson, the Xbox version has only just begun development, but the PS2 and Xbox versions will materialize at about the same time at the end of next year. The team is considering a variety of options, with two-player split-screen planned at present, and online options on the drawing board.

While Serious Sam : Second Encounter isn't due out until early next year, fans suffering from withdrawal symptoms can now download a demo version of the game to keep themselves occupied over Christmas. Weighing in at 110Mb, the demo features a single player / co-operative level, a deathmatch map and a "technology test level" to show off some of the new engine features, weapons, power-ups and monsters we can look forward to finding in the final game. You can download the demo from any of the following sites -

British, Norwegian and Finnish police have joined with their counterparts in America and Australia to carry out a series of raids on suspected members of the infamous "Drink Or Die" warez group. British police have arrested six people and searched eleven properties, while on the other side of the pond American customs officials and FBI agents raided over a hundred sites, seizing a large number of computers from businesses, homes and universities in 27 cities across the country. American law enforcement agencies are still sifting through "a mountain of digital evidence", but anybody involved in spreading pirated software to warez sites could face prosecution for distribution of copyrighted material, a crime which brings a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count. The raids follow a year long investigation which successfully infiltrated the group, and the action is already being described as the biggest ever crackdown on internet piracy. Warez users around the world are thought to pirate upwards of $1bn worth of software each year, including DVD movies and computer games.

Last week we exclusively revealed in an interview with Altar Interactive that the Czech company is working on Dreamland Chronicles, a promising looking turn-based strategy game from X-Com designer Julian Gollop which was being developed at his company Mythos Games until it was cancelled in February. Now an official back-dated press release from Altar has confirmed the news, adding that the revamped game is expected to be ready for a Christmas 2002 release through publisher Virgin Interactive. The press release says that the company "values highly the work of Mythos Games and will be working closely with designer Julian Gollop to ensure the consistency of vision of the game", but this apparently comes as news to Julian himself. Having read our interview with Altar, a bemused Gollop posted on his new company's messageboards "at the moment I know nothing more than is in the article" after he was questioned about his involvement in the project. "I haven't been officially asked to work on Dreamland at all", Gollop told fans, adding that "I have no idea what will happen to the game, or whether it would be anything like the game we envisaged". For their part, Altar insist that while they are making improvements to the game and replacing much of the artwork, it will remain faithful to the original concept. With further information and screenshots expected to be available in January, we should soon have a clearer picture of exactly what is going on... Related Feature - Altar interview

ConsoleWire is reporting amongst others that the PlayStation 2 version of Remedy's Max Payne is due to ship to US retailers today, with the Xbox version following it later this week. We've been eager to get our hands on the much-vaunted PS2 conversion for several months now. The game was originally advertised for release in November, but has continually slipped. We contacted Take 2's UK PR Manager Nick Boulstridge about the UK release and he had some bad news for us: there is no firm release date yet. As far as the US versions go, Nick was mystified by the reports of games shipping this week. "As far as I'm concerned, [Max Payne on the PlayStation 2] is shipping in the US next weekend," he told us. As for the Xbox version, that's still up in the air, and Take 2 hasn't even confirmed a UK conversion yet. Related Feature - Max Payne review

We didn't think there would be enough Dreamcasts left to justify another round of price drops, but Dreamcast distributor Bigben Interactive has confirmed today a new price point of £69.99. The console will be bundled either with Virtua Fighter 3 or Jet Set Radio. A new "Ultimate Dreamcast Pack" will soon be on store shelves, too, made up of a Dreamcast, VMU and controller plus the two games mentioned above and Metropolis Street Racer. It seemed to work last time, so… we don't expect to see any more price drops in the UK. Here's hoping, you can get Dreamcast for $50 in the US at the moment. Related Feature - Dreamcast drops in the States

Sony and the broadband division Japanese telecoms carrier NTT will launch a PlayStation 2 online service in April of next year, the companies have announced today. SCE president Ken Kutaragi also specified that interactive services would join standards games and entertainment options. Internet access will also be a prominent feature. The partnership with NTT is not exclusive, Kutaragi continued, before commenting that "[Sony] would like to announce similar alliances in the United States and Europe next year," in a reference to the company's efforts with AOL and Telewest. Related Feature - Sony and AOL make a move

Half-Life is a seminal first person shooter, and a game that everybody should play, if by some miracle they haven't already done so. The various PC versions can be had for peanuts and run on anything upwards of an original 3dfx Voodoo graphics card, which means that, while the PlayStation 2 version is also excellent, it's probably not worth £40 to Half-Life die-hards. In fact, I can only really recommend it to people who have no PC or want to play Half-Life on a big-screen TV. Let's be frank. When this first landed on my doorstep, I had to motivate myself to play it again. I've been through Half-Life and it was a hell of a ride, but that was more than two years ago. I want something new! In retrospect, I'm glad I dragged myself out of bed one morning and settled down with it though. It's a wonderful game which invented FPS clichés all over the place and featured some really exceptional level design and presentation, however old it is now. Visually the game has always looked good, although the lower resolution and absence of anti-aliasing on the PlayStation 2 does it no favours, and there's no sign of a 60Hz option either. The PC version looks better and lacks the intermittent jerking that accompanies excessive on-screen detail, multiple nasties or big set pieces. By the time you get to the marine insertion forces later on, you find yourself playing at about 25 frames per second more or less constantly. There are some nice new touches that help ease the pain though, such as the health and energy stations, which now have movable handles, and each and every weapon has been spruced up to match those seen in recent PC patches. A lot of the spangly effects, such as the shiny guards' helmets, have been borrowed from the PC version, and the texturing is nicer than I had expected. As a PS2 conversion it's pretty solid, and load times are no more substantial than they were on the PC - about 20 seconds at the start of each enormous chapter, and 3-5 seconds for the small breaks during them.

Norwegian developers Funcom have laid off around 30 staff, many of them from the company's mobile games division, and suspended work on their promising next generation massively multiplayer game Midgard. All staff are now focusing on the ill-fated Anarchy Online, which was afflicted by bugs and performance issues when it was launched six months ago and failed to reach the kind of success enjoyed by the likes of Everquest. Now that the stability problems have been ironed out and the storyline is underway though, Funcom are hoping to attract more players to the game, and are also attempting to lure back the many people who have cancelled their accounts by offering them another free month's subscription. Whether this will be enough to save the company and its various projects remains to be seen, but thanks to Norway's odd social security system the transition shouldn't be too painful. According to a Funcom PR rep, the sacked staff are actually on "temporary leave", which means that they remain paid employees of Funcom but the government provides 80% of their salary. And if the number of Anarchy Online subscribers doesn't pick up within the next few months, the staff can be permanently laid off with all the usual severance packages. Hopefully it won't come to that though, and if everything goes to plan work will resume on Midgard once Anarchy Online has been rescued. Related Feature - Midgard preview

Sylum Entertainment have released a demo version of Curly's Adventure .. over three years after the game was canned. Although we'll never get to see the final product and the demo (which was originally created to show off the game to potential publishers) is rather rough round the edges, it's actually quite entertaining. Landing somewhere between Stupid Invaders and Gilbert Goodmate, it features a mixture of odd puzzles, amusing dialogue and more parodies than you can shake a chicken at. Settings including a Star Wars inspired bar, with an obese Elvis standing in for Jabba The Hutt, and a torture chamber featuring a vat of bubbling green acid and a scratchy blackboard. The fiends. You can download the demo, which weighs in at 100Mb, from Sylum's website.

While Sony have Europe more or less to themselves for the second Christmas running and build up an increasingly impressive looking headstart on their competitors, the console war is already well underway in America. Both Xbox and GameCube launched in the USA a few weeks ago, and first blood has gone to .. well, it's hard to say really.

PlayStation 2 mod chips like Messiah have overstepped the mark, Sony has explained. ChannelTechnology, the group behind the Messiah mod chip - which British games specialist Madeira Games started accepting pre-orders for recently - potentially breaches section 296 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act UK. ChannelTechnology's claims of all-round compatibility with PlayStation and PlayStation 2 discs copied to CDR and DVD-R discs is the sticky point, and the company has ceased sales of the chip until its legal position can be confirmed. Ironically, ChannelTechnology's website currently charts the company's problems with NTL over another of its products. At the moment, the only mention of the Sony case is a brief "Messiah in Trouble!" snippet which announces the cessation of Messiah pre-orders. Related Feature - Messiah to the rescue

Business Week is reporting that Microsoft may attempt to buy out one of the Xbox's most popular third party developers; Take 2. Take 2 and its subsidiaries publish for a number of high profile developers including Angel Studios (Smuggler's Run 2), Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto III, State of Emergency) and GOD Games (which itself covers 3Drealms and a number of other companies, including Max Payne developer Remedy) to name a few. Buying out the gaming giant would surely strengthen the Xbox's 2002 line-up, something that many journalists have criticized. Redmond could also prevent high profile games reaching PlayStation 2 and GameCube. Take 2 is a compelling investment. Stock analysts rate Take 2 a buy, and its credentials are impeccable. However, whether Microsoft will make a move or not is hard to predict. Neither Take 2 or Microsoft were available for comment at the time of going to press. Related Feature - 2.4, children

Let's get one thing straight right at the start - I have watched various Pokemon episodes on television in the interests of education, and I have played through Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Gold for similar reasons. I am not some sort of 'Pokemaniac', but if you are, Pokemon Stadium 2 is just as exciting a proposition as its predecessor. On the other hand, if for some bizarre reason you want to join the ranks of the Pokemon-obsessed with no experience thus far, neither Stadium 2 nor its predecessor is the gateway. Pick up one of the recent GameBoy titles - Stadium is for vets. Pokemon Stadium 2 is a turn-based fighting game. You take your Pokemon and compete in a bunch of tournaments for various prizes. But it's not for beginners. For starters, you will need the Transfer Pak and a reasonably advanced copy of one of the GameBoy releases to get anything out of it at all. Into the Transfer Pak you will plug your copy of Pokemon Gold, Silver, Yellow, Blue, Red or Crystal, and at the start of a battle a little GB icon appears next to your controller so you can select and upload characters from the GameBoy cartridge if you so desire. Stadium 2 consists of a huge game world, featuring the Stadium, your house, the Pokemon Academy, the Pokemon Lab, Gym Leader Castle, GameBoy Tower and the mini-games area. At the Stadium there are four cups to compete in, with up to 251 Pokemon at your disposal, depending on your success in the GameBoy games. When you get bored of fighting, you can go and check out one of the game's other locations. Taking a breather at your House you will see all the details of your home in the relevant GameBoy game. If you have decorated, this will be obvious on the N64 too. If you fancy some adventuring, you can head up to GameBoy Tower, where you can play whichever Pokemon cartridge you have plugged into the Transfer Pak, in gloriously blocky detail on your television.

Devil May Cry is the latest game from Shinji Mikami, the designer behind the Resident Evil and Dino Crisis series. Devil May Cry is about as far from the horror survival genre as you can get though, with the focus firmly on over-the-top madcap action rather than shambling zombies. You play Dante, the son of a devil knight and a mortal woman. Setting the tone for the rest of the game, the opening cutscene sees a beautiful blonde in a revealing leather corset come crashing through your door on a motorcycle to impale you with a sword. Apparently this is just her way of being friendly though, because before you know it the pair of you are off to a mysterious castle on a distant island where the devil prince Mundus is preparing to invade the land of the living. The result is twenty five missions chock full of carnage as you guide Dante around the castle and the caves beneath it, with occasional field trips to nearby sites such as a mausoleum and a colosseum. Along the way you will be indulging in the wholesale slaughter of some of the most bizarre looking creatures you will find this side of American McGee's Alice. There are grim reaper phantoms with lethal scythes, fast-moving lizardmen warriors that burst out of the ground in a cloud of dust, cackling ghost witches with what look like giant shears, and life-size marionettes which drop down from their strings to attack you.

When Original War was released here in Europe during the summer it did exactly what it said on the tin, bringing a breath of fresh air and, dare I say it, originality to the real-time strategy genre. With the game about to get a long overdue release in the USA at a bargain $20 price point, we spoke to project manager Martin Klima from Altar Interactive to find out more about Original War and the company's next project, which today we can exclusively reveal to be .. well, read on to find out!

Following on from news last month that Novalogic would be publishing a new Delta Force game on the PSOne, today they have unveiled a PlayStation 2 outing for the million selling tactical combat series. Due for release next autumn, the game will feature a mixture of close quarters combat and massive outdoors environments for you to battle your way through, with settings including the now traditional desert, forest and arctic terrain. A wide range of realistic military weaponry will be available, including the ever-popular sniper rifle with adjustable zoom. "Developing for this powerful hardware is the perfect opportunity to create an action-packed Delta Force game for the console audience, while retaining the brand's true essence", according to Novalogic president Lee Milligan. Related Feature - Delta Force invades PlayStation