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British e-commerce barons Gameplay have been doing a bit of extra-curricular work these last few days, badgering developers and publishing houses with the results of their poll into the interests of retro-minded GBA owners. They asked "What classic game would you love to see on the GameBoy Advance?" A total of 2518 responded, with games as varied as Tempest 2000, Monkey Island and Paradroid making up the numbers. Top of the tree was the topical Grand Theft Auto, with 32% of the vote, but clutching gallantly onto 20% of the vote in second place was Frontier Developments' classic Elite. Apparently Frontier's David Braben was surprisingly receptive when Gameplay gave him a ring. "I'm pleased to see yet another demonstration of the strength of support that Elite and its sequels still enjoy amongst the game-playing community," David Braben himself was heard to say. "In fact we have been planning some form of Elite sequel for GameBoy Advance for a while now. We are just about ready to open talks with publishers about it, so unfortunately I'm not in a position to reveal any more detail at this stage." "We are very familiar here at Frontier Developments with the GameBoy Advance architecture, and are confident we can produce a new game that captures the appeal of Elite for today's mass audience whilst remaining true to both our track-record of innovation and the spirit of the original games." As long as Braben and co. stay true to the original game, we can probably expect this one to run and run. The GameBoy Advance has a few games that might be described as killer applications, but amongst more mature gamers none would be so meaningful as this.

While the triumvirate of Dead or Alive 3, Halo and Project Gotham Racing got most of the attention at the Xperience press event in London last week, the other title which really caught our eye was hidden away in a dark corner at the back of the venue. Step forward Wreckless.

In the wake of the US release of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, id Software's resident Brit Graeme Devine updated his .plan last night to remind people of the dangers of piracy. The official line from id is that nobody has yet managed to crack the Quake 3 engine's CD key system, and Graeme pointed out that "many so-called cdkey generators are in fact virus attacks that steal your own good cdkey, or worse, corrupt your files". And although I'm sure we don't need to tell you this, given the number of idiots who spam our forums every week trying to blag CD keys for games, it probably bears repeating that if you own a legitimate copy of the game giving out your key to other people is a big no-no as well. "As we see cdkeys being distributed over the Internet those keys are being added to our ban list", Graeme announced. "It is very important to not share your own cdkey with anyone else." Verstehen sie?

Novalogic have released a new demo version of their helicopter flight combat game Comanche 4 to replace the earlier test release. Coming in at a modest 60Mb, this one features the Eagle's Talon single player mission from the game, which sees you supplying air support for a beach landing and then blowing up a cargo ship before returning to help escort a secret agent back to his extraction point. You can grab the demo from the following sites -

The Xbox is rapidly earning a reputation as the enthusiasts' console, with tinkering and investigation reaching levels not witnessed since the dying days of Dreamcast. Xbox owners have already established how to cajole Halo into playing against other gamers online. They have ripped the console to pieces in the hope of upgrading various components - development units featured 128Mb of RAM they moan, why not solder some more onto the board? They have also discovered that some Xboxes did in fact ship with a 10Gb Seagate hard disk, despite claims to the contrary, although some shipped with an 8Gb Western Digital model as promised. There are also rumours afoot that the 'special surprise' for Xbox owners hinted at by Microsoft will reveal itself on the Thanksgiving holiday of the 22nd of this month, and that it may involve one of the female characters from the early Xbox tech demos. It's interesting to see so much enthusiasm for a console a lot of people were willing to write off a few short months ago. Our Xbox is currently making its way through various shipping channels, but expect a full breakdown when we do finally get hold of it. Related Feature - Play Halo over the Net

Nintendo has confused gamers and journalists alike by claiming victory in the console race Stateside. Combined US retail revenues for GameCube (hardware systems, games and accessories) come to more than $98 million. Nintendo are comparing this to the three-day opening weekend ticket sales of the Harry Potter movie, which topped $93.5 million. Nintendo's executive veepee of sales and marketing Peter Main was on hand to celebrate. "Some 700,000 NINTENDO GAMECUBE hardware systems moved to retail locations in time for our launch, our largest first day supply ever," he told journalists in a prepared statement. "But right now it appears that none of them may be left by this weekend." The official press release suggests hardware sales were more than twice that of Xbox. We find this quite hard to believe though, because Xbox shipped 300,000 units, and if Nintendo shipped 600,000 GameCubes they would be discussing retail revenues of $120 million… Of course, that depends on your interpretation of "combined retail revenues", but if Nintendo wants to peddle ambiguity they shouldn't be surprised if it bites them in the behind. The fact of the matter is that 700,000 units is more than double that of Xbox (which is in very short supply right now, and may not even reach 700,000 units shipped until mid-December), and more than Sony managed to ship at last year's PS2 launch to boot. Nintendo also claims that Luigi's Mansion was the most popular title, followed by the brilliant Rogue Leader from LucasArts and then Wave Race: Blue Storm, and that GameCube has proven more popular even than GameBoy Advance in sales terms. Related Feature - GameCube Sunday

Your name is Aurax, and you are an alcoholic. As the game begins you are recovering from the mother of all hangovers after celebrating your coming of age, but things are about to get much worse. First your sister reveals that she is a magician and that you too have the power of magic, then skeletons attack your town and slaughter your neighbours, and to cap it all an evil warlord kidnaps your sister to turn her to the dark side. What starts off as a rescue attempt soon becomes an epic quest to defeat the armies of chaos which are threatening your land as it becomes obvious that the force .. sorry, magic is strong in you. Sadly any impact that this might have had is marred by the game's shoddy dialogue and flat emotionless voice acting, which is about as exciting as Stephen Hawkings reading out a shopping list. The only silver lining is the occasional moments of humour (intentional or otherwise), such as the pair of evil wizards who sound uncannily like Arnold Schwarzenegger and spout lines which make Conan The Barbarian look like William Shakespeare. The game itself is a blend of real-time strategy and role-playing elements and revolves around controlling "places of power". These earn you the mana points which you need to cast spells and summon creatures to fight for you, and as a result most battles tend to devolve into grabbing as many of them as possible while chasing down an enemy hero. There is some variation in mission objectives, such as rescuing missing kids, taking part in a bar-room brawl or recovering a magical item, but generally everything boils down to finding and defeating one or more enemy wizards.

Early-adopters of Microsoft's Xbox may have established how to play Halo over the Internet, and while we can't test this theory for ourselves, we thought we would reprint it so that anybody zealous enough to have imported an Xbox can give it a go. Firstly, you need an Xbox, a network hub and a PC connected to the Internet (preferably over a broadband connection). Give your Xbox an IP address along the lines of 192.168.0.*, where * is any number other than 1 not already taken up by a device on your network. Set the subnet to 255.255.255.0 and point the gateway and DNS addresses to 192.168.0.1. Your PC's IP address should be 192.168.0.1. Depending on the operating system, this next bit may vary, but using Windows XP or 2000, go to Network Connections and create a new Virtual Private Networking (VPN) connection. Put a placeholder IP and username / password in for the time being, but agree to share the connection over the network your PC shares with the Xbox. The reason for all this is simple. Halo requires that any Xbox it connects to be on the same subnet as itself. That means that any Xbox on the same network as another will be able to connect, but as far as the Internet is concerned it's lost at sea. Not so if you fool it with a VPN connection, however. Find someone willing to play Halo with you, and establish the VPN connection we created before with them, filling in their IP address and a mutually acceptable username / password as required. As far as the Xbox is then concerned, you will be on the same network, and all bets are off. As we said at the outset, we have no evidence that this works at all, other than some reports on an Internet bulletin board, but the theory is sound. Good luck too all and sundry that attempt this, and let us know if you succeed! Related Feature - Xperience

Microids have released a demo version of Master Rallye, a motor racing game based on the eponymous endurance race which takes place across stages in Europe, Turkey and Russia. When we saw the game at ECTS back in September it was looking quietly impressive, and now's your chance to give it a try for yourself. Weighing in at a bandwidth-busting 147Mb, the demo lets you drive the Nissan Navara or Schlesser Megane through a stage in France, with a choice of practice, race and checkpoint modes. At the moment the demo is only available from Czech site Tiscali, but more mirrors will no doubt pop up soon.

Microsoft's decision to become a format holder is a step up into the big leagues for them, and unlike PC games where failure is only as great as a single lost sale, complete failure in this arena could mean billions in lost revenue. On the other hand though, it works both ways. Complete success would put Microsoft at the head of another multi-billion-dollar industry. The stakes are high, but that's the way they like them. When GameCube launched in Japan on September 14 it did so with a wafer-thin covering of launch software. Reports suggest that Nintendo has barely sold 300,000 units in its home country to date, but despite that GameCube definitely has class. Games like Luigi's Mansion and Super Monkey Ball are easily palatable on such a cheap console - Cubes have been making it into this country for less than £200, even via the usually extortionate importers, and gamers are impressed at the potential. Xbox is going to be a harder pill to swallow for the consumer, simply because it costs more. Its launch titles have to justify $300 to the American consumer, making it much harder to construct a killer app for the Xbox than the GameCube once the relative price tags are taken into consideration. Amazingly though, going on the strength of the Xbox launch titles seen in London this weekend, it already has several. Even if, in PR terms, the event dubbed Xperience was a blunder. Back at the beginning of September, Nintendo put on a show in Westminster to demonstrate GameCube to hundreds of journalists and gamers. The event wowed visitors. By comparison 'Xperience', the Xbox equivalent staged in Covent Garden's Nutopia this weekend, has failed dismally to arouse excitement amongst its guests. It may yet be a success - it continues for the next few weeks, with excursions to other cities around the country along the way - but the crowds at the Nintendo Show were buzzing, while the only frenzied swarm we saw in the unusually dingy Nutopia this weekend was around the exit.

Nintendo's GameCube launched in the USA yesterday morning, with some 700,000 units available at retail. Plenty were snapped up as pre-orders, but the majority will be staring at gamers from store shelves for the princely sum of $199. 700,000 is more than double the number of Xboxes that shipped on Thursday of course, and if both companies' projections are on the money, Nintendo will have more units all the way up to Christmas. Whether they will all ship is another matter. There was a definite clamour to get hold of GameCube in several of the largest US cities, but with the consoles in bountiful supply, a lot of people were happy to pick one up on Sunday morning or during the day. Peculiarly, the games have been available for a week or more now, as the GameBoy Advance games were. We have a copy of Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader here to show for it. It works a treat on our Japanese / US modded GameCube! We predict Rogue Leader will be one of the biggest earners at launch, with Luigi's Mansion and co. quite a way behind. GameCube launches with plenty of software titles, including exclusives like Rogue Leader, Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm, along with meatier titles like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Related Feature - Hip to be Cube!

bleem!, once a serious thorn in Sony Computer Entertainment's side, has given up the ghost this weekend. A full-page image of Sonic The Hedgehog weeping over a tombstone is all that can be found at bleem.com today. Many are speculating on the possible reasons for bleem!'s demise, but the most obvious one is that people simply don't need PSOne emulation any more. bleem! for the PC was a useful tool, but it was always fickle, falling apart at a moment's notice. And bleemcast!, the Dreamcast-based PSOne emulator, was excellent up to a point, emulating one game at a time and only three total at the time of the company's closure. The Dreamcast itself is no longer in production. It's not hard to see how a company built around emulating a six-year-old console on dying formats with the legal wrath of Sony against them would throw in the towel. Dreamcast has been in short supply for a while, and uptake of bleem! products at retail has always been sluggish. Nowadays PS2 is the dominant console, and bleem! is irrelevant as far as that's concerned because one of that console's most prominent features is backwards compatibility with the PSOne. If anything, it's surprising that they lasted as long as they did. We hope that bleem! founders Randy Linden and David Herpolsheimer find new work in the industry without delay. Related Feature - The bleem! Team

Burnout is a peculiar breed of racer. At its core it's the tried-and-trusted racing formula - rolling cityscapes and countryside, fast cars and powersliding, and a single overall objective: to win. There are two things that set Burnout apart from the likes of Ridge Racer, though: speed and danger. The sense of speed - even in the smaller 'easy' cars - is blistering. The game runs at a phenomenal, non-stop 50 frames per second, and the sense of speed when you're carving your way through traffic at 150mph is in a class of its own. This atmosphere of intense speed is accentuated by the overt and ever-present danger of ploughing into the back of the next car, or worse still oncoming traffic. As your speedometer warbles into the red the traffic seems to swell into a larger body and picking a path through it is none too easy, requiring split-second decisions with each passing metre. And if you come unstuck, you will know it. Burnout's crashes are some of the most extraordinary, spine-tingling, jaw-droppingly obscene I have seen in any racer. If you hit the front of an oncoming car at over 100mph the bodywork crumples and glass breaks all over the place, at enormous expense. Immediately after you crash the game shifts into a stunning action replay segment which shows off your feat, before charging you a wallet-bulging 'insurance' fee, righting you and sending you on your way. The crashes are like an exclamation point to the adrenaline-pumping fury of the previous straights and turns, and I often found myself bellowing in disgust as I smacked into the back of a transporter whilst powersliding out of a corner. You lose time and money, and worst of all speed. Burnout is all about speed. You need it to reach the next checkpoint, to stay ahead of your opponents and to win the race.

It's rare these days that we come across a title that makes us stop and actually watch, letting the game quench the thirst of our drinking eyes. Flight sims in particular have become rather stagnant in their progression, and it's easy to discard new sims with little regard for the wares they may be touting beneath their unimpressive facades. Not so with IL-2 Sturmovik. This is the most attention-grabbing flight sim we've clapped our eyes on in quite a while, and one that absolutely deserves to be called beautiful. The game features some thirty-one types of Russian, German and American planes dating from 1941 to 1945, each one featuring a different camouflage pattern depending on the time of year and environment. The attention to detail in all aspects of the game is staggering, especially when it comes to the intricate plane models. We wouldn't blame you for switching the autopilot on just to take the time to switch between camera angles and snoop around the lovingly modelled cockpits as your fighter swoops majestically over the landscape. Maddox Games have put a lot of effort into really suspending the player from reality. Dip into the clouds and condensation or rain will build up on your cockpit windows, and as the sun glints on lakes and rivers below and tiny buildings (all of which can be destroyed) dot into view between the clouds, the effect is breathtaking. A great deal of thought has gone into creating an inspiring environment for your battles, and an apparently small touch like the "real" clouds does wonders for altering the way you think about playing.

Mumbo Jumbo's Californian office, which was responsible for the recently released Myth III, has either been closed down or "consolidated" into the company's Texas headquarters, depending on who you ask. Either way though it means that the majority of the staff that worked on the game in California are now looking for a new job. According to designer Andrew Meggs, "there was no next project lined up and funded, nor was there expected to be in the near future, [and] it's expensive to keep a team of salaried people around doing nothing". As a result of the lay-offs, future support for Myth III is in doubt. A patch addressing some of the bugs and other issues that afflicted the original version of the game is apparently almost finished, but the team have spent most of the last two weeks looking for new jobs and clearing out their offices, so it's not clear when it will see the light of day. The fate of the game's ranking system and long-promised editing suite is also up in the air, with at least one of the game's programmers working on the tools from home. "I'm very proud of the work we've done as the game stands on its own, and even more so in light of the fact that we did it in only eleven months from start to finish", Andrew Meggs told fans. "Despite the somewhat unhappy conclusion, I don't think a single person from the Myth III team regrets their decision to be a part of bringing this game into existence."

Back in August Xavier Carrillo sent word that a trio of designers from the Severance : Blade of Darkness team were forming a new company called Digital Legends. At the time we were promised "a new and revolutionary engine" from Severance's lead programmer, which would be used to power a first person role-playing game. Now the company has launched its new website, which features the first concept art and renders from this debut project along with screenshots from the engine and some more solid information on what we can expect from the game. Nightfall Dragons is, like Severance, an action role-playing hybrid, but this time set in a world of "mythical creatures, legendary martial arts masters, invulnerable fortresses, secret monasteries and incredible natural landscapes". On the technology front, the engine offers weather effects and a full day and night cycle, as well as support for detailed character models and dynamic shadows. The first early images certainly look promising, but as yet there's no word on when the game will actually be released. Related Feature - Digital Legends emerge from Spain

Fishtank Interactive and Hungarian developers Storm Region have released a demo version of their off-the-wall real-time strategy game SWINE, which centers around a war between bloodthirsty pigs and rabbits. We warned you it was weird. The newly released demo, available in English rabbit stew, German schweineschnitzel and Hungarian spicy goulash flavours from Storm Region, weighs in at around 90Mb and features one of the single player missions from the rabbit campaign - Carrot City. If you have difficulty grabbing the files from the StormRegion website, Tiscali have the English demo here and other mirrors will no doubt be available soon. It's certainly worth a look if you fancy something a little .. different. Related Feature - SWINE preview

It's over four years now since French director Luc Besson's wild sci-fi movie The Fifth Element burst on to our screens, but with the release of New York Race next week on PC and PS2, gamers will be getting a second bite at the cherry. We spoke to the game's producer Jeôme Antona to find out more.

Are PC gamers forever destined to be shut away in their dingy corners playing RPG's and first-person shooters for the rest of gaming eternity? Time after time it has been proven that the PC doesn't really stand out as a bastion of varied thrills, despite the hapless efforts of many (I'm still trying to recover from Toon Car). Arcade racers on the home computer, especially, haven't exactly been known to push the envelope in terms of innovation, production values or, indeed, gameplay quality, not since Wipeout and its sibling arrived on the scene anyway. French developers Kalisto have set out to redress the balance with their Fifth Element-inspired racer, New York Race. It's important to take note of that word "inspired". Kalisto have taken the first few minutes of the film and managed to expand that into an entire game, which is quite a feat when you think about it, however this is where the similarities end. NY Race takes the form of a standard-fare futuristic racing game, and the options on offer from the start indicate that the game is disappointingly shallow. You can choose from championship, single race, multiplayer or time attack modes, all of which are pretty self-explanatory. The core of the game lies in the championship mode, and when you start out only the beginner portion of the game is unlocked for playing, along with one vehicle. This seemed like a rather steep level of limitation for a new player, forcing you to compete in the championship before you can enjoy the luxury of driving a decent vehicle on an interesting course. First impressions aren't terribly promising, as you slouch around the track in last place, bouncing off the walls of buildings and tunnels and wonder why everyone else is moving twice as fast as you. Eventually, however, you begin to get to grips with the nuances of controlling your free-floating car; you have the ability to strafe in all directions, as well as perform speed-building nose-dives and powerslide around sharp corners. The unpredictable nature of many of the tracks demand that you make the most of your control set, as opposed to holding down "accelerate" and turning every once in a while. Aiding in your progress during your races are the obligatory powerups of varying types, including fireballs to shoot up the behinds of your competitors, and huge blobs of weird glue stuff to slow down hapless tailgaters. The handling of your vehicle soon becomes second nature, and it's then that you can begin to appreciate the impressive amount of attention applied to the racing environments.

So the Xbox launched today, and with it we got our first glimpse of Microsoft's vision of console gaming for the next few years. Entertaining software like Halo and Project Gotham aside, we thought we would focus on the various things that are going to draw negative press attention in the next few days. At the end, we'll balance it with an anti-Sony comment so it looks as though we're not actually biased, but of course really we are! First up, there are some wonderful lines from the Xbox manual. According to buyers, there are warnings that if the Xbox falls and hits someone, especially a small child, it could cause serious injury! We don't have the exact wording, sadly, but as owners of several small children ourselves we are naturally both shocked and appalled. We will be taking these concerns to Microsoft towards the weekend. Probably via a mobile phone while at the pub, as it happens. There's also a note that if the Xbox is overheating for whatever reason, a little orange LED will flash to alert the user. Of course, this shouldn't happen unless you put it on top of a stove or something, or light campfires inside of it. The console will probably crash if it overheats though, but don't worry, if you (literally) fry your PS2 it will also crash. GameCube is resilient because it is from a higher plane of existence. Interestingly, someone has managed to produce an image of what (apparently) happens if your Xbox works out that it's busted. This is not - repeat: not - what happens when a game crashes, because they don't. Just as we said they wouldn't. This is what happens when your Xbox realises that something is wrong on the inside. Use it as wallpaper or something if you like. Of course it's actually a big conspiracy - you'll have spotted that that's a Sony Trinitron TV... Beyond that, apparently it's possible to reproduce a bug in DOA3 where a kick or punch can pass through a torso without doing any damage... Is that it? Really, we were expecting some more impressive bugs than that. If any of you have actually bought an Xbox, let's hear about your experience with it. We're eager to find out what others think, because at the moment we only have voice of Xbox fansites to go on, and as such we have to take what say with a pinch of salt. Oh, and by the way, apparently Metal Gear Solid 2 only takes a few hours to finish. Or something. You know. Whatever.

Sony may be fretting over the console market in the West, but in Japan they are on the verge of launching a new PS2 budget range to satisfy gamers picking up the console in the run up to 2002. The range will be marketed as 'Mega Hits' and is set to include games that have sold more than one million copies worldwide. The first titles will be Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec, Onimusha and Tekken Tag Tournament, and they will cost the equivalent of just under £25. We can expect to see the 'Mega Hits' range launch in the States - although presumably under a different moniker - early on in 2002. The thing here is, if they can afford to sell recently-released games for less, why can't they afford to lop $99 off the price of the console in the USA? Surely that would make more sense, chaps. You'd make it back in software sales... promise! As with all good things, Europe is The Third Place. Sony has been telling people that a budget range would be a "logical" move, at least in the UK. They don't know when they would do such a thing though, or how much the games will cost. Great. C&VG has managed to frighten somebody from Sony UK into admitting that the company is in talks to release a PS2 Platinum Range, which given the enormous success of the PSOne range would make perfect sense. They also suggest a price point - either £19.99 or £24.99. As far as we're concerned, that would be a shame. For PS2 to really hit home with the young 'uns, you need to go to £14.99. We also doubt we will see titles like Gran Turismo 3 and Onimusha on a PS2 Platinum range for a while. Not while there's still full-price takings to be had! Not in this country! Related Feature - Sony frets over PS2

Nordic developers Pan Interactive have announced a publishing deal with Mindscape UK which will see their offbeat rock 'n' roll business sim Rock Manager arriving on our shores in March. Pan's international sales manager Karin Björkin admitted that "we've been inundated with questions about when the game will finally be released", as originally it was expected to be out by now. The game was already looking promising when we saw it at ECTS a couple of months ago, with a healthy dose of coarse humour and swearing, and missions inspired by the likes of Oasis and Spinal Tap. Which has to be a good thing. Related Feature - Rock Manager screenshots

Microsoft's Xbox launched with a fanfare last night as the clocks ticked over into the morning of November 15th 2001 in New York City. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spearheaded a symbolic launch celebration at the Times Square, New York branch of Toys R Us, by handing out the very first Xbox to a gleeful customer. The fact that many stores (including some in New York) had been handing out pre-ordered Xboxes for several days is being conveniently swept under the carpet… Toys R Us in NYC is reported to have had 1,000 Xboxes, along with a 5,000 square foot billboard and various video screens showing off Xbox software. Several retailers across America also opened at midnight to satisfy pre-orders. All of the first day units have been sold by pre-order. Microsoft has repeatedly warned journalists off the topic of launch allocation, indicating plans to replenish the supply in retail channels where needed, but we learnt this morning that the actual number to ship on day one is around 300,000 - all pre-orders. The first re-supply is due on Monday, so we'll have a better picture of the console's launch shortly afterward. Microsoft will have to be extremely aggressive this Christmas in order to steal any market share at all from Sony, who have had things to themselves for several months. Sony has an incredible number of high quality titles on store shelves in the States now. Microsoft does not. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes.

and LAN Arena have teamed up with UbiSoft to run a nationwide Ghost Recon tournament, which is currently underway at their venues in London, Leicester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol and Maidenhead. All you need to do to enter is show up at one of the LAN gaming centers between now and November 18th, where you will be given the chance to play the Ghost Recon demo. Bizarrely, although the competition is a four player team event, the first round results are determined by who scores the highest number of frags in a single player mission, and solo players can apparently go along and enter by themselves and then form a team later. The top eight teams from each venue will then go through to the second phase, taking place on the 19th, 20th or 21st of November, which will use fifteen minute search and rescue teamplay matches to find the best team. The final stage will consist of an online knock-out competition between the top teams from each venue, with the winning team taking home £1,000 in cash, the runners-up getting BB guns to terrorise the neighbours with, and the third place team walking off with copies of the game. For a full breakdown of the rules and addresses for all the venues, check the Ghost Recon tournament page on The Playing Fields website. Related Feature - Ghost Recon preview

CDV have announced that Imperium Galactica III : Genesis will be released in the UK, France, Germany and America in March 2002. Developed by Philos Labs, the Hungarian company behind last year's Aztec strategy game Theocracy, IG3 features a mix of stunning real-time space battles, empire-building and diplomacy as you take on a range of powerful alien races. "Having won the rights to publish IG3, we're going all-out to ensure this is the biggest in the series", CDV president Terry Malham declared. Accordingly the game will have a more tactical focus than previous installments, with gorgeous real-time 3D graphics throughout and a storyline from Hungarian sci-fi writer Zsolt Nyulaszi. It was certainly looking impressive when we saw the game in action at ECTS a couple of months ago, and if the gameplay can match the eye candy Philos could be on to a winner. Look for further details in the next few months, but in the meantime you can get a glimpse of what to expect on the newly launched IG3 website. Related Feature - Imperium Galactica 3 screenshots

Asheron's Call has always played second fiddle to Everquest, but the recent release of the Dark Majesty expansion pack in America has apparently given it a new lease of life, with the add-on going straight to the top of the PC charts, knocking the much vaunted Dark Age of Camelot off the top spot in the process. The pack adds a variety of new monsters to kill and new lands to explore, as well as the ability to own your own house, ranging from ramshackle cottages to vast sprawling mansions. And the good news for European fans is that the game is due out on this side of the pond on Friday. In related news, Microsoft have released a new teaser for the Asheron's Call sequel currently under development at Turbine. The short 35 second movie includes footage showing characters being animated and the map editor in action, as well as some impressive in-game shots which show a richly textured world of rolling hills, towering mountains, mist-shrouded jungles and bizarre looking monsters. You can view the streaming video on Microsoft's Asheron's Call website. Related Feature - The Dereth Diary

Sony is feeling the heat of competition breathing down its neck, if a report today at FT.com is to be believed. Kunitake Ando, Sony's president and COO, has told the FT that the presence of Xbox on the market could shorten console lifecycles. In other words Ando-san fears that the more powerful Xbox, which actually retails for the same price as PlayStation 2 in the States, will force Sony to manufacture the PlayStation 3 ahead of schedule. Ando-san also uses the opportunity to have a little pop at Nintendo, drawing attention to the disappointing sales of the console in Japan. At the moment, Sony's console is the only one on the market in the USA, but as of this time next week it will have two competitors to deal with. The PS2 has an awesome catalogue of titles at the moment, though, and not content with that, Konami has mysteriously decided to launch Metal Gear Solid 2 one day after the US Xbox launch. The news that Sony feels PS3 production may need to be ramped up sooner is slightly confusing, because the company isn't used to backing away from current formats as soon as something else hits the market. That was Sega's MO, and the last thing we want is Sony repeating their mistakes. If it's so worried about market share slipping through its fingers, why not hack another $100 off the price of PS2? Don't forget, while we pay £199, American consumers still having to pay $299 - a shade over £200 at current exchange rates. Under normal circumstances we would expect to pay as many pounds as the yanks pay dollars. Sony isn't exactly giving itself every break, which is why this PS3 message seems somewhat confused. The truth is, Sony may not be losing much money on PS2 units at the moment, but with another $100 off the price it would be, and in order to get PS3 production online early (which Ando-san believes his company may need to do) it needs to recoup a lot of its investment in chip manufacturing. Perhaps now it's regretting its decision not to farm out console production to another firm, as Microsoft have done with Xbox… If Sony is in that position, it's a no-winner. They can't afford to drop the price of PlayStation 2 because they need to recoup costs, but they certainly can't afford to let Microsoft steal their market share by undercutting them in the near future. So which is worse? Losing the ability to construct PlayStation 3 in time to deal with an Xbox successor (HomeStation is still happening, as far as we know), or losing market share? It's an unenviable position to be in. The one thing we would say, is that Microsoft has more of a fight on its hands than anybody else. They have no previous success in the games console sector upon which to base their promotions, few if any killer applications (Jet Set Radio Future isn't even out yet, so forget that), and they are opting for the higher price of $299. With things the way they are now, Sony's next move may decide whether Xbox is a success or a failure. Related Feature - The Console Wars

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty will reach Europe on February 22nd 2002, Konami has revealed. The game, due out in America this Friday, is one of the most highly anticipated PlayStation 2 games ever, and in the present climate that's saying something. The game is already receiving monster reviews from the US sites. It looks like it's been - and in our case will continue to be - worth the wait.

In an unusual move which is not quite as "unprecendented" as they may like to think but still most welcome, UbiSoft have revealed that they will be launching the new Everquest : Shadows of Luclin expansion pack in Europe on Monday December 3rd as part of a simultaneous worldwide launch. This means the latest mission pack for the west's most popular massively multiplayer role-playing game will arrive on our shores a few days earlier than expected, as new games traditionally launch on Fridays in Europe for some reason.

Next time you make it in to work a few minutes late and your boss produces a newspaper to swat you round the head with, try telling him that you were having a Time Crisis at home. Henceforth he'll know not to bother you. A man that leaps around his own living room brandishing a couple of pistols and taking out the scourge of humanity with a wry grin and a schedule to keep isn't to be messed about. Your boss knows that. Time Crisis 2 is one of my all-time favourite arcade games. The pedal and gun system for ducking in and out of cover is the stuff of gaming legends, and Namco have successfully recreated the Time Crisis experience on PlayStation 2. The PS2 version has nicer visuals, more things to do and plays just as well as the arcade version. What more could a fan want? It also ships with the light gun - GunCon 2 - for £49.99. GunCon 2 is quite ingenious. It plugs into one of the PlayStation 2's USB slots (located just below the first controller port) and has a two-way cable bridge. You plug the composite video cable into one side and plug the other side into your TV. As a result the GunCon 2 is extremely accurate, right down to the pixel. You get a decent length of cable with it, and if you buy another GunCon 2 (or have an old GunCon from the original PSX) you can hook it up and play with a mate. Or, even better, play two-handed. You want the board's respect, right? First of all we should address the graphics. Namco always does a good job of arcade to console ports, and Time Crisis 2 is no exception. Granted, it isn't a patch on the likes of Gran Turismo, but it does still look pretty damn good and you can see where Namco have made an effort and spruced things up a bit. Additions include improved textures, higher polygon counts for the characters, backgrounds and such, and clouds of dust that I swear I didn't see in the arcade version.