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In a dramatic case of premature chestbusting, the Aliens vs Predator 2 demo has leaked its way on to the web earlier than expected. Originally it was due to appear on magazine cover discs at the end of next week, and indeed the copy we were sent by Vivendi Universal said that it wasn't to be posted online until August 26th. Then CGW decided they were going to host a world exclusive premiere of the demo at midnight tonight on their website. Now even that plan has gone to hell, with the aliens squirming out through the ceiling crawlspace to emerge on a small Czech site, with everyone and their dog now mirroring the file around the world.

While we already knew last week that Vivendi Universal had closed down their Dynamix studio, last night it emerged that the damage was far more severe than previously suspected. The closure of Dynamix and the resulting 97 lay-offs was just part of a major reorganisation at Sierra On-Line, which saw another 148 people being sacked at Bellevue and a further 20 transferred to Los Angeles, as well as the virtual annihilation of the Sierra Home software label. Vivendi's other studios Blizzard and Universal Interactive were both apparently uneffected by the reorganisation, but they must be a little nervous after this.

In their native Germany Bochum-based Phenomedia are perhaps best known as the warped minds behind the bizarre Moorhuhn cult, which now takes in a whole host of downloadable and web browser games featuring the eponymous bird. On a more serious level though they have also had a hand in cute Viking strategy game Cultures and ambitious first person role-playing game Gothic amongst other titles. Now Austria's Jo Wood have signed a deal to publish a dozen of their games around the world, including sequels to both Gothic and Cultures, as well as original titles like Far West, a wild west strategy game. Whether we will get to see the Moorhuhn in English as part of the deal is unclear at this stage.

have announced a price cut for Aces High, their award-winning but (until now) rather expensive massively multiplayer combat sim. Previously Aces High cost a staggering $29.95 a month to play online, two to three times higher than most other massively multiplayer games. But as from today the game's monthly unlimited usage fee drops to a more reasonable $14.95.

Almost all of the world's semiconductor companies may be having a tough year, but NVIDIA seems to be having a fine old time of it, if its second quarter figures are anything to go by. Sales worth $260.3 million made during the three months to July 29th ensured a healthy $50.1 million pre-tax profit. Factor in tax and other expenses and one-off items, and NVIDIA's actual income for the period comes to $33.6 million (39 cents a share). That's an increase of a fraction over 49 per cent on Q2 2000's actual earnings of $22.5 million (28 cents a share). Revenues were up 53 per cent on the year-ago quarter's sales of $170.4 million.

One of the last RPGs Squaresoft developed for the Super Nintendo was Super Mario RPG. Nintendo rarely trust their characters to outsiders, but on this occasion it paid dividends. The isometric adventures of Mario and co. were rudely dismissed as 'my first RPG' by the diehards, but there was an unmistakeable charm about the whole experience, and over time it endeared people to the Mario franchise in ways they'd never expected.

More rumours have emerged that the Xbox's November 8th US launch could be delayed or scuppered. This time the finger is being pointed at problems with Intel's motherboard, with analysts at Thomas Weisel Partners saying that sources had told them a design fault could lead to manufacturing delays which could set back the console's construction by up to a month. As a result Microsoft would only have half as many Xboxes available on launch day as it had been hoping for, or it could choose to delay the launch to allow the full inventory to build up.

Following on from their work on unusual games such as Casanova and Faust, Arxel Tribe today unveiled their latest creation - "Hitchcock : The Final Cut". Inspired by the works of the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, The Final Cut is an action-adventure game with the emphasis on dialogue and investigation. In it you take on the role of a psychic private eye called Joseph Shamley as he tries to track down a wealthy businessman who disappeared while shooting a movie on his estate. In an interesting twist, if you become stuck Joseph's psychic abilities can generate new leads to help prod you in the right direction.

Last year Visiware became one of the first companies to release a truly episodic game over the internet, with Arabian Nights taking you back to a mythological middle east to fight an evil Grand Vizir and rescue five scantily clad princesses in true One Thousand And One Nights fashion. Now they have teamed up with Wanadoo to bundle all seven episodes of the action-adventure game in a single package for a more conventional retail release, with Koch's Virtuoso division distributing it in the UK.

This 'ere Mega Man Legends 2. It's in 3D. What's going on? Mega Man, one of the staples of the gaming diet, has been around in various guises for far longer than is healthy. Resisting popular trends, it took the team that develop his games about five years longer than the rest of the industry to convert him into 3D for the original Legends, but when they eventually did he was no worse off for it.. Nor were Capcom. Between our little blue friend and the Street Fighter series, it's little wonder to me that Capcom is still solvent and rip-roaring through new formats at a rate of knots.. It's definitely not thanks to innovation. Mega Man has been the same 2D platform/shooter throughout history; it's just a particularly competent 2D platform/shooter. Mega Man Legends 2 isn't all that different in reality. If anything, it takes a step or two back, discarding Mega Man's X armour and 'grown up' status and harking us back to the days when everything was happy and fluffy in Mega Man's world, and cute little animals wandered around more reminiscent of the ones that Sega's blue hedgehog went about saving.. Whether you like the idea of Mega Man in 3D or not though, you'll be enthralled by the complexity of the story in Mega Man Legends 2. It's not exactly Oscar material, but by Mega Man standards it's Tolstoy. The game is set just after the end of the first one, with Von Bluecher and the Professor holding a press conference to announce their search for the 'Mother Lode'. During the introductory sequence characters are introduced, including our hero and his sidekick Roll, and a suspicious-looking reporter warns the group not to explore the Forbidden Island, where few have gone before.

Loki Software, which specialised in porting existing PC games to Linux, has filed for bankruptcy. According to a report on LinuxPorts the company owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to Activision and other publishers it has worked with. The company's problems are perhaps unsurprising as Linux gaming is something of a niche market. Most Linux gamers have a Windows or dual boot system to play on because of the tiny number of games which actually make it to Linux, and as the Linux port usually comes out months after the original Windows version, most people have already bought the game by the time Loki releases it and are loath to pay out another $30-50 for a seperate Linux version. While developing Linux ports for publishers to include bundled with their own Windows products might have worked, paying those publishers hefty licensing fees to sell stand-alone Linux versions clearly hasn't.

Nintendo's preparations for SpaceWorld 2001 in full swing, Japanese magazine GB-Advance caught up with director Satoru Iwata to discuss third party relations, software strategies and more. Amongst comments about the GameCube's successful reception at E3 and his thoughts on how the software lineup conveys "Nintendo's philosophy in motion", Iwata made some interesting comments on N64 sequels, the largely first party software line-up and the proposed modem add-on. One of the first things the Japanese interviewer asked was why N64 originals like Doubutsu no Mori were of such importance to the company on the GameCube. Iwata responded, "there were a handful of titles for the Nintendo 64 that were very unique, but they didn't have the opportunity to reach a large audience." Iwata believes these games have mass appeal, but they weren't able to get a foothold. A more obvious concession of the N64's failure I haven't seen for a while. Although the early line-up generally speaking dwells on franchise games to make its mark, Iwata claims to be "opposed to sequels" on principle. We'll let him off for the dozens of Mario iterations then, shall we? "Not all of them are bad. However, if a sequel isn't substantially different from its predecessor then there's no reason to buy it, and players realize that. So we've rejected those kinds of sequels." Sequels on the GameCube, Iwata says, will either "try to give players a complete new experience" (like Pikmin) or "try to create a new spin on a popular theme." The next interesting point is about third parties. The interviewer first asks whether or not third parties are hesitant about developing for the console. Iwata sidesteps this somewhat by saying that it would be "contrary to our philosophy to concentrate on 3rd party software and the number of software titles available in order to sell hardware." Clearly not content with that, the interviewer presses the point, saying that he finds it disconcerting that the GameCube's launch lineup consists largely of first party titles, much like the Nintendo 64, which Iwata has already all but admitted was a failure. Iwata reckons you can't expect to see a large number of third party titles for a while yet though. You have to foster interest in the console. "With the Nintendo 64, 3rd party software took awhile because the hardware was difficult to develop for," he admits. "We've taken that into consideration when designing the GameCube, so we don't feel that's a problem this time. On the other than though, we feel as if we have to create a market through Nintendo's software first in order for the GameCube to succeed. It's like battle, we have to go in and establish our position before calling our allies for reinforcements." Finally, Iwata is asked about the proposed modem, and tells the interviewer that unfortunately it won't be available for launch. "A definitive release date and pricing still hasn't been decided, so I can't really discuss it," he adds. "Sega has been encouraging us to release the modem because of their upcoming title Phantasy Star Online. We're considering their needs and discussing how soon we can release the modem. We should have an announcement ready for SpaceWorld." Related Feature - The Console Wars

For some time now a silent war has been raging between NVIDIA and ATI. On the one side you have the GeForce 3, NVIDIA at the peak of its game, pushing more polygons per second than any other card on the market twice over, and squaring off against it you have the Radeon DDR, a card that can barely compete on performance but won us over with its 2D and 3D visual quality. NVIDIA GeForce 3 owners have definitely had the run of things for a while though. A lot of people chose to ignore the barely distinguishable difference in visual quality and opt for the card that gave them the most frames and smoothing techniques. They would probably tell you that 2x Quincunx FSAA beats the pants off a pleasant-looking desktop image. Whether they like it or not though, from today they may have to accept a bit of ignominy, because ATI has finally announced its new line of graphics cards and they seem to boast GeForce 3-beating performance without a loss in visual quality. In fact, if anything the new techniques ATI has employed could well improve upon it. From the top, the lineup is RADEON 8500, RADEON 7500 and FIRE GL 8800. The FIRE GL card is a workstation job for mid-range 3D design (CAD/CAM/digital content etc) and as such it doesn't really concern us. The RADEON 7500 though is described as a low price-point, high performance mainstream card with dual monitor, DVI and TV out, 64Mb of DDR memory and RADEON-beating performance according to 3D Winbench. The clever part of the marketing strategy is to depict it as a performance card that fits the budget of a mainstream buyer. By which they mean 'not the sort of guy who bought a GeForce 3'. Competing with NVIDIA for the big numbers though will be the RADEON 8500, which they claim turns up better 3D Mark 2001 figures than the GeForce 3, which has to be a compelling argument given that most of the opportunities gamers have had to really push the GeForce 3 so far have been in this benchmarking program. It doesn't stop there either; 64Mb of DDR memory is onboard, as is DVI output support, dual monitor and video output, the customary DVD decoding facilities that made previous RADEONs so impressive, and to top it all ATI claim that the RADEON 8500 will be the first fully DirectX 8.1 compliant card. We can just see NVIDIA rushing to 'leak' a set of DX 8.1 compliant drivers! We've spoken before about TRUFORM and SMARTSHADER, (you can learn about the former here), but like most new graphics technologies the short and sweet of it is that things look more believable. Things are smoother for a start, blending away those embarrassing straight edges and turning them into luscious curves, and the good news is that unlike some of the more exciting high-end technologies found in the NVIDIA line of cards, ATI's TRUFORM and SMARTSHADER can be applied to current games on the fly, making them a valuable addition to the RADEON line. Apparently ATI share our convictions that gamers want their performance increases and nicer visuals now, not six months away when the games arrive. ATI may finally have broken away from the shackles of their Rage Pro past with the new RADEONs. We'll want to see one before we cast judgement over them, but if the performance figures are to be believed, things could get very hot in the graphics card industry this year. NVIDIA will almost certainly strike back, perhaps with a GeForce 3 Ultra before the end of the year. Oh, and one final thing. This writer would love to hear John Carmack's verdict on how many frames of DOOM 3 the RADEON 8500 can push per second before he buys one. Related Feature - The Truform™ is out there

This time five years ago it was Nintendo's market. Sony had surprised everyone, abandoning plans for a Nintendo crossover CD unit and severing ties with the Japanese giant, then going alone with the unpredictably fashionable PlayStation. Sega meanwhile were virtually bankrupt, dragged into the murky depths of the financial slaughterhouse by the Sega Saturn. Nintendo were still supporting the SNES, arguably my favourite console of all time, and the Nintendo 64 (or Ultra 64 as it almost was) was due to arrive within months. It was heralded as the first quality-controlled console. Magazines were the food for thought at the time, not websites, and their journalists simply lapped up the launch lineup with the news that Nintendo representatives would personally supervise projects in order to ensure the highest standards. Super Mario 64 alone, glimpsed at trade shows and in the pages of Japanese weeklies killed off this writer's impulse to buy a PlayStation for almost six months. If I'd been asked to paint a picture of the console market in five years' time, I would have predicted a buoyant Nintendo surfing the waves triumphantly while Sony lurked in its wake…

From September 21st French developers Arxel Tribe will be giving you the chance to take on the role of the legendary Venetian adventurer and writer Giacomo Casanova, whose name has become a byword for seduction and philandering. Casanova : Duel of the Black Rose takes you back to 18th century Venice, where you must master both swordplay and seduction as you become drawn into a secret war.

Although Funcom's massively multiplayer role-playing game Anarchy Online has been available in the USA and Scandinavia for some time now, the rest of Europe has been playing a waiting game. Next month that wait will be over, as Koch Media have announced that their Virtuoso division is going to be distributing the game in the UK from September 28th. Elsewhere in Europe, Funcom has already revealed that the game will be published by HD Interactive (Benelux) and Bigben (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) amongst others.

Having already organised a Terrorist LAN and the Highlander-themed Gathering, RoWeb's next event will be the Half-Life scientist inspired TechLAN, taking place in Swindon between September 7th and 9th. Entry for the whole weekend is just £20 if you book through their LAN Shop. As usual there will be an amply stocked on-site bar, with the added bonus of copious amounts of free Jolt Cola to keep you conscious throughout the weekend. The main attraction will be the now traditional Counter-Strike competition, but in keeping with the event's theme there will also be prizes for the best case mod and players are encouraged to turn up dressed as scientists.

Activision have officially announced their GameBoy Advance version of Doom, currently being developed by David A Palmer productions, the same people who brought id Software's Commander Keen to the GameBoy Color. The game will feature 24 maps (the original three Doom episodes) and a full selection of eight weapons. Perhaps most importantly though, the game will also include extensive multiplayer support via the GameBoy Advance's Game Link cable. This will not only allow four player deathmatch, with eight dedicated deathmatch maps as well as the single player ones available to battle it out on, but also give two players the chance to fight alongside each other in co-operative mode.

Virgin Interactive have launched the official website for their forthcoming PS2 and Xbox motor racing game Lotus Challenge. As well as the traditional screenshots, game information and downloadable movies, the site also features streaming samples of the soundtrack by Hybrid and a chance to view some of the in-game car models for yourself using a Shockwave plug-in. This allows you to rotate your view around the 3D models, zoom in and out and pan up and down the length of the car to get a closer look at what some of these desireable vehicles will look like in the final game. There is also a downloadable screensaver which will set Lotus cars screaming across your desktop, and a competition to win Hybrid goodies and Firetrap streetwear. Check the Lotus Challenge website for more information.

After three years of re-releases and mission pack bundles, taking in everything from the Game of The Year Edition to the Counter-Strike multiplayer pack, Half-Life is finally being put out to pasture as a budget title as part of Sierra's "Best Seller" series. Costing just £9.99, the budget version will be available in the UK from the end of September. Other games joining the Best Seller series alongside Half-Life include its sci-fi spin-off Gunman Chronicles, real-time strategy game Ground Control, and tactical action title SWAT 3 : Elite Edition.

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie Aliens comes when a highly trained squad of marines is reduced to a rabble of whimpering nervous wrecks after their first encounter with the eponymous xenomorphs, running for their lives in total confusion and firing random bursts of gunfire into the shadows as hideous HR Giger designed monsters drop down from the ceilings and emerge from the walls. After playing ten minutes of Aliens vs Predator 2, you will know exactly how they felt.

The hype and rumours have been building for weeks, ever since id Software's PR company sent out a cryptic press release promising that "new games from id" would be announced at the QuakeCon event in Dallas. Today was the big day, and the first reports are coming in of just what it was that id were announcing. Top of the list is confirmation that Quake 4 is under construction at Raven, using the Doom 3 engine. The new game will be a single player focused offering set in the Strogg universe seen in Quake 2, as opposed to the garbled Lovecraftian pastiche of Quake and the off-the-wall Sonic-inspired world of Quake 3 Arena. Probably a wise move, all things considered.

More details on the Max Payne movie have emerged, with Remedy Entertainment's hit action game heading for the big screen courtesy of Abandon Entertainment, Collision Entertainment (that's a whole lot of entertainment) and Dimension Films. If the names sound familiar, it could be because this is the same trio that are trying to turn American McGee's Alice into a movie, under the watchful gaze of Wes Craven of all people. And bizarrely, although the deal wasn't actually signed and announced until earlier this week, the introduction to Max Payne's manual had already revealed the news to gamers around the world at the end of last month.

It looks like Wireplay will almost certainly go off the air sometime today. Obituaries and wakes have sprung up all over the service's message boards full of glowing fan tributes and dedications. The five ex-staffers who first brought the news to light announcing their allegiance to Telewest Blueyonder yesterday have updated their Pish.org website once again with the news that Wireplay fans can sign up for a Blueyonder cable modem and receive a half-price installation. Fans should check the Pish.org website for details, and you can check availability here.

Sony has announced the fall 2001 release of its paranormal action RPG Okage: Shadow King for PlayStation 2. Featuring six unique playable characters and a vast 3D world spanning 20 beautifully rendered environments, they say Okage will be the next big thing in console RPGs. The RPG rule set of good and evil is established early on, but the key players are on the wrong side! The game focuses on a young boy called Ari, who lives in a remote village in the world of Tenel. When Ari's sister is attacked by a ghost, their father unknowingly releases a demon called Stan, who agrees to rescue Ari's sister on the condition that he can possess Ari's shadow, forcing the young boy to become his slave. However, when Stan is resurrected in the youngster's shadow, he discovers that his powers are weak, and sets out to defeat the rest of the world's demons and become all powerful once again, forcing Ari along with him. No doubt there will be a twist along the way, with players navigating as the ostensibly innocent Ari and fighting rival demons for the evil Stan. Sony boasts that the game combines traditional RPG elements with real-time battles and puzzle-solving, along the same sort of lines as Super Nintendo classic Secret of Mana. The company also claims that Okage will take many hours to complete. Hopefully they're right and it won't end as quickly as thrill-a-minute Capcom adventure Onimusha.

French designer Hubert Chardot has carved something of a niche for himself in the gaming industry, helping to create the massively popular horror survival genre with his work on classic games like Alone in the Dark, Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice. More recently he has been serving as Creative Director at Gamesquad, and with his latest project just completed we caught up with him to find out more about the game, as well as his forthcoming movie, MP3.

According to developers and friends of the company, Tribes 2 developer Dynamix has been closed by bosses at Sierra. Speaking in public forums at TribalWar.com, current and former Dynamix employees have announced that the rumour doing the rounds of the company's dissolution may very well turn out to be true. Scott Youngblood (alias CornBoy) worked at Dynamix for over nine years. "Dynamix is going to be shut down and everyone laid off," he told sceptical fans. Compounding this, Dave Meddish, alias Diamondback told fans that only five people were left in the building yesterday afternoon, and everyone has been dismissed until Monday, when they will be told "the fate of Dynamix". Both Scott and Dave blame the "mismanagement of Sierra" for Dynamix' situation. Another employee, wishing to remain anonymous for fear of losing his severance pay, told TribalWar that "the lot of us were locked out of the building today". "The whole thing is quite a shock for most of us," he wrote, "aside from those few in upper management at Dynamix who could not manage the meagre bit of human decency that it would have taken to give us a warning." One would imagine we'll hear a lot of bitter reports from ex-Dynamix employees in the next week or so. Wrapped in denial, GameSpy's PlanetTribes website operator Yoshi decided to take a trip to the Oregon-based offices of Dynamix to find out more. He described "a very empty parking lot" and "a note on the door telling all Dynamix staff to call Carrie on the Call box". Employees and fans alike are waiting with baited breath for whatever announcement is made on Monday, but it's clear that nothing like this has ever darkened the doorway of the Tribes developer before, and nobody involved with the company holds much hope for a reprieve. It is believed that in the short-term at least Sierra will support Tribes 2. Related Feature - Tribes 2 Review

Following recent rumours, the Gathering of Developers today revealed that it is indeed closing down. What started out as a developer-friendly independent publisher designed to follow in the footsteps of movie studio United Artists was soon relegated to the status of just another label for Take 2 Interactive. Today the dream finally came to an end with the announcement that Take 2 will be closing down the Texan company and running the God Games label from its own New York offices in future. Founder Mike Wilson will be leaving with several other God employees to launch a video-magazine featuring short films, music videos, documentaries and trailers.

Russian police are apparently blaming Final Fantasy for a series of six teenage suicides over the last four months in a town called Kstovo, according to a report in Pravda headlined "Video Game Killed 6 Teenagers". The paper's English translation is rather hit and miss (mostly miss), but it appears that law enforcement officers are investigating the possibility that the game has a "destructive influence on psychology", or even that there was "some code signal recorded on the CD game which made the guys kill themselves", after three teenagers hung themselves and another three jumped off rooftops.

June 2001. Five Wireplay game server and administration gurus sit heartbroken in Gameplay's plush Vine Hill offices contemplating the dole. The loss of Wireplay won't just affect their incomes, it will also destroy a tight-knit community of like-minded gamers who frequent their servers and message boards. What a waste of a perfectly good online service, they all murmur. Fast forward two months and the same five now ex-Wireplay server admins are united again. "We, the five main ex-Wireplay game server and community administration dudes - drilla, velvet, stikky, amok and babyharpseal - wish to make what we think is a very important announcement to the gaming community," they write on their website at Pish.org. "Back in June we were made redundant by Gameplay plc and have since continued to support the community unpaid. Unfortunately now we understand that Wireplay (including the forums, all the game servers, etc) is about to finally lose its connection to the Internet." "Now here's the good news. In recent weeks we have received many offers to run a similar operation elsewhere. Having seen the plans and aspirations of each of the organisations who approached us, one stood out as far and away the most advanced, forward-thinking and ambitious: Telewest's plans for their blueyonder service." "They are deadly serious about providing the ultimate gaming service and have already signed up game-networking guru Utumno (ex-Barrysworld) and web genius MrVista (ex-Wireplay). They've been busy over the last few months building an infrastructure that will support a high-performance games and community system that will be launched very soon." "All five of us have now signed on the dotted line to join them and we're very excited about working for an organisation that - right up to the top level - at last takes online gaming seriously." "We want to continue the spirit of the Wireplay community within blueyonder, where we believe we'll have the support of a company that is absolutely committed to gaming." "The community liaisons and leaders are up for working with us once the new blueyonder service is set up. And before anyone asks us - yes the new service will be open to everyone with Internet access - although blueyonder customers will get access to special features." "Anyway, we look forward to providing you gamers with a service that we've wanted to give you for years." Let the good times roll!