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Next Friday marks the release of one of the most hotly anticipated videogames of 2002. It was amongst our picks for the year and has met with awesome critical acclaim all over the globe. I am talking of course about Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty, the culmination of three years' arduous work from Hideo Kojima's 70-strong development team at Konami Japan. MGS2 is already the fastest-selling PS2 game in the States to date, and the initial run of 500,000 copies for Europe is expected to sell out in short order. This Wednesday we caught up with the game's creator, Hideo Kojima, and the man responsible for the game's breathtaking score, Brit-in-exile Harry Gregson-Williams in an open Q&A session at London's Institute of Contemporary Art.

LucasArts today announced its upcoming RPG Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. The game will debut on Xbox later this year and PC in early 2003, and is in development at BioWare, the chaps responsible for the noble Baldur's Gate series. BioWare's RPG credentials can hardly be questioned, and that coupled with the first few screenshots released by LucasArts have gotten us all excited. The game features an original story set some 4,000 years prior to the timeframe of the Star Wars films in an era dominated by an epic conflict between Jedi and Sith. Knowing BioWare as we do, we fully expect Star Wars KotOR to rock our socks off when it is released later this year. More details can be found at LucasArts' website. Related Feature - Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Xbox screenshots

Final Fantasy VI was finally released for the PSone this morning, and shipped with a playable demo of Final Fantasy X for the PS2. Priced at a paltry £9.99 (which really is shockingly good value), FFVI consists of more gameplay than 10 of your average PSone games, and even features a number of new CG cutscenes to spruce up the overall effect. Fans of the series who never owned a Super Nintendo (shame on you, natch) should endeavour to pick this up as soon as humanly possible. And those looking forward to FFX will want to track it down as well. Unfortunately, the FFX demo does not include a 60Hz mode, and also seems to boast some fairly hefty borders. I think it's safe to say that we're hoping this will be rectified in time for the game's summer release - having been forced to wait such a stupid amount of time for the game itself it's the least frustrated PS2 owners should be able to expect. If you do plan to rush out and buy it today though, try to stick to small independent stores, and don't even bother trying online. Amazon, Gameplay and a number of others are already sold out with more stock expected next week. We bought our copy from a local video shop. Final Fantasy X is due out on May 1st. Related Feature - Final Fantasy X

Those wily tricksters at Ubi Soft are running a teaser campaign for what they describe as "one of Ubi Soft's leading 2002 games". Based on the teasers, it seems to be some sort of tactical action game, but the excitement is far too much for this writer. It's not just a PC game, though. Rumours circulating at the moment point to Rainbow Six III. The next teaser will be aired at 6PM tonight. Tune in again then to find out the truth. And if you have a suggestion, leave a comment!

German gaming website Krawall is reporting that Unreal Tournament and Return to Castle Wolfenstein have been banned by the German authority responsible for certifying violent games and movies, the BPjS. According to Krawall, the decision "forbids our press advertisement and coverage [of] these titles". The last two BPjS-banned games were Max Payne and Rune, both from Take 2. Our German-speaking readers can read the full story at Krawall.

Maximo is a heroic young adventurer of great fortitude, who spends his life prancing around the place dealing with indescribable peril. In other words, he's an upstanding citizen. But one day, he returns home to find his kingdom plunged into darkness, and his once-trusted advisor Achille the source of great evil and power, and the forced husband of his bride-to-be Sophia. Upon voicing his concerns, the evil Sorcerer kills him. Okay, that doesn't really amount to that much of a videogame, but Maximo is the sort of chap who doesn't take death lying down. Confronted by the Grim Reaper, he is offered the chance to once again seize the mortal coil, but only if he can deal with the threat of the kingdom's evil ruler once and for all. According to Death, Achille's actions include harvesting spirits and ruffling the feathers of the happily deceased. This is no good. Maximo had that one in his diary anyway, and lo, he is resurrected, born again and armed only with a sword, a shield and some fancy armour, he has to find the source of Achille's evil power (ooh, guess), destroy it and its master, rescue the kingom's four banished sorceresses and save his damsel in distress. Phew. Maximo begins his adventure with three lives and a Death Coin. Although Koins - the currency of the game - are scattered all over the levels, the Death Coin is far more important. In the event that Maximo runs out of lives before he completes his quest, he can use the Death Coin to charm the Reaper into resurrecting him again. The wily old Reaper's incentive in all of this is that a Death Coin consists of spirits, plucked from the battered tombstones of the kingdom, which Achille has been keeping from him.

Take 2 are celebrating this week as they become the first publisher to hold all three top spots in the Chart Track UK PlayStation 2 charts. Although we're perhaps not the game's biggest fans, anarchic beat 'em up State of Emergency went straight to the top of the pile on release, where it joins the PlayStation 2 port of eye candy laden action game Max Payne and the sublime criminal caper Grand Theft Auto 3, which has been dominating the console's charts since its release a few months ago. Whether State of Emergency will enjoy the same stranglehold on the charts in weeks to come remains to be seen, but with an Xbox port of Max Payne confirmed today as a European launch title for Microsoft's heavyweight console and the long-awaited PC version of Grand Theft Auto 3 also due out later this year, Take 2 could be on a roll. Related Feature - GTA3 PS2 review

Microsoft has confirmed the official Xbox launch line-up for Europe, consisting of 20 titles. The charge is being led by Bungie's first person shooter Halo, flanked by Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing, Jet Set Radio Future and Wreckless : The Yakuza Missions. These are what we would describe as the pick of the litter. Moving on we have a number of games with the potential to surprise, including Amped : Freestyle Snowboarding, a game considered by this writer to be 'Tony Hawk on snow' in places, and of course Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 itself. A handful of exclusives still lurk in the pack, including Fuzion Frenzy, which is a neat little party game, Blood Wake, which is a violent little speedboat game, Oddworld : Munch's Oddysee, which is a sub-Jak & Daxter platform adventure game, Dark Summit, which cannot hope to compete with Amped or Tony Hawk, and Mad Dash Racing, another also-ran. The rest of the line-up consists largely of ports; two NHL games, an NBA game (most of Electronic Arts' previously announced launch titles have been knocked back a few weeks), Max Payne, Batman : Vengeance, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX II, and padding out the tail are RalliSport Challenge and Transworld Surf. The full list, at a glance:

You're trying to stay as quiet as possible as the snow crunches beneath your boots. There are guards everywhere, vigilantly pacing their patrol routes and looking out from behind barbed-wire barricades. You crouch at the corner of the nearest building, your gaze fixed on the guards. Slowly you bring your rifle up and peer through the scope. It's cold out here, making it difficult for you to steady your aim, and your crosshairs stray off-target until you eventually get it under control. You aim at the forehead of one of a pair of guards and gently squeeze the trigger. The second guard turns his back, and his friend drops to the ground as your bullet whistles through his skull. Startled, the guard turns around again only to meet the same fate a split-second later. You rise, and continue forwards slowly. Silently. If there's one thing IO Interactive are on the right track with in Hitman 2, it's the atmosphere. Whilst the game has a long way to go as far as AI routines are concerned, the locational detail and character animation alone really breathe life into your surroundings. I personally felt that the original Hitman had a strange artificial movie-set feel to it, much like that on display in the Rainbow Six series. This appears to have been alleviated with detail levels bumped up across the board; the characters, the textures, the story, the level design - they all feel so much more intricate, which elevates the game onto a far more atmospheric, almost theatrical plane. After the first game, our protagonist went into retirement and gave up his profession in exchange for a life devoted to the church, feeling he needed to pay for his sins as a hitman. However, when his beloved padre is kidnapped from the church in Sicily, 47 (as he's known to his friends) is forced back into work in order to rescue his benefactor and dispatch of those who dared bring him back into the shadowy world of hired killers. Going back into employment with the Agency takes him to a variety of real-world locations for his missions, ranging from sniping dignitaries in meeting rooms to the basement murder of a pizza-gobbling programmer.

BT has finally confirmed details of its long-awaited price-drop for ADSL in the UK. Unfortunately, despite lowering the monthly cost for the end user to about £20, it also hiked the installation fee up to £210. Despite protestations that this move will "kick-start" broadband activity in the UK, consumers in covered areas could also opt for a £25-a-month cable connection, which features a much lower installation cost of about £50. A bit of shopping around also reveals that the so-called "wires-only" ADSL product, which works by letting users install their own splitter and connecting hardware of their choice, is priced only slightly higher with a one-month termination notice and a fraction of the installation fee. Another thing; ties can be severed in as little as a month if the service does not perform, whereas regular ADSL users are contracted to a 12 month minimum. Meanwhile, although some ISPs have launched lower-priced products based on wires-only and presumably will continue to do so with the new cut-price ADSL, it remains to be seen whether or not they will pass these savings onto existing customers, with whom they reserve the right to change contract terms.

At its second annual retail and publishers conference, Sony Computer Entertainment America has today announced it intention to launch a 'Greatest Hits' series of videogames on PlayStation 2. As the equivalent to Europe's Platinum line, it has similar criteria for qualification: sales must be in excess of 400,000 units and the title must have been on the market for more than nine months. SCEA has announced that initial first party releases will include Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec, Twisted Metal : Black, Dark Cloud and the slightly less-well-known ATV Offroad Fury. Combined sales of these games are said to top 2.8 million. SCEA has not detailed when the Greatest Hits will be allowed to launch, but it shouldn't be long. Speaking in a prepared statement, SCEA senior veepee Andrew House said, "Historically, we have always taken a very consumer-centric approach to the market. We are focused on presenting users with the best entertainment experience at compelling prices, further extending the PlayStation 2 value proposition by consistently passing on savings to the consumer. With such strong software support for PlayStation 2 we now are able to offer must-have games for around $25." Related Feature - PS2 goes Platinum

Proving that anything can sound exciting if you give it a catchy new name, the Bitmap Brothers are talking up the importance of morale in their forthcoming real-time strategy game code-named World War II. Enter a system called Frontline, which allows units to show signs of "everything from heroism to confidence, despair and cowardice" in the heat of battle, depending on their state of mind. As in any good wargame, their morale will alter their combat effectiveness or even prompt them to turn tail and run or perform a heroic deed. Exactly how this will work in a real-time setting remains to be seen, and we'll have to wait a little longer to find out - the game's release has been pushed back from summer to autumn. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the first screenshots of the game in action. Related Feature - World War II screenshots

Kuju Entertainment, Digital Bridges and BBC Multimedia have teamed up to bring the popular quiz show The Weakest Link to mobile phones, with a basic text-only SMS version and a graphically enhanced WAP game both on the way. Marking a step up from last year's console versions of the show, adult players will actually be able to win prizes by playing the game on their mobiles, although hopefully you won't have to suffer an embarrassing phone call from Anne Robinson if you foul things up. Orange have already licensed the SMS version for an exclusive period in the UK, with games manager Fergus Lynch commenting that "The Weakest Link .. will give Orange customers a thrilling interactive version of the hit game show in the palm of their hand". Related Feature - Thunderbirds go WAP

Whether or not it really was as good as the carnage-obsessed media of the time determined, Carmageddon was a perversely entertaining game. It was engaging enough to drag the player through a ridiculous number of levels - gradually unlocked as the player improved - before making his collection of vehicles inexplicably indestructible and ruining any remaining levels he still had to complete by removing the challenge. Still, it was about as close as the car combat formula has ever really come to succeeding. Twisted Metal, Sony's answer to SCi's - if you'll excuse the pun - killer franchise died a death before it really had a chance to blossom, slaughtered by a dissonance of feeble revamps which merely served to underline the PSone's inadequacies and Sony's own intention: to wring some cash out of Joe Public. Which is why Twisted Metal : Black comes as such a shock to the system. Stunning presentation, awe-inspiring vistas and manic gameplay aren't the half of it. There is a limitless amount of gameplay in this behemoth of a video game, and it fills the void left by the devolving Carmageddon series admirably. Twisted Metal : Black is made up of several gameplay modes, most notably the single-player story mode which invites you to pick a character - Street Fighter II style - and battle to the end of their storyline. You wouldn't necessarily think that a compelling narrative would be on the cards with characters like Sweet Tooth, Outlaw and Mr. Grimm and a running theme of wanton destruction, but for a large part of the time I played TMB I found myself empathizing with the characters. I have a little brother who enjoys destroying things, so I can relate to Sweet Tooth's plight. No, really.

A woman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is suing Nintendo for "unspecified damages" after her thirty year old son died during a marathon session on his N64. Apparently the unfortunate man died after hitting his head on a table during a seizure while playing with the console. While this was obviously a tragic loss for the family involved, it's hard to feel much sympathy for them once you start to read the details of the accident. According to the report from the Associated Press, the man first started suffering seizures after buying his N64 in 1999, but ignoring this inconvenience he carried on playing on the console for anything up to eight hours a day, six days a week. This despite the now standard epilepsy warning that comes with every Nintendo game, informing players that "some people may have seizures or black outs triggered by light flashes, such as while .. playing video games, even if they have never had a seizure before". The warning adds that "anyone who has had a seizure, loss of awareness, or other symptom linked to an epileptic condition should consult a doctor before playing a video game", and ends by suggesting in big capital letters that you should "stop playing immediately" if you experience any of these symptoms while using the console. It's also hard to see how the woman can seriously expect to sue Nintendo for "her son's lost future earnings" when he was a thirty year old who spent 48 hours a week sat in front of the TV playing Mario. Nintendo are understandably denying any responsibility for the death, although in a similar case last year (also in Louisiana) a jury decided that the company "did not provide an adequate warning concerning the risk of seizures". They did however determine that the console in question (a SNES) "was not unreasonably dangerous in design". Which is nice to know. Related Feature - Gaming Can Seriously Damage Your Health

After flamboyant launches in Tokyo and Times Square, Microsoft have announced the first details of their relatively downbeat plans for the Xbox's long overdue arrival in the British Isles. Wednesday March 13th has been dubbed "Xmas Eve", with several Virgin Megastores opening late into the night to sell the country's first Xboxes as the clock hits midnight. To get people into the festive spirit, Santa will be on hand to give "special presents" to the punters at the front of the queue and there will be free mince pies all round. An indeterminate number of lucky winners at each of the five participating stores will also win a year's supply of first party games for the Xbox, while the Oxford Street Virgin Megastore in London will feature a gaming zone where people can get a sneak peek at some of the Xbox's leading games from 10.30pm onwards. And to round the night off, the first person to buy an Xbox in London will get a stretched limo to take them home in style. Probably because it's the only vehicle big enough to accommodate both a bulky gaming geek and an Xbox. Full details of the launch and participating stores in London, Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham can be found in the press release. Related Feature - Xbox launches in Japan

It's only a few days since Microsoft revealed they were working on a dinosaur add-on for their unremarkable management sim Zoo Tycoon, but already Vivendi Universal have upstaged them by announcing Jurassic Park : Project Genesis. Due for release on PC and Xbox around the end of the year, Project Genesis will put you in charge of your very own Jurassic Park as you try to do better than Richard Attenborough by building and managing a successful dinosaur theme park, preferably one where Bob Peck won't end up as velociraptor snacks. Details are scarce at this early stage, but what we do know is that the game will feature a dozen missions for you to work your way through, facing dangers from "the awesome powers of nature and its most dominant creatures" as you play god from the comfort of your couch. Related Feature - Jurassic Park Tycoon

The annual Gaming Globe Awards enter their third year as EuroGamer once again offers you the chance to have your say on who gets the gongs. The Gaming Globes recognise excellence in a range of different fields within game development, from sound and visual effects to storyline and overall game design. Think of it as the gaming industry's answer to the Oscars.

There's plenty going on at Rage this February. On Friday the company announced that it has entered into an agreement with Alltainment GmbH to help sell and distribute its games in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Rage has made this move as part of plans to re-focus its business across Europe. Not content with that though, Rage has also appointed a new Publishing Director, former Virgin Interactive and Infogrames (UK) MD Roy Campbell, a man with some 20 years sales and management experience, and the perfect figurehead for the company's re-focusing campaign. Further to both of these announcements though, Rage has also announced a deal with MathEngine, a middleware technology group, to license and utilize its Karma physics package in the forthcoming military-action games featuring Andy McNab. The final Rage-related story of last week though is the sale of the company's Dundee-based studio to its original owner Dave Jones. Under the terms of the original acquisition agreement, Jones stood to receive a further £1m of Rage shares before 10th March 2002, but the new agreement will not see these issued. Under the terms of the 'Restructuring Agreement', original Rage Games Scotland shareholders will receive in aggregate £150,000 of Rage shares, half the amount due to them in the original agreement. Rage itself will not receive any financial consideration, although it has been issued with 20% of the share capital of Jones' newly formed studio Real Time Worlds and retains worldwide publishing rights for Mobile Forces, which continues development at its new home. Related Feature - The Ideal Crash

While dating games are inexplicably popular in Japan, nobody has created a video game to celebrate the wonders of British lad culture. Until now. Developed in deepest darkest Hampshire by nDreams, Lads On The Pull gives you the chance to get blind drunk, wander around town chatting up random strangers and (if you get lucky) take them back to your place for a night of horizontal tangoing. All without leaving your PC. As in real life though, excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to the "beer goggle effect", so the more you drink the more attractive the girls will start to look, possibly leading to some embarrassment in the morning. It's certainly an unusual (not to mention downright sexist) concept for a game, but with a demo expected within the next couple of months we should know more soon.

When 2015 and EA's Los Angeles studio began work on Allied Assault, they "aimed so high that the goal seemed impossible to reach". Sure enough they have failed to reach this lofty target, but for the most part the result is still a highly entertaining first person shooter. The first thing to get out of the way is that this is not a realistic game. If you come to Allied Assault expecting Rainbow Six meets Private Ryan you will be disappointed. For all the talk of being "steeped in authenticity" and "moving players away from the Rambo style run and gun gameplay", it's still a fairly traditional action game. Your character can pick up and carry an entire arsenal of lethal weaponry, from pistols and grenades to sniper rifles and bazookas; you just need to keep an eye on the ammo gauge and plan ahead to make sure that you don't reach the end of a clip in the middle of a fight. This does make combat somewhat more tactical than in your average shooter, and in the early stages of the game at least you will find yourself ducking in and out of cover, falling back to reload, and cautiously sneaking around corners and along rubble strewn streets. But while your health bar dwindles fairly rapidly if you find yourself on the wrong end of the gun, first aid packs are liberally scattered throughout the levels to instantly cure you. Which seems a bit of a cop out.

Microsoft launched its Xbox videogame console in Japan today, and BBC News Online reports that hundreds of Japanese fans flocked to the centre of Tokyo to pick up their console. Microsoft boss Bill Gates was in Tokyo to promote the console, chatting to shoppers in Shibuya as he did on November 15th in Times Square, New York for the American launch. The first owner of an Xbox in Japan apparently described the console as "sexy". Despite a line-up consisting largely of ports and games of Western origin which have not traditionally sold well in Japan, the console has been tipped to surprise its handlers in Japan by analysts. They believe the console's built in Ethernet and hard disk give it the edge over Sony's market-leading PlayStation 2.

Revolt is the latest developer to spring up in Russia, founded only last year by Sergey Mironov and Alexey Medvedev, formerly of New Media Generation. The company is currently hard at work on an innovative space combat sim called Homeplanet, which is expected to be released through Russian publisher Russobit-M later in the year. We caught up with Alexey to find out more...

Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken to journalists in the UK this week as part of an initiative amongst the upper echelons of Nintendo command to demonstrate the company's enthusiasm for Europe. Having visited Germany, Spain, Italy and France, he dropped into London for a quick chat, and managed to furnish us Brits with some interesting titbits! After presenting Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime and Eternal Darkness footage, he spoke openly about their development. The footage had shown Yoshi along with huge, sprawling, morphing environments, Mario swinging from bars and flipping through mesh fences as he once did in Super Mario World, and once that was over Fox McCloud went bareback dragon-riding through Star Fox Adventures before hurtling down a mineshaft on an obligatory cart. The media's first glimpse of Metroid Prime was less worrying that had previously been expected, too, with smooth, highly detailed vistas and mesmerizing special effects. Miyamoto-san also shed some light on TriForce, the Nintendo / Sega / Namco joint arcade project, named after an item from The Legend of Zelda. According to the venerable game designer, we can expect a slew of announcements in the next two months, and he also let slip that Capcom may be one of the first companies to commit to the system. The good news is that we can expect virtually every TriForce game to show up on GameCube sooner or later! With our heads already spinning, whatever else Miyamoto-san said could do little do deflate us, but he had a quick go, responding to a query about the GameCube's online functionality with the assertion that by 2005 barely 20 per cent of Europe will have access to broadband, and that Nintendo can ill-afford to program for a mere 20 per cent. Having witnessed first-hand the popularity of Phantasy Star Online over a humble modem though, this writer is surprised by Miyamoto-san's comments. Related Feature - Hip to be Cube!

The success of Lara Croft : Tomb Raider has sparked a new wave of video game inspired movies, and following yesterday's announcement that State Of Emergency was to be turned into a film, today we have heard that Tekken is on its way to the big screen as well. The guilty parties in this case are Crystal Sky, who are responsible for a host of diabolically bad movies that you probably won't have heard of, and Gaga Communications, a Japanese group that is probably best known in the west for co-producing a cartoon based on Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas. Hardly an auspicious start then.

New Line Cinema today hopped on the Lara Croft : Tomb Raider bandwagon by signing a licensing deal with Scottish game developers VIS Entertainment. Yes, the latest bizarre game-inspired movie to get the green light is .. State Of Emergency. The reportedly not very good street fighting game for the PlayStation 2 seems an unlikely source of inspiration for a blockbuster movie, but New Line president Toby Emmerich apparently believes that "State Of Emergency is an action franchise waiting to happen". A disaster waiting to happen, more likely. The fact that the writing duo of Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (whose latest meisterwerk is .. er .. horror franchise spin-off Freddy vs Jason) are developing the script hardly fills us with confidence, while American Pie's Warren Zide and Craig Perry will be producing the movie. "To be able to create a franchisable action movie that appeals to young audiences based on a highly successful video game is something we've been looking for and State of Emergency is a perfect fit", Zide declared. State Of Emergency : The Motion Picture comes hot on the heels of other great ideas for game to movie conversions such as Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur. Please, make it stop. Related Feature - Disaster Movies

BAM! Entertainment has today expanded its next generation portfolio with the announcement of its second upcoming Xbox title. Chase is a vehicle based stunt game and is apparently the first title to be approved from Microsoft's Incubator Program, "an internal support system put in place by Microsoft to ensure that the full potential of both Xbox and external developers is met." Oo-err. South African based studio I-Imagine are developing the game, which focuses on the world of Hollywood blockbusters, explosions, multi-million dollars sets and of course, death-defying stunts and special effects. Chase follows the career of Chase Corrada, a female stunt actor aiming for the heady heights of superstardom. Chase will get to drive all sorts of vehicles including motorcycles as well as cars, and even a three wheeled Ramen delivery tuk-tuk and a large missile truck, all in the name of pleasing the director. As you can see from the screenshots, Chase is an extremely visually intensive game, and I-Imagine assure us that it will look spectacular in the long run with real-time reflections and realistic shadows, taking advantage of the Xbox's memory and hard disk features. Singing the praises of both I-Imagine and the Incubator Program itself, BAM's press release quotes Xbox Europe's Director of Publishing Michel Cassius, who explained that the Program is "all about locating talented groups of developers tha show promise, and giving them the support and resources they need." "The incubator program is a great initiative and it has helped ensure that I-Imagine is able to make the most of Microsoft's technology in producing Chase," confirmed BAM's MD Anthony Williams. Chase is due for release in summer 2002. Related Feature - Chase screenshots

ST Microelectronics is once again to team up with Imagination Technologies, in order to produce designs for a pocket entertainment device. The device will consist of a Super H low-power RISC core and Imagination's PowerVR MBX chipset for 2D / 3D graphics acceleration, as announced this morning, almost a year to the day after the unveiling of PowerVR MBX itself. ST will take responsibility for the other aspects of the device, including its storage system, network and security features and the display / software side of it. The 0.13 micron PowerVR MBX chipset is capable of processing four million triangles per second at 120MHz if Imagination's PR is to be believed. MBX has already been demonstrated running Quake 3-level graphics on a mobile device, and with ST's Kyro business all but abandoned, MBX could be a very lucrative alternative. One of the stumbling blocks for modern PDAs is their inability to store large quantities of audio / video data at any reasonable quality. MP3s aren't too much of a problem now, but the wide variety of video standards and codecs makes playback of movie trailers and other videos somewhat troublesome. And of course most PDAs are ill equipped to deal with the processing requirements of the average recording. Related Feature - PowerVR MBX announced for mobiles

With so much utter tosh released on the GameBoy Advance from month to month, it's a special kind of excitement that builds in anticipation of a Nintendo release. Whenever times are dark, we can always look to the master of the platform to rejuvenate our interest in the console on the whole and force us to persevere with the hard-to-see LCD screen. Golden Sun from Camelot Software Planning is a perfect example. As 50% of the platform's role-playing quotient (Breath of Fire being the only other GBA RPG released in the west so far) it carries the hopes of an entire legion of fans, and Nintendo can ill-afford for it to fail dismally. Fortunately then it's a little stunner, right from the opening scenes of the game, as Isaac awakens to find his home town of Vale besieged by the worst storm in years and an enormous boulder threatening to crush the town if the elders cannot hold it back with their psynergy. Boasting an almost Final Fantasy-esque scale of events, the game introduces you to countless new characters in these opening minutes, including the nipper Garet, your best chum, and Jenna, another companion. You also fleetingly make an acquaintance with Felix, Jenna's brother, as he clings for dear life to a lone tree stump in the river, lest he be ripped to shreds by the surging current. Your first task is to find townsfolk to help Felix. Before you can really do anything however, the boulder overcomes the elders and cascades down the mountain, crushing and killing all in its path.

With the Xbox's European launch finally approaching, we ventured into the painfully chic Che Bar in central London to take a look at some of THQ's forthcoming games for the big black console. Headlining the show was Yager, and between quaffing fruity green Xbox cocktails and nibbling on succulent kebabs and Persian fish cakes, we took a look at an early alpha version of the game with two members of the development team.