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Japanese ISPs Nifty (Fujitsu) and Biglobe (NEC) along with two NTT subsidiaries have been signed up by Sony to cooperate in the April launch of its online gaming service. In an press conference today, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi told reporters and developers that Sony's service will cover 70% of Japanese broadband Internet users. As of January there were some 1.78 million ADSL subscribers in Japan, 1.24 million of which will have access to PS2 online services. Pricing may vary, but NTT has said that it will charge a monthly fee of 1,500 yen (£7.90 / €12.90) for the basic gaming / Internet package. Users will also either have to pay a one-time fee of 18,000 yen (£94.50 / €155) or monthly instalments of 1,160 yen (£6 / €9.99) for 18 months in exchange for broadband tools that allow them to download games to the PS2. Whether that's a reference to the broadband adapter / hard disk pricing is difficult to say, as all previous information has suggested these will be bundled together. Amongst the benefits of signing up to Sony's online service are online games and digital TV and audio content, as well as full-blown Internet access. Related Feature - Square to confirm FFXI

It's not all doom and gloom for technology companies these days, especially retailers. American e-tailer GameStop looks set to make their initial public offering on the Nasdaq later this week and expects to sell 18.1 million shares at $17-19 each, raising as much as $343 million, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol GME. According to Core Magazine, there have only been five IPOs this year, the lowest level of interest since 1980.

Impressions Games and Sierra have officially announced that Emperor : Rise Of The Middle Kingdom will be the next game in their popular city-building series. So far Impressions have covered Rome in the Caesar games, Egypt in Pharaoh and the myths of ancient Greece in Zeus : Master Of Olympus. Their latest foray takes them further east, putting players in charge of a city in ancient China and covering some three thousand years of oriental history right up to the Mongol invasion of 1211 AD. Along the way you will get to build the Great Wall and the Teracotta Army amongst other epic monuments. Further details are available on the newly launched Emperor website, but pretty much the only thing the press release talks about is Emperor's online multiplayer support. This is being heralded as a first for the city building genre, unless of course you count hybrids such as Stronghold. According to Impressions' Alex Rodberg, allowing players to control their own cities and interact with their neighbours online will mean that they "can form alliances, trade needed goods, send in spies and emissaries, invade each other, or work together on a massive project like the Grand Canal". Producer Jon "Don't Call Me Max" Payne added that "we're really excited to see what gamers will come up with in multiplayer mode, so we're leaving options open for them to invent their own types of gameplay", with both competitive and co-operative support on offer. If you read the fine print though, Emperor is actually being developed by BreakAway Games (the team behind the Cleopatra add-on for Pharaoh) rather than Impressions themselves, and apart from the setting very little else has changed. Sprites are slightly bigger and more detailed, but it's the same old isometric 2D graphics engine underneath, with a new improved combat system the only other major change apparent at this stage. With the game currently heading for an autumn release, we should know more soon. Related Feature - Pharaoh review

Ubi Soft has signed a five year licensing deal with Dupuis Publishing to develop video games based on their comic book series Largo Winch, which was created by Jean Van Hamme and Philippe Francq and has apparently sold some 2.3 million issues worldwide since its inception in 1990. The comic has also spawned a TV series, which was broadcast in France last year and should arrive elsewhere in Europe this autumn. Of course, it goes without saying that none of us have ever heard of this comic and as far as we know it's fairly obscure outside of its native France and other strange countries like Quebec. So for the benefit of those of us who don't have a clue what the comic is all about, here's a brief run down on the story so far. Largo is a Yugoslavian orphan adopted by the world's wealthiest man, who conveniently dies some years later, leaving the multi-billion dollar Winch Corporation to Largo at the tender age of 26. Apparently this "plunges [him] headfirst into a new, unexpectedly vicious world" which somehow makes Largo "the epitome of the ultimate hero .. his adventures packed with action and supense". To be honest we didn't think that corporate restructuring and hostile take-overs were quite so exciting, but Ubi Soft seem to believe that "the world of Largo Winch lends itself perfectly to video games". Some of you may be experiencing a slight sense of deja vu at this point, as some eighteen months ago Ubi Soft signed a five year licensing deal with Dargaud Publishing to develop video games based on their comic book series XIII, which was created by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance and has apparently sold some 6.5 million issues worldwide since its inception in 1984. Again though, the comic is relatively unknown outside of French speaking countries, and since the deal was signed we have heard absolutely nothing about the PlayStation 2 game which was supposed to be based on the license. Signs are that Largo Winch has a better chance of seeing the light of day though, as Ubi Soft are promising that an adventure game (with "a significant financial element" - the mind boggles) will be released as soon as September on PC, PS2 and Xbox. So far all we have to go on though is one "screenshot", which consists of what looks suspiciously like a pre-rendered skyscraper with a dodgy washed-out photograph as its backdrop. Hopefully the final product will look somewhat better... Related Feature - UbiSoft goes shopping for comics

Bam! have announced that the impressive looking GameBoy Advance version of Broken Sword : Shadow Of The Templars has gone gold and is now on its way to manufacturing. This means that the diminutive adventure game's scheduled release has actually been brought forward from April 12th to some time in March. Now there's something you don't see very often in the gaming industry! Related Feature - Broken Sword GBA preview

Sony's reputation as a purveyor of hip consoles has been tarnished of late by a number of questionable actions, including the continued delay of Final Fantasy X, the Final Fantasy Anthology fiasco, the mod chip court case and various other measures which make SCEE look less like a games company and more like the authority figures the PSX demographic likes to rebel against. Count their blessings they certainly should however, because a company called 2 Convergence Limited has stepped forward and announced 2C: The Official PlayStation Event. Held in conjunction with SCEE, the three-day-long festival of gaming and gaming culture will be located at Gunnersbury Park, West London with a capacity for 35,000 people and day-long skateboarding, BMX and dirt-biking displays in a custom sports stadium to house approximately 5,000 visitors. Professional DJs will provide some background noise with breakdancing to accompany them. This celebration of PlayStation lifestyle would not be complete without some degree of console interaction, and the games challenge arena will showcase games from a number of top developers, both old and new. Prizes will be available to those who can demonstrate their credentials. Other attractions will include obligatory bars for several thousand people and a market area - presumably selling PlayStation and PlayStation 2 goodies. Commenting on the event, Darren Carter, the PlayStation's Director of Marketing explained that after a spell SCEE decided the event "would be ideal to further extend the PlayStation brand in a tangible and above all enjoyable way," and furthermore the company is proud to be the headlining sponsor. Such a large gathering of PlayStation fans - if it meets its capacity - "shows they recognise the value and meaning of the PlayStation brand." 2C is scheduled for May 4th to 6th of this year, priced £18 per day. Tickets are available on 0115 934 8757. Check out the website for more details.

Surrey-based THQ is set to distribute four PlayStation 2 titles from Japanese publisher Koei in PAL territories, post-localisation. The games, Kessen II, Dynasty Warriors 3, Gitaroo Man, and G1 Jockey, will be available in English, French and German, with the first two due out next month. Kessen II and Dynasty Warriors 3 are both highly anticipated follow-ups, and have so far met with critical acclaim in the States and Japan, where they are already available. Those interested in Dynasty Warriors 3 may want to pick up its predecessor, which was recently re-released on budget at a slightly lower price (and has been further discounted by online retailers, including Amazon who offer you a penny change from a mere thirteen pounds). Related Feature - Dynasty Warriors 2 review

While most massively multiplayer games are firmly focused on killing and looting, a small American company called eGenesis is working on a radically different approach to online gaming. There are no monsters to battle, no dungeons to explore, no experience points or levels. Instead the emphasis is on construction and cooperation. Which turned out to be a refreshing change when we took a beta version of the game for a spin recently.

Monsters, Inc. was - in my opinion - a fairly risible Disney/Pixar romp, and let's face it, it was no Toy Story. THQ's licensed adaptation of the film for GameBoy Advance therefore came as something of a surprise. It's an original and highly entertaining platform game, which has you playing the enigmatic James "Sulley" Sullivan, voiced by John Goodman in the film, as he attempts to reunite the missing pieces of Boo's door with its frame and return the cuddly mite to her true home. Sulley has to contend with the interests of the Child Detection Agency (CDA) though, and those guys are merciless! Sulley has two main weapons to counter the efforts of the CDA however; his roar and Boo's laughter. Sulley can roar at any time and this is effective in removing the idle threat of random CDA agents and other monsters, but some of the CDA's best men are impervious to simple roaring. To defeat them, Sulley has to collect cans of Boo's laughter which can remove any agent it comes into contact with and temporarily paralyses any other enemy in the vicinity. As the game progresses, you can increase the effectiveness of Sulley's roar by collecting blue power-ups scattered along his path, until it can knock down virtually anybody Sulley comes into contact with. The game is targeted at kids who enjoyed the movie though, and apart from getting a right royal treat of a game in return for their pocket money, they also get a game devoid of death and carnage. Sulley doesn't kill his enemies: he merely incapacitates them.

BlackSnow Interactive is a company that locates rare and expensive items in massively multiplayer online RPGs such as Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot and then sells them on its website. With seven full-time employees, it is the largest professional gamesmanship organisation this writer is aware of. It is also suing Mythic Entertainment, the creators of DAOC for restricting the sale of items and characters in its EULA. The issue of how legally binding EULA documents truly are has been a grey area for some time now. The EULA is that long-winded legal-looking document that appears with the option to click Yes or No during the installation of a new computer game. Without really thinking about it, the average PC gamer has probably clicked through hundreds in his time, without pausing once to examine the contents… The basis of BlackSnow's suit is that Mythic is guilty of "various anti-trust, copyright and anti-competitive issues". Firstly, there are obvious arguments in favour of Mythic's EULA: that hogging all the rare items makes the game more frustrating for proper players; that selling high-level accounts to newbies endangers the lives of any characters they team their inexperience with; that frankly it contradicts the spirit of the whole game. Ignoring these compelling arguments in search of a quick buck, the seven-strong BlackSnow Interactive (or BS Interactive as we prefer to call them) defends its case stating on its website that the company deals in 'time'. BS Interactive's Director of Sales (and camping) Lee Cadwell speaks out in the company's press release: "What it comes down to is, does a MMORPG player have rights to his time, or does Mythic own that player's time? It is unfair of Mythic to stop those who wish to sell their items, currency or even their own accounts, which were created with their own time. Mythic, in my opinion, and hopefully the court's, does not have the copyright ownership to regulate what a player does with his or her own time or to determine how much that time is worth on the free market." Cadwell goes on to describe Mythic's actions as an "attempt to stifle competition in their own game." The backlash against BS Interactive has been immense. Its legal discussions forum has over 500 posts, most of them condemning the action. Many players believe that hogging all the decent items and selling them to newbies is tantamount to destroying the game. Some have even said they will sue BS Interactive if it wins its case. Having ascertained that BS Interactive's action is not simply a wind-up, we'd like to address this issue of "anti-competitiveness". The dictionary definition of a competitor is "one that competes with another, as in sports or business; a rival". That doesn't really fit, does it? No, but we found another definition which fits like a glove, so don't worry. Parasite. n. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host. Related Feature - Dark Age of Europe

Immersion, a company specialising in what has become known as rumble technology for videogame console controllers, is suing Microsoft and Sony for allegedly infringing its patents on sensory feedback. Negotiations over the issue have been on the table for "a few quarters" according to Immersion's strategic relationship and legal affairs veepee Patrick Reutens, but apparently it has become clear that "negotiations (were) not going to converge". Rumble technology is used by every console available on the market today, but it really began life on the Nintendo 64 with the console's "Rumble Pak", which originally shipped with Lylat Wars (StarFox 64). Related Feature - Black & White gets that loving iFeeling

Old fogeys like to ramble on about "the good old days" of the 1980s as if they were some kind of golden age of home computing, when gamers were real gamers, patiently typing out code listings from magazines (and correcting any printing errors along the way), having first patched together their computer with sticky tape and used washing-up liquid bottles. This is, of course, nonsense. Having said that, it's hard to deny that the gaming industry has lost a certain je ne sais quoi in its rise from the realm of bedroom programmers to multi-billion dollar corporations, particularly in the last few years. Sometimes it seems that all we get are sequels, sports games and licensed tat. When was the last time you saw a genuinely innovative game? Whatever happened to originality?

Following on from the news that STMicroelectronics plans to sell its PC graphics business to focus on other ventures, we found this statement via PVR-Net on the PowerVR mailing list from Hercules regarding its 3D Prophet 4000 / 4500 cards and the future release of the 3D Propet 4800. "In response to STMicroelectronics' recent announcement to divest its graphics chipset manufacturing interests, we wanted to assure you that Hercules remains strong and committed to bringing you only the best in graphics technology. Hercules 4000 and 4500 series cards will continue to be available to you and your customers as we have secured ample inventory to fulfill everyone's needs. For the future, we will work with selected vendors in developing and marketing advanced, quality Hercules branded products. Our commitment to offering the very best support to our customers, and your customers remains a priority by providing updated drivers, installation, configuration and field application support, as well as phone and online support personnel. Finally, in the coming months we will aggressively move to position our 4000 and 4500 series cards as industry leaders, and reinforce that with the addition of the much anticipated 3D Prophet 4800, thus ensuring the longevity of our '4' series products" Related Feature - ST quits the graphics biz

Elsa, the German graphics board maker, will decide this week whether or not it files for insolvency, following the withdrawal of credit facilities worth €38m on Friday, February 15. A member of the loan syndicate of eight banks has also told Elsa that it will not extend credit facilities worth €10m when this line expires March 31, 2002. In addition it is expected to make an unspecifed payment to the syndicate by Friday - the sub-text is that it unable to make this payment. Without credit, Elsa looks effectively paralysed. Unless a buyer turns up toute suite, the company has little option but to set the insolvency wheels turning. Under German law, the management board of the company has to resign, making way for a new team. The decision to liquidate, sell assets, or carry on business as usual, is made by this new team. Of course, the latter is contingent on the company's ability to secure fresh debt financing. Elsa last year stopped selling and marketing graphics boards in the US, withdrawing to its European redoubt. As well as graphics boards, the company also produces several connectivity hardware products. Founded in 1980, the company employs 600 people.

STMicroelectronics has announced that it is withdrawing from the PC graphics accelerator market and is currently seeking a buyer for the related assets and activities of its PC graphics business. ST's graphics business accounted for approximately $15 million (£10.57m / €17.17m) of its $6.36 billion (£4.48bn / €7.28bn) revenues in 2001. ST is famed for its Kyro and Kyro II accelerators, which currently power a number of cards in Hercules' graphics line-up. This may mean the end of PowerVR tile-based rendering unless someone decides to scoop up ST's assets and begin anew. ST plans to focus on a number of its other, more lucrative businesses including set-top boxes, DVD and digital TV applications and peripherals.

Nintendo has sent out cover shots for a couple of first party European GameCube games. The covers are extremely similar to the American GameCube releases and carry our old friend the Nintendo seal of quality assurance in the bottom right, along with a clearly visible ELSPA recommended age rating in the bottom left. A bubble in the top left carries the words "Only For" while the Nintendo GameCube logo rests dead centre at the top of the box, enclosed by a curving grey/white gradient line. Obviously in the case of non-exclusive third party software we can expect to see the "Only For" bubble disappear. This approach is actually strikingly similar to Microsoft's Xbox cover design with its green Xbox logo at the top and option "Only for Xbox" stamp. The European GameCube covers can be viewed at Cloudchaser.

Capcom has refuted rumours which spread like wildfire last week about its Resident Evil series and its platform-exclusivity. If the rumour was to be believed, Capcom would consider taking the series back to other platforms if the GameCube line-up didn't fare as well as it hoped. However, Capcom claims all reports to this effect are absolute codswallop, and that Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 1-4 and Resident Evil Code Veronica: Perfect Edition are still on their way to the Cube with no plans to port any of them away again. Related Feature - Resident Evil GameCube screenshots

Aquanox is the sequel to Archimedean Dynasty, a Wing Commander-like submersed action-adventure from way back in 1997. Although the name was remarkable enough to commit to memory though, the game itself wasn't, and I'd long since forgotten the adventures of Emerald Flint and the Biont threat. Within minutes of firing up Aquanox though, if you'll excuse the pun, it all came flooding back. The premise is that Flint's post-apocalyptic Earth has long-since driven humankind to the depths of the world's oceans, and that the Bionts - a mysterious race of hive-like cyborgs - are now poised to overthrow what little resistance remains beneath the surface. This time around the Bionts are gone, making way for a new enemy. An orbiting satellite has caused seismic disturbances and something has awoken in the murky depths. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace from hereon in, told in the gaps between missions and occasionally during them. The characters Flint meets on his adventure also help to twist events. It's easy enough to become immersed, especially if you take on the task of wading through the surprisingly large manual, which is packed chock-full of background information on the world, its inhabitants and its technology. This magnificent fantasy adventure is carried by the game's visuals, which are nothing short of extraordinary. Finally offering something to give my GeForce 3 a challenge, the game uses environmental bump mapping and gorgeous particle effects to breathe life into Flint's world. Texturing is at a constant high standard, although a curious in-game V-sync option should certainly be disabled by default. The overwhelming level of detail is maintained throughout with some beautiful ship, character and architectural designs realized in a way that Archimedean's designers probably thought would never happen…

The short introduction doesn't really offer much explanation as to why you start the game shut away in a dingy cell guarded by a skulking goblin, and the loss of your character's memory certainly doesn't serve to clue you up much either, although a quick natter with another prisoner reveals that you belong to the population of a medieval city called Arx, which was driven underground as the sun disappeared from the sky and the landscape above was turned into an icy wasteland. As your character has no idea who he is or what he's doing locked up in a dungeon cell, this sets the scene for a fascinating and intriguing story which slowly unravels as you progress. Your first priority is, of course, to escape your captor and get out of the jail. The small series of tasks you need to perform to do this serve as a fairly minimal tutorial into the control of your character and an introduction to your inventory and combat systems. Picking up and storing items is pretty straightforward, with any item you can pick up drag-and-drop-able into your inventory. Movement is much as you would expect from a first person shooter, except that it requires you to hold down a button to alternate between the mouselook combat functions and the pointer interface which lets you interact with objects. This feels overly complex and clumsy compared to something like System Shock, Deus Ex or Thief, and it's baffling why Arkane went for something that feels so .. primitive. Combat involves holding down the right mouse button whilst charging up your attack with the left, and simultaneously avoiding your enemy and attempting to line up a decent attack. Frankly, it all proves to be more of a chore than it should be, and I began to think that escaping from jail and beating a goblin to death with a bone would actually be easier in real life.

Our sheep-shearing, beer-drinking buddies down under are not prepared to put up with Sony's ridiculous anti-import stance, or so BBC News Online is reporting. The Australian consumer watchdog has said it will oppose a Sony court action to stop consumers using PlayStation games bought abroad. Sony will go before Sydney's Federal Court in April, but the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) will also be heard. Sony is seeking to prevent consumers using mod chips, after their successful action against the makers of Neo and Messiah mod chips in Europe. Australia is technically included in the European region as far as Sony is concerned. However, this does not mean that Australia will fold so easily. Dumbfounded gamers on this side of the globe - specifically in the UK - have already had to put up with several irritating constraints this year, the most noteworthy of which was the recent suspension of GameCube imports at Computer Exchange by Nintendo. Although Microsoft and Sony condemned Nintendo for pressuring the independent retailer, it all seems very much like swings and roundabouts to us. ACCC chairman Allan Fels commented for BBC News Online: "It is an attempt to lock out Australian mums, dads and children from [the] enjoyment of legitimate products they have bought." Sony Computer Entertainment Australia MD Michael Ephraim confessed to being "a bit shocked" by the statements. Evidently he lives under some sort of rock. The Earth perhaps… "Sony Computer Entertainment is moving, in this particular case, to prevent Australian consumers from reaping the benefits of globalisation," Mr Fels continued. If the ACCC is successful in stamping out Sony's action, then it will be a victory for gamers the world over and may help to undo the ridiculous precedent set by Judge Jacob Dean in this country last month. Good luck, mates. Related Feature - Messiah roasted

Our first glimpse of the elusive Xbox came at last year's ECTS, despite the total absence of Microsoft themselves from Europe's biggest computer games trade show. Instead it was at the stand of Liverpool-based publisher Rage Software where we got our grubby mits on the console's outsized controller for the very first time, as we took a look at mech actioneer Gunmetal and the appropriately named Crash. Five months later, with the Xbox finally on its way to Europe and Crash now due for a spring release, we caught up with producer Steve Pritchard to find out more...

Square will make a formal announcement regarding release plans for Final Fantasy XI next week, Core Magazine reports. The company is expected to announce an April release date for the game in Japan, along with associated pricing and the company's PS2 development plan for the rest of 2002. In other Square-related news, the company's RPG collaboration with Disney, Kingdom Hearts, is due for release on March 28th in Japan. Obviously we don't expect to see either title in Europe this side of Christmas 2002. Related Feature - Final Fantasy XI preview

Here's an interesting titbit. Reuters is reporting that Nike has filed suit against Sega and its advertising company Leagas Delaney after a recent TV advert allegedly copied an older Nike campaign. The advert for Sega's NBA 2K2 features an animated player in a slow-motion slam-dunk, which Nike claims is too close to its own advert "Frozen Moment", starring Michael Jordan doing much the same thing to the LA Lakers defence. Nike's suit claims copyright infringement and unfair competition. They want an injunction barring the ad from further airplay, and they also want either damages or a royalty from every copy of the game sold. Obviously paying for all that cheap third world labour is taking its toll! Sega and Leagas Delaney were unavailable for comment.

It's been a long time since we last heard anything about Harpoon 4, the latest installment in the long-running naval wargame series, but the good news is that the game is once again coming out of hibernation. In an open letter posted to a newsgroup earlier in the week, Larry Bond (the man behind the original Harpoon board games) confirmed that the PC game is now back in full production at SSI and Ultimation after UbiSoft stumped up the cash needed to complete work on it. Harpoon 4 has had a long and troubled life so far, starting development way back in 1997 only for repeated changes in management to leave it festering on the backburner for much of that time. Now, after a collosal game of pass the parcel which saw SSI come under the control of Mindscape, The Learning Company, Mattel, GAME Studios and UbiSoft at various stages, work is finally underway again. And according to Larry, "while the owners of SSI have changed many times, the core development team has remained unchanged". How long it will take the company to make up for four years of underinvestment and bring the game up to spec remains to be seen, but at least the game may eventually see the light of day now.

Take one copy of Heroes of Might & Magic. Mix in two decks of Magic : The Gathering. Garnish with an impressive 3D graphics engine, add a liberal sprinkling of eye candy, toss in a bag full of freakish looking monsters and then simmer for eighteen months. Et voila, Etherlords. On paper it sounds like a great concept, combining the addictive turn-based strategic gameplay of the Heroes games with the equally addictive card-based tactical battles of Magic. As usual in this kind of game you begin each mission with one or more hero characters which you guide around a map of the world dotted with resources, buildings and monsters. Some of these buildings will provide you with resources each turn, while others boost the abilities of your hero, or allow you to spend your resources on buying more powerful spells for them to use. These spells come into play when you attack a monster or enemy hero. Rather than taking an army of creatures around with you, as you would in Heroes or Age of Wonders, in Etherlords you summon new creatures for each battle using the deck of spell cards you have amassed. Each of the game's four unique races has its own set of cards, which sadly can't be mixed. Some of these conjure up bizarre looking monsters, from your run of the mill kobolds and giant rats to ornate mechanical lifeforms and insect-like mantids, while others can be used to enhance the abilities of the creatures already under your control or to weaken the enemy. The wide range of cards included in the game gives you plenty of scope for creating your own fifteen card decks, especially once you take into account the fact that some creatures will boost the abilities of similar monsters under your command. It's all very bewildering at first sight, and you may want to indulge in a few practice duels to learn the ropes before you dive into the game's main campaign.

Now this is more like it. THQ has announced Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones for GameBoy Advance. The game, which follows the storyline of the film, is scheduled for release this spring in conjunction with the film premiere. The LucasArts-developed GBA game will offer players the role of three different characters; the ill-fated Anakin Skywalker, Samuel L. Jackon's Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Players must wield their lightsabers in combat against the mysterious Jango Fett, evil Count Dooku and a handful of other enemies across 12 unique levels, with locations such as Tatooine, Geonosis and the streets of Coruscant - the whole planet is one big city! The game will closely follow the storyline of the film and feature three different modes of gameplay. The first mode gives players their choice of swoop bikes, Republic fighters and speeders in 3D-scrolling, third-person racing. The second mode features space combat, while the third mode involves side-scrolling lightsaber action.

"Whacked!" is the sort of game designed by a marketing guy. Developed by Presto Studios exclusively for Xbox, it's about a game show, except for some reason this is an irreverent and incredibly dangerous game show where the contestants have to face one another in combat. Various power-ups and "zany" weapons can be employed to vanquish the competition, as players take on the guise of one of the "crazy" contestants. Meet Otto, "the emaciated, narcoleptic dude who lets his recliner do all the work," and Lucy, "whose sinfully attractive body is surpassed only by her cunning ability to use it." If you haven't overdosed on cliché or closed this window in embarrassment by now, you can find the rest of the press release here.

Amazon has sold through its entire allocation of Japanese Xboxes. Pre-orders for the console, which is due to launch on the 22nd of this month, were taken for the first time last weekend. Microsoft is refusing to reveal how many units were made available to Japanese retailers in the first place, although it has owned up to making 50,000 of the clear grey limited edition Xboxes that nobody wants. A European spokesperson has told C&VG that the company will only release sales figures when they're ready and / or accurate, as opposed to each and every time they fire up their email clients. They know what we think about that, anyway. As we said last month, nobody knows how Japan will react to the Xbox. We are interested in how Microsoft gets on in the land of the rising sun - we're just loath to find out via four hundred badly formatted press releases… Related Feature - Ménage à Trois

Following the unveiling of Thrustmaster's Xbox driving accessory, the 360 Modena Racing Wheel, the company has announced two further Xbox peripherals; the Fox 2 Pro flightstick and the FreeStyler snowboard. The Top Gun-sponsored Fox 2 Pro shares a lot of features in common with the 360 Modena, namely dynamic calibration, precise controls and programmability. Thrustmaster believe the flightstick offers the "ultimate in response, control and realism", and point to the ultra-stable weighted base and non-slip rubber pads and important features. The price is also impressive - £29.99 / €49. The other item on Thrustmaster's release schedule is the Xbox FreeStyler Board. For use with games like Amped, the FreeStyler features a non-slip surface for foot control and accuracy, along with a tilt sensor to provide the sensation of real movement. A specially developed, one-hand controller provides all the analogue buttons, working in harmony with the FreeStyler, which will launch for £69.99 / €114 alongside the other Thrustmaster peripherals and the console itself. Related Feature - Thrustmaster steers Xbox

In light of yesterday's GeForce 4 launch in the Brussels Atomium (pictured), PNY and ELSA have both stepped forward to announce their latest products, based unsurprisingly on the NVIDIA GeForce 4 reference design. PNY got there first, "unleashing" their Verto line of GeForce 4 graphics cards, with low and high-end solutions. At the budget end of the solution, the Verto GeForce 4 MX 440 and 420 retail for $179.99 (£127 / €207) and $129.99 (£92 / €149) respectively. The 440 ships with a free copy of Grin's futuristic racer Ballistics - a fine piece of software to show off the card's abilities - while the 420 is bundled with ten 80-minute CDRs. Meanwile, the company's Verto GeForce 4 Ti 4600 and Ti 4400 cards make a slightly more compelling argument with their increased memory speed, DVI and ViVo support. At $399.99 (£283 / €461) and $299.99 (£212 / €345) respectively though, the free copy of Star Wars Starfighter shipping with the 4600 and the i-O Systems 3D specs shipping with the 4400 are just added stuffing. These are all US-facing products, but then so were VisionTek a month ago. Depending on the success of these boards, we may see domestic European releases shortly. On the other hand, ELSA find themselves in completely the opposite situation, having abandoned the US graphics card market in favour of concentrating on the business sector. Meanwhile, us Eurotechies can get our hands on four of their new graphics cards very soon. ELSA's flagship product is the GLADIAC 925VIVO, which as the name suggests is a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 with ViVo-based graphics card. The GLADIAC 925VIVO is very close to NVIDIA's own reference design, as is the GLADIAC 725TV-OUT (damn these capital letter marketing freaks). On the budget front however, ELSA have introduced GLADIAC 517VIVO based on the MX 460 and GLADIAC 517TV-OUT based on the MX 440. ELSA's is the first 460-based board we've encountered. And finally, although they did not deign to send us a press release, Gainward will be releasing an awesome new version of its Golden Sample board. In order to combat harsh market conditions which saw VisionTek driving down prices last year, Gainward hit upon the idea of a special, overclocked board to outpace the competition. Its GeForce 3-based offerings did well, and according to The Inquirer, Gainward's GeForce 4 Power pack Ultra/750 Golden Sample is the next big thing. Retailing for €500 (£307), the card is overclocked to boot. As the name suggests, the board will ship with 750MHz memory (that's 375MHz DDR), and from what we've heard, a core frequency of nearly 350MHz. We hope to have some of these boards in for testing shortly. Then after that, we can sell them all and live on a desert island for the rest of our lives, sleeping on top of a big pile of money amidst many beautiful ladies… (Count me in! -Ed)Related Feature - NVIDIA launches GeForce 4