Latest Articles (Page 3525)

It might have started out as a "mad suggestion", but the GameBoy Advance version of Revolution's best-selling adventure game Broken Sword : Shadow Of The Templars is now nearing completion up in the wilds of Yorkshire. And very tasty it's looking too.

In their latest attempt to get people to press that sodding red button, Sky have added everyone's favourite annelid action game Worms to their interactive TV line-up. Yes, you too can now blow little wriggling pink worms into even littler wriggling pink chunks with an assortment of over-the-top weaponry from the comfort of your sofa using nothing more sophisticated than a digital satellite set-top box and your remote control. Developed by Babel Media in association with Worms creators Team 17, the game is now available on Sky Gamestar to some 5.5m households across the UK, joining popular titles such as Tetris, Trivial Pursuit and Rage's award-winning Denki Blocks.

Thrustmaster has unveiled its latest console peripheral, the expressly designed 360 Modena Racing Wheel Xbox driving accessory. The 360 Modena joins an array of gamepads, flightsticks, memory units and cables that make up Thrustmaster's Xbox line. "Xbox games are filled with intense and adrenalin-pumping graphics, and Thrustmaster's accessories are designed to help deliver the most fun and excitement possible for them," says Jean-Michel DETOC, Guillemot Corporation's General Manager. In what came as a surprise to us, the Thrustmaster press release was accompanied by a number of details on the actual wheel. According to the release, the 360 Modena features two internal motors to power its vibration effects, and its button layout is optimised for the style of play required by Project Gotham Racing. The wheel also has progressive levers (similar to the shoulder buttons on the Nintendo GameCube controller) to enhance precision. Accessories include a Knee Top Adapter for players who don't have a suitable surface to clamp the wheel onto, and other perks include programmability, a dynamic calibration feature and the ability to adjust the vibration effects and steering sensitivity. The former will no doubt please Daily Mail-reading medipundits. The 360 Modena Racing Wheel will be available alongside the console in Europe from March 2002, and costs £44.99 / €80.45 (VAT included).

Ubi Soft and Kalisto have announced a worldwide publishing agreement for Nightmare Creatures 3 : Angel of Darkness at Milia today. After combined sales of two million units worldwide for the various versions of Nightmare Creatures 2, Ubi Soft is confident of the third game's success. Ubi Soft CEO Yves Guillemot described the partnership as "a unique way to enter the gothic action adventure genre", while his opposite number at Kalisto Entertainment Nocolas Gaume labelled the game "one of our most important original products". Nightmare Creatures, in case you haven't guessed, concerns a realm of gothic horror fantasy - 19th century Europe actually - where players take up the mantel of a an agile young heroine who sets out to solve a mystery. In a unique twist, you can explore the streets of Prague by daylight before merging with your accompanying Raven and transforming into a formidable fighting beast to take on the night. Kalisto promise a life-like world, three different real-time transformations for the heroine and exceptional special effects. The game's target is simply "the new generation of video game consoles", and with the game due to hit store shelves in the second quarter of 2003, I think we can assume that means PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

It's often difficult to come up with a good, solid concept for a game these days without resorting to the obscure. That said, Taito have made a mint by turning obscure concepts into amusing videogames. Bubble Bobble for instance. The latest product of the company's overactive creative department is Power Diggerz, a game about controlling a digger. This would be easy enough to understand if it weren't for the turtles, beach balls and soup juggling. Published by JVC in the UK and priced reasonably at just £19.99, Power Diggerz will be an essential party game for most PSone owners. To begin with, players have to pass a number of tests to receive their digger license, and these generally consist of manipulating the digger arm to pick things up (gingerly or otherwise), dig things up and smash things. Your ten aptitude tests include driving (quickly and with precision), scooping, digging and flattening. The control system uses both analogue sticks (the wacky, proprietary Power Diggerz controller we saw before Christmas will not be appearing alongside the game sadly), but after a while the system is surprisingly easy to use. You can move the arm up and down, left and right, and move the bucket in or out to scoop things up. Thanks to some of the gentler license tests, getting the hang of this isn't a problem, and before long I had a Gold license. If you don't suck as much as I do, you might get Platinum!

Following on from their psychedelic Snakes-inspired game PlasmaWorm, the bizarrely named Digital Eel have released a demo version of their latest game - [insert cheesy 50's B-movie theremin sound here] Strange Adventures In Infinite Space. Set in the depths of space some time in the distant future, the game leaves you to "boldly blow up stuff where no one has blown up stuff before" while exploring strange new star systems randomly populated by a wide selection of planets, black holes, alien lifeforms and even the occasional useful item. A limited 4.75Mb demo version of the game featuring a single preset map can now be downloaded, while the full version complete with random maps, additional ships, weapons, aliens, planets and artifacts will be available to buy on CD-Rom from the appropriately named Cheapass Games some time next month. For more information, check out the Strange Adventures website. Related Feature - Plasmaworm released

Last week Sony killed mod chips and threatened to short-change PSone owners with the release of half the content that made up Final Fantasy Anthology in the United States. Unfortunately, we jumped the gun. Final Fantasy Anthology is due to launch in Europe for £9.99 (roughly €16) on February 29th. Although not identical to the American package, it will include Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI and a demo of the forthcoming PlayStation 2 release, Final Fantasy X. Absent from the package will be the soundtrack CD found in American bundles. There is no further word on Anthology's sibling Final Fantasy Chronicles - made up of Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger - but if one sells well we can probably expect to see the other shortly. Update 04/02: Amazingly, we're now hearing that Europe is not going to receive Final Fantasy V after all. So in other words, they're doing what we said they would do last week. I think the best plan for now is that you all assume the game has been canned, and then when Sony spits something out at the end of the month, everything will be okay... Related Feature - Fewer Fantasies

Interplay have officially announced that Black Isle Studios are working on a follow-up to their moderately successful role-playing game Icewind Dale, with (ironically) an early summer release currently on the cards for the snow-drenched sequel. Taking place a generation after the events of the first game, it sees you and your party of brave adventurers riding to the rescue once more as a vast horde of orcs, goblins and bugbears descends on the port of Targos. The game will again be powered by a modified version of the Infinity Engine which powered the venerable Baldur's Gate series, with an even wider range of weapons, items and spells on offer this time round along with new sub-races and class kits such as the Drow, Tiefling, Mercenary and Giant Killer. Fans of the original will no doubt be brushing off their furs in anticipation.

For a few years now industry bods who should really know better have been forecasting the coming of a new golden age of gaming, where millions of people come together to play over the internet. "One day every game will be massively multiplayer", these pundits say. "You'll never play alone again." Sounds awful...

Nintendo of Europe, which proved once and for all last week that it does exist, has announced a partnership with Magic Software to license eDeveloper, valued at around $250,000. According to Cloudchaser, the move will allow European GameCube owners to patronize a selection of online stores from the comfort of their living room, and is set to launch in Italy first. Unless you count Phantasy Star Online 2, this is the first concrete information released by Nintendo concerning GameCube's online functionality. Related Feature - Cube price rises

When Sony triumphed over mod chip manufacturers Neo and Channel Technology, UK-based importer and chip installer Madeira Games responded by pulling its entire catalogue of chips and pre-modded consoles. Last Friday Lik Sang, the Hong Kong-based specialist and stockist of Neo's flagship device - the Neo 4 - announced that it would no longer be shipping Neo mod chips to the USA, Canada, Mexico or any other Latin American countries. Lik Sang also advises that it will not be stocking Messiah at any point in the near future. Meanwhile, the Origa brothers - the pair behind the lesser-known Origachip for PlayStation 2 - are apparently still in business, and Lik Sang continues to stock their chips for PAL and NTSC consoles. An Origachip v1.12 for PAL systems allows gamers to play games from any region using the swap method, and PSone originals without. Whether Origachip sales will be shortly curtailed is difficult to say, but given its ability to play imported software, DVD backups and CDRs, it has a lot in common with the technology that cost Neo and Channel so dearly a fortnight ago. Lik Sang remains one of the few places you can still purchase a mod chip. Related Feature - Messiah roasted

While we have nothing against video game violence and enjoy a good drive-by shooting in Grand Theft Auto 3 as much as the next man, some games seem to exist purely to court controversy. Released back in 1997, Postal was one such game. Garnering mediocre reviews from most magazines and websites, as well as attracting the wrath of the US Postmaster General, its relative lack of gameplay was covered up by excessive gore as you ran through the streets blowing away innocent bystanders for no obvious good reason. Amazingly though developers Running With Scissors are still around, and have even begun work on a sequel - a first person shooter using the latest Unreal technology. Obviously this means that the graphics and multiplayer support will be better this time round, and RWS are also promising a better story for the sequel .. which shouldn't be hard to achieve. Whether this will add up to a game which is actually fun to play as well as excruciatingly gruesome isn't clear, but Epic boss Mark Rein summed things up nicely in the press release. "Frankly, these Running With Scissors guys are out of their minds; the thought of them using the Unreal Warfare engine to make Postal 2 totally disgusts us."

Since the apparent cancellation of their ambitious turn-based strategy game Dreamland Chronicles (which unexpectedly re-appeared several months later at Russian developer Altar Interactive), X-Com designers Nick and Julian Gollop and their team have been working on a new game called Laser Squad Nemesis. Getting back to their roots, it's an isometric turn-based tactical action game in which, as the title suggests, you control a squad of troops (who may or may not be armed with laser guns) in a variety of different missions against other players. Unusually the whole thing is played out turn by turn via e-mail. Equally unusually it's free to download from the LSN website and the subscription fee is just $15 for six months of online play. Laser Squad Nemesis might not be the most technically advanced game out there, but if it has some of that old X-Com magic it should be worth a look. The good news is that at just 7.3Mb it's easy to download even over a modem. The bad news is that there doesn't appear to be a free trial period, so if you fancy a look you'll just have to take the plunge. Related Feature - Altar interview

Yesterday we gave you your first exclusive peek at a new Unreal-engined action-adventure game called The Y-Project which is under construction at German developer Westka Interactive. Today we chat with co-founder Christoph Kabelitz and head of marketing Ingo Horn to find out more about the company's background and the technology behind the game.

It's only a few weeks since we were bemoaning the lack of innovation and dynamic content in the massively multiplayer role-playing genre, but today Sony Online have announced a new EverQuest Legends service which seeks to address some of these problems. Unfortunately, in true Verant style, it appears to be something of a brute force bodge job, using a hefty (and rather expensive) sledgehammer to force a square peg into a round hole. The main goal of the service is apparently to make players feel like they are an important part of the world rather than just another microscopic cog with little or no influence over their surroundings. Players will have individual websites for all of their characters so that they can show off their progress to their friends, while a novel interactive map will allow you to follow your character's movements around Norrath and keep track of which zones you have visited. Players will also be able to boast of their exploits in fictional form by submitting stories to a new "Tales of Adventure" website, and organise allies via an online Guild Hall. Most importantly though, Verant are promising a more dynamic server for Legends subscribers, with a dedicated support team constantly adding new content and quests to the game world. This will include "Historical Quests" which give you the chance to "interact with key personalities in the world Norrath and participate in truly momentous events", as well as a flow of unique new items for players to discover. And that's where things break down. The sheer scope of the world and the vast amount of new content required means that a sizeable staff is required to keep things running, resulting in an extravagant $40 a month subscription fee. Although this may appeal to the real hardcore EverQuest players, at more than three times the going rate for persistent online worlds most people are likely to find it a little excessive. It's certainly a great idea, but because EverQuest can't generate any dynamic content of its own it requires everything to be added in by hand, resulting in massive overheads and a lack of scalability - the initial server will be strictly limited to 8,000 players on a first come, first served basis. How many people will be willing to shell out $40 a month for a more immersive experience remains to be seen, but it's fairly clear that throwing more staff at the problem isn't the way to make your world more dynamic. Related Feature - Mostly Pointless

A few weeks ago we were lured down to the central London offices of PR agency Bastion to view a mysterious new Unreal-engined action adventure game developed by Germany's Westka Interactive. While we were somewhat disappointed by their last effort, Arcatera, we're happy to report that their latest game, known only as "The Y-Project", is shaping up to be something special...

We've come across some odd licensing deals in the past, but this one has to take the biscuit. British developers Graphic State, who have recently been developing a brutal first person shooter for the GameBoy Advance called Dark Arena, have unveiled their latest project to be .. a WWF game. No, we're not talking about the American wrestling league of the same name, but instead the World Wildlife Fund. Graphic State are planning to develop a series of titles in assocation with the WWF for the GameBoy Advance, mobile phones, PC and GameCube. Exact details are unclear at this stage, but apparently the games will "emphasise the caring, responsible and credible work the WWF provides". The mind boggles...

Infogrames has announced that the fourth iteration of Geoff Crammond's popular Grand Prix series of computer games will launch in June 2002 along with an Xbox version. This is the first time the series has appeared on a console, and a major coup for Microsoft's new console, which will have launched in Europe by that time. Grand Prix 4, like its predecessors, will stake its claim on accuracy and attention to detail, backed up by official 2001 FIA Formula One World Championship licensed data. All the official drivers, teams and tracks from the 2001 season. Assisted by Infogrames' Chippenham internal development studio, Geoff Crammond along with his own development company Simergy has produced a game that in Crammond's esteemed opinion, surpasses even the heady heights of Grand Prix 3. "We believe Grand Prix 4 raises and redefines our own benchmarks in terms of realism and playability," commented Crammond. "Our aim is not simply to produce a great game about racing, but to deliver a complete F1 driving experience which is as close to having a real F1 drive as possible." Apart from the seasonal updates, Grand Prix 4 features an enhanced graphics engine that should look glorious on the Xbox and modern PC, with the usual scaling options for computers which can't cope with everything. Multiplayer options, improved audio and a series first motion-captured pit crew are also promised. Expect to see the game showing up the rival franchises some time in June. Related Feature - Grand Prix 3 review

British doctors have issued a warning about the use of vibrating controllers such as the PlayStation 2 Dual Shock pad and Force Feedback devices for the PC. This follows a case in which a 15 year old gamer "developed symptoms similar to hand-arm vibration syndrome", something which is usually found in workers using pneumatic drills and other heavy industrial tools for prolonged periods. Apparently the teenager had been spending up to seven hours a day playing video games, resulting in his hands becoming painfully swollen. As Gavin Cleary of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital pointed out, "the seven hours a day that our patient reported .. exceeds the manufacturer's recommendation, but we must assume that this is not an uncommon occurrence". Related Feature - Gaming Can Seriously Damage Your Health

Amidst much fanfare, Nintendo announced on Monday that their new GameCube console would launch in Europe on May 3rd at an expected price point of €249, or about £150 in old money. Unfortunately today it's becoming increasingly clear that punters on this side of the channel will be paying significantly more for their Cubes. The problem is that retailers are worried about their margins, particularly if the value of the euro fluctuates before the May 3rd launch. One anonymous "senior source" told trade magazine CTW this week that "we've got used to slim margins with Nintendo, but this is taking the piss". Last year most retailers were selling the GameBoy Advance at £10 above its suggested retail price of £80, or refusing to sell it at all unless you bought it as part of an expensive bundle including a lot of peripherals and software you didn't really want. But it looks like punters are in for an even bigger disappointment when it comes to the Cube. The price could be as high as £180 in places, a massive 20% more than our continental brethren are paying for exactly the same console. Leading the charge today was British e-commerce site Gameplay, which has now marked up its Cubes to £169.99, or £199.99 with any game. Lucky punters who had already pre-ordered it at £154.99 earlier in the week will have their orders honoured, but everyone else will end up paying another £15. "At gameplay we always put the clients experience first", head of e-commerce Mat Braddy told us this morning. "If the price had gone down we would have charged our clients pre-ordering less, however we wouldn't dream of asking for more unless the price had doubled or something horrific. The majority of Cube pre-orders have gone to our long term, commited clients so we are not upset about them receiving the Cube at this healthy discount." Of course, in reality "this healthy discount" is actually what the console should have cost in the first place, and not a discount at all. Nintendo always point out that ultimately "retailers set prices", and the €249 price point was only what they "expected" the console to retail at across Europe, but it's still disappointing to see British retailers cashing in on Euro confusion to try and charge us 10-20% more than the suggested list price. We fully expect most other UK-based retailers and e-tailers to hop on the bandwagon soon, with trade mag MCV suggesting that some could charge as much as £180 for the console. So if you do want a Cube, now is the time to get one. Amazon UK currently still have it listed at £149.99, while Jungle.com are charging £154.99 at present, while WH Smiths are wanting £159.99. Software First aren't saying how much they will be selling the Cube for yet, while Gamer UK don't even seem to know what date it's coming out on at this point. In related news, although the GameBoy Advance was supposed to drop to £60 today, actual prices range from the sublime (£62.99 at Gameplay) to the ridiculous ( £67.99 at Software First). So be sure to shop around! Related Feature - May 3rd, £150, GameCube

VisionTek, the successful American company responsible for the Xtasy line of graphics card featuring NVIDIA chipsets, is branching out to Europe, establishing offices in the United Kingdom and Germany. Both offices will open this month. "We are delighted to bring VisionTek's best-selling graphics cards to customers throughout the European community," says John Gunn, President of VisionTek's Consumer Products Division. "Europe is becoming a truly unified market, one that presents fertile ground for growth in the consumer PC market. VisionTek - now a global player - are one of the US' most popular brands of GeForce card. Related Feature - GeForce 3 Titanium review

Budget gurus Sold Out have introduced several new titles to their range of releases, the most interesting of which are probably Worms 2 and Grand Prix Legends. Launching today, the new line will retain the award-winning £4.99 price tag. Both games achieved critical acclaim on their respective launches, and Worms 2 will no doubt enjoy strong sales are the budget success of Worms - also available on the Sold Out label - and the proximity of this release to the next Team 17 game, the Puzzle Bobble-inspired Worms Blast. Other games in the new line include NASCAR 3, Euro League Football and Train Town Simulation. You can read our interview with Sold Out boss Garry Williams to find out what drives the company. Related Feature - Garry Williams of Sold Out interview

The wallet-bulging computer and videogame market is tethered to reality by the likes of Sold Out. After the initial success of Virgin's White Label budget range in the UK - showcasing titles like TIE Fighter and Sam & Max - Sold Out emerged as the first agent provocateur of budget games for less than £9.99. The downside in this case being that with so many titles which were missing from your collection now within biting distance, escaping with your fiver is nigh on impossible.

The most surprising thing about Driven on the GameBoy Advance is how much more entertaining it is than the utterly abysmal PS2 incarnation. If my memory serves me correctly this is the first top-down racer to appear on the GBA and Crawfish have succeeded admirably in bringing us a surprisingly enjoyable and, shock horror, original little racer. The perspective actually isn't quite top-down, rather our viewpoint of the action is isometric and somewhat reminiscent of the bizarrely named Amiga game Skidmarks [stop sniggering at the back there - Ed]. We haven't really seen many driving games make a use of this angle and so it can take some getting used to, particularly with the GBA's irritatingly dark screen. However, once you're accustomed to the angle, the handling of the cars is surprisingly well realised and the sense of speed is accomplished superbly. In fact, playing Driven for the first time is an experience full of surprises. For myself, it shouldered the burden of its PS2 brother and I was relatively shocked when I realised I was actually having fun twisting the little CART cars around the tracks. The game is stuffed with a nice collection of playing modes, with single race, practice, multiplayer and story mode available from the main menu.

Sierra's surprising success selling boxed copies of popular Half-Life mod Counter-Strike has apparently inspired fellow French publisher Infogrames to follow suit, with reports emerging that a retail version of Unreal Tournament counter-terrorist mod Tactical Ops is on the way. The mod will be repackaged as a stand-alone game with a range of new maps, improved gameplay, an added single player mode and (hopefully) exterminated bugs. Some of this content will be exclusive to the retail release, while other features will find their way back into the mod, which is currently available to download as a free beta. Pricing and release details have yet to be confirmed.

Lucas Arts have revealed that Giants developer Planet Moon is working on "an original humorous action title" for them, set to be released on unspecified next generation consoles some time in 2003. There's no clue yet as to exactly what the game is or even what it will be called, and it could be some time before we find out, as Planet Moon president Nick Bruty quite accurately points out that "our past games have focused on two things : being late and over budget". On the bright side, if it's half as funny as Giants it should be well worth a look when it's finally released some time in .. ooh .. we'd guess 2005. In the meantime, the long overdue PlayStation 2 port of Giants is expected to crawl out of the primeval ooze and into Europe on February 15th. Related Feature - Giants screenshots

Vivendi Universal Games (today's name for the publisher formerly known as Sierra) has announced that it will be extending its "Best Seller" range of budget re-releases following the success of the original line-up, which has now sold over a million copies worldwide since launching last May. The new titles joining the range are mythological city building sim Zeus, online actioneer Tribes 2 and nerve-destroying first person shooter Aliens vs Predator. All of them will be packaged in the now standard DVD-style boxes and will be priced at £9.99 each when they are released in March. Related Feature - Tribes 2 review

Gamespot is reporting that Squaresoft-developed Final Fantasy X has reached the four-million-sales mark worldwide. But Reuters is reporting that the company still expects to post a loss of $133 million for the fiscal year ending March 2002 after Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within backfired. The Spirits Within was Squaresoft's first and last foray into feature films, but it landed the company countless deals to provide computer-generated visuals in big Hollywood blockbusters, which may pay off in the long run. The company will not adjust its projection to reflect sales of Final Fantasy X, which is the first PlayStation 2 game to sell four million copies, but still eludes European gamers, allegedly thanks to problems with the translation process that have held the game up until the summer. Related Feature - First and Final Fantasy

Midway has announced the latest addition to the interminable Mortal Kombat series. The latest generation will mark the relaunch of the franchise with an all-new engine that Midway claim will deliver punishing action to adequately reward long-time fans of the series. As if they still exist. Obviously, the game will focus on hand-to-hand and weapon-based combat, and being a Mortal Kombat game, the mainstay of the attraction will be special moves, combinations and deadly finishing moves. In a prepared statement, a Midway spokesman optimistically described Mortal Kombat : Deadly Alliance as "the next phase of the Mortal Kombat series that gamers have been waiting for." He then used the term "never-before-seen" to describe the game's feature set, but we fell for that one with Mortal Kombat III, and don't intend to make the same mistake twice. Ho-hum. Nevertheless, the MK franchise commands awesome potential as a money-spinner for otherwise quiet former arcade gurus Midway. The series has sold over 19 million copies - in various incarnations - since 1992, generating more than $1.5 billion in revenue through games, movies, music, toys and other merchandise. Mortal Kombat : Deadly Alliance is set to be released on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and GameBoy Advance. Related Feature - Midway quit arcades

Electronic Arts has revealed its financial results for the three months to December 31st, showing revenues leaping by 30% and profits by 50% compared to the same period the previous year. The runaway success of the Harry Potter games and continued milking of the ever-popular Sims franchise on the PC contributed to the success, as well as rapid growth in both Europe and the Far East. All of which leaves EA in a dominant position in the gaming industry. "We are well positioned to enhance our leadership position over the next few years", CEO Larry Probst boasted. "In 2001 we were the most prolific third party publisher on next generation consoles with 17 titles on the PlayStation 2, six on the Xbox and three on the Nintendo GameCube. According to independent sources, in North America during 2001 we had a 27.4% share on the Playstation 2 and were the leading third party publisher on both the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube during the month of December. On the PC we increased our market share for the calendar year to 22% and had four of the top five titles." Looking ahead, EA already have a raft of Harry Potter titles planned for all three next generation consoles, as well as the impressive looking Medal of Honor : Allied Assault and yet another Sims add-on for the PC. Then of course there's the small matter of The Lord Of The Rings, with EA expected to release the first games based on the valuable license around the time the second movie arrives in cinemas just before Christmas. It looks like this could be another bumper year for EA.