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Codemasters today announced that they have picked up publishing duties for the PlayStation 2 versions of two first person shooters from popular Wisconsin developer Raven. Soldier of Fortune : Gold Edition and Star Trek : Voyager Elite Force were previously due to be released in Europe by EON Digital, but the small UK-based publisher ran into financial difficulties a few months ago and has been selling off its projects ever since. While the original games were published by Activision on PC, the PS2 ports of both titles are distributed in the USA by Majesco, and are now expected to appear in Europe some time in April courtesy of Codemasters. Related Feature - Elite Force PS2 screenshots

Although the public actually really honestly for the love of God doesn't care who is selling the most consoles for the most part, both Nintendo and Microsoft persist in publishing figures and subsequently rubbishing the other's. The latest "facts" from Nintendo's side are, in no particular order... Total North American shipments of Nintendo have now reached 1.1 million, about 800,000 of those sold. Nintendo is shipping 100,000 consoles a week to replenish supplies, and has increased production to meet demand. While on the software front, Super Smash Brothers Melee has sold a quarter of a million copies, making it the fastest selling game for any new console launched this year. Which is only so interesting when you think about it.

Activision has sanctioned the development of the fourth game in the rapidly ageing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 will be developed by Neversoft Entertainment as per the previous three, and will feature even more top-rated skaters, tracks, and intuitive controls, and will probably continue the franchise's unrivalled dominance in the skateboarding race. Very few details have been provided at the time of writing about Tony's fourth outing, but gamers can expect to play it in 2003's fiscal year according to Activision, who are keen to point out that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is currently one of the top-selling games across the globe, and that you should think about buying it. Related Feature - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 review

For once, none of Bond's well-documented adventures on the big screen form the basis of Agent Under Fire. Instead the game has its own storyline which is a montage of Bond stereotypes, and fans of the books and films will find déjà vu on the lips of every new character and in the objectives of every mission. Far from annoying, it's what makes the game such an achievement. EA have finally produced a Bond game worth its salt, after three abortive attempts on the PlayStation. Agent Under Fire's tacky story leaves you with no doubt of its ancestry. With the last few movies, simple motives like love and revenge have driven our hero, and EA, not eager to take any chances with a confusing thinking man's plot, have gone with a standard-issue secret agent story. Bond's job is to undo the work of a nefarious worldwide organisation with key genetic data on world leaders. Their plan is to replace each leader with a cloned sympathiser, with the overall aim of world domination. This will not stand. So Agent Under Fire is a first person shooter first and foremost, and beyond that it features classic Bond sections such as car chases. Boasting a high framerate and a surprising lack of aliasing or flickering, it makes a strong impression in the visuals department within seconds of being fired up. The levels are enormous, often filling the picture with polygons and intricately detailed textures, and Bond's surroundings are also well lit. Explosions are fairly common, and when they happen they flood the screen with colour and have a tendency to startle. Bond himself is The Matrix's residual self-image equivalent of several actors, looking like every stereotypical secret agent in the world. As always, he's sharply dressed thanks to some excellent cloth animation, and along with the key players in the game his shape and profile are in perfect harmony.

With Christmas approaching, those of us who count ourselves amongst the hardcore are forced look to the Far East and States to satisfy our gaming desires. There are many domestic releases for the PlayStation 2 here in Europe, but many of them suffer from borders and other issues. With competing consoles from Nintendo and Microsoft already available in the States and plenty of top quality PS2 titles us Europeons won't be offered until well into next year, this could be our last chance to get hold of something to silence that damned turkey over the festive period.

Q, the Panasonic-manufactured DVD player / console derived from Nintendo's GameCube, is susceptible to the same region cracking Nintendo's native console can be fooled by, although the procedure for 'fixing' it is a lot trickier thanks to the physical layout of the Q's innards.

In the days of the 16-bit console, when Sega's Mega Drive (Genesis) and the Super Nintendo were going head to head, a relatively unknown platformer was vying for attention. James Pond, starring a fishy secret agent on a mission to rid the world of evil, played … some sort of fiddle, but way back at the rear of the room, under a pile of coats belonging to Mario, Sonic and about a hundred other platform heroes.

When SNK slipped quietly away into liquidation last month, nobody was sadder to see them go than me. But with them went a collection of characters and properties so vast and all encompassing that it was inevitable someone would pick them up. That someone is Playmore, a Japanese Pachinko company. Pachinko is a form of gambling native to Japan, but Playmore clearly have bigger things to think about, having gained the rights to all of SNK's intellectual properties, including King of the Fighters, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug. Playmore will soon become SNK Neo Geo in a company relaunch, with a Korean company HQ and a new business plan to be announced in January. Whether Playmore will try and work with these famous hallmarks of gaming by themselves is unknown. Capcom amongst others were collaborating with SNK at the time of their demise, and it would be nice to see that relationship resurrected. Frankly, it's a bit surprising that Capcom didn't buy the whole kit and kaboodle themselves… Related Feature - Rest in peace SNK (ahem)

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but WWF wrestling games moved from being brutish, uncontrollable sprite-fests to souped up, polygon-powered party games. Acclaim made a handsome buck off the backs of WWF Warzone and WWF Attitude, before THQ crept in to steal their thunder with the Smackdown series. WWF Smackdown was one of the best-looking PSX games at its release, and new gameplay initiatives helped THQ control the massive interest in WWF games quite authoritatively, so that when WWF Smackdown 2!: Know Your Role showed up in November of last year it had no trouble cleaning up. The fact that it was a brilliant game was somewhat irrelevant. Now that it is finally time for the PlayStation 2's first WWF wrestling game - over a year after the console's launch - WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It! can be assured of selling on the strength of its predecessors without much trouble. But does it deserve to do so? Is it as worthy of The Best Wrestling Game accolade as the games from whence it is spawned? Well, yes and no. Visually, Just Bring It is a peculiar blend of utter garbage and exceptional presentation. Developer Yuke seems to have taken the original PSX graphics engine - the game is noticeably similar to its predecessors in look and feel - and incorporated some excellent new animation, with virtually any move you could care to name (and a whole bunch of others) performed realistically and spectacularly, all backed up by some surprisingly good CPU camera manipulation. This is in addition to some intricately modelled and detailed wrestlers (of which there are well over 50 in the game), with each one easily distinguishable and coming complete with the obligatory entrance scenes. Unlike previous wrestling games where weedy models stuttered towards the ring to the accompaniment of canned laughter and a tinny rendition of their theme tune, Smackdown does a good job of building up to the event and getting the adrenaline pumping. Whether you choose to watch it or not, it's actually there this time.

While most flight sims aim for an almost excessive degree of realism, manuals that put War & Peace to shame and controls that require several hours of real life pilot training to master, Comanche 4 is a very different beast. Designed to appeal to the Quake generation, it's all about pick up and play action rather than detailed flight models. A brief tutorial mission should make even the most inexperienced of PC pilots feel at home with the advanced RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, and then it's time to head off to war. Suitably enough this is a new kind of war you are facing, with heavily armed terrorists the target in most missions rather than hostile nations. In all there are six campaigns, which you can play in any order, and should you get stuck on one mission you can simply switch to a different campaign and come back when you're feeling more confident. Settings range from the Balkans and Belarus to the Libyan border and tropical islands, with everything from deserts and jungles to snow-covered forests and debris-strewn city streets to explore. The one thing that these locations have in common is that they all look absolutely stunning. Doing away with the voxels of yore, Novalogic's new polygonal graphics engine still produces extensive and highly detailed terrain while taking full advantage of modern hardware.

Electronic Arts have released a multiplayer demo version of Medal of Honor : Allied Assault, a Quake 3 engined first person shooter set during World War II. Weighing in at over 130Mb, the Allied Assault demo features a single deathmatch map called Stalingrad, along with a selection of player models and weapons from the full game. It's a FilePlanet exclusive, which means that you can download it from any of the following sites -

When Peter Molyneux's latest magnum opus Black & White was released in Europe earlier this year, it went straight to the top of the charts in most countries. Except for France, where a real-time strategy game from a little known Ukrainian company called GSC Gameworld held resolutely on to the number one slot.

Clearly bored of all the hearsay and rubbish circulating the Internet with regards to the GameCube's European release date, Nintendo have announced… that there will be an announcement next month. "We will be able to provide details of our Europe launch next month", a Nintendo spokesman told Ziff Davis. Although they would not be pressed for specifics, Nintendo did say that the launch would most likely be in April or May. Within seconds the Internet was crawling with rumours again, including one that Nintendo was preparing to ship a meagre 300,000 units for the whole of Europe. This is somewhat preposterous given the sheer number that were made available for the American launch, but sadly nothing is too far fetched in the console industry these days. Nintendo will face tough opposition in Europe, with Sony's PlayStation 2 heavily entrenched and Microsoft's Xbox zipping off the starting line a month or maybe two months earlier. Related Feature - Everyone's a Winner

The US Marine Corp will be using a modified version of Operation Flashpoint for training exercises, according to the game's publisher Codemasters. Created by American contractor Coalescent Technologies in association with the game's developers Bohemia, Virtual BattleField Systems (or VBS1 to its friends) adds modern weapons, vehicles and uniforms to the chart topping Cold War combat sim. Flashpoint was apparently picked out thanks to its squad control system, flexible scenario editor and the ability to include land, sea and air vehicles alongside infantry in a vast outdoors setting. "The USMC and other branches of the Unites States Armed Forces are constantly investigating new and alternative tools to incorporate into the current training regimen", Coalescent program manager Michael Woodman is quoted as saying. "Our job is to research these tools and determine if they are, in fact, useful in training. In the case of the first-person military simulation games the research has shown that they are useful tools and Operation Flashpoint is the most valuable product we have found to date." The US military has a long history of using computer games as training tools, from the famous "Marine Doom" mod to a recent partnership between Sony and Battlezone developers Pandemic to design military simulators for training officer candidates. In this case though the game will remain limited to the US military, although some of the new units and features included in VBS1 may be patched into Operation Flashpoint in future. Related Feature - US Army funds Future Combat

Nintendo of America and Syngenta Seed's flower brand, S&G Flowers/USA have teamed up to create the five-petaled Pikmin flower. The Pikmin flower is a genuine flower with a yellow centre that resembles the plant-like creatures in the videogame, Cloudchaser reports. Nintendo's veepee of sales and marketing Peter Main commented, "Naming a flower after a video game is just one more way Nintendo is 'seeding' creative marketing." Good grief. Gardening is the number one pastime in America. Related Feature - Pikmin preview

Electronic Arts' unique Bond adventure, Agent Under Fire, which debuted on PlayStation 2 earlier this month, will be ported and released on Xbox and GameCube early next year. EA has yet to announce any exclusive changes for either console. Agent Under Fire is a rare case of a licensed videogame actually selling on its own merits. With no new Bond film in sight, the game has had to duke it out with reviewers, with whom it has struck a chord thanks to its fast-paced mix of first person, driving and adventure elements.

IGN's Japanese gaming sources are claiming that the next Gran Turismo game after GT Concept (the true GT4 if you like) will feature online racing. GT4 is tentatively pencilled in for the spring of 2003, and by then it will certainly not be the only racer with online play, but it may be enough to stay ahead of the pack. Meanwhile, those same sources are claiming that Concept will ship with more tracks than originally reckoned, as well as a variation on the license tests that were the bane of GT drivers' existence for the last three games. There may be as many as 80 cars now, too. We'll know more for sure when the game is released on New Year's Day in Japan. Related Feature - Gran Turismo 3 review

Channel Technology has slammed Sony for forcing it to to stop distributing a PlayStation mod-chip product. On its web site, the company attacks legal actions from the consumer electronics giant and defends the legality of its Messiah mod-chip. The site's owner, calling himself Gazza, says the mod-chip can be used for legal purposes, such as playing imported games from other countries and regions and being able to view certain titles in full-screen mode at 60hz resolution on PAL consoles. Bar possible restrictions on how Messiah's other capabilities are advertised, this functionality is useful and, arguably, legal, he says. Mod-chips are a popular addition to gaming consoles and other devices which remove various restrictions placed on them by their original manufacturers. Typically, players are restricted to playing games or watching DVDs zoned for their particular region, but installing a mod-chip can free users to use titles from any zone. On the site, Gazza enters a lengthy dialogue on the ins and outs of how various alternatives work and how Messiah remains a useful addition to the PS2. He notes that certain other mod-chips, widely sold across the Internet, are built to only play unlicensed or pirated media, whereas Messiah is able to perform various legal functions (as well as the illegal ones). But, as he summarises further on: Messiah does not play pirate software, humans do. It's the chips ability to play copied and pirated titles that has annoyed Sony enough for it to stamp down on two UK-based mod-chip distributors - Channel Technology and Playstationmods.com - forcing them to stop sales of their products with immediate effect. In a personal email, which The Reg has seen, Gazza bitterly admits that even though Channel Technology's position is legally defendable, its ability to do so is entirely dependent on the depths of its wallet. As he describes it, it's "like I have to fight by getting in the ring and taking on the likes of Mike Tyson ... I'm probably going to get knocked out in round one". Attempts to contact Gazza and Channel Technology were unanswered.

3DO have officially announced Army Men RTS, an imaginatively titled new game for PC and PlayStation 2 which does exactly what it says on the box. Yes, it's a real-time strategy game starring the little green plastic soldiers. Before you write this off as another piece of derivative mass-market pap from 3DO though, we should probably mention that the game is being developed by Pandemic, the company behind Battlezone II and Dark Reign II, both of which were fairly entertaining but sadly flopped at retail. Apparently this is their penance... "Featuring easy-to-learn, intuitive controls and a comprehensive tutorial, Army Men RTS allows players to collect resources and build bases before the Tans can retaliate", according to the press release. "Army Men RTS players are constantly faced with a variety of challenges and strategic decisions throughout the game that have direct impact on the abilities of the troops. The fun is fast and furious in this in-depth, pick-up-and-play RTS adventure." The words "fun" and "in-depth" don't often spring to mind when talking about Army Men games, but with the game headed for a March meltdown we should know soon whether or not Pandemic can breath fresh life into this combination of a stale franchise and a stale genre. Related Feature - Army Men RTS screenshots

Ah yes, our old friend Tony. It hasn't been long since the last time we paid a visit to the realm of the King of Skating, yet Neversoft seem perfectly able to knock these things out in cookie-cutter fashion now. With Tony Hawk's third title in the immensely popular Pro Skater series, his PS2 debut feels like the license was custom-made for the platform. While the Tony Hawk's games are easily the most addictive, playable skating games available to date, you'd be forgiven for noting that the more recent releases have been fairly devoid of innovation and rarely strayed from the formula established in the first game. THPS3 is such an example of wheel re-invention, with eight new levels (plus hidden bonuses) and obviously improved graphics being the only immediately obvious differences. The main portion of the game is, of course, the career mode. This takes place across the aforementioned eight levels spanning some bizarre locales, including a steel works and a cruise liner. The aim remains the same; complete as many tasks on the checklist as possible in order to advance and unlock more levels. It's a simple concept that has remained unchanged since the original, yet Neversoft seem confident they can milk the idea to great effect.

The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has upheld a ban on the sale and demonstration of Grand Theft Auto III in Australia. This is the first country where the game has been banned. The reason for the ban, according to our sources, is the presence of hookers in the game, and in particular a scene where the player can kill a hooker to claim his money back. A revised version of the game from Take 2 will be available sometime in January 2002. Related Feature - Grand Theft Auto III review

We had expected to see updates (read: patches) for Xbox games in one form or another, but Tecmo's announcement concerning Dead or Alive 3 updates is peculiar. Tecmo plans to add all sorts of extras to the Japanese version of the game, including additional costumes for existing characters and perhaps even additional fighting stages, and it wants to offer these to US gamers as well. The thing is, instead of offering them as a download to be stored on the Xbox hard disk, Tecmo is planning to release them in the form of an add-on disk. Whether this is in addition to an Internet download is unknown, but it seems odd because surely all an add-on disk would do is foist them onto the hard disk anyway. We shall see.

No-one, apparently, wants to be a millionaire. The Guardian is reporting that games based on Chris Tarrant's WWTBAM quiz show are losing their appeal, and have experienced a major slump in sales. After the enormous success of the first WWTBAM game, expectations were great for its successor, but the game - released on PC and PlayStation - has bombed out, amidst competition from titles like The Weakest Link, Championship Manager Quiz and Sky Sports Football Quiz. Eidos' total revenues for the first half of the fiscal year have slumped 42%, mainly because the publisher chose to hold back its few big-hitters for the run up to Christmas. With games from rival publishers grabbing headlines at the moment though, they might start to wish they hadn't. Nonetheless, you can expect to see an artificial increase in revenue based on this Christmas overload, in the next few months. Related Feature - Who Wants to be a Millionaire 2 review

According to a CBBC Newsround report, this year's most sought after Christmas gift is none other than Sony's PlayStation 2. The GameBoy Advance is in second, followed by a Nokia mobile phone and a few different games, before seventh place goes to Microsoft Xbox. That's pretty amazing. Obviously Xbox is not going to feature on anybody's shopping, let alone Christmas lists until March 14th, and yet it's the seventh most demanded Christmas gift… CBBC didn't actually point out that the console will be off limits for another few months, but its very presence in the top 10 points to some sort of marketing miracle, especially since Xperience was such a load of tat. Or does it? The clue here may be the researcher, Ask Jeeves. No information is provided on whether this was simply a UK survey or whether it had a wider scope. And besides, kids know how to get what they want at Christmas. The trick is to ask for something stupendously large and expensive, then agree to "put up" with something of a lesser, but still impressive value.

It seems that you can't move without stumbling across a massively multiplayer game these days, with several major offerings already online and an apparently endless barrage of new titles on their way over the next couple of years. So the prospect of Blizzard joining this headlong rush with a new Warcraft role-playing game immediately brought to mind the words "band" and "wagon".

Last week Sony ran into trouble with Dutch customs authorities over the levels of cadmium in its PSOne cables. This meant immediate cessation of all PSOne sales and the grounding of 1.3m consoles and 800,000 accessories. Following on from those reports, Ananova is now saying that Sony will lose up to 125 million skr on the Nordic withdrawal of PSOne consoles. Ananova's story is based on one written by newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet in its online edition. New PSOne consoles that meet EU regulations will be shipping shortly, a Sony spokesperson was quoted as saying. Sony was also eager to point out that the increased levels of cadmium in current PSOnes will not effect consumers, only the environment. That's okay then. Related Feature - Sony responds to Dutch console problem

Rage Software is working on an Xbox version of its extreme inline skating title Rolling, which was previously announced on the PlayStation 2, C&VG is reporting. The game will feature established inline skaters such as world champion Cesar Mora, and some other guy called Fabiola da Silva, but you can also customize characters and create your own. To be honest, we know nothing about inline skating, and no disrespect to Cesar, he's not exactly going to have Tony Hawk waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, Rage will be making a serious go of 'Rolling', especially after the failure of its licensed David Beckham football game, which led to a serious lack of confidence amongst the company's investors last week. According to a Rage spokesperson, the Xbox version has only just begun development, but the PS2 and Xbox versions will materialize at about the same time at the end of next year. The team is considering a variety of options, with two-player split-screen planned at present, and online options on the drawing board.

While Serious Sam : Second Encounter isn't due out until early next year, fans suffering from withdrawal symptoms can now download a demo version of the game to keep themselves occupied over Christmas. Weighing in at 110Mb, the demo features a single player / co-operative level, a deathmatch map and a "technology test level" to show off some of the new engine features, weapons, power-ups and monsters we can look forward to finding in the final game. You can download the demo from any of the following sites -

British, Norwegian and Finnish police have joined with their counterparts in America and Australia to carry out a series of raids on suspected members of the infamous "Drink Or Die" warez group. British police have arrested six people and searched eleven properties, while on the other side of the pond American customs officials and FBI agents raided over a hundred sites, seizing a large number of computers from businesses, homes and universities in 27 cities across the country. American law enforcement agencies are still sifting through "a mountain of digital evidence", but anybody involved in spreading pirated software to warez sites could face prosecution for distribution of copyrighted material, a crime which brings a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count. The raids follow a year long investigation which successfully infiltrated the group, and the action is already being described as the biggest ever crackdown on internet piracy. Warez users around the world are thought to pirate upwards of $1bn worth of software each year, including DVD movies and computer games.

Last week we exclusively revealed in an interview with Altar Interactive that the Czech company is working on Dreamland Chronicles, a promising looking turn-based strategy game from X-Com designer Julian Gollop which was being developed at his company Mythos Games until it was cancelled in February. Now an official back-dated press release from Altar has confirmed the news, adding that the revamped game is expected to be ready for a Christmas 2002 release through publisher Virgin Interactive. The press release says that the company "values highly the work of Mythos Games and will be working closely with designer Julian Gollop to ensure the consistency of vision of the game", but this apparently comes as news to Julian himself. Having read our interview with Altar, a bemused Gollop posted on his new company's messageboards "at the moment I know nothing more than is in the article" after he was questioned about his involvement in the project. "I haven't been officially asked to work on Dreamland at all", Gollop told fans, adding that "I have no idea what will happen to the game, or whether it would be anything like the game we envisaged". For their part, Altar insist that while they are making improvements to the game and replacing much of the artwork, it will remain faithful to the original concept. With further information and screenshots expected to be available in January, we should soon have a clearer picture of exactly what is going on... Related Feature - Altar interview